call to soul

My grandmother expired on 7th november. A lot of rituals took place as per hindu religious tradition.

I was observing those closely and trying to understand and make sense of whatever the prist was doing.

One particular ritual got my attention,
The prist requested the soul of my grandmother to come and rest inside a small knot made of 'darbha'; a special grass used in such rituals (i m yet to find y it is so special) .

He then offered her some darbha to sit upon, then she was given a bath , was offered gifts, was offered sacred meal (i don't know exact english word for 'Naivedyaa' ) and so on. Of course the gifts were later donated to the prist.

when I realised all this sequence, I was little shocked. this whole process had uncanny resemblance with the process of planchet.

In both the processes a soul is requested upon to come.

In planchet we request them to answer few questions whereas here the soul was honoured.
Planchet is considered something dark whereas these were religious rituals.

The core theme I think is same. That is acceptance or belief that there is something called a soul, that continue to exist even after this earthly body is burned to ashes. And that it can still have it's own existence in a form unk own to us. It still has an ability to communicate and hence perhaps it's own personality.

All said and done about the scientific attitude and all, still I don't think those who have experienced the presence of a soul through planchet will ever forget that experience.

Just like me.

My curious angel...

Sometimes I just let my 7 months old daughter freely stroll around the room letting her handle any thing along the way ,the way she want... Hold...climb...push... I just ensure safety and observe whatever she does.
It is always amazing to see the curiosity...excitement...enthusiasm with which children at this age approach absolutely everything... Every activity.
The spark in the eyes and smile on the face. May it be simple rattle or watching the image in mirror.
Any activity we do is observed carefully and of course an attempt is made in that direction. The way we eat in plate... The way the remote or mobile buttons are used... Or the way a laptop is used... Nothing is out of reach. She would see me using laptop and immediately she would want to try banging on keyboard.
I simply open a text pad so that she can see the cause-effect between keyboard and screen.

A lot many such activities. I know the experience is common but it is yet so unique to everyone. as we grow up we loose this excitement to explore,learn .

May be we start thinking we know all. Or just because we no longer have the liberty to explore the things 'the way we want'. There is always some restriction, some rule, some law,some tradition that dictate 'the way' things should be done.

In later life the same ability to explore things without any prejudices become rarity and
I think those manage to retain a little of this ability, manage to have some thing called 'out of the box thinking'.

I wish I could borrow some from my little angel... But for the time being I an trying to learn this fresh approach to life without any prejudice.