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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgatory
The Bahá'í Faith regards the conventional description of heaven (and hell) as a
specific place as symbolic. The Bahá'í writings describe heaven as a "spiritual
condition" where closeness to God is defined as heaven; conversely hell is seen
as a state of remoteness from God. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í
Faith,
has stated that the nature of the life of the soul in the afterlife is beyond
comprehension in the physical plane, but has stated that the soul will retain
its consciousness and individuality and remember its physical life; the soul
will be able to recognize other souls and communicate with them.[9]
For Bahá'ís, entry into the next life has the potential to bring great joy.[9]
Bahá'u'lláh likened death to the process of birth. He explains: "The world
beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of
the child while still in the womb of its mother."[10] The analogy to the womb
in
many ways summarizes the Bahá'í view of earthly existence: just as the womb
constitutes an important place for a person's initial physical development, the
physical world provides for the development of the individual soul.
Accordingly,
Bahá'ís view life as a preparatory stage, where one can develop and perfect
those qualities which will be needed in the next life.[9] The key to spiritual
progress is to follow the path outlined by the current Manifestations of God,
which Bahá'ís believe is currently Bahá'u'lláh. Bahá'u'lláh wrote, "Know thou,
of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will,
assuredly return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved."[11]
The Bahá'í teachings state that there exists a hierarchy of souls in the
afterlife, where the merits of each soul determines their place in the
hierarchy, and that souls lower in the hierarchy cannot completely understand
the station of those above. Each soul can continue to progress in the
afterlife,
but the soul's development is not entirely dependent on its own conscious
efforts, the nature of which we are not aware, but also augmented by the grace
of God, the prayers of others, and good deeds performed by others on Earth in
the name of that person.[9]
The Bahá'í Faith regards the conventional description of Hell (and heaven) as a
specific place as symbolic.[34] Instead the Bahá'í writings describe Hell as a
"spiritual condition" where remoteness from God is defined as Hell; conversely
heaven is seen as a state of closeness to God.[34]
The afterlife is seen as a central part of various relgions. Christianity and
Islam are the foremost examples of religions where this is of central
importance. What does symoblic mean anyways? No one believes in a literal
fluffy
cloud heaven or literal underworld. I would say dimensions, planes of
existence,
etc. are ways to describe what people believe in. What exactly defines the
difference between literalism and symbolisism.
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