Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 317
317 the next are to be no different from the fire and smoke of this world, then there would be no point in bringing about the severance of the soul from the body. In that case we should be permitted to carry our physical bodies with us. We have seen that the bodies with which we will be invested in the next world, will be of the nature of our souls in this world. How can it then be possible that the food of those bodies should be the milk and honey of this world, and the pains and punishments thereof should be of the nature of the fire and boiling water of this world? Can the souls that we now possess use the fire and the water and the fruits of this world, that they should be able to use them in the next? It is not correct, therefore, to say that man would be subjected to pain or pleasure after death, of the nature of the physical pains and pleasures of this world. On the other hand, the things of the next world, although not material, will assume delicate spiritual bodies and appear personified before man—evil things to evil men and good things to good. The consciousness and perception of life cannot be perfect unless the most delicate things are invested with a corresponding delicate body. Every soul is in need of a body, a coarse one needs a coarse body and a fine one fine. As each soul will be invested with a body in the next world, the things of that world will be per- ceptible to the external senses of that body in the same manner in which the things of this world are perceptible to our physical senses here. But as that body will be of the nature of the spirit, the personified things of the next world will also be spiritual.