hello, I am trying to figure out if Baha'is believe that greater suffering in life equals a greater reward in the afterlife- I know it is a concept present in Christianity. Or do Baha'is concentrate more on the afterlife reward as predicated on good deeds, spiritual victories, wisdom aquired in life, only?
We Baha'is do believe in an after-life and progress through what we call the worlds of God.. To be in the presence of God is the highest station but progression in the next life is continuous..
"Concerning the future life, what Bahá'u'lláh says is that the soul will continue to ascend through many worlds. What those worlds are and what their nature is we cannot know. The same way that the child in the matrix cannot know this world so we cannot know what the other world is going to be."
(From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, October 18, 1932)
One of the purposes of this life is to begin reflecting the attributes of God and prepare for the spiritual life.. this is compared to the life of the foetus in the womb..
The appendages legs and arms of the foetus are of no use to it in the womb it is only after birth that these appendages are used..so in this life people tend to under-estimate spiritual qualities in this life because they do not see any advantage here in acquiring them.. but they will be of use in the nexrt life...
After passing to the spiriual world we are dependent on the grace of God.
"...The honor with which the Hand of Mercy will invest the soul is such as no tongue can adequately reveal, nor any other earthly agency describe. Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings of the peoples of the world. Such a soul liveth and moveth in accordance with the Will of its Creator, and entereth the all-highest Paradise.
The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions, will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds.
If any man be told that which hath been ordained for such a soul in the worlds of God, the Lord of the throne on high and of earth below, his whole being will instantly blaze out in his great longing to attain that most exalted, that sanctified and resplendent station.... The nature of the soul after death can never be described, nor is it meet and permissible to reveal its whole character to the eyes of men...."
(Bahá'u'lláh: Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, 1983 ed., p. 156)
