Lecture Notes for Part 9

Care of the Body After Death

• The care of the body and the means of its disposal after death is an important question with more far reaching consequences than we may imagine.
• If all goes well at the time of death, the soul takes flight and is in the best possible place for its forward evolution.
• Loving friends and relatives have kept the vigil and done the necessary spiritual work. Now the mortal remains must be disposed of in the appropriate way.
• The body is a vehicle for Spirit. Even when it has served its purpose and is no longer useful, it is still to be honored and treated with reverence and respect, even though the owner is no longer present.
• Those who handle the body, at the time of death and beyond, should be respectful and loving towards to the body and the soul.
• Although it may be uncomfortable to think about whether to choose cremation or burial, it is important to understand the subject.

Burial of the Body

• Flesh and blood cannot inherit the earth, and yet many bodies are buried there. In the ritual of the burial, the body is interred in the earth. Spiritually speaking, this is not the ideal solution for a number of reasons, the most important of which concerns the light in the physical body.
• The light remains in the body that is in the grave. Yet the light is intended to return to the plane of Spirit. To achieve this, the light must gradually dissolve into the earth, through the process of the decay of the body, aided by the forces and creatures in the earth. From the perspective of the soul, this takes a long time, and the light is subject to loss and may fall prey to other forces in an unguarded moment.
• The soul also tends to be attached to the body, making it harder for her to progress upwards. The loved ones remaining may also be attached to the body because there is a focus of the body in the earth. On the positive side, there is also a place for loved ones to return to and to visit.
• The grave and cemeteries can be associated with much grief and mourning. They make us think of death and the loss of the loved one rather than the victory of eternal life and the sense that our loved one has moved on to higher service.
• There is a morbidity that surrounds the consciousness of death and dying. This is one reason why people do not like to attend funerals. Not only is there the loss of the loved one, but there is often an overwhelming sense of depression and death that seems to cling to everyone. All too often, although we speak of the joy of the soul returning to God, there is a sense of oppression and dark despair.
• Cemeteries are a place for discarnate entities to gather. A discarnate entity is simply a spirit without a body. Remember, in the movie Ghost, the lady without a body who waved to Sam at his funeral? She was a discarnate spirit. The presence of such entities is why cemeteries and graveyards often have a heavy feeling to them.
• From the perspective of heaven and the nature spirits and beings of the elements caring for the body of the earth itself, the burial of bodies in the earth is an additional burden that they have to bear, in a planet already overloaded and polluted with toxins, wastes and chemicals.
• Regular spiritual work needs to be done for the cemeteries of the world to clear them of the dark energies that often surround them, to clear the discarnate entities and to cut free the souls who may be trapped there.
• The ritual of burial is tied in some instances to the doctrine that when Jesus Christ comes in his Second Coming he shall raise all from the dead, and their bodies will rise and they will join him in the resurrection physically.
• The ascended masters do not subscribe to that belief. But those who do may consider it to be catastrophic that a loved one's body has been cremated. This is understandable.

Why the Masters Do Not Recommend Embalming

• The ascended masters do not subscribe to embalming the body after death. Embalming is the process of replacing the body fluids and blood with substances that will preserve the body for posterity.
• During embalming the light becomes locked in the blood as well as in the fiery core of the cells and the atoms. Embalming also usually involves the removal of the blood, which is then deposited in the earth. A part of ourselves is then not sealed and taken to higher octaves.
• Embalming and burial of the body actually prolongs the death and the consciousness of death.
• Idolatry of the self that perpetuates the need for all of the trappings of death and the expense that goes with them. It is based on the false belief that immortality is to be found in the ground.
• The angel at the tomb of the risen Christ said to the holy women, I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
• Spiritually, it is best if the flesh and blood is intact and undisturbed. Autopsy is only performed if there is suspected foul play or the cause of death needs to be determined and settled. Cremation is the preferred way to dispose of the body.

Cremation as the Ascended Master Way

• From heaven's perspective, cremation is the best means of the disposal of the body. The ascended masters recommend cremation, and it is gaining in popularity in many places around the world.
• If people even had a glimmer of the spiritual benefits, they would do this one thing for themselves, (i.e. be sure that their body would be cremated after death).
• This alone would be a tremendous assist to the consciousness and spiritual progress of the soul and of the planet itself.
• Cremation is the process of consigning the physical body to the physical fire. These days, funeral homes are equipped with crematoriums, a modern means of disposal of the body.
• The body is placed in a coffin or box and placed in the crematorium. Extremely high temperatures are used, and the process takes some hours. Eventually all that is left is small pile of ash. The soul and the body do not feel any pain in this process.
• There is no odor that can be detected, and there is nothing unpleasant about the process - in fact it is quite clean and clinical. There is still the service for the loved one, and there are rituals prior to the cremation that are recommended.

