Shraddh: How To Satisfy Your Ancestors?
Questioner: Acharya Ji Namaskar, my name is Desraj adikari. I'm from Nepal, and I want to ask you a question about the Shraddh (a Hindu ceremony that honors deceased ancestors) ceremony. If death is merely a transition of form within the universe, as you have just explained, what is the most meaningful way to remember a loved one who has passed? Is the traditional Hindu Shraddh ceremony still relevant in this context, or is there a more authentic approach? Please help me understand.
Acharya Prashant: The best way to remember and honor the ones you have loved as your ancestors is by becoming what they were destined to become. I'll talk in a very worldly and practical way. If you have kids, if you have grandkids, and if you claim you are truly loving, you would probably want them to be much better than you. No?
That often does not materialize, but that is the ideal. Right? My kid should do better than me. And that is what is supposed to please the parents. That remains a utopia. Fine, I understand, but in an ideal sense, the kid should become better than me, and that would please the parents. What is the epitome of betterment? That which Shri Krishna calls as your Niyati - Liberation.
So, that is the greatest form of love that parents can have for their kids. Let the kid be liberated, and when I say parents, that's an umbrella term to cover all your ancestors. We are calling them parents. They would want you to do much better than they did. Correct? Being parents, we want you to do much better than we did.
That's the expectation, that's the hope, that's what parents often live for. Let the kid do better than how we are doing. So then, what is the tribute that the kid can offer to all the parents, the entire chain of ancestors? Do much better than them. That is Shraddh. They have bequeathed a responsibility. What is the responsibility? What is the ultimate responsibility of existence? Liberation. And that is the greatest respect you can offer them.
I am trying to complete your unfinished agenda. You were born to be liberated. That yet remains unfinished. I will do what you could not, and that will make you happy because it isn't what you always wanted from me. To do better than you, you wanted me to do better than you. You did what you could, and now I will do what I can. Thanks to you, I can probably do better than you. It is probably only because of you that I can do better than you. Are you getting it?
Now, that brings us to a very interesting point - because Liberation is not just individual. Whatsoever is individual is ego. We know that. There is nothing called individual Liberation. There can be individual hunger, and that is ego. The entire world might be separating; you might still be in sorrow. All that is ego. So when you talk of completing the agenda of the past by working towards your Liberation, then that Liberation has to be all-inclusive and includes the entire universe, at least the entire planet. That includes compassion for everything that can suffer or suffer, and that too becomes very justified and very obvious when you realize that every being here is actually your ancestor.
Aren't we all sentient beings coming from the single-parent cell that became all sentient beings? And therefore, when you are talking of your ancestors, does that also not include all the birds and animals and all the blades of grass that have ever lived and perished? This basically then implies that when you are working for your liberation, you have to work for the liberation of the entire planet. I'm saying planet because we do not know the rest of the universe as of now. Are you getting it?
Your lineage, your pedigree, your inheritance is not one particular line separated from the rest of existence. You often say, ‘He comes in my line, he comes in my lineage.’ But it is not a line; it is a web. It is not a one-dimensional line; it is a three-dimensional web from which we come, and therefore, we are all brothers and sisters in that sense. We are all coming from the same parent. Hence, we are brothers and sisters. Hence, we have to work for the entire planet, and that is what tribute is; that is what Shraddh should mean - realizing your true ancestry and working for all your brothers and sisters.
Because, if we come from the same parent, can the parent be happy if my brothers and sisters are suffering? I have three siblings, and they're all suffering, and I want to please my parents. How do I please my parents? By helping my siblings. That should be the meaning of Shraddh. The entire existence is my siblings. Can my parents be happy if my brothers and sisters are suffering? Is that possible in your family? No, it's not possible. So if you want to please your parents, help your siblings.
How do you help your siblings? First, by liberating yourself from ignorance. So these two things - liberate yourself of ignorance and help the entire planet. That should be the meaning of Shraddh. Instead, Shraddh has become an entire elaborate ceremony of superstition. This is that souls are floating in some other universe, and they come down, and they are hungry, and they are this, and there is talk of crows and sparrows and all kinds of crude superstition. That is not at all to be called as religious.
Your belief systems should not be honored with the label of religion. Your superstitions should not be sanctified with the tag of religion. You just call them as your personal belief system. You're entitled to that. Fine. I believe that. But do not call that as religion. That is not religion. Religion is self-discovery to be liberated from bondage. That is religion; all else is nonsense in the name of religion. Grand nonsense but nevertheless just nonsense.
This idea that there are souls floating somewhere is against the very grain of all religiosity. The Bhagavad Gita especially makes it very clear there is no soul floating anywhere. In fact, the Bhagavad Gita is an entire argument just against the concept of souls. Arjuna comes up with the argument of souls in chapter one itself. Arjuna says you know my parents and all our ancestors, the great ones who passed away; they will be in trouble if I accept to fight this war.
