Death as a Ritual Passage

[KnightoftheRose]

Okay, this is a little weird, but I was reading for my college religion class a while ago a statement made concerning rituals. Rituals are described basically as special times in our life set aside for involvement with the Divine - whether as rituals as common as prayer before dinner or as something which occurs only once in our lives, like birthing rituals. Rituals are also performed during special, sacred times, like fasting Ramadan, if you're Muslim, or ceremonial activity during (correct me if I'm wrong) special phases of the moon, if you're a Neo-Pagan.

With that in mind, all cultures have rituals concerning that final special time in our lives, Death. Some kind of 'last words for the dead' seem universal (like the priest praying over the coffin); there is a kind of 'burial', which can be a literal burial, or a cremation, or whatever; and there is usually a period of mourning (Eastern religions hold various exceptions to this last rule). So, the point here is, we have ritualized death with various customs and traditions.

However, what I'm wondering is, is Death itself a ritual? Rituals exist in three states - kenosis and plerosis, with a liminal state in-between. In kenosis, one's spiritual vitality has dried out, and a distancing between once previous state and a new state is necessary to regain that vitality. Once one has distanced himself from the previous, 'empty' state, one proceeds towards renewal. In between these to states - spiritual emptiness and refilling - is the liminal state, the state in which one is empty and has not refilled yet. An example of how these stages of ritual work out can be seen in something as simple as Baptism. In certain Christian views, one exists in a state of spiritual emptiness before the Baptism, right before the actual ceremony, one exists in a transitional state - a liminal state. And after the Baptism, one exists in a state of rebirth and renewal.

With all this in mind, one can make out obvious parallels between the stages of ritual and the stages of Death. In death, one's life source has dried out, one's soul has fled the body, existing in a state of emptiness, of disconnection. Then there is the liminal state, the transition of the soul from earthly body into whatever afterlife (whether Heaven or Hell or Nirvana or Brahman or Whatever) awaits it. And there, wherever 'there' may be, one has returned to his spiritual center.

So, my question is, is death just a symbolic ritual phase between life and whatever afterlife exists? And if death is just a symbolic ritual, a transition, a phase, an illusion - what is life? If death is just an illusion created by transition, is there truly a distinct seperation between mortal life and eternal afterlife?

Anyways, I realize this is just pointless speculation (leaving us all wondering, "So what?"), but I think it does create interesting philosophical questions - like, if there is no seperation between mortal life and eternal afterlife, then is the sinner existing already in a state of hell, or the saint already in a state of heaven?...etc...

Anyways, I'm tired of writing . Peace, y'all...

 

[lunamoth]

With all this in mind, one can make out obvious parallels between the stages of ritual and the stages of Death. In death, one's life source has dried out, one's soul has fled the body, existing in a state of emptiness, of disconnection. Then there is the liminal state, the transition of the soul from earthly body into whatever afterlife (whether Heaven or Hell or Nirvana or Brahman or Whatever) awaits it. And there, wherever 'there' may be, one has returned to his spiritual center.

Just to set up my answers down below, I don't think that the soul is in the body, so it doesn't flee the body after death. However, it must somehow be released upon the death of the body. What a soul exactly is and how it retains the impressions of our lives after death is a mystery, but I know I am a soul nonetheless.

...is there truly a distinct seperation between mortal life and eternal afterlife? ...but I think it does create interesting philosophical questions - like, if there is no seperation between mortal life and eternal afterlife, then is the sinner existing already in a state of hell, or the saint already in a state of heaven?...etc...

Good questions, interesting to ponder. I'm not sure how ritual fits into this but, in my view, heaven is our life with God, hell our life without God. I think we experience both during this life, saint, sinner and all in between. Perhaps the transition into the What's Next just removes the flexibility. Also in my view, everyone is closer to God in the next life because the failings of the flesh and mind have been removed. All that is left is the love we have created during our time here.

 

[Quahom1]

Good day Rosy Knight, and Luna,


Here are some questions to your question. What happens when sperm meets egg? Both are alive, yet when they meet, they surrender to eachother. Did they die? Or did they join to create a new version of life?

What happens when a fetus begins, transitions through and completes birth? Did it die? Or did it progress to a new version of life?

What happens when our bodies grow and mature? Is it dying, or progressing to a newer version of life?

