Grandma’s knot - 3

I am the youngest amongst five children of my parents. I was not fortunate to come in contact with my grandma as she had already died by then. This was bad as well as good. Bad because I was deprived of her love and care which every child requires from the grandparents. Good in the sense that I did not learn and tie the grandma’s knot which I could not untie….

Either way I have no regrets. Being youngest, I received enough love and attention from my parents in my early life when I required it most. My mother used to talk to me a lot about the grandma’s knot. These came as sometime simple narration and sometimes strict dos and don’ts. Many of her such talk I could not understand but have still remembered because of its curiosity contents. And quite a few of them I could understand only over a period after my mother passed away.

One such tale was…. When a grandmother becomes a great grandmother, she climbs a golden ladder to the Heaven.

Being very small at that time, I used to ask my mother how it is possible, from where they will bring such long ladder to Heaven and that too made of gold?

She would explain, no there is a simple solution to it. They have a very tiny ladder made out of gold and it is tied to the big toe on her dead body when she dies. I never understood this. Nonetheless, I was not capable of asking questions then.

As a matter of fact I still don’t understand it. MIND wanders….
Is it because of the natural desire to propagate? Or having achieved that directly or naturally, is it an achievement worth a reward? That too after ones death by way of tangible gold ornament or a promise for the seat in heaven? Is this one of the grandma’s knot which she ties to the children or she is herself born with it?

I remember, in many sects in India, one can perform his own last rites if he or she has no children.

Normally such rituals are performed by the son or may be by a daughter. Mind wanders... Is it a craving for immortality or clergy’s strategy to ensure business at any cost? Or is it the compassion of someone to such people so that they can die peacefully without much of craving on a gross level?

Does the degree of such behavior vary according to wealth and ignorance one possesses?

Recently, I came across a news item that one of the political leaders, in Rajasthan – India, went to worship her own statue in a temple constructed by her admirers.

Are we all Narcissus? Or are we so naïve to know that history compresses and even greatest of the human beings turn from Autobiography book to a page and to a paragraph and to few lines in the History and that too if one is fortunate or have earned it by his own effort.

Do we not know that Body is destroyed in no time after our death intentionally or naturally?

Do we have way to know to which body (in future) the Mind will attach and where and when it will come into physical existence?

If answer is yes then matter ends.

If the answer is no? Then why is there such a craving for the immortality? And the means to achieve it by way of rites and rituals?

Do we even have a know how to ensure that such process is completed successfully and the results can be verified?

Is it so important to achieve immortality? Of whose immortality? Body or Mind?
MIND wanders again.... isn’t this the strongest knot of Grandma?

Can I solve this knot?

Within myself?

With my own efforts?

Is there a Way?