Second Note to “Death Before Dying”

Al-Ghazali – who was of course one of the greatest theologians of all time – wrote that one must first endure the fire of detachment and separation from desire and lust in order to avoid two other fires, namely, the fire of abasement and shame and the fire of eternity and hell. But with such endurance and resistance comes ‘gnosis’ – esoteric knowledge or knowledge of the ‘unseen.’ And it is only this kind of knowledge that actually matters in the very end. It is the only kind of knowledge which the soul carries with it after death. The soul leaves worldly or mundane knowledge behind upon death and carries with it esoteric or gnostic knowledge.