Questioner: Namaskaram Sadhguru. I lost my daughter last week, and I am in deep grief. What can I do for her now that she has passed?
Sadhguru: So, what I say is not intended to hurt you. It’s a little technical – I want you to look at it that way. Because I can sit here and speak a few words of solace, but that will not be a solution for you. You will only feel good for today, and tomorrow morning it will be the same again. I want you to listen to this carefully.
If any of our children die before they are 4 years of age, you will see, people will work themselves into pain. Actually, there is no pain. When they say there is no pain, there is emotional pain, there is no wrenching things happening within you. People think this is because it’s only a few years – that’s not true, you can get attached in a day, it doesn’t take 4 years. This is simply because that life is not full-fledged yet.
Even the governments in the world consider – If you have to take the IMR rate – Infant Mortality Rate, you take below 4 years, because it has been a common thing till recently, now that the medical interference is a little too much, otherwise, a lot of children would die before they are 4 years of age, without any ailment, a lot of them, simply like that, because life is unestablished, not fully established.
When it’s an infant, when your child is an infant, that is when your contact with the child is big time. By the time he or she is 4, they start running around, they are not with you. You can’t hold them, they want to be all over the place, they want to see the world. But before 4 years of age, they are so much with you, in spite of that, physically being connected to them is not so strong, because they are not physically connected to their own body very strongly. So, the same has not happened within you very strongly.
This is something that most people will say, “No, no, no, when my child was 3 months, I was so attached.” I know those things, that’s why I said this is a little bit technical. Only if you are willing to observe life very carefully you will know this. Emotionally, if you look at it, on the first day of the child being born, you were very much attached. Even before it has been born you are attached, isn’t it?
Physiologically, your connection with the child increases in a dramatic way after the child crosses somewhere between 40 to 48 months
Physiologically, your connection with the child increases in a dramatic way after the child crosses somewhere between 40 to 48 months. At that time, your physiological connection with the child becomes much more immense, and it is happening in your body. Something is happening in your body, which most people don’t decipher. They experience something happening with them before 4 years.
After 4 years, child is a problem – where is it going, where is it, school admission, this one, that one, you know? Because of other engagements they miss this experience, otherwise, at that time, something clicks in, because that being and that body clicked in, in approximately 40 to 48 months after its birth. When that clicks in, you come to a certain ease, because it becomes a part of you. You don’t have to consciously hold it – a natural holding is happening.
If a child dies young, before 4 years, they will be disappointed, emotionally disturbed, but not grief-stricken. This is not because of the duration, at all. This is because still that being has not connected with that body, and you must understand, you are only a provider of the body. You cannot create a being. It is not in human hands to create a being, you only provide it a body, you facilitate a body. So, only when that being really clicks on to the body that you provided, something clicks on within you, and occupies a certain space. It occupies a certain space within your own system.
If we just check somebody’s energy, we know whether they have had children or not. You go to any local astrologer, for 25 rupees he will tell you how many children you have, whether they’re surviving or not surviving, even what their names are. For 25 rupees, I’m telling you – that’s half a dollar. They’ll give you a brief synopsis of your children, their characteristics, their names, everything, because it occupies a certain space within you, and if you are willing to observe, it is very much there.
Now, this connection, this physiological connection is very strong till the child becomes 21. After 21 it starts dissipating once again. This is a beautiful natural system of caring for the offspring, bringing it up, and also being capable of releasing it, when you have to.
It’s no use blessing you for your children if they are over 21 years of age
If somebody comes to me and says, “Bless my children,” I’ll ask, “How old are they?” If they are below 21, we really bless them. If they are over, we banter with them, joke with them, and send them, because it’s no use. It’s no use blessing you for your children if they are over 21 years of age. We will have to bless them – they are individuals by themselves. If they are below 21 years, you can bless a mother or a father, and have a deep impact on the child. But if they are over 21, they have to come by themselves. Blessing the mother, blessing the father is of no consequence or great significance, it’s only emotional significance.
This should not happen to anybody, but it happens. Nobody should die before their children die, it’s always best we die before our children die. That’s how it should be, the natural order of life. Sometimes, it does happen. It is happening to somebody or the other every day. Most people believe it will never happen to them. It’s not so, it can happen to anybody. Now that it’s happened to us, it is best – before it happened, we could have done anything to save that life. Once it’s happened, it’s time to look, it’s time to look deeper within yourself and understand what this whole process is, how profound it is, at the same time how binding it is, and how liberating it can be.
