Be sure that your letter was not a bother to us. Indeed, we
were happy to learn that in the autumn years of your physical life your soul
was illumined by the eternal light shed upon the world by Bahá'u'lláh.
Concerning your question about cremation, the Bahá'í law
stipulates burial. The instructions of Bahá'u'lláh contained in His most holy
book make this law clear. Shoghi Effendi, in a letter written on his behalf to
an individual believer in 1955, comments that 'Abdu'l-Bahá “...also explained
that burial is natural and should be followed.” The explanation of the master
referred to by Shoghi Effendi is found in Tablets revealed by Him. One of those
was published in Star of The West, Volume XI, No. 19, page 317, from which we
quote:
"Thy letter has been received. Due to scarcity of time,
I write the answer briefly: The body of man, which has been formed gradually,
must similarly be decomposed gradually. This is according to the real and
natural order and divine law. If it had been better for it to be burned after
death, in its very creation it would have been so planned that the body would
automatically become ignited after death, be consumed and turned into ashes.
But the divine order formulated by the heavenly ordinance is that after death,
this body shall be transferred from one stage to another different from the
preceding one, so that according to the relations which exist in the world, it
may gradually combine and mix other elements, thus going through stages until
it arrives in the vegetable kingdom, there turning into plants and flowers,
developing into trees of the highest paradise, becoming perfumed and attaining
the beauty of colour.“
"Cremation suppresses it speedily from attainment to
these transformations, the elements becoming so quickly decomposed that
transformation to these various stages is checked”.
When we realize that our physical bodies actually are
composed of elements place in the earth by their creator, and which through the
orderly processed of His Law are continually being used in the formation of
beings, we can better understand the necessity for our physical bodies to be
subjected to the gradual process of decomposition. As at the time of death, the
real and eternal self of man, his soul, abandons its physical garment to soar
in the realms of God, we may compare the body to a vehicle which has been used
for the journey through earthly life and no longer needed once the destination
has been reached."
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 6 June 1971 to an
individual believer; compilation: ‘Lights of Guidance’)