by Tony Ogunlowo
Every three years in the village of Toraja in South Sualwesi, in
Indonesia they hold a very strange festival. They exhume the
bodies of their deceased relatives, clean them up, dress them in
new clothes and put them on display.
While this might be grotesque, disgusting and not to everybody’s
taste the Cleansing of the Corpses festival is held so that the
spirit of the deceased can return to its place of origin, hence the
dressing up and all that. While this might conflict with
everyone’s view of life after death it highlights one important
fact – when we die all that we leave behind in this world is just
a shrivelled corpse.
It doesn’t matter how rich, famous, beautiful, handsome, good or
evil you are, when you die the only thing you leave behind is
dried-up flesh on a skeleton.
I like to liken the human being to a car. It could be any car from
a cheap Skoda to the top of the range Bugati. Without a human
driver behind the wheel (or a human to program it as regards
the new driverless cars) it’s nothing but a pile of fancy metal
on wheels on wheels that will just sit there without moving.
Likewise a human being is nothing but flesh and bones until you
insert a soul to drive it.
Before we are born we sign a contract that when we come into
this world, as a new born baby, we will come with nothing and
when our earthly time is up we will leave with nothing, just
leaving behind a shrivelled corpse to be buried or cremated(-
and hopefully not exhumed and displayed as the Indonesians
do!)
From the time we are born to the time we depart we live an
Earthly life. Our souls are in a physical body that grows from
that of a toddler to that of a fully grown adult. In between birth
and death we learn and grow, contributing to this earthly world,
good or bad, before we depart. We are like people who emigrate
to live in foreign lands before one day returning home; the
foreign land will never be your home and you can’t stay forever
– you have to return to the source – and with nothing as
promised before you came to life.
Shakespeare once said ‘All the Worlds a stage. And all men and
women merely players; they have their exits and their
entrances’. We are born to play a role or roles. What this role
is depends on the individuals’ destiny. Some are born to be
teachers, pastors or leaders. Others are born to be rich or poor,
good or bad. Some might be builders, inventors or market
porters. We all have a role to play in the upkeep and
development of this word.
Whilst we are Masters of our own destiny (to a certain
degree!) we are in the habit of changing our direction, from
time to time, to worship the insatiable demands of our physical
bodies and the material world around us. We want more money
(at any cost!). We want bigger houses. We want more fame.
Everything we want, want, want is just to satisfy the vessel we
call a human being, which in many cases may not be in
accordance to the ‘driving’ soul’s directive. When things are not
done in accordance to the soul’s reason for being on Earth it
upsets the balance of things. This is when people sin (- and
there’s a long list of naughty things we do!) with their sins
affecting the lives of others and even the physical world we
inhabit – people start wars killing people, destroying property
and habitats. We deprive others of what is rightly theirs and so
on and so forth.
And all for what?
We do all these things because of our want for the material
things of life. We have basic needs and things we don’t need or
could do without – but still clamour to get – things you can’t take
with you when you go.
The sixth richest man in the world turned up in Nigeria the
other day and people marvelled at how simple he looked clad in
T-shirt and jeans, no watch, no designer trainers, nothing.
It’s because people like him realize that life on this planet is an
illusion. You’re probably here for a short period of time,
probably not more than a hundred years. You might have money
to fly in private planes
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