Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part IV — Page 81
Footnote Number Eleven 81 If you were to view this in the spirit of ascertaining the real truth, you would testify yourself that human intellect and conscience can never understand all of these matters with certainty, nor does any page of the book of nature point to them with certainty. Leaving aside matters of greater profundity, reason is perplexed at the very first step—what the soul is, how it enters [the body], and how it departs. On the face of it, nothing is seen as departing or entering. Even if you were to enclose a living being at the time of its last breath inside a glass chamber, nothing would be seen departing from it. Similarly, if germs are produced in some matter that is enclosed within a glass chamber, one cannot dis- cern the path of entry of these souls. The egg is even more astonishing as to how the soul flies into it, and if the chick dies inside, by what way does the soul escape? Can any wise person resolve this puzzle through the use of his intellect alone? You may run wild with your conjectures as much as you want, but nothing actual and certain can be established through reason alone. That being the case at the very first step, what can this defective reason discover with certainty about the matters related to Hereafter? Is there no one left among you who can understand this fact? Do you feel no remorse yourself about this miserable plight of yours? You have such an insatiable craving for the carrion of the world that you eagerly travel thousands of miles over land and sea in pursuit of it, but does the world to come amount to nothing in your view? Alas! Why do you not understand that it is impossible to find a remedy for every anxiety of the soul and to treat every malady of nafs-e-amm a rah through self-con- ceived imagination and conceptions? It is the law of nature that when a man is overpowered by some carnal desire or is subjected to a spiritual calamity—for instance, when his anger is fuelled, or his sexual desires are aroused, or he runs into some trouble, or he is in mourning, or is stricken with grief and a pain- ful situation, or has been overcome by some carnal or spiritual distur- bance—he cannot cure his maladies and motives that have taken con- trol over both his mind and soul, merely through his self-admonition