What happens when our body can no longer house our conciousness (that is, the stuff we are made of)? Do we die? Or do we progress to a new version of life?

Is not the veil between life and death, similar to the "veil" of the birthing canal, or the membrane separating the sperm from the egg?

I submit that the YOU sitting in front of the computer screen today, is not the YOU that came from your mother's labor. Not one cell in your body is from the original version of you that arrived into this awesome place. Yet YOU as an entity, concsiousness, spirit...is the same.

I further submit that we all transition from life to death, to life every moment of every, and don't give it a second thought. It is the "sudden" catastrophic failure of our body at the end, to support us (note: our body is no longer us, it is our body, and we are something else in our collective mind thought), that gets our attention and scares us, because we understand we can no longer stay in this plane as we are. We have to move on, and we don't know where moving on will lead us, and Man does not like being uncertain.

Besides missing the physical company of our loved ones, isn't that what the fear of death is all about? We don't know where we are going, just like a fetus does not know what is happening to it's comfortable world, just like the sperm and egg have no idea what will happen next, only that it must happen.

Death is not a ritual, but rather a series of stages, just like significant events in life. Five stages to be exact.

Shock
Anger
Denial
Comprimise/negotiation
Acceptance

The "ritual" for death, is conducted by the living, those left behind.

Oh, and Luna, there is evidence that points to the fact that the "soul/spirit" does infact reside within the body up to the point of death. It has been scientifically proven that the weight of the body before death, is less after death (by a miniscule amount but none the less). We're not talking the weight of air that may have been in the lungs either. This is a measurement immediately after clinically permanent death.

In my occupation, I have held people while they died (I grieve for each one), and I can tell you this, as can any public safety worker with years on the job can. You can feel the spirit leave the body. Sometimes they rush off, and sometimes they linger long enough to "touch" you. Sometimes they stick around long after the body is dead, as if waiting for something, and usually the discovery of the remains is the something they wanted.

Why do we try to hold people back from passing on? Purely selfish reasons. We don't want them to leave us. Ever think about that? Nothing wrong with it, it is just fact.

As Commander Ryker told LT Commander Data (an android) once, "our neural pathways have become accostumed to your sensory input". The android's response?

"I am fond of you as well Commander...".

That says it all.

Thank you both for a thought provoking concept.

v/r

Q

 

[sjr]

Spent some time at a ashram today (6 hours) watched people come and go all day.There is a devotee dying of cancer in the kidneys, doctors give him 2 weeks.The lesson for me was he has had cancer and pain in his back for the last 8 years.But as soon as he got diagnosed(6 days ago) his health has gone straight down hill...he will die in a couple of days.Baba looked me straight in the eyes and said,"the mind is powerfull tool"

Another devotee ashes are in a box, people came and asked ,"hows Lakshmi doing" baba told everyone that asked she is doing fine ,"shes right there in that box" her last words were,"NOTHING really mattered except this".

Intresting teachings today from an Aghori who worships death "In order to live"

 

[Quahom1]

The mind is a powerful tool...what profound words. What a powerful person who believes in those words. What a powerful love. (she is right here...).


No fear, only time.

I pray the young learn to be so old...

v/r

Q

 

[lunamoth]

The "ritual" for death, is conducted by the living, those left behind.

So true, and such a necessary ritual it is.

Oh, and Luna, there is evidence that points to the fact that the "soul/spirit" does infact reside within the body up to the point of death. It has been scientifically proven that the weight of the body before death, is less after death (by a miniscule amount but none the less). We're not talking the weight of air that may have been in the lungs either. This is a measurement immediately after clinically permanent death.

Your lovely description of being with people as they died carries more weight, so to speak, than the evidence you cite above. I'm not familiar with such studies, but I see no more reason to say that it is the emptying of the soul that is measured than to say that it is weight of one's worries that have been lifted, or the spontaneous combustion of symbiotic bacteria.
I'd actually vote for the loss of carbon dioxide due to non-replenished cellular respiration. I gain and lose weight hourly.

 

[Quahom1]

So true, and such a necessary ritual it is.



