Business After Death- Shradh( a nonsense ceremony)

Among Hindus the Shradh ceremony has to be done when someone dies in the family. When a death happens in a Hindu family, obviously the event brings lot of grief in the family, but at the same time it becomes a great opportunity for the Bramhin purohits to mint money.

In the Shradh ceremony a purohit has to be invited who would perform various spiritual rituals, like peforming pooja and and reading mantras in Sanskrit  from some old books. In return he gets a hefty amount as dakshina(donation) along with other gifts.

In India there are around 9 million deaths per year. 80% of India follows Hinduism, hence each year 7.2 million Shradhs are performed across India. Even if a Purohit gets an average Rs 3000 per Shradh, that would mean that across the nation ,just by doing shradhs the purohits make around Rs 2,100 crore(Rs 2.1 billion) per year.

The reason given for doing this Shardh are also funny. The major reason given is that reading of this mantras in front of a fire would result in peace to the soul of the dead person and also if this ceremony is not performed then the soul of the dead won't find peace and then he/she may return as ghost and haunt others. Thousands of other absurd reasoning are given, one of them is - the family may have bad luck and they may be ruined.

In reality the priests are all upper caste Hindus. I have mentioned in my previous articles about the rigid caste system of India in the past. In earlier times even 120 years ago the Bramhins called the shots. Most of the nation was illiterate, as education was rigidly controlled by the Bramhins. Huge discrimination were made on the basis of caste. The Bramhins set the rules for the society to follow, if someone didn't follow the rules they made, harsh punishment was meted out to them.

All kinds of nonsense ceremonies were made for different occasions like marriages, thread ceremony, giving name to a child, shradh, starting a new business, harvesting crops etc. In each ceremony donation of money or gifts to the Bramhin priest was compulsory.

 Non performance of this ceremonies would have lead to ostracization of the family from the society. Ostracization is still followed in some rural parts of India, such families even won't be able to buy essential goods from the village shops. No one back then dared to go against the societal norms. Hence generations after generations such practices got embedded into the culture of the country.

Cut back to the present times. Today people have no fear of being persecuted or ostracized if they don't perform shradh. But still majority of the people perform this nonsense rituals even now. In Hinduism the body of the deceased person is burnt and the ashes are thrown in river.

Today we live in an era where science has made tremendous progress. In present times it is possible to use parts of the body of a dead person for better purposes. If they eyes are removed within a couple of hours of death of an individual, it is possible to transplant those eyes to two blind people. They would be able to see again.

Depending on the age and health of the person who died if other parts of they body like liver, heart, kidneys etc can be useful to other patients who may die without the transplant of any of these organs. So immediately after the death of a person if useful organs are removed , preserved and transplanted to the needy; it can bring happiness to the lives of lots of people. 

Even if the body is donated for medical research it would do more good than burying it or burning it up in fire. No such rituals are needed at all , shradh is just a stupid ancient practice that must end. It is nothing but a set of superstitions followed for thousands of years. 

About RamaKrishna Mission

********************About RamaKrishna Mission ***************

I like Swami Vivekananda and the direct disciples of RamaKrishna Mission who started the Institution. But subsequently like all other religious institutions even RKM seems to have gone down the dumps to a certain extent. I really do not like the present buch of monks who are but Modi Toadies, if Swami Vivekananda was alive he would have thrown most of them out of the mission. It is the first time in many years that I did not visit Belur Math in Durga Pooja, nor did I catch its live transmission on TV.

Fooling people in the name of religion

Durga Pooja is a huge festival in West Bengal state of India. The Bengalis celebrate this festival with great joy. It is based on a mythological story of Goddess Durga slaying the demon Mahisasura who defeated the Gods and acquired Heaven(Swarga).

Festivals based on this story are also celebrated in other parts of India, like Navartri in the state of Gujarat. While across the nation the 10th day of the festival is celebrated as Vijay Dashami or Dusherra, in which huge paper effigies of demon Ravana is burnt. This festivals symbolise the victory of good over evil.

