Ancestors

DEATH IS NOT AN END ; IT IS A CHANGE OF ADDRESS.
“ Follow the footsteps of your ancestors, for the mind is trained through knowledge.  Behold, their words endured, follow their wise counsel’

The Book of Kheti
From : Sacred Wisdom of Egypt.

“ To you alone it is given to know the truth about Gods and deities of the sky . . . The innermost groves of far-off forests are your abodes. And it is you who say that the shades of the dead seek not the silent land of Erebus and the pale halls of Pluto; rather , you tell us that the same spirit has a body again elsewhere and death, if what you sing is true, is but a mid-point of long life.”

Lucan Pharsalia c60 AD.

Who are these ancestors? It is wrong to consider birth as only a biological function. It is transmission of the unfulfilled functions, responsibilities and traditions in samsaara to the subsequent generation as the ancient fathers did to our generation earlier. It is natural for a father to expect  that his son should accept his counsel and follow his footsteps, overlooking the  extent they have followed the counsel of his father. If we expect our son to follow us, then our fathers could have reasonably expected from us also. 

 Remarkable statements from the past point out, ‘Follow the footsteps of your ancestors, for the mind is trained through knowledge. Behold, their words endured, follow their wise counsel’ (The Book of Kheti, from the Sacred Wisdom of Egypt).  ‘The innermost groves of far-off forests are your abodes. And it is you who say that the shades of the dead seek not the silent land of Erebus and the pale halls of Pluto; rather , you tell us that the same spirit has a body again elsewhere and death , if what you sing is true, is but a mid-point of long life’. (Lucan Pharsalia c. 60 AD). Death is not an end; it is a change of address.

One is a father to one would be a son to another. Giving birth is more than a biological function; it is transmission of one’s tradition. In west, large number of fathers, not conscious of their ancestors or their obligations, are also not concerned with the  responsibilities towards their descendents, on a spacious argument that one is born free and he is free to choose as he wills. In the absence of mature advise, they end up in leading hazardous life with broken marriages, broken families and broken traditions. 

In Brihad Aranyaka Up. (I.5.17) we find  principles of Dharma laid down for actions to be performed by a father who is about to die. There are three worlds - the world of men, the world of ancestors and the world of the divinities. The world of men is to be achieved through  continuation of the line of offspring, not by performance of actions. Therefore, personal achievements in the world do not mean success in life. The world of fathers is to be achieved through performance of actions in one’s life through continuation of the traditions of the ancestors.  The world of divinities is to be achieved through acquisition of Wisdom, which is supreme goal. Therefore Wisdom is eulogized.

 Therefore when a man realizes that he is about to depart, he says to his offspring, ‘You are Brahman, i.e. the offspring too is effulgent fragment of the Prime Existence. You are Yajna, performance of the actions, i.e. your assignment is to continue the tradition by providing line of offspring, not by personal achievements. You are the World, i.e. his assignment being established by his achievements in the World’.

Then the offspring replies, ‘I am conscious that I am Brahman, the effulgent fragment of the Prime Existenc.; Yajna, performance of actions; my assignment being the continuation of the tradition by providing line of offspring, not by personal achievements;  the World;  his assignment would being established by achievements in the World’.

Therefore, whatever is learnt, all that is Brahman (Wisdom) because Brahman is the ‘great, infinite, limitless aggregate mass of Wisdom’. Whatever actions are performed for continuation of the tradition by providing offspring, all that is Yajna. Whatever achievements have been attained, all that is the World.

 This is all that is to be done. Being all, the offspring guards the fathers from their assignments in the world. The need of well-informed offspring as supportive in the worlds makes a father educate his offspring. When the departs from the world, he enters into his offspring together with his energies. Whatever transgressions were committed by him, his offspring frees him from them, and therefore, he is call offspring. By such actions, the  father stands established in the world, the divine energies entering in him.