There are three things one must know before understanding why we say, ‘Rest in Peace’.
1.
The word ‘Psyche’ comes from Greek to mean ‘Soul’. When the Greeks couldn’t
understand what the ‘life-giving’ essence was lying within the body, they
blamed it on the soul – something that cannot be seen, the unknown to fathom.
The Psychologists and Neuro Scientists, who emerged in the early 20th
century, realized that the reason for our thoughts and behaviour, lies in the
functioning of the brain and they moved the psyche to a specific spot within
our cranium to represent the functioning of the brain
2. Greek mythology begins with the
statement, ‘In the beginning, there was Chaos…’ Interestingly, Chaos was
married to Nyx or Night (Darkness) which might find a striking similarity on
the figurative running parallel in the Christian world where the reference to
Chaos is found in the Bible in the very beginning in Genesis
1:1-2 TLV: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the
earth was chaos and waste, darkness was on the surface of the deep…
What does Chaos actually mean? In English, (literally), it means 'a state of confusion'. Once again like ‘psyche’, the word ‘chaos’ had a different meaning to begin with when the Greeks used it. 'Chaos' to the Greeks meant ‘Nothing’. Man, (let the error rest upon him as the other gender, during those days, were expected to be devoid of thought), perhaps couldn't digest this simple idea of having 'nothing' and began bringing in his own interpretation of the word. 'If there was nothing, how confusing must that be?' he must have thought and sooner or later the word 'chaos' without looking at the etymology, started to mean and was used to refer to anything that was 'in a state of confusion'.
3. Now to Peace... 'peace' is an Anglo-French word that means 'in harmony'; the absence of hostility, in tranquillity; the absence of disturbance or agitation.
Our soul or the psyche comes to rest only when the instrument it uses to get everything it wants when it is active - the 'soma' or the 'body' - comes to rest. Real rest; absolute rest; from which it can wake no more - after that eternal drama the body goes through to satisfy every whim and fancy of the psyche to please its senses - that finally ends with death.
Our epitaphs and tombstones are etched with messages that serve as reminders to those living than those dead and lying beneath. Simply put, their soma finally rests; the psyche rests. The body and soul rests. The chaos in which it rests, is not a confusing dark and mysterious pit where the body and whatever controlled it are laid to rest - in fact, it is nothing - which may be too hard for man to still accept and he may still find it endearing to be confusing. It is liberation; a liberation for the body from the soul and vice versa. For anyone who is struggling to live, to amass every other unnecessity of life, driven by the mind, the psyche, to feed the senses it can reach through the body as the medium; along with the volatility and futility of emotions, the rising and falling of intelligence, greed and over dependence on the cognition to claim the better over the other within and every other fellow being outside, this is a warning written on stone as s/he walks by - ''Rest in Peace'' - in darkness, as nothing, in chaos and at peace.
