Hazrat Inayat now begins to describe the return journey of the soul. The previous post in the series is here.
The condition of the ordinary soul, when it first leaves the body, is confusion, for before death it had realized that it is dying, yet it is really only after death that it lives. It is like a person who is alive thinking that he is dead. As long as this condition remains, the soul goes no further; it is this state which is called purgatory. When the soul has realized itself, when it has realized that it is still living, then the clouds of confusion are dispersed and the soul finds itself together with the atmosphere which belongs to it.
All souls return to God, some with open eyes, some blindly. Every moment of this life is an opportunity, whose value is so great that all the pains, all the troubles, all the sorrow of existence would be too small a price for even one moment of life. It is as if God threw darts. Some reach the point at which they were aimed, others fall short, others might go much further than man is now.
The being of God is a perfect Being. The riches that the souls bring from the earth, by knowledge or by anything else, are no addition to God; for God it only means that something which was in the hand has come to the elbow. What difference does it make? It is all the same. Yet it is better that the thing of the hand should be in the hand rather than at the elbow. All that is known on earth and in heaven belongs to God; it already exists and is already in Him, the perfect Being.
No soul is attracted to what we call Satan or the devil. Our soul does not like us to do what is wrong for us. Our soul does not like us to be unkind. Every soul has in it the highest attributes, and has a tendency towards the light, and a tendency towards awakening. If it has not, there are reasons for it. Either the soul has gathered around it vibrations that are undesirable; or it has not come through the proper channel of manifestation and therefore it is weak; or it clings to its undesirable habits and ideas and will not let them go. The condition of the soul can turn any place into heaven. Not only the earth but even hell could be turned into heaven, if only the soul attained the perfection which is its only goal.
On its return the soul passes through the same planes and states that it comes through on its way to manifestation, with all the experiences it has acquired in its life on earth. When it arrives it is blank; when it leaves, it goes away with the experience that it has gathered. Souls keep their individuality after death, for individuality is not made by the physical body; individuality is covered by the physical body. When the cover disappears, individuality still remains.
All that the soul has borrowed through manifestation, it returns to its origin. It is natural that the physical body should be the earth’s due, and when it is paid back to the earth, it is just like giving the child back into its mother’s arms. It is a most natural process. The soul does not wither and get worn out, but what it has gathered around it on earth, what it has imagined itself to be, all that it has taken from the lower plane, withers and becomes worn out – not its real self but its false self.
The one who does not come to God-realization in this life will come to it on the way towards the goal. It will be perhaps easier there, but it is better to do all one can on earth. Nothing that we really value can we put off until tomorrow. What one puts off one does not value enough.
To be continued…