17 Nov 2010
The essence of all the rituals is just sacrifice of wealth to a deserving devotee of God and the sacrifice should be in the memory of God. Mere sacrifice to a deserving human being without referring to God is just social service, the reward of which is temporary stay in heaven (Ksheenepunye… Gita). The sacrifice is of two ways. One is in the form of work or service and the other is in the form of wealth. The sacrifice should be done with lot of analysis to discriminate the deserving from the rest. Sacrifice is the most powerful means to please God and get His grace, if the receiver deserves. If the receiver does not deserve, the same sacrifice will yield negative results in the form of punishment. Since all the rituals involve sacrifice only as the basis, the rituals should be done with proper analysis in selecting the deserving receiver. The deservingness of the receiver alone decides the fate of the entire ritual. Place, time and formalities of the ritual are not at all important in deciding the fruit of the ritual. If the receiver is undeserving, the sacrifice may be done in sacred Varanasi, on the sacred day of Maha Shivaratri and the process of sacrifice might have been done correctly following all the steps of the scripture, the result is going to be negative only. If the receiver deserves, whatever may be place, time and procedure of the ritual, the result will be excellent. People are bothered about the place, time and correctness in the steps of the ritual only, which are totally useless. They are not bothered about the main point, which is the deservingness of the receiver. They never analyze the receiver.
The Veda says that the main characteristic of deservingness of a receiver is the lack of attraction on the returns (Shrotriyasya chaakamahatasya…). When the priest is invited to perform a ritual, he should not aspire for any benefit or returns. He should not ask for the fees. He should accept immediately to perform the ritual without a trace of aspiration for fees. The ritual involves worship of God and he should thank God for getting an opportunity to worship God through the ritual. At the end of the ritual, whatever may be paid to him, it should be received with pleasure and full gratitude. He should feel that the money is given to him by God. He should feel that the donor is only a mechanical means of God. Thus, he should not analyze the payment, which is the form of grace of God. Even if nothing is given, he should return home after expressing full gratitude to the doer of the ritual for giving an opportunity to participate in the worship of God. If this attitude is maintained, the expectation for fees will not take birth in the mind. Since the ritual is misunderstood as some work of soaping God to give some benefits to the doer of the ritual, the priest is expecting fees from the doer. In fact, if the priest performs the ritual understanding it as the worship of God, the priest himself will be benefitted along with the doer of the ritual. The priest performs the ritual for the sake of the fees only, so that the doer of the ritual alone is supposed to get the total benefit from the worship. The sage Yaska says that the priest is a porter of the luggage of huge gold in performing the ritual for a petty remuneration from the doer of the ritual and rendering all the gold to the doer of the ritual only (Swarna bhara harah…).
Let us take the example of the ritual of performing the ceremony of the departed souls. You give importance to the day on which the souls departed from this world. You have to find out a deserving person to give him food, clothes and some wealth, so that the fruit of such donation will benefit the departed soul and the doer. Here, the deservingness of the receiver decides the result. If the receiver is undeserving, the departed soul is punished for such a sin apart from the doer of the ritual. Therefore, the departed soul should be careful to do charity to a deserving receiver while he is alive. The time of the ritual i.e., the day of the ceremony is not at all important here. The important aspect is only the deservingness of the receiver. If you do not get a deserving receiver, there is no harm in postponing the ceremony till you get a deserving receiver. You insist on the bank transaction to be done on the first day of every month. You are not bothered about the nature of the transaction i.e., whether it is credit or debit. Similarly, you are bothered about the particular date of the ceremony and you are not worried about the aspect of deservingness of the receiver. If the receiver deserves, the departed soul and doer will be benefitted and it will be a credit. If the receiver is undeserving, the departed soul and the doer will be punished and it will be a debit. You are always worried about the process of ritual, which is just like the bank transaction. Even if the bank transaction is postponed for a few days, you will appreciate if the transaction is a credit. Similarly, even if the ceremony is postponed, you should appreciate if the ritual yields good fruit and the fruit will be good only if the receiver is deserving. You should not worry about the place of ritual. You need not worry whether the bank transaction is in State Bank of India or Axis Bank. You should worry only about the credit-nature of the transaction.
