The Parsi Community is caught into a violent storm, where thoughts and feelings and sentiments and confusion and bewilderment are propelled up and down on all sides. Their age-old mode of Dokhm-e-nashini is having strong tremors. The community is confused. To add to the perplexity, political equations are written and unwritten; alliances are made and unmade.
The worst hit are the Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees. "We are for the 'system'," they declared and then faced an onslaught from the prominent DDD's. The so termed orthodox roared in meetings and sittings. Their call now seems to be : continue the Dokhma as it goes on. DDD's shout : it has failed; however, if you want to go on, do so; but give us a Bangli on the land, where those bodies which are to be cremated could be brought, their Sachkaar, Geh Sarnaa, Uthamanu Sarosh be performed, then they be taken to a crematorium wherever outside the Dokhma, and their remaining 4 days ceremony be allowed to be performed in the Bangli. Orthodox furore again! No encouragement to crematorium; no use of Dokhma land for crematorianists. At one point, the knocking of the Court doors came dangerously near. Both factions met the trustees several times. Heat, temperature; rudeness, refined and unrefined; tea and biscuits.
As I observed from the outside of the storm, both factions did not want to go to Court. Why? And here both were found to be of one view that going to Court will expose "the present state of affairs at Doongervadi"! Then again when it is asked what is "this state of affair", the two suddenly and violently depart. "The system is working well; not that bad; crows and kites are doing it" - say the orthodox. "The system has become 'a health hazard,' a failure" say the DDD.
What about the trustees? They are bewildered. Their agony is quite some years old. They were frantically trying to consider "saving of the system" by various means like aviary and solar rays, and herbal powder and Ozone gas and acid carbonates. They were having meetings with some supposed to be important people since last three years. It was the disappearance of vultures that had caused the whole trouble. Your humble editor had attended a few of the meetings It was stated that the bodies are lying on the pavis and in the Bhandaar, the deep well within. The stench was reported to be acute in the Spenta complex and in Godrej Baag. Now it is said, the stench is reduced. As late as on 13-5-2001, Jam-e-Jamshed at page 12 carries a report of the erudite Dr. Homi Dhalla that the experiment with solar concentrator has proved extremely hopeful. The focused rays of the sun are observed to dehydrate the body and reduce it to a skeleton, dry and ready to be immersed in the Bhandar-well, by the fifth day. It seems that the concept of an urbanised Dokhma without vultures is now in the offing. It will be perhaps the best compromise between an ideal Dokhma as ordained by the Din and the present times of Kyamat - i.e., the most inhuman times.
How do we lay people look at the situation? We present to our readers', this special Issue on Dokhma and Dokhm-e-nashini. We place before you some relevant facts from Din and Duniya i.e. the mystical facts about the human journey in the next world and the existing facts of our experience of our daily life.
18-5-2001 - Editor. Ervad K.N. Dastoor ……………( Presently Vada Dasturji of Navsari)
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DOKHM-E-NASHINI NOT A MERE SYSTEM OF DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD BODY.
A SPIRITUAL INSTITUTION Helping the Departed Ruvaan (Soul) In Its Journey in the Next World.
Chapter I
Three Components of a Living Human
An infinitely small speck called earth revolves and rotates in an infinitely expansive sky. It carries with it about 5 billions of human beings and millions of species of animals. We call those humans and animals as "the life" on the globe; and all life is prelude to death, as if death is an important part of life. So say all Religions and all saints, and they advise us to prepare for death during our life.
But we, the non-saintly people do not know what is death. We see a running and jumping energetic body suddenly becoming still and lying on the floor. What has happened? There was something in this body, which seems to have left the body. Was there really "something" within it? If so, where has "it" gone and how and why?
Modern science has no answer. Seers and Saints know. They know the science of life and death. Seers can see and saints can experience,. They proclaim that as there is death after life, so there is life after death. They are inseparable. All Religions have described that life as the onward journey of the "soul".
Let us delve a little into what the Zarthoshti Din Says about this life-death-life... cycle and the journey after death. (It is not much different from what other Religions say).
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We identify human beings by their faces and bodies. So much so that we equate a man or woman with his or her body; and we ourselves think that the word "I" means the body. But that is not true. The very fact that we pray for the dead and get ceremonies performed for the dead, indicate that there is more to a human than the body alone. We have a hazy notion that there is something like 'soul' in us. We often use the word "Ruvaan" for "the departed soul".
