Ancestor Worship (Pitru Paksha)

[Nuralshamal]

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?

Edited October 16, 2023 by Nuralshamal

[EFreethought]

I have no experience with this topic. Looking at the Wikipedia article it is more prevalent than I thought.

 

Will you be doing this on a regular basis?

 

I think we should start Nuralshamal bingo cards to keep up with you.

[Nuralshamal]

@EFreethought

Yes, it's very widespread in both Native American traditions, african shamanistic and animist traditions, and of course in Hinduisn & Daoism. So pretty much all over the world

Right now I feel good about having "completed" this Pitru Paksha, and am more focused on my own spiritual practice.

But maybe in future holidays, or if I get some kind of "signal" from nature again that this could be helpful.

[dindin]

On 10/16/2023 at 11:56 PM, Nuralshamal said:

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.

 

 

This is only reason I am looking into ancestor worship. I have held some anger towards ancestors as well. Which doesn't help with it. I find anger might be main crux of my problem with ancestors.

 

It was reassuring to see someone not from subcontinent honoring ancestors. Specifically ritual aspect. Ritual you mentioned seems more flexible than what I've heard about in here which requires it to be done in a specific temple.

[Nungali]

Is it 'worship '   ?   I suppose that depends on one's definition ? It is usually defined as a practice towards deity  ie. the 'God/s' .  My practice has not been , its more  to show acknowledgement, appreciation  and thanks to ancestors, not 'Gods'  .  The sharing of 'offerings' is a healthy psychological practice for the individual .

 

We have a special night for it ; 'feast of the dead ' , ' All souls day', 'Halloween ' .  It is said that this time of year the veil between this world and the other ( and ancestors ) is thinnest  - I can affirm that some years , this is particularly noticeable .  The ritual can be as simple as as putting a plate of food out for them along with the feast  you have  .

[Nuralshamal]

1 hour ago, dindin said:

 

 

This is only reason I am looking into ancestor worship. I have held some anger towards ancestors as well. Which doesn't help with it. I find anger might be main crux of my problem with ancestors.

 

It was reassuring to see someone not from subcontinent honoring ancestors. Specifically ritual aspect. Ritual you mentioned seems more flexible than what I've heard about in here which requires it to be done in a specific temple.

Hey @dindin, thanks for your message.

Yes, anger was also something my paternal grandfather struggled with a lot, as do my wife and her entire family.

I definitely think you can start to make peace through these rituals. We've both felt a change since we did the rituals last year. Her general family dynamics have also improved and become more harmonious.

I know in the subcontintent there is a tendency that everything needs to be "a specific way", usually by your forking over your cash and surrendering your power to someone outside yourself, usually a guru or priest.

If this authority truly has your best interest at heart, and they have knowledge and power, they can help a lot.

Unfortunately, due to poverty and corruption, that is usually not the case. The vast majority are just mindlessly and mechanically "going through the motions" to take your money.

If I were you, I would advice you to take matters into your own hands.

Take the time to learn japa, puja, tarpana and havan yourself. Take responsiblity for your own life, empower yourself. No one from the outside is going to come and save you.