Your lovely description of being with people as they died carries more weight, so to speak, than the evidence you cite above. I'm not familiar with such studies, but I see no more reason to say that it is the emptying of the soul that is measured than to say that it is weight of one's worries that have been lifted, or the spontaneous combustion of symbiotic bacteria.
I'd actually vote for the loss of carbon dioxide due to non-replenished cellular respiration. I gain and lose weight hourly.

I find nothing lovely about the death of a human. I may find dignity and pride and/or peace, in the way they go (or what they declare before they go), but there is nothing lovely about death.

Carbon dioxide does not dissapate at the rate you profess, and spontaneous combustion of symbiotic bacteria is a ruse. I'm not a seventeen year old snot who thinks he knows everything, and you do not know me. I've been aroung the block a time or two, and know what I know. At least grant me that much.

You have an excellent point however, concerning the "weight" of worries being lifted. That is something I had not considered before.

As for the "evidence" I "sited", pertaining to the weight of a body before and immediately after death, I did not make that up. Medical science cannot explain it. But it is documented fact. The body weighs more before death and less, immediately after death (that is immediately after the "spirit/essence" of the person" has departed).

Did you know for example, that the body lives on (in a fashion) long after the spirit has departed? The heart takes hours to stop attempting to beat (it remains in defibulation for a long time). Finger nails and hair continue to grow days after death.

We are so gentle with the dead for a good reason...we hope they will wake up. It is an insane hope, but none the less we have it in the back of our minds.

We ritualize the death of someone in order to remember them, and to re assure ourselves of our own life.

You're ok. And I'll get over it.

Q

 

[KnightoftheRose]

Oh, and Luna, there is evidence that points to the fact that the "soul/spirit" does infact reside within the body up to the point of death. It has been scientifically proven that the weight of the body before death, is less after death (by a miniscule amount but none the less). We're not talking the weight of air that may have been in the lungs either. This is a measurement immediately after clinically permanent death.

That's pretty interesting - I heard another study showed that an immense electrical discharge left the body upon death, and then just kind of drifted away. If that's true, and that the electrical discharge is the soul as we know it, I guess that emphasizes your point that the soul is actually in the body. Of course, I heard that from an unreliable source (a friend, heh), so I'd take that with a grain of salt...

The "ritual" for death, is conducted by the living, those left behind...
We ritualize the death of someone in order to remember them, and to re assure ourselves of our own life...

Ok, I suppose my point wasn't so much that death itself is a ritual, but that it possesses certain important parallels with ritual. Rituals are purely symbolic - illusions of and allusions to the stages of life. Rituals aren't important themselves; they merely reflect life. If you view the soul as this immortal thing, unneeding of a body to dwell within, then perhaps the body, and all its experience, is unimportant, merely reflecting the state of the soul, whether in birth, death, marriage - whatever. I don't know, this is kind of hard for me to put into words, but my point wasn't really that death is this tangible ritual which we undergo, but rather a reflection of the state of our soul, much like rituals are a reflection of the stages of our lives.

I'm not a seventeen year old snot who thinks he knows everything, and you do not know me.

And by the way, was that comment directed towards me, considering I'm the only 17 year old involved in this thread? I certainly don't think I know everything...just most things

 

[lunamoth]

I find nothing lovely about the death of a human. I may find dignity and pride and/or peace, in the way they go (or what they declare before they go), but there is nothing lovely about death.

Carbon dioxide does not dissapate at the rate you profess, and spontaneous combustion of symbiotic bacteria is a ruse. I'm not a seventeen year old snot who thinks he knows everything, and you do not know me. I've been aroung the block a time or two, and know what I know. At least grant me that much.

You have an excellent point however, concerning the "weight" of worries being lifted. That is something I had not considered before.

As for the "evidence" I "sited", pertaining to the weight of a body before and immediately after death, I did not make that up. Medical science cannot explain it. But it is documented fact. The body weighs more before death and less, immediately after death (that is immediately after the "spirit/essence" of the person" has departed).

Did you know for example, that the body lives on (in a fashion) long after the spirit has departed? The heart takes hours to stop attempting to beat (it remains in defibulation for a long time). Finger nails and hair continue to grow days after death.

We are so gentle with the dead for a good reason...we hope they will wake up. It is an insane hope, but none the less we have it in the back of our minds.

We ritualize the death of someone in order to remember them, and to re assure ourselves of our own life.

