[Advaita-l] Pitru Paksha Questions

[Praveen R. Bhat]

Hari Om,

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 8:20 PM, kman <krismanian at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I agree, So why create more reverse bondage. The kid did not have a choice
> in being born
> to these parents.


The kid is born to those parents very much by choice!! The prior births have
caused sancita karma, out of which a particular prArabdha karma results in
this birth. Its not by random or by choice of the parents. In fact, the
parents have choice only for union, without knowing if it would result in
birth of the child, how could it be their choice? Also read some other
response in this very thread (sorry I forgot who wrote it) mentioning a
story that the parents are the kids and kids are the parents in various
births.


> We also know that acts of karma are done by an individual
> for his/her own
> selfish happiness, so this debt that your talking about is mithya, infact
> imho the parents are
> indebted to their kids for bringing them in to this bondage.
>

This is an error, there being no shAstra evidence and, if I may add with
apologies, sounds like a modern irresponsible thankless argument of
children. If anything, as said in my earlier mail, the debt is to parents
for having provided an opportunity of another life for the kid to
realize/enlighten oneself in!


> For a non advaitin what you say makes sense. Advaitin should be able to
> make
> the discrimination, right?
>

No sir, advaitin or not, it makes sense for all baddha-jIvas, meaning ones
who are not realized. Advaitin can discriminate, but one who discriminates
is not a j~nAni overnight, right? So if his worry is about laukika things
considering himself the jIva with limiting body, mind, intellect, how will
it go away after death? It will remain, causing another birth. Such a jIva,
without a body factually struggles for another birth to pursue his sAdhana.
Thats another worry now, because he doesn't even have a body to do his
sAdhana! :) He prays to be given an opportunity to be born, asking his to-be
parents, perhaps!


But knowing that
> there is no birth and death, why sraardha,
>

Knowing that there's no birth and death, do we ask why eat, earn, sleep, etc
now? For the same reason, shrAddha, offering respect, food, etc to pitR.


> I need to complete the responsinility to our kids, so until then I have to
> keep my job, car etc as it helps in my pursuit of my spiritual growth
> But the srarda part clashes with the idea of advaitha. I am trying to
> understand why it was
> prescribed this way.
>

Very interesting argument. Makes no sense though and contradicts, when read
with your argument immediately preceding. If knowing that there's no birth &
death, how is suddenly that one has responsibility to kids, needs a job &
car and not only that, finds these laukika things helping pursuit of
spiritual growth! My dear Sir, its not shrAddha part that clashes with
advaita, but laukika part. shrAddha can be done as a karma yoga as the
result is also adRShTa/ invisible, but how can one keep a car as karma yoga?
Not that there's anything wrong with it, but saying that it helps pursuit of
spiritual growth is stressing the point of laukika necessity for some into
spiritual domain. Apologies, but IMHO, you have it the other way around.

praNAm,
--Praveen R. Bhat
/* Through what should one know That owing to which all this is known!
[Br.Up. 4.5.15] */