These unique death rituals from around the world are interesting to learn and maybe even use at your own funeral

By Jeeheon Cho from Surat Thani, Thailand - Varanasi River BankUploaded by Ekabhishek, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10681661 Here is a fascinating and touching story about Varanasi, the most sacred place for devout Hindus. One of the things that makes it so sacred is that it is a destination for many dying Hindus who believe that they can only reach moksha, or freedom from the cycle of rebirth, by taking God's name and dying in the holy city. Moni Basu, a practicing Hindu and a reporter for CNN, follows an 80 year old Hindu who wants to take his last breath in the city of Varanasi. That city is what Basu calls the "epicenter" of Hinduism. It is to Hindus what Mecca is to Muslims and what Jerusalem is to Christians. But unlike those cities, Varanasi is a destination for many dying Hindus. Basu explains why dying in Varanasi is so important. And she introduces us to Mukti Bhavan, a "liberation" house where some Hindus spend their eleventh hour. Basu calls it "Hotel Death." There, she tells us, she saw death in a "new light." The house lacked warmth, love, or "any other emotions we linked to the process of dying." But later in the story, we see the house through the eyes of its manager, Bhairavnath Shukla. For him, death is not to be mourned. In fact, he sees it as mukti, or liberation. According to Basu "he and everyone else at Mukti Bhavan see death in Varanasi as a marriage of one's soul with God?" Basu's story helps us to understand Hindu spirituality and the significance of Varanasi in sustaining it. Does the Hindu view of the afterlife differ from other religions. Basu included a chart of those views which you can see below.

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BY LISA MARIE BASILE

For the Torajan people of Indonesia, death is part of a spiritual journey: families keep the mummified remains of their deceased relatives in their homes for years – and some are invited to join for lunch on a daily basis – before they are eventually buried. Even then, they are regularly exhumed to be cleaned and cared for

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When it comes to death most of us fear it. Our reaction is deeply rooted on the lack of familiarization with death. We have an extensive and nourishing vocabulary to help us teach children about life yet death is one of those subjects which remains taboo or is often demonized. We tend to use the concept of death not that differently than when speaking of the “boogie man”; with fear, anxiety and sometimes even hostility. That is why I decided to write about Death; for it is an inevitable part of life.

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Bizarre funeral traditions or shocking death ritual. People of different cultures performs some weird rituals of disposing of their loved ones to the God.

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