What is wrong with ancestors falling from higher planets to earth, as only from earth they can be liberated?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question, when Arjuna says that if his ancestors are not offered proper sacrifices or proper rituals, lukta-pindo-dhaka-kriya, then they will fall down, now isn’t it better that they come to the earth from which they can become elevated, from the heavens it is not so, they can’t be elevated from some Pitra-loka or higher lokas. Answer, the Bhagavad Gita’s first chapter is largely with the Mahabharata’s worldview and the Mahabharata’s worldview is not so much spiritual as more of karmakand or pious materialism, religiosity rather than spirituality and within that, going to the heavens is considered auspicious or going to any higher planet even Pitra-loka is auspicious and subsequent generations have a duty to do some pindo-dhaka-kriya so that the ancestors can be where they are by the ongoing piety, the legacy of piety that they have created for subsequent generations. Yes, within the bhakti worldview, we understand that the earthly planet system is the most suited for getting out of material existence but at the same time, we need to understand that not everyone is eager to get out of the material world also.
Those people, if you consider, even now on earth or even at the time of the Mahabharata, the number of people who were devotees were few, the number of sages were also not that large. So, the people who seek transcendence, seek eternal life through serious spiritual practice are few and those who attain it are fewer still and thus coming to earth is no guarantee that the door to liberation will open for them because of that. Quite often because of the predominance of illusion in this world, of course, it is there everywhere throughout material existence but it is much more on the earth as compared to the heavens in the sense that in the heavens there is pious illusion, here there is impious illusion and as the answer that somebody gets entangled or even get degraded is high, so falling from some higher planet back to the earth is considered a failure.
A serious failure in the karmakanda world view. In the bhakti world view, the earth is the most suited for devotional liberation but is there any guarantee that those on earth are going to be liberated? No. So, we don’t have to have a reductionistic or rejectionist, rejection-centered worldview of the various other Vedic practices.
They serve their own purpose in elevating people to some higher level of consciousness, whatever be the specifics of that higher level. So, within the karmakanda worldview, which is, we use the word karmakanda in a very derogatory sense, but karmakanda is basically religious piety and in a world where people don’t even believe in the existence of God, which is the kind of culture we are having today, we might feel as, we might just reduce spiritual scripture to one monolithic unit. The scripture is meant for taking us towards Krishna.
Well, that’s true ultimately, but not specifically in all its sections. So, the Vedic worldview also offers people multiple trajectories and ways to get elevated, provides a more sattvic and more spiritually conducive way of life and failure to do that, failure is considered a failure on the part of successive generations. So, the idea is that we need to be conscious of what the previous generations have provided us and we need to do our part in response.
So, the important thing there is that Arjun feels that the damage won’t just be limited to this generation, but it will go to previous generations and future generations also. The specifics of the mechanisms by which it may happen may be different and some of them may make sense in their cultural context, but may not make sense in our cultural context. Without getting caught in the technicalities, we can understand the principle that Arjun is considering the big picture as far as he can see, although Krishna will reveal to him a bigger picture still.
Arjuna is saying that basically the destruction that will be caused by killing this dynasty, by destroying dynasty, will not be restricted to just one generation, but will go to the generations who have already passed and will come to future generations also because one Sankara will be born, unwanted Paparajani will be born. Through contact, through the exploitation of defenseless women by predators. So, basically the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita is meant to convey the thoughtfulness of Arjuna, by which his qualification for receiving the Bhagavad Gita’s knowledge is highlighted.
So, his farsightedness in thinking of the future and the past is what we can focus on when