According to the teachings of the Baha'i Revelation, death is not to be feared. `Abdu'l-Bahá said that we should look forward to death with hope and expectation, as with any other journey.
"In the next world, man will find himself freed from many of the disabilities under which he now suffers. Those who have passed on through death, have a sphere of their own. It is not removed from ours; their work, the work of the Kingdom, is ours; but it is sanctified from what we call 'time and place.' Time with us is measured by the sun. When there is no more sunrise, and no more sunset, that kind of time does not exist for man. Those who have ascended have different attributes from those who are still on earth, yet there is no real separation..." `Abdu'l-Bahá in London, p. 96.
The process known as death is merely the withdrawal of the soul from the physical mind and body. During "life", the soul's powers shine upon the body (in the same way the physical sun gives its powers of light and heat to the earth). The soul never was physically connected to the body or inside the body, and therefore it doesn't leave the body upon death. Rather, at "death", the soul ceases to have contact with the body, its powers cease to shine upon the physical body and mind, and then the human mind and body simply pass away.
Having dropped the veil of a physical body, the soul continues its growth in the spiritual worlds.
The primary function of the soul in the physical reality is to grow spiritually by exercising moral decision-making. Basically, our job in life is to learn to choose and turn towards God. Only by having a physical mind and body can the soul have a free will and learn to make choices. The culmination of a life of proper choices is a soul that has fully developed its latent spiritual capacities. The importance of understanding the teachings on life after death cannot be over-emphasized. Only by knowing how one's souls will exist in the spiritual world can one recognize how to live in this physical reality. The truth about death teaches us how to live.
"But if the body undergoes a change, the spirit need not be touched. When you break a glass on which the sun shines, the glass is broken, but the sun still shines! If a cage containing a bird is destroyed, the bird is unharmed! If a lamp is broken, the flame can still burn bright!
"The same thing applies to the spirit of man. Though death destroy his body, it has no power over his spirit -- this is eternal, everlasting, both birthless and deathless. As to the soul of man after death, it remains in the degree of purity to which it has evolved during life in the physical body, and after it is freed from the body it remains plunged in the ocean of God's Mercy.
"From the moment the soul leaves the body and arrives in the Heavenly World, its evolution is spiritual, and that evolution is: The approaching unto God."
