SPIRIT OF ISLAM NOVEMBER 2019

29 Spirit of Islam Issue 83 November 2019 THE UNERASABLE PAST No Escape from the Consequences T ONY BENN (1925-2014), a British Labour MP, was once dissatisfied with the way an interview for a BBC radio programme was developing and, determined that no part of the dialogue between himself and the reporter should be broadcast. He took steps to erase it from the tape which had been recording it. To the reporter’s astonishment, he reached into a cupboard and produced a powerful electromagnet which he duly plugged in and waved over the tape, thereby completely removing all traces of the conversation which had just taken place. When one is caught in a difficult situation in this world, there is generally some way or other which allows one to escape from it. One can, for example, have ‘a clean record’ simply by erasing embarrassing or incriminating statements from a tape. It is just as if, originally, one had never uttered a word. Similarly, one can find loopholes in the law that permit one to escape justice and to proceed in life as if one had never erred in any material or moral sense. All kinds of evasive tactics can, indeed, be practised so that a life of sin, immorality, and crime can be completely whitewashed; that all the ugliness of corruption is thus effectively hidden from the public eye. In the next world, however, there is no question of erasures, evasion, whitewashing and all the other tactics resorted to by wrongdoers. No novel hi-tech gadgetry will be available to assist in the concealment of the truth. Neither technology nor a clever lawyer, nor the intervention of friends and relatives will be of any avail in the afterlife, where it is impossible either to practise deception or to wipe out the events of the past. Everything that has happened is already there on God’s cosmic tape recorder. Search as one may, one will never find any instrument which will erase what is indelibly recorded on God’s tape. Because, in many cases, our evasive tactics are successful in this world, we tend to imagine that the same will hold true of the next world. But the next world is one which is concerned only with realities. o USA Centre for Peace and Spirituality 2665 Byberry Road, Bensalem, PA 19020 kkaleemuddin@gmail.com