Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 94
94 So that attaining paradise in this life, would mean that man should see God in this life and should experience the working of His attributes within himself. At one place He says: 'If you remember Me, I shall cause you to see Me, so you should render thanks to Me and should not be ungrateful. ' 51 That is, you should not imagine that having cre- ated every thing necessary for your material develop- ment, I would leave your higher needs unprovided for. The next question is what is the nature of this meeting with God? It is in truth beyond the power of man to describe such an essentially spiritual existence; it may be realized but can hardly be adequately described. He alone who experiences it can understand the nature of it. He cannot convey an adequate impression of it to another, for it is an entirely novel experience and people can understand the nature of only those experiences through which they have themselves passed. For in- stance, we can describe the taste of sugar to a man who has himself tasted it and when we say to such a person that a certain thing is very sweet he will at once com- prehend our meaning. But a man who has never tasted sugar can never fully realize what sweetness means. We can convey to him a poor and imperfect idea of it by distinguishing it from other things which can be tasted, but the only perfect way of making him understand what sweetness signifies would be to put a lump of 51 Al-Baqarah, 2:153