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WAITING

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<strong>WAITING</strong> FOR THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODIES<br />

thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return<br />

and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved."<br />

The Bahá'í teachings state that there exists a hierarchy of souls in the afterlife, where the<br />

merits of each soul determines their place in the hierarchy, and that souls lower in the<br />

hierarchy cannot completely understand the station of those above. Each soul can continue to<br />

progress in the afterlife, but the soul's development is not entirely dependent on its own<br />

conscious efforts, the nature of which we are not aware, but also augmented by the grace of<br />

God, the prayers of others, and good deeds performed by others on Earth in the name of that<br />

person.<br />

BUDDHISM<br />

In the original early Buddhist teaching, there is no continuity in personality. The Soul, the ego<br />

of person is destroyed when a person die and the parts of all the structure, body, soul and<br />

spirit go back their primal elements. What is reborn is a total recycled being. These beings as<br />

long as they live create their own heavens or hells. They don’t go beyond their life time either.<br />

There are several dimensions of life and existence. Each with their own life form and<br />

reincarnations. According to Buddhist cosmology the universe is impermanent and beings<br />

transmigrate through a number of existential "planes" in which this human world is only one<br />

"realm" or "path".<br />

But this first teachings of Buddha had undergone changes under various later influences<br />

including the Greek, Christian and Islamic teachings.<br />

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