How Ancestors (Pitrus) Become Impure, and the Remedy

The speaker opens with a common experience: a family keeps facing trouble, goes to someone who knows tantra, and is told after inquiry that their Pitrs are impure and that this is why the problems come. He then poses the question he wants to answer — what is this impurity, and how can pitrs become impure at all when their body is not made of the five great elements? He says the first thing to understand is where the pitrs sit. Their chief seat is near the entrance door of the house. The kula's shakti — Bhagavati Kuldevi and Kula Bhairava — sit there, and the pitrs of the kula have their place right beside them; at the entrance the first authority is theirs. He adds that when a very good and special sadhaka is born in a lineage, by the Devi's grace he too gets the position of kula bhairava after death. Only people who, through tantra and shuddhi, have received divine sight by a Mahavidyas's grace, he says, actually see these matters correctly. On how impurity is possible: the pitrs' body is a vayaviya (airy) body, and they hold complete authority over every auspicious work in the family — mangalik events happen through their grace and blessing. It is through this standing, he says, that they become the target when someone wants to bring impure and petty forces into the house; the specific ways this happens are the causes he lists next.

The speaker says the first way the Pitrs become impure is when someone who envies you, or wants to cheat you for some reason, tries to make impure and petty (kshudra) forces enter your house. To succeed at that, he says, the person must first bind the Chaukhat — that is, nail (keelit) or defile your entrance door — and once the entrance is defiled, the pitrs become impure 99% of the time. He explains what "defiled" means with an example. In Sanatana culture Bhagavati Gau mata is held to be the Devi herself. If any forbidden substance connected with her — her flesh, or any organ of her body taken after death — is thrown onto the threshold by some shmashan vidya, or even just made to touch the threshold through mantra or that kind of tantra, then the first to become impure are the kula's pitrs. After that, he says, they are no longer able to stand with you in any shubh or mangalik work. He describes who does this: people of low nature who have fallen so far through jealousy that they feel no fear at all in doing such acts, with no sensitivity toward humanity or their own dharma — and there are also knowers and Bhagatvaals who help them carry it out. The sign, he says, is that you are doing your puja and path as before, yet suddenly great upheaval starts in the house. As for timing, enemies do this when you are moving toward progress, or when a marriage or similar function is fixed in the house — at wedding time especially, he says, such people definitely do this.

The speaker's second cause is when someone from your own family — a girl or a boy — goes and marries into a kula that is entirely opposed to your kula tradition. If a daughter goes away abandoning the vidhi-vidhan of your tradition, and later comes back, wants to stay, and you make peace and bring her into the house, there will be trouble. He states the case plainly: a girl from a Sanatana household, where puja-path is done by Vaishnava or Dakshinachara vidhi, goes off with a Muslim boy. If for any reason you later take pity on her, or act out of attachment, and let her into the house, then — he says 95% would be an understatement — there is a full chance your Pitrs will be angered by impurity. His reasoning: when a woman crosses the door and marries in that way, what is done to her there, the inhumanity and the acts against our dharma and culture, leave her character and body completely impure. When she crosses your Chaukhat with that aura, impurity enters and its full effect falls on the children and descendants of the house. So his rule is: never let those who have left after such acts enter the house. Do not pity them — they left, it is their mistake. If humanity and compassion rise in you, meet them outside. If she herself wants to come back, admitting the offence, then do not bring her home first; take her to a tirtha for shuddhi by vidhi-vidhan. He says it is said that Ganga sand is fed for seven days, since Ganga soil has medicinal quality. So take her to a place where the Ganga is pure — Haridwar, Rudraprayag — consult such Brahmins there, have the whole vidhi and the PrayashchittaRitual atonement performed to offset the karmic burden of a weighty act, such as a Shatkarma that results in an enemy's death. vidhan performed, and keep her there in vidhi-vidhan puja for at least a month and a quarter (sava mahina) if possible. Only then bring her home, and no dosha will attach to you.