This festival is very important for the economy of the state of West Bengal, people spend huge amount of money in buying products for this festival, especially clothes. Thousands of crores of rupees is spent across the different pandals across the state. It provides much needed earnings for the artists and pandalmakers.

This is a time when the idol makers make a good amount of money. The idols are normally made of clay. Although new variants are tried like idols made from plaster of paris ,fibreglass and even thermocol.

This is best time to see the creativity of the artists across the different pandals . Actually it has become the USP of this festival now. Each year pandal construction is getting more and more creative with newer concepts and themes being implemented.

Durga Pooja is an excellent time for people to use up the money that is unaccounted or black money. It is definitely an excellent way of money laundering as the organisers can simply show the money spent as bogus donations. However Durga Pooja is a festival that symbolises the victory of good over evil. I wonder if god indeed is concerned about this festival . Why should money laundering thrive during this time?

People are least concerned about the religious importance and the message of the festival, they simply want to have a good time. It is also a time when even brothels make great sum of money since lot of men visit that place. Why can't Devi Durga teach restraint to the people who worship them.

Now take Kumbh mela or the greatest so called spiritual gathering on earth. A big number of nude shameless sadhus visit the mela. People throng to the fair in millions. This year the authorities are concerned about the lack of availability of condoms.

The so called spiritual events are opportunities for common masses to indulge in all kinds of fun and that involves sex as well. Especially sex with prostitutes, in India most women who work as prostitutes have been forced into the profession. So buying a prostitutes services is like encouraging crime against women.

In recent times so many so called god men have been found, who were all the time fooling people , like Asaram Bapu of Gujrat(Modi's state). Our Prime Minster was a great follower of Asaram and so did Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravishankar. 

Who knows the later two may have some similar art of living. Asaram and his son Narayan are involved in many sexual abuse and rape cases, both have been cooling their heels in jail for months now . Many of the key witnesses in their cases have been murdered. This is a clear indication of the fact both the father and son duo are guilty.

Whenever there is death in some Hindu home there is an obvious pall of gloom because of the loss of a loved one, but that becomes the opportunity for a pujari to make some quick bucks by repeating some words written in some old book, in a language(Sanskrit) that is not known to common people of the nation. No one gives a damn whether he is reading it properly or not. At the end of the Sradh ceremony he bags good amount of gifts and money for himself, along with some free food.

The family in which death has happened are by religion forced to celebrate the occasion and feed people. They excuse they give is that this procedure will lead to peace of the departed soul. Well, that's what some old books written with barks of trees have written in them.

Much better it would be to donate the body of the person who died to a Medical collage for research and at the same time donate the organs like eyes, liver, kidney which can give a new life to someone. If all people who die donate eyes then blindness in India will become history.

Caste System - How it destroyed India

In the Vedic period the caste of a person was based on his occupation. An individual had total freedom to chose an occupation of his choice; whether it be the study of the Vedas, or farming , soldier any occupation he chose his caste was dependent on that. However in time the cast system started becoming more and more rigid. The caste system became dependent on a person's birth and not his occupation. A Bramhan's son was a Bramhan and he had to pursue the study of religious scriptures , a warriors son has to become a warrior whether he like it or not.

So the first evil that the caste system of ancient did was to take away individual freedom. Secondly it created a feeling of superiority  among the people of higher class and a feeling of inferiority among the people of the the lower caste. The society was primarily divided into four castes 

1) Bramhin :- They undertook the study of Vedas and other religious texts and performed various rituals. 

2)Kshatriya : - This was the warrior and ruler caste, they were responsible for the protection of the people of the country.

3)Vashiya :- This was the caste of traders and businessmen.

4) Shudras :- This was the caste of people who did menial work like cleaning roads and other work that included farming. 

The people who didn't belong to the above four castes were considered to be out castes and were looked down upon. Later on rules became so strict that they were not even being touched. The lower castes were not even allowed to take the same side of road as the higher castes. They were not allowed to drink water from the same well as the people of higher castes and education was banned for them. The Bramhins made it their birth right to study the Vedas and other castes were prevented from the study of Vedas. 