Actually, the departed soul is in the energetic body and does not get any trace of the materialized food offered to the priest. If the departed soul goes to God, the food is not required (Nahitena Pathaa Tanutyajah…). This is called as the path of Devayanam or Shuklagati in the Gita. In the Pitruyanam or Krishnagati, the soul may go to heaven or middle world of departed souls (Pitruloka) or hell. In heaven, the soul does not require food or drink (Ubhe tirtvaa ashanayaa…). If the soul goes to the middle world, it takes food from the rays of moon (Nirvishtasaraam pitrubhih Himamshoh…). If the soul goes to hell, it will be tortured with hunger and thirst (Jayasva…). Hence, the materialistic food given to the priest is not at all related to the energetic food taken by the soul. In such case, you need not fear that the ritual is a waste. If you view the right angle of the ritual, it is very useful. If the receiver deserves, the departed soul and doer of the ritual are benefitted. Therefore, the ritual should be performed only on getting a deserving priest. In the old generations, almost everybody was a deserving receiver. It was very difficult to get an undeserving receiver. But today, the situation is totally reverse. Now, it is very difficult to get a deserving receiver. Therefore, in all most all the present ceremonies, undeserving receivers are rewarded. The result is that the departed soul is punished along with the doer of the ceremony. It is said in Mahabharata that donation to undeserving is a sin. In performing the ceremony, you need not worry about the Vedic hymns recited by the priest. All the Vedic hymns are only prayers to God. The other Vedic statements are only descriptions of the steps to be taken in serving the deserving receiver. These statements need not be recited at all, if the service is done in practice. Instead of the Vedic prayers, you can pray God even in your mother tongue. God gives value to the devotion only and not to the language (Bhavagrahi Janardhanah…). He can understand any prayer in any language since He is omniscient. Therefore, you have to concentrate on the deservingness of the receiver of your donation only and need not worry about other aspects like date of ceremony, language of prayers, steps of procedure of ritual etc.
Lies Told for a Good Purpose
It is told that if the priest eats the food, the departed soul gets that food. Even though this is a lie, it has some good purpose. Such a lie will initiate even the greediest person to perform the ritual due to love on his departed parents. When the ritual is performed and if the donation to deserving is done, it gives good fruits to him and also to the departed souls. It is a matter of exploiting the weak point for a good purpose. The weak point is not misused. The mother tells the child that if it eats the food, the moon will come down. It is a total lie but still the mother is not getting sin for deceiving the child. The lie serves good purpose in making the child eat the food. All such statements are pertained to the ignorant people only and not to the wise scholars. The Veda also says that you should perform the ritual to get heavenly pleasures. The ambition for heavenly pleasure already exists in every human being and this weakness is exploited in performing the ritual through which the doer is expected to be attracted towards God through prayers. Here, the Veda is not responsible for creating the attraction to heavenly pleasures. It only exploits the already existing attraction in the human being. Therefore, the Veda need not be blamed for encouraging the attraction to heavenly pleasures as stated by Shankara (Jnapakam natu kaarakam). The Veda says to kill an animal in the sacrifice to offer to God. Here, the Veda does not encourage the killing of animals. Even without the Veda, the human being kills the animals to eat them. Here, the Veda asks the human being to offer the killed animal to God first and then to eat. The Veda is not responsible for killing the animals in the ritual. It is only responsible for the offering of food to God. The Veda adds the offering to God after killing the animal, which is already an existing tendency in the human being. Similarly, the tradition need not be blamed to exploit the love on parents through the ritual. The already existing love on parents is exploited to divert an ignorant person to love God through the ritual in which the prayers to God are offered.
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