Each month our educational center section provides the Hinduism Today staff with a 'kind of group meditation. Individually we ponder our subject, and together we discuss it in detail. These past 30 days our meditation was on death. You might think we had a morbid March. Not so, since, as U.S. General George Patton rightly noted, "For Hindus death is the most exalted experience of life."
This idea is sometimes hard for non-Hindus to grasp - especially for atheists facing Eternal Oblivion and for those of the semitic faiths which define death as a kind of punishment for man's sin and disobedience. According to this view, death is the ultimate sign of man's spiritual failure, a belief which understandably arouses instincts of denial and injustice. We may feel shamed, penitent, guilty and graced, not to mentioned frightened. And that's a long way from exultation.
No such thoughts attend the dying and death of a Hindu. Of course, there is much sadness surrounding the passing of friends and family, but that is honest acknowledgement of our love and attachment to life and to each other. Inside we know that death is OK, it is natural. Inside we know that the soul, even if it was less than perfect in this life, is continuing its appointed journey toward Liberation and will, in time, reach the other shore. Such knowledge is reassuring, whether the death is another's or our own. Thus, Hindus called death by a lofty name - Maha Samadhi, "the Great Superconscious State." And to be near an awakened soul at the time he or she gives up the body is considered one of the most auspicious and blessed of opportunities.
If we see death as the opposite of life, then life is good and death is bad. But if we see life and death not as hostile but as collaborative parts of a greater whole called samsara (the cosmic evolutionary cycle of birth-death-rebirth), then life is good and death is also good. Both are part of the Cosmic-What-Is.
That being so, the pious Hindu approaches death as a mediation and a sadhana, as a spiritual opportunity. The physical body's impending demise compels him to practice detachment which yogis find easy but which is so difficult to achieve in the tumult of life. Yama's nearness brings an urgency to strive more than ever, to plunge deeper into consciousness in a renewed search for the Divine Self. No longer can he put it off. No mor...
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...ht by fighting medical and legal battles in growing numbers.
Death is personified in most cultures. The Greeks called him Thanatos, and to the Romans he was Mors. IN India he is Yama, riding on a black water buffalo, green in color, dressed in red. The pigeon and owl are his messengers, his weapon is a mace. He carries a noose, called kala-sutra or "black threat," with which he snares the life force, prana, and draws it from the body. He is also called Mrityu, "death," Kala, "time" and Dharma Raja, "King of Justice."
There is much to be said of the Hindu insights on death, and only a fraction of it fit into the four pages you will find at the center of this issue. We intend to do more in the future and welcome readers' contributions. Our objective is to share the message of the awakened ones who conquered death and knew the body's dissolution as freedom from bondage, as liberation into the Light, as a flowing of the finite into the Infinite. They asked us to think fearlessly about death, to fathom its meaning. They urged us in exiting life to let go of the ego and be the immortal Self which time and again shrugs off the shackles of sorrow.
As a natural phenomena that occurs frequently yet is still not completely understood, death has confounded and, to a certain degree, fascinated all of humanity. Since the dawn of our species, people have tried to rationalize death by means of creating various religions and even attempted to conquer death, leading to great works of literature such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Cannibal Spell For King Unis. Considered one of the earliest great pieces of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh tells an adventurous yet profound tale about the god-like king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, and his quest to find immortality. While his name now lives on through the Epic, Gilgamesh did not attain eternal life as the plant of immortality was stolen from him by a snake.
Reading multiple different journals and articles about how individual cultures interpret death, it has come to a conclusion that many cultures have many contrasting views and perspectives. Some cultures would take their practices to extreme levels, which included doing stuff to the physical body, where in today’s era, would not be right. The central desire to write this paper is to learn about the different beliefs and practices that happen in different part of the countries, in today’s time and from the past.
Sheikh, A. (1998). Death and dying- A Muslim perspective. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 91, 138-140 Retrieved Aug.1 2011. From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1296563/pdf/jrsocmed00027-0028.pdf
Tibetan views on death are focused on nirvana and spiritual perfection. These practices are spiritually meaningful for both the living survivors and the dead. Works Cited 1 Geoff Childs Tibetan Diary From Birth to Death and Beyond in the Himalayan Valley of Nepal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004) 41. 2 Ibid., 54. 3Ibid., 54.
