By Jonathan Taylor
From ‘Why We Die’, by Dr Richard Steinpach.
Arthur Koestler (Der Mensch: Irrlaufer der Evolution) says:
“ ‘Self-assertion versus Integration… exists in biology, psychology, ecology, and wherever we encounter complex hierarchical systems, thus practically everywhere we look. In the living animal or the living plant each part must assert its individuality just as in the social system, because otherwise the organism would lose its structure and disintegrate.
‘But at the same time each part must bow to the demand of the whole. In a healthy organism and a healthy society the two tendencies are balanced at all levels of the hierarchy.’
“Quite a few people believe that the final goal of our path is Nirvana, the complete dissolution of our ego into an all-embracing power. The mistaken idea that the ego is something deserving of destruction could only arise because here, on this low earthly plane, we know it for the most part only as selfishness, as egotism….. therefore, let us not derive the task assigned to us in the order of creation from the faulty current state, but from the healthy desired stated… this order of creation is so perfect that cooperating in service within it means, at the same time, the greatest personal advantage.”
So the good dokter is incidentally implying that the personalized funeral is the only right course even in the service of religion. And that therefore the religious boys should butt out and let the celebrants take over the job that religion is doing so badly and so misguidedly.
Blimey!