We spent the morning at the Pashupatinath Temple. I had no idea where we were going or what to expect. Once we had arrived, one of my newly made friends mentioned very quietly what happened at this Temple. "They burn bodies", at the time I wasn't quite sure what that exactly implied. I started asking myself all the classic questions that come once you've experienced a shock. Why? Where? How? Who?
Things became much more evident when an ambulance truck carrying a dead body inside arrived. It was only the second time I had ever encountered a human body no longer with a soul. We were standing at the gates of the Temple when the thought loomed over me. Did I really want to see what was beyond these gates? I didn't feel uneasy because I was going in to see dead bodies, at least not to the point where I'd have to turn around... I felt the way I did because I contemplated whether it was really my place to watch others loved ones being burnt?
It was a hard feeling to describe. The situation around me was so crazy I felt a little lost trying to navigate what I was feeling. I attempted to use what my past experiences and upbringing have taught me about death, that it is an unfortunate and saddening process. Naturally, that's what we do as humans when we're faced with an unknown situation. We can only react based on what we know. Despite these thoughts, which ellipsed in seconds, I felt an urge from my gut to go through. It was a half "fuck it", half this is why you came here a sense of motivation. It felt incredibly empowering. I knew that what I was about to see would challenge my worldviews, and it certainly did.
I'll never forget when they unloaded the body of a man, unclothed onto a wooden plank. For a brief moment, he was exposed, just a body. Before the transfer, he was covered in a white cloth. Time turned slow motion. I realised more so than ever that the body we have is just a physical manifestation of our spirit and soul. Everyone has a biological being, and everyone has a spirit being, these two energises each other. I think in the Western World we don't appreciate that enough. To me, it explains why we are such a complex species with wild emotions and why we've developed into the beings we are today. We are also just so lucky to have bodies that have such impressive capabilities. They are what makes us so unique as a species.
The whole experience made me second guess the way we send off or celebrate deaths back home. These families get to watch their loved ones bodys return back to the Earth and see their spirits move into the afterlife. Whereas in our societies we grieve hard, and if we cremate we don’t get to see or appreciate any of that returning process. I guess what makes our grief so epic and intense is because we don’t hold the belief that it’s just a process of leaving a body that we adopted during our short visit on the Earth. We believe that the human body was everything we are and will ever be, so when we do die, it’s like we’ve lost the human entity completely. We live on through the memories made and impressions left with every person we grace in our life. That group might only be a handful of people, or it might be a whole population. It’s about the way we have made others feel, just by being ourselves. If there were more of a recognition of this fact, maybe many of our funerals wouldn’t be so sad, nor would our societies be so afraid of death. Imagine living in a society whose members didn’t fear death. Imagine what we would achieve.
This all being said, regardless of how empowering we can make death, to say goodbye to a friend or loved one will always be hard and painful. Because, of course making new memories with those friends while they’re still with us will always be more special than looking back on memories made. But we have to appreciate just how lucky we are in the first place to be granted the opportunity to make memories. It is truly wild, creating rare moments in the present to enjoy in the future of our past. I'll leave you with that.
Thank you kindly for reading, I appreciate that befriending and talking about death is no easy task sometimes. But I genuinely believe at least thinking about it a little more will only enhance the lives we live now.