If some person was born in a lower caste , he was told that his past life karma was responsible for his birth in the lower caste and he deserved to live a harsh life. Severe punishments were meted out to the people who broke the caste rules. 

The greatest person to dissent against it was the greatest person even born Buddha. Buddha spent years in meditation to find out the cause of human sorrow and after his enlightenment he travelled across the length and breadth of the country to teach the dhamma(religion). Hence Buddha became the founder of Buddhism and the Buddhist society was totally caste less society. The Buddhist religion was compassionate and treated everyone as equal. 

But later on the Buddhist teachers became too much on the negative side of lives, focused too much on sorrow. Which made people turn away from Buddhism and with Muslim invasion of India there was large scale destruction and massacre of Buddhists. The religion almost disappeared from the land and arrogant Brahmanism made a comeback. 

Again the rigid caste system came back but since mostrulers across the nations were Muslims, the lower castes had one option to change their religion to Islam. Changing their  religion to Islam meant that they would be treated with respect and have a good status in the society. So areas in the country where castism was maximum people changed over to Islam. This is particularly true about Bengal and Punjab. 

However many who stayed Hindu had to live a painful life. Untouchability and social discrimination was very high. During Muslim rule the education of women was stopped and people became highly conservative. The uneducated Indian now became easy targets of British who ruled over India for 190 years. 

After Independence lots of laws have been made against castism and cast based discrimination. Our Constitution treats all citizens as equal regardless of his/her caste, creed or religion. 

But still even today caste based discrimination does exist in the rural side of India. Particularly north India , caste based discrimination is high in the states of UP, Bihar, Gujrat Haryana,certain states of South India. However there is hardly any discrimination on the basis of caste in the states of West Bengal and the north eastern states. 

India must come out this ugly castism that weakened and destroyed the nation in the past. Caste must be made a thing of the past and should never come back to this country anymore. 

Fraud Spiritual Gurus and Superstitions

The Temple and Buddhist Viharas of India are very unique, in many south Indian temples one can find beautiful sculptures on the walls of the temples. In one of the South Indian temple there is image of a cat who is disguised as a monk performing yoga. Watching it a rat tries to imitate it and the next figure shows that the cat ended up eating the the rat. So we see that the problem of fake spiritual gurus existed in the past as well. 
The carvings on the temple wall was intended as a warning to the people to beware of fake monks.

For centuries India was mired in in blind beliefs and superstitions, the ugly caste system of the country resulted in the higher castes blocking education of the people belonging to the lower castes. The lower castes were so exasperated by the unfair behaviour of the people of higher caste that they began to change their religion during the Muslim rule many of them became Muslims particularly in the states of Bengal and Punjab where castism was at its worst.(Remember this was a time when the Sikh religion was not even born)

Even today you find fake spiritual gurus everywhere these days they are using technology to reach out to people. There are television channels dedicated for this purpose. Some of these fake spiritual gurus are billionaires get donations worth a few hundred crores each year. Their so called ashrams are more posh than a 7 star hotel. Many of them in recent times have been caught in sex scandals like the ones in Swaminarayan Temple in Gujarat and ofcourse infamous case of Asharam Bapu and his son Narayan Sai , where the father son duo had sex with hundreds of ashram inmates more than one at a time. 

This cheats and frauds are the greatest enemy of the nation who simply fool the people many of them uneducated in the name for religion. There is huge fraud business they are doing and they are also helped politically. 

They also cry to create wedge between different religions and try to generate violence and riots among people of different religions. One has to guard against these frauds . 

The original saints lived in frugal ashrams that were no more than huts. They did not touch money and lived on food given by the people. There are good and real spiritual gurus but they are far too few among every 10 spiritual gurus 9 are rank frauds and deserve to be behind bars. 

This are the ones who are responsible for spreading superstitions and blind beliefs in the minds of people. The more superstitious people are the more they will run towards these frauds for spiritual blessings. 

Beware of such fake gurus and be free from superstitions. 

