Our scriptures say that we human beings (and most sentient life) have the cosmic intelligence (call it ATMA / SOUL / BRAHMAN) at the very centre of it and is covered by 3 layers
- causal body – karana sharira encapsulates the soul. This is the entity which carries memories from multiple life’s
- Subtle body – sookshma (which literally means small / invisible) Sharira encapsulates the the karana Sharira. This is the entity that carries the emotions and experiences
- physical body – STHOOLA (which literally means voluminous) Sharira
The physical body is what we can see and is made up of 5 elements – Akash, vayu, Agni, jal & Prithvi.
When a person dies – and is cremated either by burying or incinerating the jal & Prithvi tatva return back to the earth.
The sookshma Sharira and the karana Sharira along with the aatma / soul are not harmed in any way.
The funeral rites that we perform (based on Garuda purana) is for this sookshma Sharira’s journey back to the PITHRU – realm of existence of such entities.
There’s scientific and empirical proof of this in hypnotherapy and PAST LUFE REGRESSION. You can read books of Dr BRIAN WEISS or MICHAEL NEWTON for details of experiments.
Now, it’s said that these PITHRU Loka have a different scale of time.
One year in the BHU LOKA (earth) is ONE DAY for the PITHRULOKA. You can imagine this in a way – the lifetime of a MOSQUITO is just a WEEK (7days) for us.
Also it happens in SEP/OCT cause it’s bang in the middle of the APRIL to MARCH timeline. So it’s right during the end of their (PITHRU) day.
So, our PITHRUS visit BHU-LOKA during PITHRUPAKSH TIME for food. It happens in SOOKSHMA FORM. It does happen. You can look out for page called Hacking The Afterlife by Richard Martini where he very frequently explains about his experiences and experiments in talking to deceased people. So this does happen.
It’s like when you do HAVANS/YAGNAS (FIRE SACRIFICES), what ever you put in the sacrificial fire goes to the devas and that’s how devas remain powerful and in return they bless us.
So, it’s our solemn duty to give food to our pithrus.
- When is it done – even during the pithru Paksha – the shradh ceremonies are done on the certain TITHIS (days of the waning phase of the moon) when the pithru has passed away
- who does it – pithru shradh has to be done by householders whose father has passed away.
- if this is not done then the pithrus would get pissed off – imagine if your parents come home from a big trip or are visiting you from out of town and you don’t even bother to feed them. Will they not be angry?
So, the entire country as a whole is busy with PITHRU KARMA.
The thought process was that that the society should enable that no one disturbs anyone during their pithru karma. Hence all business dealings were brought to a stand still.
As time passed it became a societal rule. So, most of us know that we should not do deals and agreements during the pithru Paksha but don’t know why.
ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः
सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः ।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु
मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत् ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥
सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः ।
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु
मा कश्चिद्दुःखभाग्भवेत् ।
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