By SADHGURU, Isha Foundation
Question: Today is my birthday. As a child, this used to be the most amazing day for me. As a teenager, I would just party. Today, I am in a spiritual discourse and my family is asking me, ‘What is wrong with you?’
Sadhguru: You are evolving! You must help your parents evolve too, because the only reason Indian parents desperately want to have a son is because they believe you will facilitate their liberation. When you die, only your son will be there to light the funeral pyre. He will do the karmas and kriyas. Your daughter would have gotten married and moved away. Nowadays it is different, your daughter can come back wherever she is. But in the past, if the girl got married and went to a distant place, you would rarely see her. If she has to walk two hundred kilometers, she would take five days and they cannot keep the body for so long. There would be no one to do the things that were necessary.
Performing the Last Rites This is why having a son was always considered important. He would be around and when you die, he will do what is necessary so that your liberation happens. Your parents unknowingly bore you in pursuit of liberation. It is time you remind them. This is an important duty for a child. As your parents are aging, if they do not have the sense to come to their senses, you must bring that sense to them. You must remind them like I just reminded you – you are one year closer to the grave and your parents are much closer than you. It is a fact of life. If you miss this fact, you will live a silly and extremely stupid life.
As your birthday gift, you must remind them that it is time they look inward. They do not mind you being drunk or lost, but they are afraid that if you take the spiritual step, you may not turn back. They are right about that! It is not that you will not go home. You will, but they will not have the same bondage from you as they used to. They no longer have their hooks on you. Suddenly, you are free. That is something that nobody is willing to tolerate, please understand this. ‘They cannot tolerate it when they are bound but you are free. When they are bound to you, you should also be bound to them. This is the whole game.
A Son’s Foremost Duty
As a son, reminding your parents of this is one of your most important duties. In their life they have done whatever they knew best. Now it is time they turn inward and invest some time and energy upon their own inner wellbeing, because if they do not do this, they will die miserably for sure. When the moment of death comes, if you have not found anything beyond the physical, terror is the only way – you have no other choice. You do not want your parents to die in terror, you want them to die gracefully. So you must make sure they turn inward.
Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the ‘Padma Vibhushan’, India’s highest annual civilian award, by the Government of India in 2017, for exceptional and distinguished service.