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Dear Dao Bums,I'd like to share my experiences with ancestor worship, as all as hear your experiences with ancestors. A hindu holiday called "Pitru Paksha" (Fortnight of Ancestors) just finished, it was 16 days in total from the full moon on the 29th of September and just concluded here on the new moon 14th of October. In this period I did particular ancestor practices each day consisting of mala japa (mantras recited using a rosary), puja (prayer ritual), tarpanam (water ritual) and havan (fire ritual). I'll share my experiences in 4 parts: 1) My personal bias against ancestor worship 2) My reason for trying ancestor worship 3) My experiences with ancestor worship 4) Conclusion 5) Questions for you 1) My personal bias against ancestors worship Growing up very influenced by monotheistic ideas, I was always very biased against ancestor worship. Why worship spirits, when you can worship Almighty God? So I always kind of looked at worshipping anything but "The One Surpreme God" as a kind of waste of everyone's time at best, and on par with black magic at worst. 2) My reason for trying ancestor worship In spite of the above bias against anything related to clairvoyance, chakras, energies, spirits, higher beings, ancestors etc, I decided to try it. The reason being that over the course of my life, in spite of the above mentioned bias, it was practical life experience which taught me the validity of many of the above things. Through SKY I learnt that chakras are real, through terrifying experiences I learnt that black magic & evil spirits are real, through Hindu rituals, mantra & meditations I learnt that these things indeed work and can improve your life spiritually and materially. So because everything Hindu-related I tried actually "worked" practically, gave me results & experiences, I decided to give the Hindu version of "ancestor worship" a go this Pitru Paksha holiday. The reason being that my horoscope indicates "Pitru Dosha" or "Ancestor Problem". Another motivation to curiously be open to new things and actually try it. 3) My experiences with ancestor worship I'll share a bit about what I experienced from each modality below. 3.1 Mala Japa I committed myself to 110 malas of 2 different mantras during Pitru Paksha (as advised by Hindu astrologers). The first was "Pitru Dosha Nivaran Mantra" or "Remove Ancestor Problem Mantra". The second was a Vishnu mantra said to give Atma Shanti (Soul Peace) to troubled ancestors, namely Dwadakshara Mantra (12 syllable Vishnu Mantra). The first day while reciting my 7 daily malas of the Dwadakshara Mantra for Pitru Atma Shanti, I felt a peace come over me unlike any peace I've ever felt before. It was so deep, profound and restful, I never knew such peace existed. The next day during practice, instead I started having spontaneous memories of my maternal grandfather. This continued for about 2-3 days and brought me a lot of joy to remember. It was all things from when I was very young, because he passed away when I was only 11 years old. After that a period of about 4 days started where I would have memories of my paternal grandfather. I loved him very dearly, even though we mostly saw each other when I was a kid, and again the last 2 years before he passed away in my mid twenties. Further, the last 2 days, I felt some negative feelings related to wanting to love your family and truly loving them, but also feeling very annoyed and aggressive with your family because of their negative traits. After that I saw sporadic memories of different family members for a day or two, and after that a new phase started. During the remaining days, whenever I sat for japa of this mantra I wouldn't have memories, instead I would have feelings. E.g. feel restless, annoyed, irritated and many such minor negative feelings, however it was quite intense. As soon as I finished my 7 malas it stopped, and I returned to the mood I had been in before starting japa. On the final 16th day, the deep, profound and restful peace again enveloped my being, and I knew that I had helped my ancestors overcome their spiritual troubles and give them peace. As well as cleanse and purify their physical and spiritual imprints in my body and soul. The Pitru Dosha Nivaran Mantra was extremely powerful and energizing to say, even though it was a long mantra and took deep concentration to remember. It also took much, much longer to recite the 7 malas each day, as the mantra was so long. During the entire 16 day period, I mostly felt energized while doing it, and only a few times I felt restlessness and at another time extreme boredom. 