6. SORROW OF ATTACHMENT TO RELATIVES:
Kith and kin mean our relatives. To the extent a being is attached to them, he will experience pain while leaving the body. He may say "Alas! After I die my wife will be widowed and will be relegated to a corner; poor lady, she will not be allowed to go anywhere and she will suffer all alone. Our children will not pay heed to her and our daughters-in-law will abuse her and kick her out. Alas! My sons are young yet and who will teach them business without me? Without me they will die of hunger and if they get wrathful wives they will become very sorrowful".
"Alas! My two daughters are stilled young and unmarried; I have yet to get them married, who without me will do the needful? Who knows what notorious sons-in-law will give pain to my daughters and ask for a divorce? "In this way lamenting his misfortune a deluded being while leaving his body does not think of the Lord or meditate on him. In this way he gets ensnared in the cycle of birth and death.
There was an aged couple who were so deeply attached to their grandchildren that the whole day they would pick the children up, play with them and protect them. This aged couple would worry day-in and day-out that as long as they were alive they would protect those children but after their death who would look after those kids? Their daughter-in-law i.e. the mother of their children was lazy and short-tempered. She was incapable of looking after them properly.
With this worry in mind the aged couple would not allow the children to get off from their laps. And if the children passed urine in their laps they would look upon it as their good fortune and feel that the kids had sanctified their laps (who knows whether it was holy river Ganges water or not!)
With the worry of who would so lovingly look after those small children after their death, the grandparents actually died one day. In their bungalow a bitch was to bear puppies. They entered the womb of the bitch only to be born as a dog and a bitch. Then the whole day they lay down at the entrance of the bungalow to look after their grandchildren. If the little kids went out of the main door of the bungalow, they would bark, if a vehicle passed by, they would bark, if an unknown person passed by, they would bark. Thus the whole day the two of them would keep barking.
One day that bitch (the old lady) started barking so loudly that it disturbed the sleeping daughter-in-law. Hence the daughter-in-law took a stick and hitting hard, broke the waist of that bitch (old lady). The bitch wailing loudly complained to her husband-dog (old man), “Our daughter-in-law has broken my waist.” That dog (old man) said, “Wretched woman! Even when you were a human being you barked so much! But now stop barking lady! Now she is no longer your daughter-in-law that she will tolerate your barking and I too cannot counter-bark at her by taking your side, as she will break my waist-bone too. It is best that we give up our attachment to our grand-children and flee from this place.”
To what extent we human beings undergo sorrow due to extreme attachment to wife, sons etc. (just as King Bharat became a deer) is depicted in this imaginary but a very apt and moralizing example.
In order not to undergo this sorrow of attachment to relatives at the time of death, the saints and scriptures have shown us the way that man during his sojourn on earth should slowly detach himself from wife, children etc. while he advances in age.
Lord Sahajanand Swami has said that just as you have forgotten your mother, father, wife, children of your past lives due to the veil of ignorance, the same way you should forget your wife, children, parents etc. of this birth with full knowledge.
No doubt, due to ignorance you have forgotten your relatives and dear ones of your past lives. It is very good and know for sure that this is God’s grace because if you remember your maternal uncle, paternal uncle, wife of your past life then it will create a lot of problems. When a donkey passes your way you will cling to it saying, "Oh! You are my paternal uncle of my past life - you are my maternal uncle" what will be the situation then?
Imagine if the wife of your past life is straying about in the body of a dog or a cat in this life, you see and recognize her and after clinging to her out of delusion you take her to your home. Surely, your wife of this birth will not allow the bitch or the cat to enter your house and there will be quarreling arguments. Hence it is good, by the grace of the Lord that out of ignorance you have forgotten the relatives of your past lives. The same way, slowly give up your attachment to your relatives, dear ones of this birth and try and forget them so that just as King Bharat’s death was uneasy due to attachment, delusion, affection to a deer’s young one, you too may not malign your death by the attachment of your relatives and that for them you should not re-enter the painful cycle of birth and death.
A person living a life of detachment is able to give up his body with ease at the time of death, meditating on God’s name and form and thus is liberated from the cycle of birth and death.