Question: Before I became a disciple, I donated my body tissue to a tissue bank, like a hospital where you can donate organs of your body when you die. Should I try to get out of that obligation?

Sri Chinmoy: Now that you have accepted our path, what is your immediate reaction?

Question: My present feeling is that it doesn’t make any difference to me.

Sri Chinmoy: It is a matter of individual opinion. In India, a body is burned for purification. In the West it is usually buried. My feeling is that the body has to be purified to the end. As long as it is a physical body, the need for purification remains, and as long as the body remains as such, it must get a chance for purification. For this, the Fire God is invoked.

In the West, people feel that if they donate their dead body to science, they will be making a sacrifice or offering. They feel that the body has made tremendous sacrifices to mankind, to Mother Earth, and as long as it isn’t totally disintegrated, it has to offer itself again. Here it is a question of sacrifice. If you are convinced that by sacrificing your body to medical science you are going to help medical science to gain knowledge and medical wisdom, you can do it. But again, although you will be dead, the body has an inner consciousness which will be there. In order to gain some knowledge, some doctors will take pleasure in torturing your body. They will say they are making the supreme discovery. Now, it is you who have to make the final decision. If you pray and meditate, you will try to do the right thing. If you dive deep within, you will get the message.

From:Sri Chinmoy,AUM — Vol.II-3, No. 5, 27 May 1976, Vishma Press, 1976
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