Petition for a more meaninful Zoroastrianism

CAUTION: PLEASE BE WARNED THIS VIDEO HAS VERY DISTURBING CONTENT!!

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/bury-funeral-ritual-parsi-woman/20608-3-1.html

These are pictures of the rotting dead bodies of Parsees from the insides of the towers of silence in Mumbai. The bodies lie rotting here for years and years on end. This is surely not a picture that any Zoroastrian could have imagined and the community has reacted with much shock. The Bombay Parsee Panchayat, instead of doing something about the dead rotting bodies, has decided to initiate action against Ms. Dhun Baria, a 65 year old religious Parsee lady, who only exposed what is the truth. The orthodox Parsees of the Bombay Parsee Panchayat will inquire into the security breach and initiate legal action if possible against the Dhun Baria and CNN-IBN.

Put your own self in the place of Dhun Barias mother and now put yourself in the place of Dhun Baria. Think about it whenever we die how many of us would want to end up rotting for years in the hell that has become of our towers of silence?

It is time to truly open our eyesto those dead rotting bodies which some of us so wish would not be exposed to the rest of the world. Now that we know about this are we going to continue to send our loved ones to an afterlife of decay and dishonour? Is this what we have to look forward to at the end of our lives? We must realize that this is the perpetration of a much larger hypocrisy- part of a larger problem of how the religion is practiced today- and how futile are the attempts of the orthodox members of the Bombay Parsee Panchayat to protect what is dead and defunct.

If you are concerned about this in anyway and agree with the basic sentiment with which I have written the following the letter and email it to those you who may think likewise.

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AN OPEN LETTER TO ZOROASTRIANS OF THE WORLD AND THEIR FRIENDS:
We the undersigned believe that:

The orthodox members of the Bombay Parsee Panchayat who want to prosecute Dhun Baria for 'exposing' the truth about the towers of silence do not stand in any which way as a voice for the larger community of Zoroastrians and Zoroastrian youth in India and across the world.
It is shameful that Dhun Baria a poor 65 year old Zoroastrian lady, should be prosecuted by the powerful for bringing to light what is only the truth about the condition of our dead brethren. If we are proud of this ancient practice then why should it be hidden from the rest of the world? They call it an internal matter precisely because they are hypocritical and because they are afraid of change!
A so called progressive, learned and philanthropic community like ours cannot and should not bury this under a carpet of hypocrisy but acknowledge that it is an outdated ritual whose true meaning has been lost in todays times.
This is part of a greater problem and we wish to say that:

That this ritual of laying the dead in the towers of silence, although relevant at one time in history, does not function in its true spirit anymore and that these have now become, not towers of silence but towers of hell.

We do not wish our dead bodies to rot in these towers of hell and we do not wish this hell for our beloved ones and friends. This ritual in the way that it has come to be practiced today, dishonours basic human dignity and is unacceptable for a religion that puts great value in cleanliness of body and soul.

The self appointed guardians of the religion cannot go on perpetrating age old dogma, and rituals whose meaning and significance have been lost in confusion and rite. They are squarely responsible for making this religion a mockery of its glorious past and a true Zoroastrian cannot approve of this. If we approve of this we are all equally responsible for perpetuating this hypocrisy. We ask the Zoroastrian youth of today to realize that the self appointed guardians of this religion do not wish to spread the message of the prophet. They wish to exist in self-denial.

Nothing can prosper or thrive without change. We need to reinterpret the religion so that its basic message and tenants are not lost but become relevant for today and for posterity. The religion must adapt and reinvent itself so that its message can spread to humanity at large.

We need a revolution! Nothing short of a t r u e r e f o r m a t i o n! where can generate the space for such a change. We need to open the religion and the community to the world at large and make the present meaningful. We therefore seek support and corroboration from the New Zoroastrian movements that have been initiated by like minded people all over the world and we seek to consolidate these.

We need to pray in a language that we can truly understand and perform our rituals, (Navjotes, Uthamnas, Fareshtas. . . ) with meaning imbued in them such that they can be enjoyed and understood by all. We need to allow all human beings into enter our fire temples and places of worship and accept people who genuinely wish to embrace this religion.

We celebrate our religion in its true ethos and spirit and seek to make it meaningful for the world today. Zoroastrians of the world R I S E. . .

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