Can You Please Explain the Significance of the Practices Related to the Holy Thread Ceremony?

[Shri Sai Ram Kiran asked: In doing the holy thread marriage small hair is leftover on the shaven head. Why the ears are punctured by ear-rings? Why the three holy threads are put?]

Swami Replied: After this ritual, the boy goes to the human teacher to learn knowledge. Every day he shall take cold water bath over the head. In such case, the boy will catch cold easily. The head shall not be shaven fully because only saints shave the head fully (of course while visiting temples, the head is fully shaven indicating that the person has become almost like a saint by detaching from the worldly bonds due to devotion). Representing the total hair, a little hair (shikhaa) is left in shaving the head in this ritual. Actually, the word Shikhaa means the total hair of the head hanging behind the head. The ear rings puncture the ears developing the nervous activity in the ears, which are to be used for hearing the knowledge patiently. The three holy threads represent the nature (prakruti), which is constituted by the three qualities, which are Satvam (awareness), Rajas (inert energy) and Tamas (inert matter). This means that you should learn the knowledge from a human preacher and finally that you should worship the human form of God. You are advised to catch the three holy threads and recite the prayer on the spiritual preacher (that the preacher shall enlighten your intelligence), which means that you should catch the human spiritual preacher. Girls and the fourth caste (Shudras) are not subjected to this ritual due to the inconvenience about shaving head, daily cold water bath etc. By this, there is no loss to girls and children of the fourth caste because actually, Upanayanam means coming close to God and Gayathri means worshipping God through songs. In this actual sense, nobody is forbidden to the spiritual path. Infact, all girls and the children of fourth caste are really benefitted because the actual sense of this ritual is followed by them only.

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