The Spiritual Benefits of Cremation

• Cremation by fire enables the soul to easily free herself from the emotional attachments to the body.
• Those who are present in a cremation, and who are spiritually sensitive, may often notice a sense of release and a lifting of the energies of grief and mourning. It is as if the soul is free to fly to her rightful place.
• Cremation helps the remaining family to get over their attachment to their loved one and to move on with their appointed tasks. It is easier for them to consider that the soul is now in the higher realms of light.
• The process of cremation not only dissolves the physical form but it also erases from the four lower bodies many harmful records.
• The physical fire can affect the finer bodies, and can eliminate some burdensome material in the mental, emotional (astral) and etheric bodies.
• Karmic records, traumas from this or past lives, many things can go into the physical flame, and there is a sense of release.
• Cremation accelerates the return of the entire consciousness that exists within the cells of the body to that one's Higher Self for purification.
• In contrast, it is very difficult for those whose bodies are interred to afterwards perform the necessary rituals at inner levels to liberate their light and consciousness from that focus of themselves in the earth.
• Cremation is also an excellent means of returning the physical body to nature - it is safe, sanitary and healthy. When a body is buried it undergoes a process of decay and disintegration over a period of weeks and months. It is prey to the creatures of the earth and to the demons that come to feed on the light.
• When a body is cremated, the soul is cut free from all earthly ties. The vultures have no flesh and blood and the demons have no prey. The astral sheath consumed by the physical/spiritual fire, does not roam the earth, a ghost of the former self. The astral hordes that would seek to devour the light are put to flight. The soul has clean escaped the mortal round and is heard singing as it ascends to heaven.
• The cremation process is clean and the body is disposed of quickly.
• It does not mean the person is forgotten or is not honored. There can be a funeral urn containing the ashes. Mostly however the ashes are returned to nature.

Cremation as an Ancient Rite of Purification

• Cremation is an ancient rite of purification, practiced on Atlantis. On the altar of the Temples of Atlantis, there was the Maxin Light, placed there by a great avatar, thousands of years before. Whenever someone died, their body was placed into that flame, and it immediately dissolved. This was one of the temple rituals performed on Atlantis, described in the book A Dweller on Two Planets by Phylos the Tibetan.
• Cremation is rite of the sacred fire, a spiritual as well as a physical ritual, used to return the energy of physical substance that is tired to its source.
• Matter that is tired needs to pass through the flame, to recycle back to the source, repolarized and recharged, so that it can be used again in the creative process. We pass through the change called death because the bodies we wear have become used and tired.
• There is another advantage to cremation. In these days of plague, of cancer and AIDS, ecologically speaking, it is not wise to bury the bodies of the sick. It is a further burden for the body of the earth to bear, and it is already bearing much. It is more material for elemental life to transmute, and it is kinder to not place such a burden on the planet.
• There is also the possibility of contamination through underground streams, rainfall and groundwater, and the potential of the transmittal of deadly diseases.
• After considering this information, you may decide that you wish to be cremated when your time comes.
• Make certain that there is a statement in your will that says that your remains are to be cremated, so that well-meaning family members do not change that situation after the fact, and therefore bury the body and cause a prolongation of the disintegration of the body, and hence the light that is in the body and the cells.
• There are certain prayers that you may wish to give at a cremation service.

Moving Onward and Upward

• From a spiritual perspective, in the hour of cremation, the soul is glad to cast aside the outworn garment and to consign it to the sacred fire.
• As one of the great masters has said:

  So shall thy remains be - as thy soul soars upward to thy God - not dust to dust but crystal fire mist to crystal. And the white crystal becomes the leaven in the earth, evermore permeating and transmuting Matter.

• The flame makes all like itself, leaving a pile of ash. The prophet ascended holds in his hand, the ash resulting from his own cremation fires. The crystal white ash is then scattered to the winds. The light and the fragrance then charges the earth with the consciousness that is concentrated in these remains.
• Cremation liberates us from morbidity and attachment to the form. The form is not reborn, but the soul is clothed in the white raiment of the righteousness of the saints.
• For the body is composed of light, and the light in the nucleus of every atom and molecule and cell must be demagnetized from the earth, earthy, and the dust must be allowed to return to dust. The light that is preserved in the cells is allowed to spiral upwards to God, as it is released from its encasement in form by the purifying fire element.

The Beings of Fire Who Assist at the Cremation

• The nature spirits of the fire element, known as the fiery salamanders, do the noble work of purification through fire. It is their priestly duty to return the light in the body to the Father-Mother God, the original source of its creation.
• Salamanders are fiery beings, nature spirits whose auras ripple with the colors of the rainbow rays. Composed of liquid fire, they reflect the consciousness of those whom they serve. Their appearance is constantly changing, for their chameleon-like natures instantly reflect the prism of the Christ consciousness that plays upon their forms.
• They carry rods of white lightning as scepters of authority to hold the balance of the fire element in the world of form. Being of the realm of Spirit, salamanders are formless, are not confined to any dimension; standing nine feet tall, they may reduce their size, with the flicker of a flame, to an inch in height.
• They are beings of tremendous power; and if captured by black magicians, they can be extremely destructive, but in the service of those who love the Christ - which is where they love to be - there is nothing they cannot do to uplift the standards of the race.
• We invite the fiery salamanders to be present at the cremation service to do their important work.

Resources for Further Study

• www.SummitLighthouse.org1-800-245-5445 USA
• Messages from Heaven, Patricia Kirmond
• Death, Discarnates and Malevolent Spirits, Lectures Part I, II and III, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, CD on Demand
• A Dweller on Two Planets by Phylos the Thibetan
• Climb the Highest Mountain, The Path to Immortality, pp. 318-22 teaching on cremation and the fire element.