The Vedas say that in order to help a soul in the afterlife, you need to earn this right. Just lighting a candle is not enough. You have to give something serious.
The departure of a close relative is a great stress for us and an irreparable loss. Most of us are not ready for this moment. It is difficult for us to realize that next to us there is no longer that person whom we loved and whose presence we regarded as natural and self-evident.
Very often, people note that after a relative leaves, they feel a strong heaviness on their heart. This feeling comes to them for two reasons: because of a feeling of unfulfilled duty to this person and because of attachment, the Vedas say.
Attachment in the heart evokes strong protest. A person refuses to believe that his wife / father / child is no longer alive. However, the time comes, and we are losing something in this life. Affection literally means that we want to receive happiness from a loved one always. Forever. No matter how long I live. But in reality, we should give happiness, not receive it.
Therefore, when a relative passes away, the first thing we must do is to give him our strength. It doesn't matter if we love him or not. This is our duty. At the moment of leaving, a person's mental body is transformed, and he needs help to pass the last exam of life. If relatives do not help the dying person, then later they have a feeling of a stone in their heart.
- We suffer for two reasons: 1) I lost a man, but I wanted him to be near, 2) I did not fulfill my duties to him. The reason for our suffering is that we do not know what the inner life is, or we know, but with great difficulty. Depression, despair, illness come because we do not know how to live correctly and where to direct our energies, - notes Oleg Gennadievich.
It is the inner life that is the basis of life, and everything else is the results of fate. Therefore, when a bad period begins, you need to invest your strength in victory over fate, and they are invested only through faith. Accordingly, you need to pray, read the scriptures, visit holy places, actively immerse yourself in the service of people and God.
The Vedas describe in detail the moment a person leaves life. So, if a person lived correctly during his life, performed pious deeds, then he goes to the higher planets (a semblance of paradise in the Christian tradition). If he committed sins, did not engage in self-development, but only gained bad karma, then he goes to the lower worlds (hell). If he was strongly attached to this world, he had a strong desire to finish some business at the last moment of his life, then he remains on the middle planets.
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There are many methods for diagnosing the gross body, with the help of which one can understand where the soul of a person has gone. For example, if a person calmly leaves his body, does not twitch, does not groan, they still say about such people “died with a smile on his face,” then their soul ascends to the higher worlds. If a person experiences great fear at the time of death, agony, and moreover, he empties the intestines, then he goes to the lower planets.
In the latter case, it is imperative to pray for the soul of a departed person, because, of course, she will experience great torment, and close relatives will feel her suffering on the subtle plane. For this reason, we may have dreams with departed relatives who ask for help.
So how can you help a departed relative?
1. The Vedas say that a relative who has just passed away should not be greatly mourned either during or after the funeral. The more we experience mental anguish, the more the soul experiences suffering. In the first 40 days, the soul is close to its relatives, in the house where she lived. She sees and hears everything, so any mourning brings her incredible suffering and pain.
2. Pray for the departed person in front of his photograph. In prayer, you need to call on the soul of a relative and ask her to surrender to God.
- If at the thought of a departed relative it becomes difficult for us, despondency and powerlessness come, it just means the amount of work. You need to pray. If this is not done, then the difficulty that sits within us will become the difficulty of our destiny. You have to pray until it becomes easy. You should not close your heart to a departed relative, on the contrary, you need to remember and help him. If you pray with the whole family, the effect will be greater. If you pray to the voice of a saint, even more, - emphasizes Oleg Gennadievich.
3. You should read the scriptures to him. You can do it yourself, you can invite priests to the house who understand a lot about this. It is necessary to explain to a departed relative how to live, what a soul is, what state he was in and what happened in general. The priest should not instill fear in relatives, and also should not encourage everyone to indulge in grief.
In the Bhagavad-gita it is said that just as the soul changes the body of a child to the body of a young man, and then to the body of an old man, so after death it changes an old body to a new one, so we should not have cause for sorrow. According to Vedic philosophy, death as such does not exist, it is a transition to a new life. A person does not die because the soul is eternal. We simply lose the ability to see him and communicate with him, but we still have family ties and relationships with him.
4. Need to feed the departed soul for 40 days. The Vedas recommend preparing food in a humble state of mind, with love and gratitude to a relative. It should not contain the products of violence: meat, fish, eggs. You cannot taste food while cooking. After that, you need to mentally turn to God so that he would accept food from the person who left the body and so that it would go for the good of this soul. Place a plate in front of the relative's photograph and offer food to him. After that, it can be given to animals.
5. You can not offer a departed person a glass of vodka with bread. Also, you cannot drink alcohol at funerals and commemorations. This is an ignorant tradition that causes a lot of suffering for the soul, so don't be afraid to abandon it.
6. No need to touch the things of the person who left the body for 40 days. This means that there is no need to distribute, throw away, and even more so to share. The soul suffers greatly, seeing how relatives divide up its property. Especially if it brings discord to the family.
7. On the 41st day, you can conduct a ceremony with the participation of clergy or holy people and distribute some kind of wealth on behalf of the departed person: money, grain or ghee. For this, the one who leaves the body will be given blessings. If this is impossible for you, then on behalf of a departed relative you can perform austerity and transfer this power to him. For example, keep a dry fast on his birthday. Before that, you need to mentally say that the power of fasting should go to a departed relative.
8. You can also feed priests, give alms on behalf of a relative, do pious deeds, plant a tree. By doing good deeds, we thereby transfer our piety to the soul, which in the future can have a great impact on its next birth, as well as on being in the afterlife. Only the power of piety can help a departed soul, the Vedas say. And since the soul can no longer help itself, this is our duty.