‘How I wished that I would come back as a flower’
[Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint that was published online on August 3, 2004.]
“And We granted abiding forever to no mortal before thee. If thou diest, will they abide? Every soul must taste of death. And We test you by evil and good by way of trial. And to Us you are returned.” –Holy Qur’an, Surah 21, verses 34-35
Nature teaches us that when the body ceases to function, there is no life. Sleep is the companion to death. When we awaken from sleep, we are ofttimes transported to scenes of other worldliness behind the veil seen as in a dream or a vision. Are we promised this after death? First of all, we have to define what kind of death we are talking about. When we are literally, physically dead, we cannot come back to tell the living what has taken place. That is for each one of us to experience in our journey to God. In that state, thought ceases to exist, except to the extent that we have passed on our thoughts to others before the actual expiration of the body. Those thoughts are transmitted to the living, taking on a self-generating life of their own. Thus, death is a state of non-existence lacking the ability to direct activity or motion to the living.
According to Webster’s dictionary, death is the act or fact of dying; permanent cessation of life in a person, animal or plant, in which all vital functions cease permanently. Thus, we use the expression “dead as a doornail.” To be dead is to be lifeless, no longer living, having died, without life and inanimate.
According to the Divine Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, there is no life after physical death. That which we call soul is merely the breath of life. When the body can no longer breathe in air or the breath of life into our lungs, we cease to be among the living. He has further taught us, in a series of Lessons containing questions and answers, that the dead is never known to return from the grave. “All the history of Islam never revealed anything that any man had ever been able to come back from a physical death. But, there is a chance for mental death, because the Lost-Found, (referring to our spiritually dead people in America), was once dead mentally and many of them revived from it. But they were not physically dead–only mentally dead.”
Now, there are states of mental consciousness that can extend our lives and give us a chance to survive the normal death rate into greater years of longevity. This knowledge of higher states of consciousness on the physical and mental plane can reverse the decay of degenerate health, extending our lives into hundreds of years, reaching 1,000 years as in the example of Methuselah mentioned in the Book of Genesis of our Bible.
In the context of the Lessons that speak on this subject of death, the student is asked the following question: “What brings rain, hail, snow and earthquakes?” This lesson teaches us that the majority of people spoken of as the 85 percent have a spooky belief in a Mystery God who brings all of the above phenomenon into existence. But only 10 percent know that when man dies, he will never come back and tell the living whether he lied or not, because the dead are never known to return from the grave. Therefore, by the above description, the living can also be declared as dead, if they are not mentally awakened to truth. The mental resurrection of our dead people is what is referred to in the following verse of the Holy Qur’an: “And the Hour is coming, there is no doubt about it; and Allah will raise up those who are in the grave.”(referring to mental death)–Surah 22, verse 7
All of our histories, teaches the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, are written in a book. This book contains writings gathered by a special circle of Divine Scientists, who record what we think down the line of time. This reading of our minds is placed in a book of writings called our Asiatic Calendar and revealed in portions every 25,000 years, lasting up to our present time. Therefore, we can truly say that thought never dies, for we are the carriers of those thoughts that manifest in our very lives and in all major world events. Each of us could be categorized as a living book. In the writings of Idris Shah, entitled “Book of the Sufis,” he states:
“The way in which deity works, or seems to plan is not applicable in human terms–Cease man to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy the shining hour of sun; We dance along death’s icy brink, but is the dance less full of fun?”
Thus, we are brought forth as babies, then that we attain our maturity…
“And of you is he who is caused to die, and of you is he who is brought back to the worst part of life, so that after knowledge he knows nothing… but when We send down thereon water, it stirs and swells and brings forth a beautiful (growth) of every kind.”
–Holy Qur’an, Surah 22, verse 5
“How I wished that I would come back as a flower.”
These are the lyrics of a song recorded by Sister Syreeta Muhammad and co-written with Stevie Wonder entitled, “Come Back as a Flower.” This song appears in the album, “Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants.