Which means that death is indeed a bad thing to a person because it takes away all the good things that that person
According to a study, many difficult cultures have the tendency to establish their methods of coping, whether it is through religion, culture, or/and personal ideologies (Chen, 2012). Mourning and burial ceremonies play a pivotal role for Lossography due to individuals having the ability and liberty to express melancholy and sometimes jubilation during the times they once had with their loved one. These types of beliefs and practices used as coping mechanisms can be very meaningful and profound for the comfort of the individual who’s going through a mournful experience (Chen, 2012). These types of coping mechanisms is important for Lossography, due to the fact that individuals are able to convey emotions through traditional practices, archaic arts and crafts, and spiritual rituals to fully find meaning with the death of their loved one. In addition, having established beliefs can definitely change the perception of what death signifies based upon religious and cultural expectations of the afterlife. However, not all cultures and religions put much emphasis into the afterlife. For instance, the monotheistic religion Judaism does not contain any interpretation of what happens after someone dies. Judaists believe that nothing happens after death, death is considered a taboo and not something that is commonly talked about for these religious individuals. Lossography, in religion may take on many forms for how death is perceived and for what actions can people take to ensure that their death will bring them to a place of peace, joy, and everlasting life. Lossography regarding religion, gives individuals hope that death is not the end, it gives them hope that knowing that person may not be here with us in the flesh, but that person is somewhere smiling down. Lossography in religion,
The five Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto have some similarities when it comes to the their beliefs on death. Hinduism and Buddhism both believe in karma and reincarnation, while Daoism and Shintoism revolve their beliefs around nature. Confucianism chooses not to focus on things we do not know, so their beliefs on death are limited. In deciphering the different beliefs on death associated with each religion, it is important to understand the different belief systems and their origins. While some religions merged the views of the other religions, some came from the views of an originating founder. Each religion has their own view on life after death and whether or not their followers should be concerned
Death is perhaps the most difficult aspect of life humans are forced to deal with. In order to help us cope, we have implemented the grieving process--a series of events with the purpose of making death easier to deal with--into our lives. Not everyone handles death in the same fashion, and each culture has rituals characteristic to itself that may differ greatly from another culture's rituals. Christianity and Buddhism are two religions that have completely different grieving processes, and in a conversation with Ms. Sit-Sen Wong, a Buddhist from Malaysia, this idea was confirmed as a fact. Through life, Buddhists constantly prepare for death and the afterlife, while Christians, although concerned about that, focus on enjoying the present life as much as possible. Many factors have contributed to this deduction and all are based on the differences in the grieving process rituals between American Christians and Malaysian Buddhists.
“Ritual gives concrete and dramatic expression of beliefs within social and cultural settings,” (Goldberg, Blundell, & Jordan, Investigating Religion, 2009, p. 45). The Buddhist death ritual is intimately connected to Buddhism’s core religious beliefs. A combination of the ritual’s features (structure, actions, scripture and symbol) demonstrate and fulfil the rituals purpose and reflect Buddhism’s core beliefs, thus satisfying the needs of Buddhist participants.
When preparing for death Buddhist generally agree a person’s state of mind while dying is of great importance. While dying the person can be surrounded by friends, family and monks who recite Buddhists scriptures and mantras to help the person achieve a peaceful state of mind. Buddhism asserts that all being live beyond the various fluctuations of this life. Death is merely a passage to rebirth in another realm such as the human world, a pure land or the flowering of the ultimate nature of the mind.
The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. For it is the society that has great impact on the individual’s beliefs. Hence, it is also possible for other cultures to influence the people of a different culture on such comprehensions. The primary and traditional way men and women have made dying a less depressing and disturbing idea is though religion. Various religions offer the comforting conception of death as a begining for another life or perhaps a continuation for the former.
Due to specific religions, anxiety of death can either increase or lessen depends on the understanding and specificity of religion. For instance, in Buddhism death is not the end of life, it is the end of the physical presence, but the spirit will still remain and seek out through the need of attachment to a new body and new life (Herman, 1990 ). Death anxiety in the Buddhism is different because they don 't see death as the end but as a new
Death is the one great certainty in life. Some of us will die in ways out of our control, and most of us will be unaware of the moment of death itself. Still, death and dying well can be approached in a healthy way. Understanding that people differ in how they think about death and dying, and respecting those differences, can promote a peaceful death and a healthy manner of dying.
Death, in Christianity, as mentioned by gust speaker Reverend Dr. Mark Harris, is the separation of soul and body; the soul is the pre-existing, immortal aspect of a person that wants to be with God and wants to do what is right, but it is the body that prevents this from happening. Here we can say that, as Dr. Ross had emphasized, that the body and the soul are often in conflict. This conflict is usually sought out throw the influence and importance of God’s role in human life and death.
Death is something that causes fear in many peoples lives. People will typically try to avoid the conversation of death at all cost. The word itself tends to freak people out. The thought of death is far beyond any living person’s grasp. When people that are living think about the concept of death, their minds go to many different places. Death is a thing that causes pain in peoples lives, but can also be a blessing.