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Spirituality

Our Awareness of Other Souls after Death

John Hatcher | Apr 13, 2018

PART 52 IN SERIES The Purpose of Physical Reality

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

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John Hatcher | Apr 13, 2018

PART 52 IN SERIES The Purpose of Physical Reality

The views expressed in our content reflect individual perspectives and do not represent the official views of the Baha'i Faith.

After we die, do we retain our awareness of others? Can we communicate with those souls?

In the multiple accounts of near-death experiences in Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life; and the discussions in the Baha’i writings concerning encounters with other souls shortly after the initial sensation of departure from the body, we learn that souls definitely do retain their awareness of others.

Moody’s subjects describe a sense of comfort and companionship resulting from this experience. In most cases there is the specific recognition of other souls who had already passed on, individuals the subjects had known in their earthly existence:

I realized that all these people were there, almost in multitudes it seems, hovering around the ceiling of the room. They were all people I had known in my past life, but who had passed on before. I recognized my grandmother and a girl I had known when I was in school, and many other relatives and friends. It seems that I mainly saw their faces and felt their presence. They all seemed pleased. It was a very happy occasion, and I felt that they had come to protect or to guide me …. It was a beautiful and glorious moment. – Raymond Moody, Life After Life, pp. 55-60.

Several weeks before I nearly died, a good friend of mine, Bob, had been killed. Now the moment I got out of my body I had the feeling that Bob was standing there, right next to me. I could see him in my mind and felt like he was there, but it was strange. I didn’t see him as his physical body … He was there but he didn’t have a physical body. – Ibid., p. 56.

I had the feeling that there were people around me, and I could feel their presence, and could feel them moving, though I could never see anyone. Every now and then, I would talk with one of them, but I couldn’t see them. And whenever I wondered what was going on, I would always get a thought back from one of them, that everything was all right, that I was dying but would be fine. – Ibid., p. 58.

The Baha’i teachings describe essentially the same experience of recognizing deceased individuals, but the passages on the subject from the Baha’i writings give additional insights. There seems to be implicit in Baha’u’llah’s descriptions a qualification for the soul that experiences the companionship of other departed souls, or at least an indication of who those companions will be:

Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings of the peoples of the world. … The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions, will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds. Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 156.

Know thou that the souls of the people of Baha, who have entered and been established within the Crimson Ark, shall associate and commune intimately one with another, and shall be so closely associated in their lives, their aspirations, their aims and strivings as to be even as one soul. Ibid., pp. 169-170.

From these statements by Baha’u’llah, one might infer that only particular souls will experience companionship in the next life, souls who are “sanctified” and souls “of the people of Baha,” meaning only Baha’is. Furthermore, the companionship is depicted in more detail. The newly deceased will recount what they have accomplished and will converse with other spiritually eloquent souls.

But in another passage from the Baha’i writings it becomes clear that such an experience is not confined to Baha’is or to those who have attained wisdom:

As to the question whether the souls will recognize each other in the spiritual world: This (fact) is certain; for the Kingdom is the world of vision (i.e., things are visible in it), where all the concealed realities will become disclosed. How much more the well-known souls will become manifest. The mysteries of which man is heedless in this earthly world, those will he discover in the heavenly world, and there will he be informed of the secret of truth; how much more will he recognize or discover persons with whom he hath been associated. Abdu’l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu’l-Baha, Volume 1, p. 205.

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Comments

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  • Karen Marciniak
    Sep 14, 2020
    -
    I've had dream visits from passed loved ones. It is very comforting.
  • T S
    Apr 15, 2018
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    If anyone is interested in other books on NDEs I can recommended "Proof of Heaven:
    A Neurosurgeon's Journey Into the Afterlife" By Eben M D Alexander
  • AL Sullins
    Apr 15, 2018
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    Please clarify this section of Baha'ullah's reply concerning retaining certain attributes after death. Page 153, LXXX. Thou hast asked Me whether man, as apart from the Prophets of God and His chosen ones, will retain, after his physical death, the self-same individuality, personality, consciousness, and understanding that characterize his life in this world.
    Baha'u'llah : Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah
    • John Hatcher
      Apr 16, 2018
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      Simply put, the entirety of that section (LXXX) seems to be asserting the fact that our essential reality (our conscious soul) will never cease to exist, nor will the spiritual powers and faculties it possesses (memory, will, personality). Furthermore, this essential self will not be harmed or diminished by physical or mental illnesses, because like the shade covering a light, once the soul is released from its associative relationship with the body, all physically derived encumbrances will no longer exist, and the soul will evince its true nature and powers.
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