why in this country for thousands of years we have chosen not to bury the dead, but to give them to fire…OSHO

Sannyas has to be a real break away. A loving surrender to the new....

why in this country for thousands of years we have chosen not to bury the dead, but to give them to fire...

This place, this space that you are creating by your meditations, is the right space in which to live, love, laugh, and it is also the right space in which to leave the body and go into the beyond, disappear into the ultimate existence.

It is a moment of rejoicing. Rejoice, and dance, and celebrate.

And when the funeral pyre's flames start moving upwards, remember why in this country for thousands of years we have chosen not to bury the dead, but to give them to fire. There is a special reason for it.

Fire is the only thing you know which does not allow any gravitation. It always goes upwards. The fire is a symbol of your spirituality; it always goes upwards. No gravitation can pull it down.

Secondly, when you have lived in your body for so many years there arises naturally a certain attachment to the body.

The body is prone to be attracted by gravitation. But when the consciousness sees the body burning — with the body burning, all your attachments with the body, all your prisons that have taken you to many bodies in many lives, start disappearing.

One feels a tremendous freedom rising with the flames towards the sky.

And you know … You see flames, and soon they disappear.

They are visible only for a few moments, then they become invisible. Fire is a great symbol of purification, of detachment, of rising vertically towards the ultimate space which is our home.

We come from there, and we go back there.

OSHO