Pind Daan or Shraddha Is a Mere Superstition

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Constitution of Man Series · 11 pages

The companion to No need for expensive funerals in batch 2, and harder on the practice it names. Pind Daan, the argument runs, cannot hasten the deliverance of the soul from the body of the departed, and any effects produced by it are caused unconsciously by the strong belief of the temple's priest. Blavatsky's editorial note is careful to separate two questions: while doubting the omnipotence of the presiding deity and the threats made in her name, she trusts the word of honest pilgrims who report seeing the shadow of their departed relatives.

What they see is explained rather than denied. The earth's atmosphere is described as packed with the astral remains of men and women disintegrating in the limbus of the Roman Catholics — kama-loka — images of empty shells magnetically drawn to those they had loved on earth; so the apparitions are real without being the persons. The advice that follows is the practical point of the file: the best way to help a restless ghost is to stop thinking of it and allow nature to take its course, since no man or priest can impede the immutable law of karma, especially after the death of the person who evolved it, and the departed should be left to rest in peace. Seneca is quoted for the consolation — that the body being only the covering of the soul, at its dissolution we shall discover all the secrets of nature and darkness shall be dispelled.

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