3.2 Pitru Puja I did the puja daily with my wife, it's a very short puja where you offer your ancestors "the 5 offerings" (panch upachara) namely 1) sandalwood powder (gandham) for the earth element, 2) flowers (pushpam) for the space/energy element, 3) incense (dhupam) for the air element, 4) the flame of a lamp (dipam) for the fire element, 5) fruit (naivedyam) for the water element, 6) mouth freshener (tambulam), 7) finally burn camphor (kapoor) to purify the mind (manas). My wife has middle eastern background, and many of her ancenstors in the past century have fought and killed and been killed in wars, as well as endured torture, unjust imprisonment etc. During the first day of puja, I "felt" or "saw" 7 ancestors enveloped in a golden aura coming on my side, and I saw what must have been about 150 ancestors or so envoloped in a red aura standing on her side. When we offered the food, I felt a physical sensation of something "grabbing" into the food in my hand and "taking a portion" of its energy. As each day progressed, fewer and fewer ancestors would be there. My number reduced from 7 to 4, then to 2, and finally 0 would come. For her it reduced from about 150, to 120, to 70, to 40, to 10, and finally 0 would come. It was already after about 1 week of daily puja that 0 would come. I didn't know exactly what that meant, but I took it as a positive sign that they had been satisfied and were in no further need. We still continued the daily puja for the entire period, though I didn't feel like anyone came after that. 3.3 Pitru Tarpana During pitra tarpana, you offer water with sesame seeds. As a man I offered black sesame seeds, my wife offered water with white sesame seeds. You say a mantra and pour the water into a plate. I felt different positive & pleasurable sensations when offering to different ancestors (pitrus), but I couldn't identify a pattern of which ancestors triggered which sensations. Another thing I noticed was that the lamp we had burning (from the puja, we always did the two rituals right after each other) would seemingly change color and shine different lights! I was focused on pouring water into the plate, so I couldn't watch it closely, but it seemed it was a particular great grandfather or great grandmother, then the lamp would shine a dazzling rainbow light with shining silver specks in it. This happened about 3-4 times. I just took it as a positive sign that this ancestor received our offering. 3.4 Pitru Havan Towards the end of Pitru Paksha my wife's sister visited us. She unexpectedly called my wife up one day and said she'd like to visit. She stayed and stayed and stayed, even though she had work next day (also against the normal pattern), and late in the evening I said we needed to do a ritual and if she would like to participate. To our great surprise she happily obliged to participate in a fire ritual for the ancestors. We were both extremely surprised, as that's not something she would normally be open to, and especially this late on a weekday. So off we went and did the fire ritual, and she completely changed during the ritual. She has a general sad tendency in her mood, but when we did the ritual, the more mantras we offered into the fire, the more energized and passionate she became. Towards the end as we were to finally pour in all the remaining offerings, she jumped up and down and around the fire almost screaming the mantras. She was fired up!!! It was quite an interesting experience. Finally, on the new moon and last day of pitru paksha, me and my wife went alone to the nearby bonfire place to perform the "full" havan. We had performed a very shortened version to accomodate her sister's participation last time. It was extremely powerful. It was as if the fire was alive, it eagerly ate up all offerings, and on different ancestors names it would change color (the flame would be yellow, red, orange, white, blue) and it also changed its pattern (sometimes circulating in the fire pit, sometimes staying in a particular corner, sometimes suddenly rising much higher, then suddenly falling much lower) etc. Sometimes the offerings in the pit "exploded" which was very unsual, luckily we weren't hit by it. We took it as a communication from the ancestors, which ones we had a good karma with, who did we have a bad karma with etc. At the end of the ritual you walk clockwise 3 times around the fire, and at that point my whole being dissolved in extremely restful peace. I was shocked, because we were both in a quite energetic and dynamic mood, but like lightning, very suddenly and powerfully, when we circled the fire I was plunged into extreme peace. 4) Conclusion After completing all of the above sadhana (spiritual practice) during pitru paksha I must admit that I am now a firm believer in ancestor worship. It didn't feel spooky, scary, unnatural or any of the prejudiced ideas I had about connecting with "spirits". It felt very normal, very natural. It's still your family, they just don't have a body anymore. I truly believe you can really change yourself, your life, your destiny, your karma & your relationships by ancestor worship. My wife has always had an extreme rageful temperament, so has her family, at the drop of a hat they can explode. Since the very first day we started Pitru Paksha, she has been much, much calmer. I don't think she's gotten angry even once since, which is extremely unusual. Usually every day or every 2 days she will have a short ragefit. I believe now it's all the ancestors who died young in the war and are still full of violence, anger, rage & agression about the war, torture, imprisonment etc, they need someone to "see" them. See their rage, see their pain, see their anger, only then do they feel seen and understood, and then they can "let go" and move on. Now after all our prayers, they have found peace. Then they can move on, instead of "lingering around" my wife and her family, simply waiting for the right moment to "jump in" and express their rage through their descendants. We'll see how it goes from here, but I have a profound respect for ancestor worship now, and can imagine doing it every holiday suitable for it or when otherwise needed. 5) Questions for you What's your experiences with ancestor worship?

