THE REAL LIFE OF MAN IS IN
THE RUHU'L-QUDUS
(HOLY SPIRIT)
Man has come to this world form this permanent abode or the higher world, as a traveler. Therefore, to return to It is as necessary for him as a traveler necessarily returns to his country after attaining his goal. Hence it is said: “The love of the home country is a part of faith”. It is this home country which is the real and eternal country of the soul, love for which is part of faith. As for the wealth of knowledge and recognition, which the human soul attains during the journey in this world, it is evident from this Prophetic Tradition: “Travel! So that you may attain wealth”. The hardship and the toil that the soul has to necessarily suffer is expressed in this tradition: “Travelling is of the hell”.
When the partial soul of the mu’min comes to this world, being separated from its Universal Soul, this short life of the soul in reality is considered its death, just as a grain of wheat or a stone of a tree is lost somewhere in the earth far from (the heap of) wheat or tree respectively, which then is its death. It is possible that here these things may become extinct or they may be revived. Extinction in the sense that they may be eaten by an animal, or they may perish just laying there. Revival in the sense that they may annihilate their “ I (khwudi)” once in the earth in a suitable place in an appropriate time, which may enable it to attain the true everlasting life (baqa). The sign of their everlasting life is that from this one grain are produced hundreds of grains and from the stone is produced a fruit-bearing tree.
Thus, partially, first comes annihilation or death and then survival or everlasting life. If the particular soul cannot raise this life-like (hayat-numa) death to the level of self-annihilation (fana-yi khwudi), then it cannot deserve to be granted the true everlasting life. This is testified by the Tradition of the holy Prophet: “the mu’min doses not die, rather he only departs from the abode of annihilation to the abode of survival”. If the soul of the mu’min, while leaving the body, does not die and only departs towards the abode of survival or everlasting life, then it is obvious that by reaching it, it revives and the duration for which it remained outside it, it remained concealed in the darkness of death. This same reality is also explained in detail in this verse: “And He it is who has produced you from a Single [Universal] Soul (nafsin wahidah), and then there is a permanent place (mustaqarr) and a transitory place (mustawda). We have detailed the signs for a people who understand” (6:99).
The Single Soul is the name of the Universal Soul. The holy spirits (arwah-I qudsi), in which there is the permanent abode of human survival or everlasting life came into existence from this soul. Their loci of manifestations (mazhir) are the human bodies that are the transitory abodes of the human [worldly] life. In this case a fourth soul of man is established which he had forgotten. That is, just as man while living in the vegetative soul was not able to recognize that animal soul and in the animals soul, the rational soul, similarly, living in the rational soul alone, he remains negligent of the Holy Spirit. However, just as man has passed through the previous stages, he has to also encounter the Holy Spirit willingly or unwillingly, because God’s recognition or resurrection, in reality, takes place in the recognition of this Spirit alone, as the holy Prophet has said: “He who recognizes his soul, recognizes his Lord”. In other words, man can recognize God only in his higher soul, not in any lower soul. The higher soul of man is the Holy Spirit. It is this Spirit that can be the mirror of the beauty and majesty of Divine attributes.
The example of the permanent abode and the transitory abode is that of the sun and its reflection that appears in a mirror. In order to appear in the mirror, the sun does not need to leave its place and to be completely contained in the mirror, rather, it can show its reflection in it through its luminous effect. So long as the mirror faces the sun, the reflection of the sun appears in it, but the moment it is turned away from the sun, the light and reflection disappear from it. If we observe the mirror we see that nothing goes towards the sun from it. Had the act of the sun been volitional, he/it would have possessed those feats it had accomplished through the mediation of the mirror, made them into living pictures and delighted in them.
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