The speaker's third cause concerns a boy of the house — a descendant of the lineage — who marries a woman who lives wholly against your kula tradition. He stresses it need not be a Muslim girl: any woman, any young lady, whose ways run counter to the family's tradition. His examples: in your house meat is not eaten; the seat of your Pitrs is there, given by your forefathers; your deities are worshipped in a way where meat of any kind is forbidden — and she cannot live without meat. Whether she came in by her own choice or you yourself arranged your son's marriage to her, she is simply not willing to follow the kula tradition. She will not sweep and mop the house, will not do puja-path on time, or will not do it at all; if she does it, she will not keep shuddhi and shauch (AshauchA state of ritual impurity, such as following a death or birth in the family, during which certain rites and recitations are restricted.). He adds that many are very modern nowadays — with modern ideas they do not observe menstruation either, and in that very state they touch the seats of the pitrs and forefathers, touch the deity images, or walk into the deity's place. From this too, he says, the pitrs become greatly displeased, because it causes them pain and impurity — and once impure, they will somewhere bring suffering to you. He closes by saying these are the main ways in which it is said that pitrs become impure.

Beyond the main causes, the speaker names one more special cause that happens unknowingly. A family member goes somewhere on a journey and, without any knowledge of it, touches a forbidden object; or some other person, without the family member knowing, makes their body touch something containing a forbidden substance — or does so deliberately. Or, he says, you go to a tirtha, and there people very often leave the wrong kind of Utara behind — if you have stepped over all that, and in that state enter your house, then the Pitrs receive impurity without anyone intending it. The result, he says, is suffering particularly in the body, and the biggest symptom is that whenever this kind of problem happens to you, skin-related disease starts increasing greatly. So keep this in mind: whenever you go somewhere and after coming back someone in the house has a lot of skin-related trouble and no particular cause can be found, do remedies related to the pitrs.

Asked what the remedy for purity is, the speaker says there are different remedies according to the dosha, but gives one general one. A boy of the house fills a copper lota with pure water and adds a little GomutraCow urine, added in a small quantity to a purification vessel alongside Gangajal in remedies for ancestral or ritual impurity. and GangajalWater from the Ganges, used to purify and re-consecrate ritual items exposed to impurity.. Over it he recites the eleventh chapter of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, spoken by Bhagavan Narayana, eleven times. This is done in a single day, on any Sunday — Krishna paksha or Shukla paksha, no problem — or, if one prefers, on an Amavasya tithi. The work is to be done at midday, roughly between 10:00 am and 12:30 pm; the path can begin earlier, from 7 or 8 am, but must be at least eleven recitations. He recites holding the lota in both hands so that the water becomes charged (abhimantrit) — and one must not blow on it or make it jutha. Once the water in the vessel is charged, a Tulsi plant is placed facing the sun. One says to Tulsi ji and to Surya Narayana: in whatever way my Pitrs have received impurity, knowingly or unknowingly and for whatever reason, may they be freed of it and become fully pure, and may they do good to my whole family; for this I do abhisheka of Bhagavati Tulsi with this pure, holy, mantra-charged water, and I request all my pitrs that, as I pour, they be present in this Tulsi in their portions, receive their share, and become pure. He explains that the three parts of Tulsi — root, stem and top — are held to be the dwelling of different kinds of pitrs: the OotThe unfulfilled spirit of a child who died in the womb or before their sacred-thread ceremony — distinct from an ordinary Preta. stay in one place, the pitrs in another, the JujharThe spirit of an ancestor who died a violent or unnatural death (such as in battle) — a distinct class of Pitru, alongside Oot, worshipped in its own dedicated portion. in another. So when you do abhisheka of Tulsi with this charged water, by the grace of Surya Narayana, Bhagavan Narayana and Bhagavati Tulsi your pitrs become completely pure. He closes with the scope: this is a one-day prayoga. If you have made a mistake deliberately it will not be as effective; if a dosha attached unknowingly, do this prayoga and the pitrs become pure.