The Earthen Cage

Who does not know that life is nothing but the past! The Intellectuals and the thinkers divide time into three parts—the past, the present, and the future. The past is the time that has gone away, the present is the time that is present now, and the future is the time that is yet to come. But when a person possessing consciousness analyses life, he sees nothing but the past, whether this analysis is [derived from the study of] physical needs, or from a psychological perspective, or from a religious point of view. When we mention the birth of a child we say that, 'the child was present somewhere, and now he has been transferred here into this world—beautiful, healthy, and full of exquisiteness.' When an adult is mentioned, that also connotes that 'yesterday's child is present today in adult form.' When we speak of intelligence, and consciousness and experience, and say that 'this elder's experience spans across as period of 60 years,' with that too we are implying that 60 years of that elder's life are buried in the past. When the human species mentions its ancestors, then also it is said that the human conscious has progressed gradually. There was a time during the Stone Age when man was living a life of 'self-inflicted confinement. Then a time came when he learnt the use of fire. Taking another leap, he entered the Iron Age. The civilization of iron and various metals was declared the Inheritance of humankind. After stepping into the valley of Knowledge and consciousness, the pattern of reflection was set within man. That was named as the [age of] Modern Civilization, or Scientific Progress. Whether it is the ancient history of 100 billion years ago or the scientific knowledge of today, it is all based on documents (record), and this entire record is the past. What is the past? It is the times [‘zamaana’]

The Holy Prophet (saw) has stated that, 'do not overlook the times; Allah is the times.' What man calls the present and the future, is actually a continuous and repeated process of living. In this process of living, two styles have been determined. Man has named one of these styles as peace, and he calls the other style conflict, destitution, worry, anxiety, fear and restlessness. But when we study these two styles and reflect upon them with a psychological perspective, only one thing emerges: that these two styles also, are directly related to the past. If the worries of today failed to become the past, man would lose his senses at the hands of these worries and wool start to suffer attacks of insanity. If a single condition persist within the progeny of Adam and Eve, life would freeze. This is because the universe has been created upon the formula that life is continuous movement. In other words, movement is the name of life. If movement stops, so will the universe. It is the daily observations that reveal these styles to us. Coolness with heat, heat with coolness, illness with health, and health after illness, and the process of birth and death, [all] are also established on the same formula (equation).

When we say that a particular person has died, we actually mean to say that a particular person's character, his life, or his voice has become a documented record. What it means is that the person who has died has gone into the past. When we mention our ancestors (including everyone from Adam up to our forefathers), in reality, we are mentioning the past. Today we are calling our ancestors, the past; in the same way tomorrow our next generation will refer to us in terms of the past.

The past is our origin, and the past is the entire record of our life

If from the mind of one hundred year-old man, the past of his childhood, youth and adulthood deleted, what would remain elderly man? O those possessing intelligence, reflect upon this!

Just as the life of a hundred year-old man is a record and past, in the same way, when this earthen confinement or cage ['the Physical body'] is overcome by death, the entire life of the earthen body becomes the past. When we step aside from the philosophical points of view, and reflect upon what is real, that is, the spiritual knowledge, a door opens deep within us. From this door enters the light of the Holy Quran in the form of waves descending on our brain, and these waves give us the following message in words of the Holy Quran:

"And what do you perceive the great life to be; and what

do you perceive the lowly life to be? It is a record."

The knowledge of truth guides us in such a way that, if we want to get acquainted with ourselves and with our Creator, it becomes incumbent upon us that we look into our past. Before entering the womb of the mother, the child was in Barzakh ['realm between physical and spiritual world']. The world of Barzakh is a reflection of Loh-e-mahfooz ['divine tablet of records']. Loh-e-mahfooz is a page of Kitaab-ul-mubeen ['the manifest book']. Kitaab-ul-mubeen is Aalam-e-arvaah ['world of the spirits']. And Aa/am-e-arvaah is the world that was manifested when Allah the Exalted said kun ['be']. Life after death, in reality, is the progression towards this world of the spirits. Those individuals from humankind who strive to see, understand and find this life are granted such vision and insight, according to the laws of Allah, which enables them to tier I his world and to understand it.