Trailblazer
Veteran Member
There has been so much written about the soul and the afterlife in the Writings of the Baha'i Faith that it is hard to know where to start, so I will just answer what you just asked and I can explain more later. (I have on my list to answer your post from yesterday where you asked about the dead being raised again, but I have several posts to answer and I try to answer them in the order that they were received.)
I believe that all souls go the afterlife, what I refer to as the spiritual world, but first you need to understand what I believe about the soul.
The soul works through the body while we are alive in a body, but it is the soul that directs human faculties. As outer circumstances are communicated to the soul by the eyes, ears, and brain, the soul communicates its desires through the brain to the physical body, which thereby expresses itself and leads to experiences and distractions and feelings and all kinds of things.
The soul is the sum total of the personality so it is the person himself; the physical body is pure matter with no real identity. The person, after he dies and leaves his physical body behind remains the same person, and he goes to the spiritual world where he continues the life he conducted in the physical world. The soul takes on some kind of a spiritual form made up of elements that exist in the spiritual world. Nobody can understand what that will be like before they die because the only reference point we have is the physical world and the physical body.
According to Baha’i beliefs 1 Corinthians 15:12-22 is all about spiritual death, not physical death. Bodies once dead do not rise from graves. Souls leave the body and rise to heaven and take on a spiritual body comprised of heavenly elements in that spiritual realm. They then continue to exist for eternity. The souls who are spiritually alive have eternal life so they go to heaven the souls who are spiritually dead go to what is termed hell.
Jesus referred to eternal life, but He was not referring to physical life of the body. He was referring a quality of life, loving God and being close to God, and we can have eternal life both in this world and in the next world (afterlife).
John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
The soul (spirit) of man is immortal so it can never be extinguished. All souls continue to exist forever, but some souls have eternal life and others don’t.
“The immortality of the spirit is mentioned in the Holy Books; it is the fundamental basis of the divine religions. Now punishments and rewards are said to be of two kinds: first, the rewards and punishments of this life; second, those of the other world. But the paradise and hell of existence are found in all the worlds of God, whether in this world or in the spiritual heavenly worlds. Gaining these rewards is the gaining of eternal life. That is why Christ said, “Act in such a way that you may find eternal life, and that you may be born of water and the spirit, so that you may enter into the Kingdom.” 2” Some Answered Questions, p. 223
“Likewise, the rewards of the other world are the eternal life which is clearly mentioned in all the Holy Books, the divine perfections, the eternal bounties and everlasting felicity….The rewards of the other world are peace, the spiritual graces, the various spiritual gifts in the Kingdom of God, the gaining of the desires of the heart and the soul, and the meeting of God in the world of eternity.” Some Answered Questions, pp. 224-225
Those people who are distant from God do not have eternal life, although their soul continues to exist in the spiritual world after their physical body dies.
“In the same way, the souls who are veiled from God, although they exist in this world and in the world after death, are, in comparison with the holy existence of the children of the Kingdom of God, nonexisting and separated from God.”
Some Answered Questions, p. 243
As a Baha'i, I believe in Christ, and that is an absolute requirement for all Baha'is:
“As to the position of Christianity, let it be stated without any hesitation or equivocation that its divine origin is unconditionally acknowledged, that the Sonship and Divinity of Jesus Christ are fearlessly asserted, that the divine inspiration of the Gospel is fully recognized, that the reality of the mystery of the Immaculacy of the Virgin Mary is confessed, and the primacy of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, is upheld and defended. The Founder of the Christian Faith is designated by Bahá’u’lláh as the “Spirit of God,” is proclaimed as the One Who “appeared out of the breath of the Holy Ghost,” and is even extolled as the “Essence of the Spirit.”
The Promised Day is Come, p. 109
But since I am a follower of Baha'u'llah I call myself a Baha'i. Some of my beliefs match what Christians believe and some don't. That is a BIG subject, and I do not want to overwhelm you any more than I probably have already.
Oh I almost forgot to answer your question about whether the dead can hear us. I believe that those souls who are in the spiritual world (thus physically dead) can hear us, because there is no real separation between this world and the spiritual world.
“Those who have passed on through death, have a sphere of their own. It is not removed from ours; their work, the work of the Kingdom, is ours; but it is sanctified from what we call ‘time and place.’ Time with us is measured by the sun. When there is no more sunrise, and no more sunset, that kind of time does not exist for man. Those who have ascended have different attributes from those who are still on earth, yet there is no real separation.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, pp. 95-96
I believe that some people in this world can communicate with spirits in the spiritual world. That is not a Baha'i belief, just a belief I picked up from reading other books.