In India, people desperately want to have a son. The reason why they want to have a son is – today the social situations have changed, the technological and travel capabilities of people have changed, otherwise, when they come of age, the girl gets married and goes to somebody else’s house. If you die, she may not be able to come, because she has to walk. She need not be in America, if she is in Salem, she won’t come walking 200 kilometers. By the time she comes, your cremation will be over. So, we want a son, because the son lives here.
In today’s world it’s irrelevant, but I want you to understand, a thousand years ago this was very relevant. If she was living 50 kilometers away, she wouldn’t come in time. She has her own children, her own husband, her own family, she can’t just drop and walk away, and alone she can’t walk away. Everything would be forested, and somebody has to escort her down. So, it wouldn’t happen, that’s why the 12th day was arranged for the daughters to come.
When you die, you want your child around you. They said son because practically it was only possible for the son to be around, daughter would be somewhere else. The reason why a child should be around is, there are methods to make use of that little pocket within you, a little empty space within you which is occupied by that being whom you refer to as ‘my child,’ and if he does the right things, he can liberate you. It’s for this, those people who live completely unaware, and they don’t do anything about themselves, they are depending upon their children to liberate them. And that became a whole tradition by itself. Varanasi is known for this.
People come either with their aged parents who want to die in Kashi, or they have just died, with the ashes and whatever else they come, because they somewhere understand they could liberate them. But today there are very few people who know how to do these things properly, so it has become a mere ritual. So, what I’m trying to tell you is, once you bear a child, a certain space of who you are is occupied by that, by that being whom you refer to as your child, because you only provided a body for this being.
Because generally people’s interaction with each other is only either physical, or mental, or emotional, and it never goes beyond that – we believe that’s everything about that person. But when a person dies, or when a person sheds his or her body, all that is gone – the mental structure is gone, emotions are gone, body is for sure gone. So, everything that you knew as ‘mine’ is gone, and that being that you have always held as your child, is as much a stranger to you as just about anybody.
Now, at the same time, after someone is dead, if they happen to be our parents, we do certain things. If they happen to be our children we do nothing, because you have a little space occupied by the quality of that being, but they don’t have that little space occupied within, by you. You cannot occupy the future generation. The future generation occupies a little space in the past, but the past generation will not occupy, and cannot occupy, in the very nature of things, in the future generation. Because of this, as a child grows and becomes close to 21, you look at them, they look like absolute strangers. You can’t believe, did you bear them? Are they your children? Is this the same little baby that I brought up? Can’t recognize what they’re doing, because you do not have an abode in them, but they have an abode in you.
So, if you want to influence your children, don’t try to do too many things with them. You must be able to identify where this space is. If you keep it in a certain way, things will happen okay. This is a remote control that a parent has about the child.
So, if you want to influence your child, within the first 11 days that you have come, Kala Bhairava Karma definitely does something significant. Apart from that, if you want to do anything, your thoughts, your emotions and your actions have no influence over your child, who is no more. But if you turn inward, if your way of being becomes pleasant, it has a tremendous influence. Because that little space, if it becomes pleasant, that being will experience pleasantness till that being finds another body – till then, you can influence. Once it finds another body, you have nothing to do with it. Now somebody else claims ‘this is my child’ and a whole new drama begins again.
This is not a right thing to tell someone who’s lost their child just a week ago, I’m sorry. But that’s how it is. So, one thing, one thing that all of us need to understand is, children only come through us, they don’t come from us. It’s a privilege that somebody chose to come through you, that you could be a passage for another life. We don’t own it, we can’t claim rights over it, it just came through us – it’s a great privilege. You must cherish that privilege.
And, your daughter, from the moment she was born to you, and for some unfortunate reason, whatever has happened, till then, in so many ways, in so many, many ways, which one may not realize at that time, but now if you look back, in so many, many, many ways she enriched your life, isn’t it? You just have to cherish that, and if you want to influence her, you make this [self] as pleasant as possible, that’s the only way you can influence her.
If she was your mother, you could influence her in other ways, by doing karmas, kriyas and things, but with your child you cannot do that. The only way you can make it pleasant for that being is, to making this being [self] absolutely pleasant, because that little space that being occupied, that quality and that dimension is still connected, till it finds another body. Once it finds another body, then it’s gone.