All Religions teach the composition of a human. Their wordings, terminologies and picturisations appear different, but the Science they teach is inherently the same. We try to understand the Science in the Zarthoshti terminology.
The Living Human.
There are three components to a human being living on earth. In English, we can call them: (i) physical (ii) non-physical (iii) divine.
The physical is the body of our daily experience. It has an exterior with face, hand, chest, stomach, legs, etc.; and an interior with brain, heart, intestine etc., which can be seen on a surgery table. This body is made up of 'cells'. Cells are large molecular combinations of certain atoms like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur.
The non-physical component is not made of the atoms of matter. It is an energy formation. Certain subtle kinds of spiritual energies are combined with each other, and result in the formation of "energy strings". These are beyond the vision and imagination of the ordinary non-saintly humans like us. The physical sciences cannot fathom them. The seers and saint, who can see and know, declare that the physical body of our experience is the result of the vibrations, rotations and revolutions of these subtle energy strings. The Zarthoshti Science has named them "Anaasar". They are classified in the multiples of 4. There is a series indicating their classifications viz. 4, 4 x 2, 4 x 4, 4 x 8, 4 x 16, 4 x 64. (The Kriya of Taano in Dokhma is based on these energy equations. More about it later.)
The Zarthoshti Mystical Science teaches that the cells in the physical body are alive because of the energies emanating from the "Anaasar"s of the non-physical body. The energy to live is thus a flow from the "Anaasar"s. At death the flow is switched off. The cells loose their energy; they die; the physical body dies; but the Anaasar's are still vibrating. They are now to be separated from the physical body; and here, the devouring of the corpse by the vultures and the parallel rays of the sun achieve this separation. Why is this disintegrating chemistry necessary for the departed, we'll see later.
Let us first have a complete elementary picture of the composition of a human. We have seen that the second component of the living human personality is the non-physical energy body. It is the storehouse of spiritual energy. It radiates and infuses that energy into the physical body. It is because of this energy that the physical body lives i.e. has life in it. The energy reaches the 'Anaasar's, energise them and enlivens the cells. In elementary terminology, this energy storehouse - the non-physical component - is called "Keherpa".
Then there is a third component: the divine. In a simpler word, it is called "Ruvaan," something akin to soul or Atmaa in the great Hindu Dharma. The physical body is made up of matter. The Keherpa - the second component - is made up of spiritual energy; and Ruvaan is composed of the Light Divine, the Light of Ahura, sometimes also called Yazatic Light. Every human, may he be a die hard sinner or a holy saint, has a spark of Ahuramazda in him. (No doubt, 'she' and 'her' included!)
In the deeper Science, each of the three component have 3 subdivisions, which are named in Yazashney Ha 55:
I Physical: Tanu, Gaethaa, Azda
II Non-physical: Keherpa, Ushtaan, Teyvishi.
III Divine: Ruvaan, Baodaang, Fravash.
It is beyond the scope of this article to go deeper into this science.
WHAT ABOUT THE MIND AND CONSCIOUSNESS?.
The humans on earth have a peculiar faculty; consciousness. To be conscious means to be aware of anything through some identification process going on in us. It is often equated with mind. It is the mind which is said to be aware of something; in other words the mind has power to think on things of which it is aware. However scientists, psychologists and psychiatrics have explored various levels of consciousness in men, women and children by various methods. There lies deep in the humans a store of memories and unknown regions. Numerous books are written by Western Scientists on this subject. The emerging picture is confusing. However, the Saints Sages and Seers of all Religions and Mystic Sciences have gifted to the humans several 'Yogic exercises and disciplines to expand the consciousness. This means to be conscious of things of which we have no idea whatsoever at the present stage.
The Zarthoshti Mysticism reveals a complicated science of consciousness. Very tersely, a human has three kinds of consciousness; each is associated with the three components narrated above. Each of the three has one kind of consciousness. The physical body has a physical consciousness; the non-physical part -Keherp - has spiritual consciousness; the divine component - the Ruvaan has its own consciousness. In the ordinary non-saintly people like us, the only consciousness which is awake and working is the physical; the other two non-physical and divine are sleeping. In the saints and sages these two are awakened in various levels.
Why am I saying all this? Because it has great relevance to life, death, disposal of the dead body and above all Dokhm-e-nashini.
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(Parsi Pukar August-September 2000 - Vol. 6; No. 1)
