What Is the Importance of Different Rituals Done at the Time of Death?

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

[Surya asked: Please clarify the significance of the following rituals being carried out during the time of death. Aharnikaalu, Shodasam, Vrushossarjanam, relevance of Gayaasura in death rituals because priest says ‘Gayaa shraddha sadrushaha…’, pimdaas immersion in water and Sapimdeekaranam. In all these rituals, Vishnu sthaana is not given proper importance. How to rectify this? Priest says that Nityaagnihotram need to be performed. What does it mean?]

Swami replied:- The essence of all these death rituals is just worship to God praying Him to protect the departed soul. If you catch the essence, which is strong devotion to God, the total purpose is served. All the procedures of various parts of a ritual involve the practical devotion like respecting priest, feeding the priest and finally offering Dakshina to the priest. The formalities are very much negligible provided the sacrifice of service and sacrifice of fruit of work exist. If both these practical steps are absent, all the other steps are only theoretical, which are appearing as practical. Theory without practical steps is useless and practical sacrifice without theory is also fruitless especially if the priest is human form of God. You need not worry about these various steps of rituals provided you catch the essence of theoretical steps as devotion and that the reality of theory is proved by practical steps. The root problem is ‘not understanding the Vedic recitations’. The Veda involves spiritual knowledge to understand the divine personality to develop real devotion and also involving the information of various steps of practical devotion. Once you understand the knowledge of all these Vedic recitations, you will do the ritual by yourself without the help of any priest. The priest is required only to worship him as representative of God. Today, the priest is required to blindly recite the Veda, which is supposed to be recited by the performer of ritual himself.

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