The World Is the Farm of the Hereafter. We Will See the Outcome of Our Actions in the Hereafter
How do you see the world? What is the value and position of the world in your opinion? Do you believe in the relationship between this world and the hereafter?
Probably, you have heard many times that the world is the farm of the hereafter. Every human being is like a farmer who plants seeds on his farm. Plowing, sowing, and planting seeds are all the same as words we use and actions we do day and night. At the start of the day, our farming begins with our daily routines. We plant our seeds with our greetings, smiles, and cheerfulness or with our quarrels and bitterness. Meanwhile, everyone chooses his own seeds, whether bitter or sweet. Every person’s actions and words are seeds that he sows, grows, and harvests.
In this article, we will talk about the power of the womb of the world and the extent of its constructiveness for our eternity. We will also explain that every person’s hereafter is shaped by his deeds and intentions. Heaven and Hell are the fields that we create with our hands, and the level of comfort we find in Heaven is shaped by actions that we take with us from here.
The Relationship Between the World and the Hereafter
Indeed, this world is not comparable to the hereafter in terms of importance, and it is only a simple commodity. However, this world is superior to the hereafter in terms of value. God has not created a better, more precious, and more valuable world than this world. Heaven, pure life, and what lies beyond are the fruits of our deeds in this world. As soon as we die, we will be restricted and not be able to do anything. Our short lifetime in this world is the only opportunity we have to improve ourselves and prepare for eternity, and this unique opportunity will never be repeated.
In the previous lessons, we stated that the relationship between this world and the hereafter is like the relationship between the mother’s womb and this world. Even though the life of a fetus is very short compared to his life in this world, the world never has the potential to be as productive as the womb! If the child is born with a missing finger, the world will never be able to give him that finger. It means that potentiality exists in the womb and actualization manifests itself in the world. This proportion also exists in the relationship between this world and the hereafter. Although worldly life is short compared to life in the hereafter, the hereafter is not as constructive as worldly life. The world is a very compact womb that contains energy, power, speed, and becoming. One hour of presence and activity in the womb of the world can create many changes in a person. While doing something takes only a few hours in this world, we have to spend many centuries doing the same thing in the hereafter. Sixty years of sins and mistakes in the world can be compensated in one night due to the constructive power of the world. While the hereafter is full of blessings and actualization, its constructive potential and the possibility of compensating for defects and disorders is quite limited there. Therefore, a wise person should try to prepare the necessary provisions for his hereafter in this world and ensure his affairs are in order.
Viewing the World Through the Lens of Eternity
The world and the hereafter are intimately connected, with a profound and inseparable relationship, and knowing this relationship and managing it will be effective in the development of both. Given the equal significance of the introduction and conclusion, attempting to know and analyze one without the other, our efforts will be incomplete and inconclusive. Any effort will lead to success only if it is aligned with and directed towards the ultimate goal.
On our journey to the hereafter, only those deeds aligned with the conditions of the hereafter will be truly effective and impactful. Paying attention to the world without considering the hereafter is like paying attention to the life of the fetus in the mother’s womb without paying attention to his worldly life.
Just as disconnecting a fetus from the world leads to many kinds of diseases and even death, breaking our connection with the hereafter similarly prevents us from growing and improving. For example, if a fetus is blind or deaf in the mother’s womb, these impairments do not cause him pain or suffering while he is there. However, when he enters the world of lights and wavelengths, he notices these defects and suffers the consequences. The world for us is like the womb for a fetus. The world is the realm of development, which involves no pain or assessment; it is just a place for action. All our deeds in this life, including eating, marriage, marital issues, divorce, buying and selling, inheritance, ethics, politics, and spirituality are regulated by keeping the hereafter in mind. If the hereafter is not taken into account, or if our deeds are not compatible with the living conditions there, we will suffer great loss in the hereafter.
As long as we do not believe that there is another world after this world, we will not care about it and make no effort for it. If we do not prepare ourselves for the world after death, we will have a painful birth into the Barzakh. Therefore, life in this world cannot be understood without considering the hereafter. To know and acquire the real assets we need for the hereafter, we must cross the borders of sense, illusion, and imagination and reach the rational and supra-rational realms. Undoubtedly, those who do not believe in eternity are always caught in worldly perfections: inanimate, vegetative, animal, and intellective.
The Relationship Between Deeds and Assets
We stated that the world is the farm of the hereafter and we are planting a seed every moment, the product of which is either happiness or regret. What we are today is the product of our past deeds; today we harvest the outcomes of everything we have planted. Our birth into this world means coming to the field of action. We are all here to act because our deeds shape us and create assets for us.
Our existential philosophy is to acquire assets and ‘become.’ In our vast array of interactions, we each shape our unique personalities through our decisions, behaviors, thoughts, and relationships. These four crucial realms – one by one – stack together to form the bricks of our existential structure, shaping our lifestyle and the foundation of our human personality and placing us under their management. If a person is now a seminary student or an engineer, it means that there was a series of decisions, relationships, behaviors, and thoughts that made him a student or an engineer. Our future selves are shaped by the decisions we make in the present. Therefore, whenever we depart this world, our current state of being will serve as the provisions for our journey.
Our success or failure, closeness or detachment, knowledge or ignorance, calmness or anxiety, goodness or badness all are ultimately reflections of the decisions we made in the past. Anyhow, we are always immersed, both in the quantity and quality of our deeds. There is no escaping them, and finally we will be born into our deeds and face the consequences. Our decisions, relationships, behaviors, and thoughts determine the way we live in the Barzakh, the way we will be resurrected, and the type of our lifestyle after the resurrection. Let us remember that the seeds of misery or bliss and Hell or Heaven grow within us. No one is responsible for cultivating and harvesting our crops because we reap what we sow. The seeds we sow now will shape our future lives for better or worse.
The most important question people should ask themselves is how to spend their lives. Are they getting closer to the purpose of creation day by day or not? In this regard, the type of our attachments and affections and the level of our concerns show what we have done to ourselves in the world. How sad it is to realize that after a lifetime of living in the world, we have not grown to be compatible with Heaven and have not acquired a human form. Heaven is the least reason for which we have to strive in this world. Just as a fetus, while adhering to the order and laws of the womb, devotes all his planning and focus towards building a healthy body, we should also make all our efforts in this life to have a successful birth into the hereafter. Just as a fetus would be burdened by extra limbs, we too will face a challenging life in the hereafter if we carry unnecessary burdens of negative traits and actions.
In this article, we discussed the world and its constructive power for eternity. We stated that the world is the farm of the hereafter, and every moment we plant something that we will harvest in the hereafter, willingly or unwillingly. All our thoughts, decisions, relationships, and behaviors in the world, including what we hear, eat, and see, are like pieces of a puzzle shaping our true personality. The way these pieces fit together determines our destiny in the Hereafter- either Heaven or Hell.
How do you describe the world? Do you believe that the world determines the quality of our life in the hereafter? We welcome your feedback on this.