Hey been a while since I posted on here but I need some advise from my fellow Taos. I'm 18 now but I've know since my younger days about this plight that May or may not be effecting my family. Ima first generation Belizean-American, Belize is where my family has called home the last 100 - 200 years. We're good people humble noble etc other belizeans interact with us I don't know anyone with heated disdain or anything much like that.But the moment we do any thing that someone doesn't agree upon you know when we turn into the "bad guy" for various reasons, we can hear people snickering beezlebulb under there berths. Years ago I asked my g ma why was this, she said "oh justsomething that happened in ancient times" something like that no depth and changed the subject. Once I was 16 I moved high schools and I found qi gong as a God send if I ever felt less then myself and secluded it gave me the powerful feeling I needed and the will for integration. From a span a 6-8 months I went from meditating daily to weekly to monthly until I ceased maybe I fooled myself into stopping idk. Due to shit that's recently happened to me like a floating rib injury (preety bad) that I got the end of last year from getting up out of a chair, on slot of parking tickets other financial woes, sexual problems I've been having with the girl of my dreams that I have successfully been remedying with iron groin qi gong as of late and other more iotic reasons I took an oppritunity to see a phychic. She said I'm a bright person with good intentions and a very pure heart but there is always something trying to damper my glow. We spoke about my family then asked her to try to find out exactly what happened, she described ancient times to me like my g ma mentioned and a rain forest. She said a member of my family had kicked someone out of our tribe community etc for doing something dishonorable/hateful. Any way this hateful person used all his negative energy and casted a hex on my family member that excommunicated him from the community, because of his jealousy for certain ranks we had been holding there the hate was not too hard to provoke out of him. This is what I put together from what she told me anyway, but his hate was so raw and pure what ever he did became a generational curse on my family. I looked up symptoms and yea my g ma does have a 50 year old wound that heals then reopens again after sometime but this can be due to her diabetes. Also males in my family do have the tendency to die before their parents a lot nd the females in my family all had to have ceserians for their births my gma is the only one I know that had natural births. I just want to know what needs to be done to decypher this the proper way, I was looking at some possible ancestral work I could do on here maybe that is the best way to figure this out and desolve any or all blockages. I'm a music artist and creativity was feeling a bit closed off to me as of late, i want to resolve this because if doors are blocked to me I cannot attain the information from within them I need to change lives through art and Devine insite that spurs creativity. Thanks for reading all of this and giving a helpful response I know it's alot of info to take in. P.s my ancestors came to the new world on a slave ship they capsized that landed on st.Vincent island where they mixed with the natives there and created my race the garifunas, then we moved to Belize around 200 yrs later, phychic thinks the actual cursing happened there on st Vincent, sometime after their landing there. Pps.i have re introduced meditation back into my life and have no plans on letting it slip away again at all, it's probly the main reason I'm here asking all the right questions. Qi gong saves my life every time. Pss.Phychic said last time that it manifest or is a spirit and knows were attempting to remove it's work, my first tattoo was of the heart sutra mantra and I try to live daily by it's words transcendent wisdom and the power of love being known to the masses are some of what I would like to accomplish in life. I just wonder what it (spirit)maybe for words of pure light I have memorized and believe wholely to maybe cause a hindrance to it but not a complete dispersal. That is all thanks for the help in advance.

