What is the significance of rituals conducted after a death? Sadhguru explains, what was once done with a certain understanding has now lost its essence and become commercialized. As our societies become more superficial, he states, we will pay a price.


Full Transcript:

Sadhguru: Essentially naturally if death happens, why death is happening is because these life energies are programmed in a certain way. There are different dimensions of karma; one that you are in touch with right now is referred to as prarabdha; this is a certain software. So a certain amount of prarabdha is there within you, so life process is working it out. If life has to be embodied it must be in a certain level of intensity, a certain range of intensity, a certain band of like certain frequency it must be there. If it becomes too intense and goes above, it will leave the body… then we say he attained samadhi because life energies became too intense but the physical body cannot contain it anymore. Or if it becomes feeble beneath a certain point then it’ll slip out; this is called ‘dying naturally, out of old age.’ People just lie down; close their eyes and (Gestures) people died of old age. Nothing broke, nothing broke; his liver didn’t go wrong, his kidneys didn’t go wrong, his heart didn’t go wrong; simply life became feeble and slipped out. That means he lived his full term. Whatever this particular life was programmed for it saw its full course; so it leaves.

But very few rare human beings leave because of excessive intensity; a few, a certain number leave because of old age; most of the others die because something broke. Either you crashed your car or you smoked yourself to death or you drank yourself to death or something else broke; you worked yourself to death, whatever - in some way you made the physical body inhospitable for life. Something went wrong in this mechanism; now it cannot host a life, so life leaves. But still it is in a certain level of intensity that it could have continued to be embody for much longer period. When life leaves like this then it cannot find another body immediately; it has to hang. Let's say… no, I don’t want to take you or your mother as a example; let us somebody had… by normal course he would have died after 10 years but today because of excessive work or stress or whatever his heart broke and died today. Ten more years were there for him approximately. This is all depends how he lives. These 10 years if he lives in a certain way it could be worked out in two years or it could be worked out in 20 years; it depends on various things but let us assume there was 10 years approximate life but he left the body. Because he’s left the body, because he’s lost the discriminatory mind, because he’s lost the ability to perform any kind of karma as such, because of this these 10 years may be 100 years without the body. With the body, with the discriminatory mind this would have been over in 10 years but without the body, without a discriminatory mind this may take 100 years or 500 years; we do not know. It depends on various things; depending upon the karmic substance; what kind of karmic substance he carries. Knowing these things… because most people die of infections and diseases and ailments and things so we created a whole science as to how to help them beyond their body. We could not help them when they were in the body because we couldn’t figure out what is the ailment, what is the disease; no… he did not get the treatment; something happened, he died. Now we want to help him in such a way that he dissolves this quick, that he doesn’t hang around for too long. So there is a whole science behind that.

So this man for whom you gave the cow money you are giving him because his great great super great grandfather knew what to do. So you are still paying him for that knowledge that the super grandfather knew but this fool also should have learnt but somewhere it all got dislocated. Now it's just become a plain ritual that he’s learnt a few mantras and you don't know what it is to check. He could be abusing you in Sanskrit. (All Laugh) As you felt terrible about him, he must have looked at you and he was abusing you in Sanskrit language. (All laugh) You don't know. Probably you were cursing him and he was cursing you and your mother… Cow business is happening but nothing else is happening. (Laughs)

So these things have unfortunately happened because modern societies have… are becoming more and more superficial by the day, more and more superficial by the day for which we’ll pay a price. Here and hereafter, in both we will pay a very big price because we are becoming extremely superficial with the life process. All those things we should not have business has become business isn't it? See there are a few things which should never be commercialized; education, health, spiritual process - these three should never be commercialized. Once these three things are commercialized that society is heading down. It may take sometime but it’ll head down. We are picking that up in India in a big way now. So we will see an economic boom because cow business will happen a lot for sometime. And then we will head down. There is no other way. So a few things should be kept off commerce; it's extremely important. That is why we are looking for volunteers all the time so that dedicated people conduct certain things not people who are looking for livelihood.