Clearing Ancestral Karma to Elevate Relationships

Invite your ancestors back for a tasty homemade meal made with love and gratitude.

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This year, 2020, according to the vedic calendar, the astrological time for clearing ancestral karma is from the 1st of September to the 17th. This is a beautiful portal and time to focus on sending prayers to those who are not in their body anymore. Pitru Paksha or Shraadh is the sincere intention and ceremonies are done for 16 days to connect with the ancestors from 6 to 12 generations on the mothers and fathers blood line and send them our gratitude. 

History

Pitru Paksh literally means “Ancestral fortnight.” Shraadh is any ritual done with sincerity, faith and humility. This is mentioned in one of the first recorded scriptures, the Rig Veda, which some date to over 40,000 years. The first day is the preparation and purification and, each of the following days, different ceremonies are done and different people who have passed are remembered. Even if you missed out on these dates, you can still connect to the energy of your family tree. You can also pay respects to your spiritual and emotional family. Some even pay respects to departed pets and especially departed cows. This is because the cow, like one's own mother, has given us her own milk and has to be treated with that respect.

Simple Ritual For The Full Moon And New Moon Day

This period starts on a full moon and ends on a new moon. We start a new cycle on the new moon. So we can send prayers, support and gratitude to the ancestors. By doing that we also clear any unhealthy threads of family patterns, conditioning or trauma that do not serve any more.

Take a small coin, half tsp of rice and black sesame seeds plus dharba grass. I have done this ritual with a strand of rosemary instead of the dharba grass, as it is less easy to find in Vancouver. Offer this to any form of the divine you are drawn to, including all the ancestors. This offering is called Tarpanam.

Feed the crows as our ancestors are supposed to visit us in crow form. We can also feed the ants or put some food in the sea to feed the fishes. We can note what we are thankful for and what we want to let go of if we are intellectual. And even symbolically burn away patterns that are not healthy. Or the sheer bhakthi and heart opening will allow for the melting away of unhealthy threads. This is how the vedic ceremonies were structured. The love, gratitude and vibrational healing through chanting and prayers were there to override any resentment.

It is also important to respect and feed living elders and this is called annadhanam.

Clearing Relationship Karma

Many times the relationships we stay in show us the degree to which we have self worth or not. As much as self worth is intrinsic it can be formed by the respect with which we were treated in the past. Our families hold sway over a big portion of our childhood that shapes self worth. Thus by working on family/lineage karma we shift the way we are treated. This may or may not come to our conscious awareness as to what patterns need to change. It might simply fall away.

What Is Karma？

“As we sow, so we reap,” is a simple understanding. It is however more nuanced. There is personal, familial and collective karma. That is why in intimate partnerships we need to be a lot more aware as a lot of deep rooted unconscious stuff comes to the surface, which needs to be seen and healed.

Significant Shifts

It was interesting that Ross decided to come to Vancouver and stay with me exactly at the start of Pitru paksha. I was happy as we, the Arkaya core team need to allow time for our process and clearing as that will help us hold space for others, better.

After we went to the sea and did a small ritual of gratitude and clearing Ross had a significant dream. I will let him phrase it in his own words…

Ross’ Ancestral Lineage Dream - Present at Birth

“The night after we began the sadhana to clear ancestral karma, I had a very vivid and powerful dream. I was present as an observer of my own birth. I could see everything that was happening and also feel the emotions and energetics that were being experienced by my infant self.

First, I was floating in the amniotic fluid of the womb. Warm, safe and held. I was at peace. Then I was being forced out of this safe space. I came out and was covered in fluid and wax. The sack of the placenta was laying beside me and I was looking down at myself. I experienced very viscerally the shift from feeling pure and unencumbered, to taking on the karma of my family lineage. It was a sense of emotional weight that just took a seat within my being.

A little over one week later, my parents were staying with me and I was able to share the dream with them. It was beautiful to hear their memories of this moment and how they both noted how thick the wax was, all over my body. They also told me that my mother had made sure to tell the doctor and nurses, ahead of time, that she wanted to hold me immediately after I was born. She wanted to establish that connection right away rather than have me taken away to be cleaned up. I’m grateful to both of my parents for having the awareness of how important it is for the mother and child to establish this bond. Imagine the shock of this experience, moving from the womb into the world of separate bodies and excessive stimuli. There needs to be a gradual transition for a healthy human being to develop and individuate as and when they are ready. 

It’s also funny to me that I not only received this loving bond from my parents but also took on the bondage of their family lineages. However, I have now experienced through this dream, that my soul’s causal body already had similar karmas to work through and this is why I was brought into this particular family. It’s not only our work to help clear our ancestral karma and to lighten the load for past and future generations. It is also a blessing if we are able to embrace it and see how the ancestors and the divine support us in this process.”

Maitreyi’s Dream - The Boab Flower

I had a dream too where I was introduced to the Boab flower. Three weeks before the dream I had revived my connection with angel Raphael and in the dream I could feel his presence. There were whitish flowers falling into a pond and I was reaching for them. Then I reached with my foot, wearing a white trouser.

I remember knowing and hearing that it was the Australian boab and that I needed to support everyone with their ancestral clearing.

On awakening Ross excitedly shared his dream and I shared mine. He seemed to know a bit more about the boab than I consciously did and mentioned the African baobab. I told him in the dream it was clearly Australian. The first thing that Ross Googled in relation to the baobab was about Moses being guided by Raphael and then we found a site for the Australian boab flower essence as well. As we read what it does we were not surprised at this beautiful divine message, yet thankful and amazed as always.

In a gist this is what it said... Boab clears negative emotional and mental family patterns that are passed on from generation to generation. Boab can access and clear those core patterns and all the related ensuing beliefs. This Essence is very beneficial in helping those who have had experiences of abuse or prejudice from others.

We went on to order it and they charged over $50 just for shipping. So I asked Ross to find out the Canadian distributor. Lo and behold, the only distributor was in Gibsons, where Ross lives. This is a town of less than 5,000 people. I expected it to be in a larger city and was once again grateful for everything flowing so beautifully.

Ritual Helps Access The Spiritual

Rituals done with the right intention or sankalpa become a portal to access the spiritual. That is why even if we cannot do very elaborate vedic rituals but maintain their integrity and connect to their spirit, we can still tap into the power of the millions who have done this before us as well. This powerful collective also carries us to more elevated spaces in our relationship with ourselves and others, unhindered by unhealthy karmic threads.