Every composition is necessarily subject to destruction or disintegration.
For instance, this flower is a composition of various elements; its
decomposition is inevitable. When this composed form undergoes
decomposition--in other words, when these elements separate and
disintegrate--that is what we call the death of the flower. For inasmuch as
it is composed of single elements, the grouping of multitudinous cellular
atoms, it is subject to disintegration. This is the mortality of the
flower. Similarly, the body of man is composed of various elements. This
composition of the elements has been given life. When these elements
disintegrate, life disappears, and that is death. Existence in the various
planes, or kingdoms, implies composition; and nonexistence, or death, is
decomposition.
But the inner and essential reality of man is not composed of elements
and, therefore, cannot be decomposed. It is not an elemental composition
subject to disintegration or death. A true and fundamental scientific
principle is that an element itself never dies and cannot be destroyed for
the reason that it is single and not composed. Therefore, it is not
subject to decomposition.
Another evidence or proof of the indestructibility of the reality of man
is that it is not affected by the changes of the physical body. These
changing conditions of the bodily composition are definite and continual.
At one time it is normal, at another time abnormal. Now it is weak, now
strong. It suffers injury, a hand may be amputated, a limb broken, an eye
destroyed, an ear deafened or some defect appear in a certain organ, but
these changes do not affect the human spirit, the soul of man. If the body
becomes stout or thin, decrepit or strong, the spirit or soul is
unaffected thereby. If a part of the bodily organism be destroyed, even if
it be dismembered completely, the soul continues to function, showing that
no changes of the body affect its operation. We have seen that death and
mortality are synonymous with change and disintegration. As we find the
soul unaffected by this change and disintegration of the body, we,
therefore, prove it to be immortal; for that which is changeable is
accidental, evanescent.
Furthermore, this immortal human soul is endowed with two means of
perception: One is effected through instrumentality; the other,
independently. For instance, the soul sees through the instrumentality of
the eye, hears with the ear, smells through the nostrils and grasps
objects with the hands. These are the actions or operations of the soul
through instruments. But in the world of dreams the soul sees when the
eyes are closed. The man is seemingly dead, lies there as dead; the ears
do not hear, yet he hears. The body lies there, but he--that is, the
soul--travels, sees, observes. All the instruments of the body are
inactive, all the functions seemingly useless. Notwithstanding this, there
is an immediate and vivid perception by the soul. Exhilaration is
experienced. The soul journeys, perceives, senses. It often happens that a
man in a state of wakefulness has not been able to accomplish the solution
of a problem, and when he goes to sleep, he will reach that solution in a
dream. How often it has happened that he has dreamed, even as the prophets
have dreamed, of the future; and events which have thus been foreshadowed
have come to pass literally.
Therefore, we learn that the immortality of the soul, or spirit, is not
contingent or dependent upon the so-called immortality of the body,
because the body in the quiescent state, in the time of sleep, may be as
dead, unconscious, senseless; but the soul, or spirit, is possessed of
perceptions, sensations, motion and discovery. Even inspiration and
revelation are obtained by it. How many were the prophets who have had
marvelous visions of the future while in that state! The spirit, or human
soul, is the rider; and the body is only the steed. If anything affects
the steed, the rider is not affected by it. The spirit may be likened to
the light within the lantern. The body is simply the outer lantern. If the
lantern should break, the light is ever the same because the light could
shine even without the lantern. The spirit can conduct its affairs without
the body. In the world of dreams it is precisely as this light without the
chimney glass. It can shine without the glass. The human soul by means of
this body can perform its operations, and without the body it can,
likewise, have its control. Therefore, if the body be subject to
disintegration, the spirit is not affected by these changes or
transformations.
It is an evident fact that the body does not conduct the process of
intellection or thought radiation. It is only the medium of the grossest
sensations. This human body is purely animal in type and, like the animal,
it is subject only to the grosser sensibilities. It is utterly bereft of
ideation or intellection, utterly incapable of the processes of reason.
The animal perceives what its eye sees and judges what the ear hears. It
perceives according to its animal senses, the scent of the nostril, the
taste of the tongue. It comprehends not beyond its sense perceptions. The
animal is confined to its feelings and sensibilities, a prisoner of the
senses. Beyond these, in the finer higher processes of reasoning, the
animal cannot go. For instance, the animal cannot conceive of the earth
whereon it stands as a spherical object because the spherical shape of the
earth is a matter of conscious reasoning. It is not a matter of sense
perception. An animal in Europe could not foresee and plan the discovery
of America as Columbus did. It could not take the globe map of the earth
and scan the various continents, saying, "This is the eastern hemisphere;
there must be another, the western hemisphere." No animal could know these
things for the reason that they are referable to intellection. The animal
cannot become aware of the fact that the earth is revolving and the sun
stationary. Only processes of reasoning can come to this conclusion. The
outward eye sees the sun as revolving. It mistakes the stars and the
planets as moving about the earth. But reason decides their orbit, knows
that the earth is moving and the other worlds fixed, knows that the sun is
the solar center and ever occupies the same place, proves that it is the
earth which revolves around it. Such conclusions are entirely
intellectual, not according to the senses.
Hence, we know that in the human organism there is a center of
intellection, a power of intellectual operation which is the discoverer of
the realities of things. This power can unravel the mysteries of
phenomena. It can comprehend that which is knowable, not alone the
sensible. All the inventions are its products. For all of these have been
the mysteries of nature. There was a time when the energy of electricity
was a mystery of nature, but that collective reality which is manifest in
man discovered this mystery of nature, this latent force. Having
discovered it, man brought it into the plane of visibility. All the
sciences which we now utilize are the products of that wondrous reality.
But the animal is deprived of its operations. The arts we now enjoy are
the expressions of that marvelous reality. The animal is bereft of them
because these conscious realities are peculiar to the human spirit. All
the traces are the outcoming of the perfections which comprehend
realities. The animal is bereft of these.
Such evidences prove conclusively that man is possessed of two realities,
as it were: a reality connected with the senses which is shared in common
with the animal, and another reality which is conscious and ideal in
character. This latter is the collective reality and the discoverer of
mysteries. That which discovers the realities of things undoubtedly is not
of the elemental substances. It is distinct from them. For mortality and
disintegration are the properties inherent in compositions and are
referable to things which are subject to sense perceptions, but the
collective reality in man, not being so subject, is the discoverer of
things. Therefore, it is real, eternal and does not have to undergo
changes and transformations.
There are many other proofs concerning this vital subject, but I shall
conclude with the words of Jesus Christ: "That which is born of the Spirit
is spirit" and is acceptable in the Kingdom of God. This means that just
as in the first birth the fetus comes forth from the matrix of the mother
into the conditions of the human kingdom, even so the spirit of man must
be born out of the matrix of naturalism, out of the baser nature, in order
that he may comprehend the great things of the Kingdom of God. He must be
born out of mother earth to find the everlasting life. And this collective
reality, or spirit, of man, being born out of the world of nature,
possessing the attributes of God, will continue to live forever in the
eternal realm.
9 November 1912
Talk at Baha'i Banquet
Rauscher's Hall, Washington, D. C.