IS THERE AN AFTERLIFE?

again assume the form of a human-being. What is so extraordinary about the re-occurrence of an event which has already happened once before? Even in the world of matter, there are indications of the practicability of a repetition of life. Every year, in the rainy season, vegetation flourishes and greenery spreads in all directions. Then the summer pronounces its death sentence and the earth dries up. Where flowers bloomed, only a barren plain can be seen. Thus a full-fledged life expires. But when the rains come again, and water pours down from the sky, that very same vegetation is revived and dry land once again becomes a meadow. In this very same manner man will be raised to life after his death. This proves that the word “homo sapiens”, rather than being a label attached to a certain physical form, which is erased with its death, is a separate entity which remains intact even after the diffusion of the body’s composite parts. The fact that the body alters whereas the soul does not, is conclusive proof of the transitional nature of the body and the eternal nature of the soul. Some people consider life and death to be the accumulation and subsequent diffusion of multitudinous particles of matter. This theory has been expounded by an Urdu poet, Chakbast, in the following words: What is life? Elements arranging themselves in order, And death? Their diffusion. This, however, is a statement which is not borne out by fact. If life were simply “elements arranging themselves in order”, then it follows that it should survive only so long as this orderliness endured, and it should conversely be possible for an expert scientist to create life by an accumulation of these elements; obviously, both these propositions are ludicrous. We observe that it is not only those who have been torn limb from limb in some accident, who die. In every condition and at every age people are passing away. Sometimes perfectly healthy human beings suffer sudden heart-failure and no doctor can provide an explanation. We may regard a corpse as an “orderly, elemental manifestation”, but the soul which inhabited it has departed. All elements are arranged in The fact that the body alters whereas the soul does not, is conclusive proof of the transitional nature of the body and the eternal nature of the soul.