The fourteen days of ‘Shraadh‘ before the festivities of ‘Navaraatri’ and Goddess worship in the Autumn season, is meant to be a time for honouring our ancestors and ancestral lineages. We live our lives unaware of the memories we carry from those who lived before us in a hugely different world, and from whom we inherit the subtlest of traits.
Shraadh or ‘Pitru Paksha’, occurs at the beginning of the Hindu month of Ashwin, and is usually aligned with the solar month of September. The two weeks of Shraadh are optimally timed to bring our focus to inward practices before the outer celebrations of Navaraatri that commence right after.
Those of us who have lived with our grandparents would know that they can be a precious link between the past and the present, especially when they choose to grow in their own unique wisdom. Even before them, think how far back the line goes. To a time that there is no real record of, no pictures to scroll through, a reality that surrendered itself wholly to the annals of history. What remains from then is only a silent memory. A knowing, however, that those were often times that brought the question of survival to the fore in more demanding ways than many of us can imagine today. We have come a long way from that world, to an age when we have a level of personal freedom that has not been seen in recent history.
This is a time of the year to honour the memory of those who came before us, regardless of whether we have known them in this life or not, regardless of whether we agree with the choices they made or not. Whether we choose to break from the past or borrow from it, the ability to look at it with an acceptance of what was, is a way of releasing the hold it has upon us as well.
We are all here briefly, and what we can offer to the world is but a small contribution to the flow of consciousness through time.
With love and peace,
Sai Ganesh Nagpal
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