Shradhh: How to satisfy your ancestors? || Acharya Prashant (2024)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00Namaskar. My name is Bhishma. I'm from Nepal. And I want to ask you a question on the ceremony.

00:24If death is merely a transition of form within the universe, as you have just explained,

00:35what is the most meaningful way to remember a loved one who has passed? Is the traditional

00:42Hindu Sraddha ceremony still relevant in this context? Or is there a more authentic approach?

00:49Please help me understand.

00:54The best way to remember and honor the ones you have loved as your ancestors

01:07is by becoming what they were destined to become.

01:19I'll talk in a very worldly and practical way.

01:26If you have kids, if you have grandkids,

01:33and if you claim you are truly loving, you'd probably want them to be much better than you.

01:40No? That often does not materialize. But that is the ideal. My kid should do better than me.

01:52My kid should do better than me. And that is what is supposed to please the parents.

02:01That remains a utopia. Fine. I understand. But in an ideal sense,

02:05the kid should become better than me and that would please the parents.

02:10What is the epitome of betterment? That which Shri Krishna calls as your Niyati, liberation.

02:21So, that is the greatest form of love that the parents can have for the kid. Let the kid be

02:32liberated. And when I say parents, that's an umbrella term to cover all your ancestors.

02:39All your ancestors. We are calling them as parents.

02:44They would want you to do much better than they did. Correct? Being parents, we want you to do

02:51much better than we did. That's the expectation. That's the hope. That's what parents often live

03:00for. Let the kid do better than how we are doing. So, then what is the tribute that the kid can

03:10offer to all the parents? The entire chain of ancestors.

03:20Do much better than them. That is Shraddh.

03:22They have bequeathed a responsibility. And what is the responsibility? What is the

03:34ultimate responsibility of existence? Liberation. And that is the greatest respect you can offer

03:45them. I am trying to complete your unfinished agenda. You were born to be liberated.

04:02That yet remains unfinished. I will do what you could not and that will make you happy.

04:11Because isn't that what you always wanted from me?

04:14To do better than you. You wanted me to do better than her.

04:21You did what you could. Now I will do what I can and thanks to you, probably I can do better than

04:28you. It is probably only because of you that I can do better than you. Are you getting it?

04:35Now that brings us to a very interesting point. Because liberation, Shubhankar,

04:46liberation is not just individual. Whatsoever is individual is ego. We know that. There is

04:55nothing called individual liberation. There can be individual hunger and that is ego.

05:03The entire world might be separating you, you might still be in sorrow. All that is ego.

05:10So when you talk of completing the agenda of the past by working towards your liberation,

05:17then that liberation has to be all-inclusive. That includes then the entire universe,

05:24at least the entire planet. That includes compassion for everything that can suffer

05:31or suffers. And that too becomes very justified and very obvious when you realize

05:41that every being here is actually your ancestor.

05:51Aren't we all coming, all sentient beings, aren't we all coming from the single parent cell?

06:01That became all sentient beings.

06:06And therefore, when you are talking of your ancestors,

06:11does that also not include all the birds and animals and all the blades of grass that have

06:17ever lived and perished? Which basically then implies that when you are working for your

06:26liberation, you have to work for the liberation of the entire planet. I'm saying planet because

06:32we do not know the rest of the universe as of now. Your lineage, your pedigree, your inheritance

06:45is not one particular line separated from rest of existence.

06:50We often say, he comes in my line, he comes in my lineage, but it is not a line, it is a web.

06:59It is not a one-dimensional line. It is a three-dimensional web that we come from.

07:07And therefore, we are all brothers and sisters in that sense.

07:10We are all coming from the same parent. Hence, we are brothers and sisters.

07:14Hence, we have to work for the entire planet. And that is what is tribute.

07:19That is what shraddha should mean. Realizing your true ancestry and working for all your

07:27brothers and sisters. Because if we are coming from the same parent, can the parent be happy

07:33if my brothers and sisters are suffering? I have no doubt about it.

07:41I have three siblings and they are all suffering. And I want to please my parents.

07:50How do I please my parents? By helping my siblings. That should be the meaning of shraddha.

07:59The entire existence is my siblings. Can my parents be happy if my brothers and sisters

08:07are suffering? Is that possible in your family? No, not possible.

08:11So, if you want to please your parents, help your siblings.

08:15How do you help your siblings? First, by liberating yourself of ignorance.

08:20So, these two things. Liberate yourself of ignorance and help the entire planet.

08:25That should be the meaning of shraddha.

08:27Instead, shraddha has become an entire elaborate ceremony of superstition.

08:35This, that and souls are floating in some other universe and they come down and they are hungry

08:45and they are this and there is a stock of crows and sparrows and all kinds of

08:52crude superstition.

08:59That is not at all to be called as religious. Your belief systems

09:08should not be honored with the label of religion.

09:14Your superstitions should not be sanctified with the tag of religion.

09:33You just call them as your personal belief system. You are entitled to that. Fine.

09:36I believe that. But do not call that as religion. That is not religion.

09:40Religion is self-discovery to be liberated from bondage. That is religion. All else is nonsense.

09:48Nonsense in the name of religion. Grand nonsense.

09:55But nevertheless, just nonsense.

10:10This idea that there are souls floating somewhere are against the very grain of all religiosity.

10:22The Bhagavad Gita especially makes it very clear. There is no soul floating anywhere.

10:27In fact, the Bhagavad Gita is an entire argument just against the concept of souls.

10:32Arjun comes up with the argument of souls in chapter one itself. Arjun says, you know,

10:38my parents and all our ancestors, the great ones who passed away,

10:45they will be in trouble if I accept to fight this war. Arjun's argument in chapter one of Bhagavad Gita.

