Significance of the Ancestral Cleansing

Gurucharanam Saranam

Significance of the Pitrusuddhi - Ancestral Cleansing at Santhigiri

By M. Chidambaran, Dy. Director of Education- Retd., Haripad)

This is not the usual pitrusuddhi (purification of the souls of our ancestors) carried out through sacrifices (homas) or oblations as practiced according to the Hindu tradition. Real pitrusuddhi does not happen through that ceremony. The sinful souls of the dead who are ineligible for liberation or mukti become instrumental in generating children in neecha rasi (evil position of stars) which in turn results in failures of actions (karma) and also misery. This can be overcome only through pitrusuddhi carried out through sankalpa or will which is the unique way of the Guru. He divines the conditions of all objects of our worship and those of our earlier generations (souls of the dead) and with His knowledge of Brahman He brings them to his own spiritual light making them eligible for liberation through His acquired goodness (virtues). This is what is known by the name Guru Pooja in Santhigiri.

Our duty is to bring forth our children to become parents to establish a new lineage (parampara) of the people arising from the purified souls. Such people will be the embodiment of goodness, fortune and power as well as purity of action. The realization of the ultimate truth experienced by the faithful and the disciples of the Guru is the distinctive characteristic of Santhigiri. Nowhere else can we find believers and disciples who have really experienced visions and revelations as in Santhigiri. The concept of God is realized through the Guru. People who follow different religions, faiths and practice different rituals can have their sins of the previous births removed by following the path of the Guru. He is the only person who can divine the actions of the previous births and foresee the future and its dharma and advise how to carry out our duties in relation to it. Offering correctives to the darsans the Guru alone can lead us to the path of liberation. Without a real Guru this becomes impossible. We can find out this Guru through His disciples who have actually experienced His grace.

The purpose of Guru’s birth is the creation of a casteless and classless society, the members of which will maintain purity in thought and action and also hold on to eternal moral values, fraternity and peace. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru fulfills this mission of establishing a new lineage of people with faith in One God following the genuine dharma and karma of Manu. Hence this is a liberating religion. Santhigiri will be known as the birthplace of anew concept of humanity. Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru spoke on the relevance of Santhigiri Ashram to the present age thus:

‘The knowledge initiated for the dissemination of dharma which human race cannot attain through Manusmriti of Manu can be obtained through the message of Santhigiri. Of the four epochs known as chaturyuga, the last one is kaliyuga. It is brought out through our lineage what the objectives of life during Kaliyuga should be, and what the full realization of divinity is expected to be.  The corrections regarding the dharma to be followed in each epoch starting with Krita or Satya yuga as propounded by Sri Krishna through Bhagavat Gita becomes a reality through Santhigiri.

Sri Krishna took his birth at the end of Dwapara Yuga. His life and message have not been properly understood by either scholars or unschooled people. This distressing fact cannot be forgotten. Sri Krishna’s birth and life based on dharma sastras and puranas was a great asset to humanity. Even that we have failed to follow. Countless scholars have explicated the idea contained in the Gita. However nobody belonging to the human kind right from the Brahmin to the chandala (the untouchable) has failed to comprehend the full significance of it.

The concept of form, name and quality, countless subtle states, cause and effect relationship, the knowledge about age, the stages of dharma in the order jagrat (wakefulness) dream, slumber, turiya and turiyateeta and the inner secrets of life are perceived through the faculty of darsan (vision) of disciples and believers. They are realized from time to time as the divine design. This is a phenomenon unique to Santhigiri. Some serious mistake had crept into this kind of knowledge at some point of time resulting in the non realization of the absolute truth, which is symbolically described as the loss of the fourth face of Brahma. Nevertheless, some great souls who came after Sri Krishna could perceive the truth….. Thanks to the serene and blameless divine darsan of exalted souls. Santhigiri by its precepts and practices embodies their great ideals. It has been fully proved here that the people belonging to all castes and creeds can realize the ultimate truth. It takes into account that has been emphasized in our ancient puranas and epics. It also focuses on the yuga dharma of Kaliyuga and it is revealed only through the special faculty of darsan.

India’s purnas, epics and Vedas prescribe a laborious method of long term practice for the attainment of spiritual realization. However, Santhigiri emphasizes spiritual realization through activities according to yuga dharma not hurting even an ant. This is nothing but what the Holy Bible said, ‘seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened’. It is the same as the ‘jyoti varna’ in the Holy Koran and ‘Satya Dharma’ described in Hinduism or the Sanatana Dahrma.  Therefore Santhigiri shows us the divine exhortation for all people to grow in every way’.(To be continued)

The Great Spiritual Trunk Road of Guru Centric Spirituality

Gurucharanam Saranam

The Great Spiritual Trunk Road of Guru Centric Spirituality

Mukundan P.R.

