My Pitrs (ancestors) and scents of my Yearning

A few days ago was my father’s tenth death anniversary. I performed the shraddha or rituals to my Pitrs or ancestors on that day. I am somewhat resistant to the determinism of ancestral narratives. In my own life, I have experienced that nothing needs to pre-determine how our lives should unfold, rather life is a co-creative project between our Yearning and Reality.

As part of the rituals, I went to the pond on the mountain near my house to offer ritual food to the birds and fish. As I dipped the plate into the pond, I noticed the reflection of the tree on the waters—the upside-down tree. And it came to me that the famous invocation of the upside down Ashwatta tree also pertains to this reality of the image of the tree when reflected on water. The branches appear to hang down and the roots go to the sky.

Traditionally the upside down Ashwatta tree is an invitation to approach embodied life informed by wisdom from our sensation domains (the lower body as the branches that are out in the world signaling leading our lives with an intelligence about our primordial consciousness).

In the revelation of the upside-down tree also being connected to its reflection, the invocation becomes multi-layered. Our primordial self is where the past and present become a confluence—it brings the past into presence, turning time upside down. Our ancestry is held in the vasanas or scents of our ancient Yearning. This is not a rigid constellation, neither is it linear. Like the tree and its reflection, it dissolves linearity and trembles in the infinite possibilities of the moment.

As the ducks gathered to feed the offerings, I saw how ancestry is a pulsating constellation of movement and possibilities, and not just a story. The scattering of the food intimately brought home to me the sensation of my Pitrs immanent in all the movement of Nature around me. It did not matter that I was far away from the country of my birth, they all milled around in the contented quacking of the ducks and the trembling reflection of the tree on the waters.

As above so below. As before, so now. Our bodies hold our Pitrs as do every aspect of Nature. The honouring of my Pitrs is to honour all the lives—human, animals, and plants—that have led to my life in this time. We don’t create Reality, it is ever the same in its transience. Reality trembles because it is elusive to capture with words and narratives. Reality, like the tree and its reflection, is multi-dimensional and, to us may appear like the reversal of our linear narratives.

One of my favourite childhood stories is that of Dhruv, a young boy who dies and becomes a star in the sky. I used to tell my father that when he died, I would like him to be a star in the sky. When I looked up at the night skies, I sensed how the ancients held the revelation of the stars that mapped our bodies in the celestial domains. Rituals invoked this intimate connection between our bodies and all the other bodies of expression of Nature—the trees, the ducks and the stars. It was a wondrous continuum of the expression of being alive and trembling with pulsation, just like the tree trembling on the waters.

My Pitrs move in my body to allow me to express the scent of the ancient Yearning that has brought me into body. Meaning happens when I transform those scents into beauteous offerings that can nourish the landscape of my own body and the Earth’s body.