Fearful Memories Passed Down to Mouse Descendants Genetic imprint from traumatic experiences carries through at least two generations Certain fears can be inherited through the generations, a provocative study of mice reports. The authors suggest that a similar phenomenon could influence anxiety and addiction in humans. But some researchers are sceptical of the findings because a biological mechanism that explains the phenomenon has not been identified. According to convention, the genetic sequences contained in DNA are the only way to transmit biological information across generations. Random DNA mutations, when beneficial, enable organisms to adapt to changing conditions, but this process typically occurs slowly over many generations. Yet some studies have hinted that environmental factors can influence biology more rapidly through 'epigenetic' modifications, which alter the expression of genes, but not their actual nucleotide sequence. For instance, children who were conceived during a harsh wartime famine in the Netherlands in the 1940s are at increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and other conditions — possibly because of epigenetic alterations to genes involved in these diseases. Yet although epigenetic modifications are known to be important for processes such as development and the inactivation of one copy of the X-chromsome in females, their role in the inheritance of behaviour is still controversial. Kerry Ressler, a neurobiologist and psychiatrist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and a co-author of the latest study, became interested in epigenetic inheritance after working with poor people living in inner cities, where cycles of drug addiction, neuropsychiatric illness and other problems often seem to recur in parents and their children. “There are a lot of anecdotes to suggest that there’s intergenerational transfer of risk, and that it’s hard to break that cycle,” he says. Heritable traits Studying the biological basis for those effects in humans would be difficult. So Ressler and his colleague Brian Dias opted to study epigenetic inheritance in laboratory mice trained to fear the smell of acetophenone, a chemical the scent of which has been compared to those of cherries and almonds. He and Dias wafted the scent around a small chamber, while giving small electric shocks to male mice. The animals eventually learned to associate the scent with pain, shuddering in the presence of acetophenone even without a shock. This reaction was passed on to their pups, Dias and Ressler report today in Nature Neuroscience1. Despite never having encountered acetophenone in their lives, the offspring exhibited increased sensitivity when introduced to its smell, shuddering more markedly in its presence compared with the descendants of mice that had been conditioned to be startled by a different smell or that had gone through no such conditioning. A third generation of mice — the 'grandchildren' — also inherited this reaction, as did mice conceived through in vitro fertilization with sperm from males sensitized to acetophenone. Similar experiments showed that the response can also be transmitted down from the mother. These responses were paired with changes to the brain structures that process odours. The mice sensitized to acetophenone, as well as their descendants, had more neurons that produce a receptor protein known to detect the odour compared with control mice and their progeny. Structures that receive signals from the acetophenone-detecting neurons and send smell signals to other parts of the brain (such as those involved in processing fear) were also bigger. The researchers propose that DNA methylation — a reversible chemical modification to DNA that typically blocks transcription of a gene without altering its sequence — explains the inherited effect. In the fearful mice, the acetophenone-sensing gene of sperm cells had fewer methylation marks, which could have led to greater expression of the odorant-receptor gene during development. But how the association of smell with pain influences sperm remains a mystery. Ressler notes that sperm cells themselves express odorant receptor proteins, and that some odorants find their way into the bloodstream, offering a potential mechanism, as do small, blood-borne fragments of RNA known as microRNAs, that control gene expression. Contentious findings Predictably, the study has divided researchers. “The overwhelming response has been 'Wow! But how the hell is it happening?'" says Dias. David Sweatt, a neurobiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who was not involved in the work, calls it “the most rigorous and convincing set of studies published to date demonstrating acquired transgenerational epigenetic effects in a laboratory model". However, Timothy Bestor, a molecular biologist at Columbia University in New York who studies epigenetic modifications, is incredulous. DNA methylation is unlikely to influence the production of the protein that detects acetophenone, he says. Most genes known to be controlled by methylation have these modifications in a region called the promoter, which precedes the gene in the DNA sequence. But the acetophenone-detecting gene does not contain nucleotides in this region that can be methylated, Bestor says. "The claims they make are so extreme they kind of violate the principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,” he adds. Tracy Bale, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, says that researchers need to “determine the piece that links Dad's experience with specific signals capable of producing changes in epigenetic marks in the germ cell, and how these are maintained”. “It's pretty unnerving to think that our germ cells could be so plastic and dynamic in response to changes in the environment,” she says. Humans inherit epigenetic alterations that influence behaviour, too, Ressler suspects. A parent’s anxiety, he speculates, could influence later generations through epigenetic modifications to receptors for stress hormones. But Ressler and Dias are not sure how to prove the case, and they plan to focus on lab animals for the time being. The researchers now want to determine for how many generations the sensitivity to acetophenone lasts, and whether that response can be eliminated. Scepticism that the inheritance mechanism is real will likely persist, Ressler says, “until someone can really explain it in a molecular way”, says Ressler. “Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be complicated and it’s probably going to take a while.” This article is reprinted with permission from Nature magazine. It was first published on December 1, 2013. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fearful-memories-passed-down

Enjoy. http://deeper-down-the-rabbit-hole.com/2011/10/episode-28-guest-host-kimmie-jae-reign-radio-helps-ancestral-service-practical-point-view/ My 2 cents, Peace