Wrong Numbers

One of the worst event in history of free India were the Gujarat riots in which almost 3,000 innocent people were mercilessly murdered. It was preceded by Godhra train burning in which some RSS people were killed, a violent mob of a few dozen people torched the train.

In response to this the state government paraded the dead bodies of people on the streets of Ahmadabad and what followed would shame humanity. Mobs of hooligans went to Muslim localities and killed innocent people who had no part in the crime this included women and children.

Recalling a newspaper report from that time, I remember that a pregnant Muslim women was first raped by a mob then her stomach was slit and the fetus was taken out and thrown in fire and then ultimately the women was thrown in fire.

The state government was involved in this carnage. The police had instructions from the government that no action should be taken on the rioters. So the rioters simply had a free hand they killed, they raped , the looted without being obstructed at all.

This was definitely one of the most shameful events in the history of free India. The International media and world swung into action. The Gujarat chief minister was considered to be responsible for the riots and he was denied visa to the US for many years.

But Indians most of them are idiots, voted like idiots and in 2014, chose the same man as the Prime Minster of the nation thinking that it would usher in acche din(happy days ) but the reality turned out to be the other way round it is acche din but only for some crony corporates. The condition of people remains the same. In last one year India has been the worst performing market in the world.

The methodology of calculation of GDP growth rate changed to fool people into believing that the nation is growing faster but in reality the growth rate has slowed down. This man promised to bring back black money within 100 days , well hardly any action has happened in that front only lies of action being taken has been spread in the media.

Now add to that this man visits Belur Math where the monks knowing about his misdeeds of the past still open the room of Swami Vivekananda for him to show off that he is meditating. Surely the soul of Swamiji would have been hurt by such an act. Of course the modern day Ramakrishna Mission is nowhere like the ones who started it. The monk who is the president sits in an AC room and gets his darshan done by idiot devotees.

I personally had an encounter with a monk from RKM Australia who tried every trick in the book to convince me that Modi is working for the sake of the nation. When I gave him logical points that he is doing nothing at all and making only the crony corporates rich the monk gave up and said you have a lot to learn, someway he had to get away.

Really these days most of the monks are wrong numbers whose only interest is to get enough chanda to live a life of comfort. 

Swami Vivekananda and Buddha

Swami Vivekananda had great regards for Buddha. He claims that as a child he had a vision of Buddha while meditating in his room. In fact after the death of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa the favourite subject of study at the Baranogore Math was Buddhism.

In his speeches Swamiji has referred to Buddha multiple times specially during a lecture on the Ideal of Karmayoga . Here is the excerpt:

Let me tell you in conclusion a few words about one man who actually carried this teaching of Karma-Yoga into practice. That man is Buddha. He is the one man who ever carried this into perfect practice. All the prophets of the world,except Buddha, had external motives to move them to unselfish action. The prophets of the world, with this single exception, may be divided into two sets, one set holding that they are incarnations of God come down on earth, and the other holding that they are only messengers from God; and both draw their impetus for work from outside, expect reward from outside, however highly

spiritual may be the language they use. But Buddha is the only prophet who said, "I do not care to know your various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take you to freedom and to whatever truth there is." He was, in the

conduct of his life, absolutely without personal motives; and what man worked more than he? Show me in history one character who has soared so high above all. The whole human race has produced but one such character, such high philosophy, such wide sympathy. This great philosopher, preaching the highest philosophy, yet had the deepest sympathy for the lowest of animals, and never put forth any claims for himself. He is the ideal Karma-Yogi, acting entirely without motive, and the history of humanity shows him to have been the

greatest man ever born; beyond compare the greatest combination of heart and brain that ever existed, the greatest soul-power that has even been manifested. He is the first great reformer the world has seen. He was the first who dared to

say, ''Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your national belief, because you have been made to believe it from your childhood; but reason it all out, and after you have analysed it, then, if you find that it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to it." He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as will transform the world. This man represents the very highest ideal of Karma-Yoga.

On other occasions Swami Vivekananda has reffered to Buddha as the greatest man ever born. The fact that Buddha never preached god made no difference to him whatsoever.