---------------------------------------------------------------------------
**** http://www.GOANET.org ****
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support growing the reading habit among Goa's next generation of achievers
Bookworm Library and Magazine
Bluebelle, Tamba Colony, St Inez, Goa
Contacts: Tel: +91 9823222665 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How sad & the death of a beloved one is even more so. But to abuse the dead
body when its resting in peace is not being adhered to by the authorities.
Maybe there is an answer to this, if certain religious leaders will engage in
discussing the possibility of cremation.
The Catholic church, along with Muslim & Jews views is that the body must be
put back to the earth (interned) & therefore burial was the correct & right way
to treat the corpse at the time these three religions were being preached & put
in writing for the masses (not a pun or a jibe meant here).
So many thousands of years have passed & the population has risen to grave
proportions (again, pun not intended), however the interpretation over the
centuries, from the Bible, is surely "dust to dust............." etc but does
not mean it has to be the whole body in its present state has to be placed in a
plot of land & left to return to dust eventually.
How about cremation? The body which we loved & treasured as (hopefully)
others have over the years, has completed its cycle for the person who used it,
its now time for it to be placed away from the living (but not forgotten)
therefore cremation is the answer, surely?
If you like the idea to visit a place where your beloved are "interned" then
why not have a place ABOVE ground, say in a shoe-size box where the remains are
kept, or better still have another ceremony near moving water (sea or river)
and have the priest (of your religion) carry out a prayer for the departed &
everyone can join in, to say a final farewell before the ashes are scattered,
and "returned to earth".
We do not have to take the literal meaning of "dust to dust........" the
original idea is not so far away from the Hindu tradition to ensure the body is
CLEANSED by fire (killing off any disease that the person may have died of or
killing off any contaminants that the body acquires after death...........),
awful to imagine while we are alive here and now, but PRACTICAL and of course
conforms to all religious people.
We just dont like the idea that the body we are in NOW will one day be
USELESS to us, it is the fear of the unknown to many people and they like to
know that they will be visited by their relatives and friends for many years
after their departure.
Alas the sad side of this is that many people are NOT visited as often as one
thinks they will, graves have been left discarded when the partner dies or
leaves the area, the family may come every day to begin with, then weekly,
monthly and maybe on the anniversary of their death, their birthday or marriage
etc, but in common with all things that go, the beauriful flower from the
plant, the petals eventually fall & the plant will die.
Forgotten by the many, even the few who are buried and visited on a regular
basis have to remember we ARE human & we will ALL die one day. At my age of
57, mortality is something that is on all our minds once we turn or are near
50, 60, 70, 80 plus. But nowadays we are fortunate to have medical science,
hygiene,better food/water & education which has replaced death at 35, to triple
it over the last hundred years.
Cremate I say, cremate! You and I will have served our purpose on this earth
for the time we were assigned, many of us WILL return to complete our cycles of
many lives due to us, until we find Nirvana, others will need their bodies to
"raise up again" (resurrect) when the end of the world as predicted in
Revelations of the Catholic Bible decrees, and so on.
But in reality, and taking into account what we KNOW to be a fact, there is
VERY little land left & the way the authorities are maltreating some graves, by
digging up the bodies before they have even skeletenised properly, is digusting.
If I go, it will be in BLAZE of GLORY, to God, no rotting in the ground for
me. When the Divne One deems I return, then I WILL BE BACK, my fervent hope is
that next timet I am a much better & wiser person much earlier in my life-span
so that repetition of what happens to all of us on earth is much more bearable
the next time round.
May your God be with you on this earth, but may he not be in a hurry to see
you at His place, just yet!
John Monteiro
Berkshire, England
------------------------------
Hello Cornel,
You have brought in another dimension to my query..........the body is a vessel
and we are expected not to give importance by it; but I do hear your point.
One reason given is that the cemetries are full...........
In many cemetries one cannot hold on to the plot. I feel a lot of it has to
do with the nature of Church's governance.............
Another personal example! In my fathers case, his grave was opened
twice...........
---------------------
Re cemeteries in Goa, I wonder why the remains of the dead are routinely
removed for destruction within the incredibly short period of three years?
--------------------