Spiritual renaissance in this era involves an evaluation and rectification of errors that had occurred in the actions (karma) and spiritual practices (dharma) of our forefathers in the bygone time, Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru had said it.  A tree gets its nourishment from its root in the soil, through the sun, water or other sources. Likewise, our family tree gets nourishment from its spiritual roots and the virtue of forefathers. If the forefathers have lived sinfully, if the ancestral souls continue to dwell in the dark cells of spiritual contamination, one can expect a fall in the life-fortunes of the offspring too.  Even if we have the best car in the world, we cannot cruise ahead even a little if there is a traffic jam. Similar is the case of a person, a family or society as there are our predecessors on the same road which we travel. We cannot progress in our path when they are stuck before us on the same road. Only a Soul- Knowing Guru can regulate the traffic on this spiritual trunk road of ancestral souls.

We have before us the examples of many families, which once had seen good times, fall in the pit of penury and oblivion. Most of the families which had temples and deities installed in them are known to suffer subsequently, because after the time of their forefathers, who established such practices at home, their descendents neglected those rituals, as they were either not spiritually inclined or lacked the time and knowledge for those rituals.  As a result, the spiritual fabric of the family gets weakened, whatever is the merit or demerit of those practices, and it becomes the cause of ruin of many families. Pitru dharma in Indian religion relates to this question of uplifting the ancestral souls and the astral status of a family. 

Can we strengthen the spiritual veins of our family by resorting to the ancient practices of our forefathers? Would the deities and ancestral souls get appeased by the renewal of rituals and renovation of temples, which the astrologers invariably suggest for a cure from pitrudosha, the ancestral curses?  Experiences of several people prove otherwise. The ancestral problems do not get cured completely or get cured only partially, that too for a limited period of time, even if the suggested rituals are performed by the best masters and tantrics in the field. I would like to quote one experience which proves that such problems could be cured by sages in the Jnana tradition, not wedded to the ritualistic tradition.

Sri Chidambaran is a retired Deputy Director of Education in Kerala and lives in Harippad near Kollam. When faced with diminishing luck and unexpected calamities in the once well to do family, astrologers were consulted. They revealed that there was pitru dosha in the family. As a remedy, the astrologers suggested renewal of family temple, reinstallation of deities, performance of homa etc. that would have cost lakhs of rupees. Sri Chidambaran kept quiet as the expense was unaffordable. One day, Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru happened to visit his place along with his disciples. The grace of Guru fell upon him and his family. Guru told him that the problem in his family could be resolved without the rituals advised by the astrologers. It was as an experiment he agreed to the suggestion. After all it involved no rituals and expenditure, he thought.

Guru asked Sri Chidambaran to call a good astrologer to see the astral chart of the family. The astrologer revealed the problem of pitru dosha and advised the same remedy - renovation of temple and reinstallation of deities etc. When the astrologer heard that the deities and ancestral souls could be removed just with ‘sankalpam’ (mental resolve) of Guru without any rituals, he said, ‘We are viewing this scientifically. No individual, let him be any great saint, through his divine power and meditation, the purifying ritual cannot be performed.  If the deities observed in the chart were seen relocated by ‘sankalpam’ then only it can be believed’, he added.

 On the appointed day, Guru reached the house.  There was along with Guru, a little girl, now a sanyasini in the Ashram. A big crowd had assembled there as spectators including the family members. The astrologer also arrived in time. Guru along with the little child sat in the front hall. The astrologer also sat on one side. Guru asked the astrologer to see what all were there in the family. After calculations, the astrologer said that it was a very old family and had an age and tradition of approximately 800 years. It was known from the chart that there were such and such disturbed deities - Brahma Rakshas, Serpent (Naga) etc. in the spiritual background of the family. The astrologer also disclosed that the remedial measure was to build a temple and install them there.

Guru called the little girl to his side and said something. After prostrating before Guru, that girl sat in meditation for sometime.  ‘Now you see whether these have moved from here or not,’ Guru asked the astrologer.  The astrologer made his chart again and looked bewildered for a moment, for, he saw that the disturbed deities and powers have been vacated. Guru asked him to do the chart once again to prove it beyond doubt. He did as advised and was astonished to find that pitrus and deities have been vacated with the sankalpam of Guru. Guru explained the spiritual background of the family as seen in vision during the performance: When all the disturbed spirits were asked to move after bringing them in the radiance of Guru, all except one were ready to move. That one was a Sanyasi, a member of the family. It was standing there as the family head in the ancestral zodiac. Although it was desirous of salvation, it was unwilling to move without someone taking its position. The tears of this Sanyasi were causing the family to deteriorate. Only after Guru promised to take that position in the family, the Sanyasi became ready to move. Guru told that it was a soul which had immense love toward the family.

Sri Chidambaran demolished the old family temple and built a prayer hall for Guru in the house. It was the beginning of his journey on the great spiritual trunk road of Guru centric spirituality. It reveals another dimension of Sanatana Dharma, which is based on the ancient Indian rishi tradition (Jnana marga) different from the brahmanical temple tradition suffering from the ills of caste system.