You're ok. And I'll get over it.

Q

Wow, Q. In no way did I intend to insult you!

I thought the tenderness with which you described the people you were with as they died was lovely--makes me hope to be in the arms of someone as sensitive as you when I pass on.

As for my other suggestions for the change in the weight of the body upon death, they were not meant to be disrespectful or sarcastic but they were meant to be obviously unprovable or unlikely alteratives to the exit of the soul. However, because you brought it up, as the body does live on after death (how long does it take for the cells to know the brain has died?), and so the cells do continue to respire until all oxygen is depleted, why mightn't the body lose weight in this way after death? You did not tell us how much weight is involved, or how long after death the measurement was made.

I'm content with the nature of the soul being a mystery and don't feel a need to explain it scientifically.

peace,
lunamoth

 

[lunamoth]

Q,

Just to be clear, when you tell me you have witnessed souls being detached from the body at death, I believe you. I think you have experienced something real. I only start to get skeptical when clinical proof is discussed. Then I want to see the data.

Again, I apologize if my post came off harsh or insulting. Not my intention--I'll try to be more careful in the future.

peace,
lunamoth

 

[Vajradhara]

Namaste all,

interesting thread.

from the Buddhist point of view, especially the Vajrayana, Death is the most profound ritual that the sentient being undergoes. depending on one's training, the actual experience of death allows sentient beings their most opportune moment for liberation, though it requires some skill and familiarity with the subject matter

now, since Buddhism doesn't really hold to the concepts of birth and death, we are using death as an easy referent point. the Buddhist view of these things is that beings arise and then cease to arise when the causes and conditions that gave rise to the being cease.

again.. the concepts that we are working with are different than other traditions as well.. as we, quite obviously, don't believe in a soul or Atman, as it's called in our terms.

so.. the ritualized parts of this process are rather varied depending on the particular culture that we are discussing. the Tibetan rituals, for instance, are very different than the ones that are practice in Sri Lanka. in the case of most Buddhist customes that differ from region to region, it's a matter of geography more than anything else.

in the Vajrayana, especially as found in Tibet, the person that is ceasing to be in this world stream can practice the profound teachings of the Bardos to either put an end to the cycle of rebirth or to take rebirth in a particular place to continue to propogate the Dharma. the time it takes for this process varies with the spiritual power of the practiconer and several other congenital factors. nevertheless, for an accomplished adherent, the heart can stay warm for several days whilst the consciousness is engaged in the Bardos. during this time, it is very important that the body not be moved as the consciousness is laid bare and can be rather confusing for the unskilled.

this is one of the reasons that hospitalization for accomplished Buddhist practiconers near the end of this life is a bit of a tricky thing. special arrangments must be made and you need a health care facility that is willing to respect the religious views of folks like us.

 

[ISFP]

hey all

i personally have a hard time seeing death as a ritual passage. probably because the people i've known who are now dead didn't tend to go peacefully. they mostly died suddenly, relatively young, and violently. they would have prefered to go on living.

the ritual passage usually comes later for those who are still alive. we weep, we go nuts for a few days on end, occasionally we get enough of a grip to hold someone's hand. it's not a nice process, and it isn't meant to be. grief can be crazy and awful, and i think if anything's supposed to be crazy and awful, it's grieving. there is a certain ritual to it, though.

time doesn't heal anything. it solidifies wounds into scars, bringing the pain from something visable and outside to something less obvious, more private, that we can touch afterwards and remember.

 

[Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine]

I was with my mother when she exited this Relm of Existence (died) and entered the next Wheel (to utilize a Wiccan/Neopagan term.) It was a long process (my brother and I got to her side at 3 am and she passed at 11:30 am) and not always peaceful/quiet (she suffered from cancer that went to her liver and was in a nursing home in the area for Alzheimer's/dementia) but she went in her sleep.

During her dying/death, some of the staff talked with me about (for lack of a better way to describe it) "the Ritual of Dying". One of the nurses commented about something I told my mother as she was slipping away (I said, "Mom, there can't be a wedding without the bride.") He said, "I never thought of dying as something like getting ready for a wedding. You're right, though. Can't have a wedding without a bride. Can I use it sometime?" I gave him permission.

Phyllis Sidhe_Uaine