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.
In the physical creation, evolution is from one degree of
perfection to another. The mineral passes with its mineral perfections to the
vegetable; the vegetable, with its perfections, passes to the animal world, and
so on to that of humanity. This world is full of seeming contradictions; in
each of these kingdoms (mineral, vegetable and animal) life exists in its
degree; though when compared to the life in a man, the earth appears to be
dead, yet she, too, lives and has a life of her own. In this world things live
and die, and live again in other forms of life, but in the world of the spirit
it is quite otherwise.
The soul does not evolve from degree to degree as a law—it
only evolves nearer to God, by the Mercy and Bounty of God.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From
a talk, November 3, 1911, Paris; ‘Paris Talks’)
…bodily cold and heat cannot affect the spirit, for it is
warmed by the fire of the Love of God. When we understand this, we begin to
understand something of our life in the world to come. God, in His Bounty, has
given us a foretaste here, has given us certain proofs of the difference that
exists between body, soul and spirit. 
