Cracking the code- Pitrapaksh, Celebration of the eternal cycle of life and death!!!!

Cracking the code- Pitrapaksh, Celebration of the eternal cycle of life and death!!!!

Dr. Gupta in his book –Is Divine Energy- has quintessentially identified and defined the reasoning behind the observation of “Pitrapaksh” or the 16 Holidays that are celebrated in India every year. During this time the people appease the deceased by offering them food and clothing and performing rituals for them to rest in peace forever. This observation is not typical to only India and we find numerous examples of similar practices all over the world where people reach out to their departed ancestors in varying forms and in some places even marry the departed to the living person. In a nutshell, what are we doing? Why do we need to appease the departed? Why don’t we just move ahead with our lives instead of revisiting the departed? Does it really matter to the departed?

Dr. Gupta takes this brilliantly in his book and hits upon the reality of this practice, with a defined explanation. Here is what he has to say –

He begins by saying- “All religious beliefs are a phenomenological manifestation of the one fundamental metaphysical law of nature”. To survive and resist anything that we perceive as detrimental to us, we as a Param Child, become dependent on the Almighty creator who we personify, as the Ideal para-deity, to be able to sustain and develop ourselves. In this process, we start giving in to the Para-Deity’s objective of creating more entities-“Universe of Entities”. By procreating, we persistently diffuse a part of our self-luminous identity to this universe of entities, while maintaining the dependency on the Para-deity. “We do so by radiating our guiding force of omniscience into each entity’s consciousness.” The infinite new entities coming in, now look upon us as the absolute metric of divine energy and for them, we become the Para-Deity. Thus, the new entities now consume the divine energy we receive from the Almighty Creator and produce new wishes leading to further procreation as per the Almighty Creator’s plan.

After our death, we become the destroyer factor, destroying the previous para deity by superpositioning ourselves as the primeval deity. The primeval deity has the energy of the infinite para deities that have departed before and transforms them into the Wisher, wishing that their procreation programming within the living entities will let them reincarnate. The wishing/living entities become the worker factor, working to carry the wish of their departed leaders. Within our social and religious eco-system, this gradually assumed the shape of social practices and traditions like Pitrapaksh.

Dr. Gupta explains, eventually, we begin negating the worker factor within us so that we may weaken our devotion to the destroyer factor within those who have departed and get on with our lives. The intensity of the wish to gain freedom for celebrating our life becomes strong during Pitrapaksh every year. At a macro level, it becomes strong during the period known as Dvapara Yuga.

Thus, we become infinite consumers of the wishes of the primeval deity destroying the divine energy gifted by those departed. We conceive the illusion of divine energy from the primeval deity to set unrealistic expectations and goals as a devotee leader. Just like the living entities from the illusion of divine energy from the primeval deity to behave like the deities, the departed entities form the illusion of divine energy from the param deity (Shiva) to behave like the primeval deity. One who behaves like the primeval deity is not the primeval deity (Mahesha), but an illusion of the primeval deity.

Therefore, our leadership in diffusing unfulfilled wishes and their negative energy leads to our entropy. It makes us the channel for fulfilling the wish of the primeval deity to find a reason for rebirth and thus continue the cycle of life and death. That reason for rebirth is to rekindle our devotion to those departed because we were the ones who had departed and have now reincarnated through our devotion to personal conscious wellbeing. Through our devotion to the illusionary primeval deity, we only boost our ego and discordant energy and start behaving like the asuras, seeking to make everybody dance to our tunes by positioning ourselves as the vanguards of the wishes of those departed leaders, i.e., ourselves.

So next time you perform Pitrapaksh rituals, be reminded of this incessant and unending plan of The Almighty Creator and realize how we keep falling into the trap over and over again. Japan has a unique tradition where the living celebrated the life the departed have gifted to them and joyously express their gratitude for giving them an opportunity to fulfill their unfulfilled wishes through hard work. No wonder Japan remains a unique case of rapid development on the basis of the sheer hard work of the citizens despite all odds. So, time to change and more importantly to be the change to usher in the CHANGE, that lasts. Good luck!

-Ranjula Jain

July 17, 2021