Prayers for Unrecovered Bodies

When someone near to us dies, prayers are conducted for the departed souls. What happens in a case of an accident where the body has not been found? There is a possibility of that person being still alive and coming back. How do we pray for this departed soul? What is to be done in this case?

You pray for the soul. Whether departed is only a matter of perspective, prayers for the dead are prayed to bring the soul closer to the light. To you, in physical mortality, it seems important to ‘see’ the dead body. Only then do you pray for the soul. Soul resides not within the body. To pray for the soul, you do not need to be assured of death. Because you are assured of life. The boy may return or not return. Prayers for the soul are never chanted in vain. Death is an illusion in which you all believe and which, therefore, causes you so much pain. Death solves no problems, death causes no problems. What the soul has undertaken to experience is experienced irrespective of this vesture. In an accident, when the body is never found, you either hope that he will walk back or you despair that he has left. There is no cause for hope; there is no cause for despair. Hope and despair come to the mind when the mind cannot look beyond the physical vesture. Does the soul of another need your prayers only when the physical has died?  Does the alchemist look upon the sheet of lead and wait in vain, till it disappears before he tries to change it to gold? You are all alchemists. And yet you know not the art of alchemy. An alchemist does not wait for a miracle to take place so that lead is turned to gold. He knows the gold lies within the lead. And you, my dear alchemists, you look only at the dull, ugly lead. And you forget that the gold is already within.