"One God, One Life."

As salaam alaikum,

Thank you for writing your question. We hope that sharing your question with the public will satisfy the same question in the minds of many more people who wonder the same thing.

Let's tackle your questions one at a time.

1.) If all Black people are gods how can there be only one God? Wouldn't there be billions of gods in that case?

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes in Our Saviour Has Arrived on page 26,

Yesterday you could not find Me. I was so wrapped in the mist that people were trampling on me and they didn't know that I was down there in the mud. All praise is due to Allah. Allah is all of us. But we have a Supreme One that we can throw this name "Holy" upon. He is Allah, The One over all of us; The Most Supreme One, the Wisest One, the Mightiest One; The One that Sees and Hears that which we can't see and hear. That Is He. He Is rooted in all of us. Every righteous person is a god. We are all God. When we say "Allah" we mean every righteous person. Allah teaches me that He is a man -- not something that is other than man. The Holy Qur'an refers to Him in such pronouns as "He" and as "We" and as "Us."

Yes, brother, He is rooted in all of us. David the Psalmist says in the 82nd Psalm verse 6, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Think of that name, the Most High. What does "most" mean? It means, "1.in the greatest quantity, amount, measure, degree, or number; or 2. greatest, as in size or extent. High means, "situated above the ground or some base; elevated." Allah is also referred to as the Supreme Being and Jesus the Prophet called Him "Father." All of these are good names and bear witness to what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us.

The words "most", "supreme", "high" are comparison words. How can you say something is the "most" of anything if there are no other things? How can someone/something be supreme if there are no other people/things over whom to be supreme? "High" must be identified relative to some base point! An airplane is high over the ground; but is it high over the clouds? So is it high or not? Compared to the ground the plane is high, but it is not high over the clouds. We are the base point God is compared to when we say the Most High. The Supreme Being; this name means that out of all of the Beings, Allah is the Supreme one. Again God is compared to other beings, of whom He is the Supreme one! "Ye are all gods, children of the most High." Jesus called God, Father. He is bearing witness that there is a familial connection between God and us. So, you are correct in saying that there are billions of gods (note the small "g"), but there is one of them that is highest, supreme, over all the other ones.

This leads us into answering your second question:

2.) If there is no after life what happens to our energy when we pass? Since energy cannot be destroyed.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that we are Direct Descendants of the Originator of the Universe. The billions of us on the Earth are the literal Family of God.

From His time to this, human beings have existed. Does He exist, the one who originally made the stars and the Earth? No, he passed a very long time ago. It is interesting that you, and usually other people, use the word "pass" to mean die. Pass means, "to come to an end, or die", but it also means at the same time, "to convey, transfer, or transmit; deliver (often followed by on; to convey from one person, hand, etc., to another. We call this Man, the Originator.

So, what exactly is passed on? Think about your parents or ancestors. What have they passed on to you, so that when they die, it (whatever was passed on) will remain? Knowledge, wisdom, customs, traditions, property, morals, beliefs or religion, stories, histories, skills, personality traits, and dna are all passed from generation to generation.

The term "after life" has been used to describe some existence after we die, but the term itself does not exist anywhere in the scriptures, Bible or Qur'an. The Bible and Qur'an refer to a "Hereafter", but no such thing as an after life. There is a great difference between the two terms. Afterlife means that there is life for you after you die. Hereafter means precisely that, Here + After. Here on this Earth after some event takes place.

So, what happens to our energy when we pass? You're correct, energy cannot be destroyed, it is converted into other forms of energy. And that's precisely what happens to us when we pass. All of the energy that animated your physical body is converted and transmitted to the environment we passed on in. If you drown in the Chesapeake, your energy is passed to the water. Sounds too simple, huh?

Now, follow me closely here. The need to believe in an afterlife is 1. a natural consequence of the human instinct to survive and 2. the failure of a person to connect to their Divinity, the Supreme singular reality. Huh?

No matter what our level of spiritual development, every act we commit is dedicated to survival. However, our level of spiritual development and mental development (or the lack thereof) defines what survival means to us. It doesn't mean the same thing to everyone.

When your self identity is totally dependent upon your personality traits, your face, your life experiences, your friends, family and/or neighborhood, then you can expect that when you die, your personality traits, your face, your life experiences will end. Your friends, family and community will go on without you. To the undeveloped human being this is seen as total oblivion and the nature of that person, to survive, rebels against that knowledge. So, people concocted an "afterlife" where you get to be yourself some more and do the things you used to do some more, and you get to see dead friends and family again. In this false belief, the sense of survival is preserved. But that is not real.

What is real? The Holy Qur'an says, "That is because Allah is the (only) Reality and because whatever else they invoke besides Him is Falsehood; and because Allah He is the Most High Most Great." (Qu'ran 31:30) In order to have our natural instinct of survival in harmony with reality we must have a self image that is correct and not dependent upon incomplete notions of our nature. Allah is the only Reality; that means that everything else is an aspect of the true Reality.

So the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, "We are all God. When we say "Allah" we mean every righteous person." Understanding the nature of life itself is directly correlated with understanding what "happens" to us when we die. Ultimately brother, there is only one life; there is only one mind, there is only "one" being. "When we say "Allah" we mean every righteous person." What happens to God when you die? That's a better question than, 'what happens to me when I die?' Nothing happens to Him. Allah is eternal and cannot die.

The physical house (man, that being you in your case) that conveys His energy and spirit changes, but His life is eternal, but the body is not. So Jesus said, "greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." Those people whose identity is based on the physical, based on 'the world' are living improperly and they feel a sense of destruction and oblivion when faced with death. The person who understands that their identity is Allah Himself understands that, when faced with death, there is no end for them. Say to yourself, "I am God." Jesus said, "before Abraham was , I am." He was saying that everything that makes up his identity, though you call him Jesus, is from the Father." And so it is to be with you and me. Does the Holy Qur'an support this? Absolutely, Sura 2: 154 of the Holy Qur'an says, "And say not of those who are slain in the way of God: "They are dead." Nay, they are living, though ye perceive (it) not." There is no death for the righteous!! Sure, the body goes, whether by accident, murder, or old age. But there is no "discontinuity" for the Spirit of Allah. In that sense there is no death for you.

As long as you hold onto your personality, your face, your property, your individualistic sense of self as your identity, then you can die; because, that part of you will perish. So Jesus said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God", and he also said, "he who seeks to save his life shall lose it, but he who gives his life, for my sake shall have life everlasting." (Matthew 10: 39) This is truth. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us, "when you look at the Blackman, you're looking at God." Identify yourself with your Divinity and deny the temporary physical aspects of yourself, brother, and you will never perish.