Daily Meditation: Saturday, January 19, 2008

People occasionally ask me, in connection with family …

01/19/2008

People occasionally ask me, in connection with family members or for themselves for the future, whether it is better to bury a dead person or have them cremated. It is difficult to reply categorically to such a question. For most humans, burial is certainly preferable, because their soul needs a great deal of time to leave the physical body: they were so attached to material possessions and earthly pleasures that their soul remains there, restlessly drifting around their body. Some won’t even have believed in life after death, so now they don’t understand where they are. They need entities from the invisible world to enlighten and guide them. So, if their body is burnt after their death, they are left disoriented by the brutal separation of their body and soul. On the other hand, very spiritual beings, who have learnt all their life to detach themselves from matter, can be cremated: fire helps them to cut all links with their physical body more quickly. But those who conduct such a cremation must possess a certain spiritual knowledge, so as to be conscious of what they are doing. The body of a human being, even when dead, must not be burnt as though it were a piece of old furniture.