Your questions, however, can be answered only briefly, since
there is no time for a detailed reply. The answer to the first question: the
souls of the children of the Kingdom, after their separation from the body,
ascend unto the realm of everlasting life. But if ye ask as to the place, know
ye that the world of existence is a single world, although its stations are
various and distinct. For example, the mineral life occupieth its own plane,
but a mineral entity is without any awareness at all of the vegetable kingdom,
and indeed, with its inner tongue denieth that there is any such kingdom. In
the same way, a vegetable entity knoweth nothing of the animal world, remaining
completely heedless and ignorant thereof, for the stage of the animal is higher
than that of the vegetable, and the vegetable is veiled from the animal world
and inwardly denieth the existence of that world—all this while animal,
vegetable and mineral dwell together in the one world. In the same way the
animal remaineth totally unaware of that power of the human mind which graspeth
universal ideas and layeth bare the secrets of creation—so that a man who
liveth in the east can make plans and arrangements for the west; can unravel
mysteries; although located on the continent of Europe can discover America;
although sited on the earth can lay hold of the inner realities of the stars of
heaven. Of this power of discovery which belongeth to the human mind, this
power which can grasp abstract and universal ideas, the animal remaineth
totally ignorant, and indeed denieth its existence.
In the same way, the denizens of this earth are completely
unaware of the world of the Kingdom and deny the existence thereof. They ask,
for example: ‘Where is the Kingdom? Where is the Lord of the Kingdom?’ These
people are even as the mineral and the vegetable, who know nothing whatever of
the animal and the human realm; they see it not; they find it not. Yet the
mineral and vegetable, the animal and man, are all living here together in this
world of existence.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘Selections from the Writings of
‘Abdu’l-Baha’)
In considering the effect of obedience to the laws on
individual lives, one must remember that the purpose of this life is to prepare
the soul for the next. Here one must learn to control and direct one's animal
impulses, not to be a slave to them. Life in this world is a succession of
tests and achievements, of falling short and of making new spiritual advances.
Sometimes the course may seem very hard, but one can witness, again and again,
that the soul who steadfastly obeys the Law of Bahá'u'lláh, however hard it may
seem, grows spiritually, while the one who compromises with the law for the
sake of his own apparent happiness is seen to have been following a chimera: he
does not attain the happiness he sought, he retards his spiritual advance and
often brings new problems upon himself. 
