What is exactly meant when the resurrection is spoken of in the Bible?

The resurrection is that moment after death when the soul becomes conscious of all its experience. As the soul is connected with everything in the universe, the individual resurrection is a universal resurrection.

Now I will explain two passages from the Bible. In one of them it is said: ‘Now is Christ risen from the dead and gone unto the Father, and is become the first-fruits of them that slept, and whosoever believeth in him should not die but live’.  The dead are those who have not realized their immortality; he rises who realizes his immortality. ‘He is gone unto the Father’, means that he has gone from the personal being, which was meant for his message to be delivered upon earth, to that unlimited existence. ‘He hath become the first-fruits of them that slept’, means: he has become an example to those who sleep, to those who are unconscious of their divine being.

‘Whosoever believeth in him’ has been interpreted to mean: who believes in his limited personal being. It means: who has the knowledge of God, of immortality, shall never die, and those whom the world calls dead, but who have the belief in God, which is knowledge, are not dead.

In another passage it is said, ‘For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection from the dead’. Man alone understands what death is; beasts and birds feel the inactivity, the absence, but they do not realize what death is.

I have seen a bird, when its mate fell dead shot by hunters, settle beside it, feel it with its beak and, when it felt the stillness and lifelessness, before the hunter could approach, it dropped its head and its life was gone. I have also seen a dog die instantly when its companion dog with whom it had spent its life was dead. But still, animals feel only the inactivity, the absence of the friend. They do not realize the true nature of death.

It is only man who has understood the real nature of death in its full extent. Therefore Sufis in the East often make their houses, their cottages in the jungle or else near cemeteries: that by seeing the dead they may realize that now is the time to awaken, to conquer death, to realize their immortality.

And it is again man, as the holy being, who awakens man to the knowledge of his immortality.

To be continued…