In joy or sorrow ?

Funeral is a ceremony honoring someone who has recently died, which happens  before burying the body.

There is a big difference in attitudes to a funeral in many religions.

Tet's turn to some of them.

Funeral in Christianity 

From the Orthodox point of view, the death of a person ,as a believer, is the "Assumption", such falling asleep. Death is a transition to the other world, the birth of eternity.  

According to the church the deceased has not disappeared, has not destroyed , he fell asleep and the soul went on a long journey, to meet God, he really needs our prayers, church funeral service, charity, good deeds perpetrated for the memory of the deceased person. 

According to the main dogma of Christianity people believe not in the resurrection of the soul ,as we all know that the human soul is immortal, they believe that during the Second Coming of the Savior, our bodies will be resurrected, and we will be consistent again.

Therefore, people prepare the body for burial: bathe it , dress in clean, cover with white shrouds and bury in the ground in the bed where the body sleeps, waiting for the voice of the Archangel pipe. Thus, taking care of a decent burial rights, we express our faith in the resurrection.

Funeral in Christianity is a terrible event , the relatives of the deceased are depressed by the grief, all dressed in black ,a tragedy is on their faces.

In contrast to the Christianity, Buddhism which is so widely spread in India, has another process of funeral.

From Buddhism point of view

The bodies of the dead adherents of Hinduism burn on funeral pyres.

Death is not only natural, it is desirable. To know the truth, according to the teachings of the Buddha, humans should suppress all the sensory impressions, all the colors and smells of the earth. That is why the death is a necessary step to the ideal.

After the death a person can expect three variants of fate: the instantaneous rebirth ,so-called reincarnation , entering into hell until the universe in a new body and  passing into nirvana.

To make you understand I would like to look in detail at each of the ways of fate. So ,the instantaneous rebirth is like a torment for a human . 

Bad and as well as good deeds leave some traces. If before the death  human soul filled with bad deeds , he is going to hell , than he will be reborn . The chance of rebirth is given to a human in order to fix his sins. And when he cleans karma with a help of good deeds and than he finally goes to nirvana. Isn’t it an exciting journey ? 

It seems that from Buddhism point of view the human is given an opportunity  to change for the better but in Christianity, if you killed someone ,the confession won’t save you ,you are going to hell. In Buddhism you are given countless amount of rebirth ,in order to help you finally realize your crimes and stand on the right path.

Many Buddhist countries have traditionally used the cremation. It is recommended to cremate the body for hygienic and economic reasons. Currently, the world's population increases, and if we will continue to occupy valuable land with the dead bodies,  one day the whole earth will be occupied by the dead and there will be no place for alive.

By the way, Buddhists do not believe that one day God will come and raise the dead from their graves.

The consciousness or mental energy of the deceased is not connected with the left body skeleton or ashes. Dead body - it's just an empty old house.

Feelings at funerals 

So what the funeral should look like and what feelings should people have about it? 

Many people in the world celebrate the funeral . Yes ,it is celebrated because for them it is like a celebration . For example, instead of striving for eternal life, the British guests at the funeral  pay more attention to pleasant memories of the deceased. 

In Britain, the attitude has changed dramatically for the funeral. Mourning for the dead is increasingly replaced by honoring his life.

Perhaps the death - only an integral part of life. But it is changing. Now it is - time for joy.

The atmosphere is not dark or a memorial mood, but rather a celebratory and joyful. Guests are asked not to come in black. Most likely you will hear the song "Always look on the bright side of life" Monty Python - more popular 

at the UK funeral.

Such ceremony is- not for everyone. Many people still prefer the traditional church funeral service with its quiet grandeur or social farewell which is more ceremonial than cheerful.

In Lithuania, people have a creative attitude to death , they come farther and have even created a social network for the dead - "Virtual Cemetery". Authors of the project offer to transfer your data and create a virtual grave. You can choose a background for it, place on the page, photos and videos, write an epitaph or select it from the options. There you can share memories with relatives or write condolences. Instead of the "Like" the option of "honor the memory".

The page can be synchronized with profiles in all social networks. Each profile in the virtual cemetery will be given a unique code that can be pasted on the grave, where he will be seen by visitors and they can go to a personal page of deceased. Also, relatives will be able to update the information . For example, a report about the installation of a new monument in the real cemetery.

There is no doubt that people express their grief differently, and it can cause  a great confusion among relatives. 

The older generation may consider such "celebration of life" as something disrespectful. Others perceive traditional ceremony as too dark and cheerless. 

There are many famous examples of people who would have preferred merry funeral.

Let’s take  81-year-old Malcolm Brokelgersta a former aircraft from Klivliz for example. He carefully planned his own funeral, which should fully reflect his unique life , informs ZIK website.

After the death the remains of Malcolm will be put in a coffin with the shape of the aircraft and transported in Bloomfield Park, near the stadium of his favorite football team, "Blackpool". Coffin-aircraft will be painted orange colors -colour of his favorite team , and the body of Malcolm will be dressed in his  home clothing .

Then the coffin will be transported on the open truck to the crematorium of Blackpool and guests will share their memories of Malcolm. After that, they will be invited "to twist the propeller to send me to the Moon" - explains Malcolm. He has already held a general rehearsal.

He does not want them to cry. The purpose of the ceremony is not to think about the loss, he said, but rejoice what kind of life he lived: "I do not want them to miss me - I want to make guests laugh"- said Malcolm.

This vision of a funeral is completely different from the usual Christian rites, which recently prevailed in the UK.

Here's another example of a "merry funeral" . Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the group Sex Pistols, was driven  through the northern part of London, accompanied by about two hundred people, having fun while singing along the song "My Way" by Sid Vicious. Paying tribute to his father, McLaren's son said that his father was the "original punk rocker" who had "revolutionised the world".

"He's somebody I'm incredibly proud of. He's a real beacon of man for people to look up to," he said  for the BBC news website.

There is no doubt that when we lose someone who was closer to us than the others we feel great pain ,I am not going to say that we should be positive about death , I am talking about funeral , when we accompany a person to another world at the funeral we need to remember only the good things ,that is why we need to stay in a good mood.