Why cremation is the best practice after physical death?

Why cremation is the best practice after physical death?

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Have you heard that the practice of cremation is considered better than burial? Why more and more people are preferring cremation than other ways of treating a dead physical body?

This educational and spiritual blog will discuss the topic of cremation vs burial from the perspective of the Theosophical school with a background of how dead physical bodies are treated in various cultures around the world.

In this article, we will briefly discuss practices in Christanity, Islam, Zoroastrians, Buddhism and in Hindus, before coming to the theosophical perspective!

Christian view on cremation and burial:

Most Christians practice burial. Although in the Bible there is no clear direction given about treating the dead bodies, burial is practiced by Christians as an age old custom followed by the Israelites and the Egyptians as recorded in the bible.

The Christian believe in salvation and therefore how you treat the dead is given little value for no matter when or how the man dies, he will be resurrected to everlasting life in a new body for an eternal life. During resurrection whether a person’s body has been buried or cremated will not make any difference.

Christians bury the dead of the dear ones to show respect to the body. Even though the spirit has passed on to an eternal destiny, the body of the deceased remains a tangible reminder of how much the person meant to them. Whether burial or cremation expresses that respect appropriately is a very personal decision taken by the family of the deceased. 

Coming to the Islamic view on Cremation:

In Islam, cremation is considered to be “haram” or an unclean practice. Muslims are prohibited from taking part in the act of cremation or even supporting or witnessing the event.

Burying the dead is the method prescribed in the divine law of Islam. Muslims believe that the body should be treated with the utmost respect in life and in death. Burning the dead is considered as a form of damage to the body which is forbidden by Allah.

The Quran talks about resurrection after the body is disintegrated. It is believed that during resurrection, Allah resurrects the body from the tailbone. Cremation destroys the tailbone along with the rest of the body which prevents resurrection of the body.

However, it is also believed that Allah can revive the cremated body for resurrection even if there are no physical remnants of the body left. So, cremation does not necessarily prevent the dead from entering heaven or hell. The choice is again in the hands of the immediate family members of the deceased.

Zoroastrians have the following beliefs about cremation and burial:

Zoroastrians strongly connect physical purity with spiritual purity. They traditionally consider decomposition as demonic. The corrupt influence of decomposition is said to be contagious and spiritually dangerous. That is why, Zoroastrian funeral customs are mainly focused on keeping infection away from the community, in which after washing the body, it is moved to the “dakhma” or Tower of Silence.

The dakhma is a wide tower with an open platform. Corpses are left on the elevated platform to be eaten clean by vultures, which only takes a few hours. 

In this way the body is destroyed completely before getting corrupted. The corpses are not placed on the ground because it would corrupt the earth. For the same reason, Zoroastrians do not cremate their dead, because they believe it would corrupt the fire.

For Zoroastrians in many parts of the world who have no access to dakhma have adapted burial and sometimes cremation as an alternative method of treating the dead body.

Hindus and cremation:

Hindus believe that the soul is not bound to only one physical body, but number of bodies before reaching the final destination of freedom, or mukti. The death only symbolizes the departure of the soul from the present physical body to the next life.

Hindus are expected to work on freeing themselves from attachments and desires and living a pure life that will release them from the present life cycle in order to reach the final stage.

Hindus give little value to the body. They see the body as a prison for the soul that creates attachments and desires that prevent its progress towards freedom. Their belief in the after-life plays a key role in the practice of cremation. Therefore, in Hindu funerals, the role of cremation is to break the ties of the soul to the body by the holy fire, releasing it to move toward mukti.

Cremation is practiced to detach the newly disembodied subtle body from every attachment and encourage it to pass on to its new journey instead of hovering around dear ones.

What Theosophy talks about Cremation:

The school of Theosophy teaches that after the physical body dies the etheric body begins to disintegrate, eventually followed by other various bodies of the man. Cremation serves as the best practice to handle the dead physical body because burning the body ensures swift disintegration of the etheric body.

Burying, on the other hand, slows down the gradual process of the disintegration of all other bodies.

This makes way for evil spirits or demons to take advantage of the buried physical body or of the etheric body to carry out any malpractices through black magic. Burning the dense physical body destroys the very point of origin of the etheric double.

Next, if the soul of a man strongly desires to return back to his physical body for whichever unfortunate reason, the practice of cremation completely abolishes the unnatural possibility of it. However, the same cannot be said about the burial or embalming of the body.

Even though burial is considered a ‘kinder’ way of disposing the dead body, however, the gradual process of decomposition of the body is not acknowledged which makes cremation a lot kinder practice than burial. Some men die not just from old-age but because of some disease.

What are your views about the practice of cremation? 

Do you believe in the practice of cremation or burial? 

Do you have any other beliefs apart from the traditional religious beliefs on handling the dead body? If so, share your views with us. 

Also, let us know if we missed out on anything in the comments below.

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