10:54The souls are there and they accept the food and water and tributes only according to certain

11:03procedures. And the procedures mandate that the offspring should be of pure varna.

11:20If the offspring is hybrid, mixed varna, becomes varna sankar,

11:39then the great forefathers will refuse to accept the offering.

11:43And if they do that, then they return hungry and thirsty and a great curse will fall on the kingdom.

11:50Arjun's argument. And why will the varna sankar be born? Because if this war actually does happen,

12:00all the men will be killed, all the Kshatriya men. Therefore, all the Kshatriya women will go

12:06and mate with non-Kshatriya people, men. And Kshatriya women with non-Kshatriya varnas

12:16will produce varna sankars and those varna sankars will offend the souls of our forefathers.

12:24Therefore, Krishna, I will not fight. That is the argument the Bhagavad Gita begins with.

12:30And then the 17 chapters are just to invalidate this argument. But look at the crudeness of the irony.

12:41Bhagavad Gita itself is used to justify the soul. They say, you know, it is in the Bhagavad Gita

12:48that Shri Krishna is talking of the transmigration of the soul. No, no, no.

12:55You are totally misinterpreting the Gita. It is Arjun who is talking of the soul and such nonsense.

13:02Shri Krishna is very clear. There is the Atma which is the Parmarthik truth and there is Prakrti

13:09which is the Vyavaharik truth. There is nothing called Jeevatma.

13:16Atma is the highest truth and the Atma does not engage in anything.

13:21Atma is the name of the greatest disengagement, greatest disinterest, greatest apathy.

13:36Atma is just a witness, does not participate in anything.

13:39Does not enter a body, does not leave a body, is never born, never dies,

13:44is infinite, cannot be contained in anything. How can it transmigrate?

13:52And the Atma has nothing to do with Prakrti. Your body is Prakrti. Atma by definition is that

13:59which does not engage with Prakrti. So that is the highest truth, Atma.

14:05And then there is the Vyavaharik truth, the Prakrti. The body is Prakrti. Body comes out of

14:11the soil, falls into the soil. There is nothing called the soul. All the behaviours that you find

14:17displayed by the body are behaviours of the soil. Yes, it is the soil that talks. It hurts the ego.

14:25Is it the soil that talks? Yes, it is the soil that talks through the body. Nothing else. There

14:30is no talker inside. We believe that there is the body and then there is somebody inside the body

14:36who is talking. No, it is the body that talks. It is the body that feels. No, but you know,

14:41there must be somebody. My emotions, they are the emotions of the soil, sir.

14:47It hurts you to accept that. But come on, grow up, man up, show some courage.

14:53But my love, yes, it is just chemicals coming from the soil. One molecule of the soil falling

15:06in attraction of another molecule. It is soil that loves. What you call as love is a very soiled

15:15thing. Therefore, no, but you know, tell me if it is only the body and there is no soul,

15:29then how does death happen? Surely something pops out of the body in the moment of death.

15:34No, sir. Just as a rusted old iron bridge crumbles one particular day.

15:40That's all. And death is not a particular moment. It's a constant happening.

15:59How did the bridge collapse? Gradually and then suddenly. It was always happening.

16:10How did the bank collapse? Gradually and then suddenly.

16:19A man collapses just as a bank does. You have always been in a process of gradual collapse.

16:27And then one day you just fall just like a rusted old bridge. Has it suddenly rusted? It has always

16:33been rusting, rusting, rusting, rusting, rusting. And one day it falls. That is death. It is a very

16:38chemical thing. It is a very soily thing. There is nothing to involve the soul here.

16:46Soil not soul. Soil not soul. That's the human being.

16:56No, but something must be going out of the body when we die. Does something go out of the bridge

17:00when it collapses? When the bridge collapses, does something go out of the bridge? No, it just

17:06collapses. Similarly, and when the iron turns into iron oxide, rust, does it retain its old

17:16properties? No. Similarly, when your body collapses, it does not retain its old properties.

17:22What are the old properties? Speech is a property of the body.

17:28Thought is a property of the body. Intellect is a property of the body.

17:32Just as a rusted bridge loses its old properties. Similarly, a dead body loses

17:40its old properties. It will not talk anymore. It was a property of the body.

17:49Are you getting it? Shraadh must be a time to realize these things.

17:54And that is the greatest tribute you can pay to your ancestors.

17:58I am doing what you were destined to do.

18:03Mankind is on a journey. We know the journey of evolution.

18:08Friedrich Nietzsche talked of the superman. He said we are still evolving and we will one day

18:14become the superman. Darwin took us backwards. He said, you know, you are coming from the monkey.

18:20Nietzsche took us forward and he said you must go on and become the superman.

18:25So the entire journey is from the monkey to the superman, from Darwin to Nietzsche.

18:33You have to complete that journey. Let Shraadh be repurposed to become a reminder of the remaining journey.

18:48Who is the superman? The liberated one.

18:50Shraadh must be a time to reinvigorate and re-intensify your efforts towards challenging your bondages.

19:03Not all the nonsense that is peddled in the name of rituals.

19:09What I am saying is not some, it's not some, it's not some, it's not some,

19:14it's just that we never bothered to really understand what our scriptures are saying.

19:22We were so afraid and so egoistic that we superimposed our personal belief on our scriptures.

19:30We were so afraid and so egoistic that we superimposed our personal belief on our scriptures.

19:36We were so afraid and so egoistic that we superimposed our personal belief on our scriptures.

19:51Let that change, else we'll keep suffering.

19:58Thank you, Atshotsh.

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