Arjuna's argument in chapter one of Bhagavad Gita is that the souls are there, and they accept the food, water, and tributes only according to certain procedures, and the procedures mandate that the offspring should be of pure Varna (caste). If the offspring is hybrid, mixed Varna, becomes Varna Sankar (mixed breed), then the great forefathers will refuse to accept the offering, and if they do that, then they return hungry and thirsty, and a great curse will fall on the kingdom - Arjuna's argument.
And why will the Varna Sankar be born? Because if this war actually does happen, all the men will be killed, all the Kshatriya (warrior cast) men, therefore all the Kshatriya women will go and mate with non-Kshatriya men and Kshatriya women with non-Kshatriya Varnas (castes) will produce Varna Sankars (half-bred) and those Varna Sankars (half-bred) will offend the souls of our forefathers. Therefore, Shri Krishna, I will not fight.
That is the argument the Bhagavad Gita begins with, and then the 17 chapters are just to invalidate this argument. But look at the crudeness of the irony - Bhagavad Gita itself is used to justify the soul. They say you know it is in the Bhagavad Gita that Shri Krishna is talking of the transmigration of the soul. No, you are totally misinterpreting the Gita. It is Arjuna who is talking of the soul and such nonsense.
Shri Krishna is very clear - there is the Atman, which is the Paramarthik (transcendental) truth, and there is Prakriti (creation), which is the Vyavaharik (practical) truth. There is nothing called Jeevatma. Atman is the highest truth, and Atman does not engage in anything. Atman is the name of the greatest disengagement, greatest disinterest, and greatest apathy. Atman is just a witness, does not participate in anything, does not enter a body, does not leave a body, is never born, never dies, is infinite, and cannot be contained in anything. How can it transmigrate?
And the Atman has nothing to do with Prakriti (nature). Your body is Prakriti (nature). Atman, by definition, is something that does not engage with Prakriti (nature). So that is the highest truth - Atman, and then there is the Vyavaharik (practical) truth - the Prakriti (nature). The body is Prakriti (creation). The body comes out of the soil and falls into the soil. There is nothing called the Soul.
All the behaviors that you find displayed by the body are behaviors of the soil. Yes, it is the soil that talks. It hurts the ego. Is it the soil that talks? Yes, it is the soil that talks through the body. Nothing else. There is no talker inside. We believe that there is the body, and then there is somebody inside the body who is talking. No, it is the body that talks. It is the body that feels. No, But you know there must be somebody. My emotions? They are the emotions of the soil, Sir.
It hurts you to accept that, but come on, grow up, man up. Show some courage. But my love? Yes, it is just chemicals coming from the soil. One molecule of the soil falls in attraction to another molecule. It is soil that loves. What you call love is a very “soiled” thing, therefore.
“No, but you know, tell me, if it is only the body and there is no soul, then how does death happen? Surely, something pops out of the body in the moment of death.” No Sir. Just as a rusted old iron bridge crumbles one particular day, that's all. And death is not a particular moment, it's a constant happening. How did the bridge collapse? Gradually and then suddenly. It was always happening. How did the bank collapse? Gradually and then suddenly. A man collapses just as a bank does.
You have always been in a process of gradual collapse and then one day you just fall just like a rusted old bridge. Has it suddenly rusted? It has always been rusting, rusting, rusting, rusting , rusting, and one day it falls. That is death. It is a very chemical thing. It is a very soily thing. There is nothing to involve the soul here. Soil, not Soul - that's the human being.
“No, but something must be going out of the body when we die?” Does something go out of the bridge when it collapses? When the bridge collapses, does something go out of the bridge? No, it just collapses. And when the iron turns into iron oxide rust, does it retain its old properties? No. Similarly, when your body collapses, it does not retain its old properties. What are the old properties? Speech is a property of the body; thought is a property of the body, and intellect is a property of the body. Just as a rusted bridge loses its old properties, similarly, a dead body loses its old properties - it will not talk anymore. It was a property of the body. Are you getting it?
Shraddh must be a time to realize these things and that is the greatest tribute you can pay to your ancestors. I'm doing what you were destined to do. Mankind is on a journey. We know the journey of evolution. Friedrich Nietzsche talked of the Superman. He said we are still evolving and we will one day become the Superman. Darwin took us backward. He said you know you are coming from the monkey. Nietzsche took us forward, and he said you must go on and become Superman. So, the entire journey is from the monkey to the Superman. From Darwin to Nietzsche. You have to complete that journey.
Let Shraddh be repurposed to become a reminder of the remaining journey. Who is the Superman? The liberated one. Shraddh must be a time to reinvigorate and re-intensify your efforts towards challenging your bondages. Not all the nonsense that is peddled in the name of rituals.
What I'm saying is not some modern thought. What I'm saying is pure core, Vedanta. It's just that we never bother to really understand what our scriptures are saying. We were so afraid and so egoistic that we superimposed our personal belief on our scriptures. Let that change else we'll keep suffering.
Questioner: Thank you, Acharya Ji.
