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Summary of Question:	Memorial Day And Remembering The Dead
Category:	Sikh Practices
Date Posted:	Thursday, 5/27/2004 8:57 PM MDT

Sat Nam.

Where does honoring the dead end, and worshiping begin?

Perhaps as a result of my Catholic roots, I'm used to the concept of praying for the departed, especially when the departed had a hellish lifetime. Each year at Memorial Day, we go to my mother's grave and do Kirtan Sohila and Ardaas. She was a veteran and was proud to have served her country; she'd have done so longer had she not been forced out by having had to take a medical discharge what they called Section 8. She married a fellow who'd been a political prisoner under Hitler and had a horrific life after marriage; and she was a very devout Catholic who believed it was good and honorable to show respect for the dead by offering prayers, novenas etc. It somehow seems fitting that on Memorial Day I should go and give honor to this woman who was a soldier (especially in these troubled times) and pray she should have a better time and place now than when she lived. But I am mindful of another post regarding whether it is appropriate to do such things as langar for the dead, and remember a much-needed lecture on the nature of attachement and its effect on ones consciousness. And in remembering, I am just mightily confused. I would like to think that I'm doing something for Frances, like letting her know she's not forgotten. Is it a wrong thing to do the prayers? And when DOES respect become worship?

Blessed be,

Elizabeth

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reply
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Dear Elizabeth,
I think it is fine to honor the SPIRIT of your mother once a year. Understand that you could be remembering her from home, since there is nothing attached to the grave of your mother. It is just a casket with her bones in it. Her Soul is detached from the remains. That said, since your mother lives on in some form on some other plane, what's wrong with praying for her that she may continue to be healed at all levels? I used to work with folks who lived and died with AIDS, and learned through those times that prayer and healing intentions crosses all bounds and planes of existence.

It seems to me that you are also remembering her for service to this great country, and that Memorial Day crystallizes that for you; that is the reason we have this holiday! Perhaps it leads you to reflect that in America it is not such a big deal to be a polish-american catholic (former) married to an Indian Sikh. Does that not bring cause for pause and gratefulness that our Constitution and Bill of Rights allows this? Memorial Day is for such thoughts.

Worship of ancestors or people is putting them above you and/or praying to them for intercession or something that normally a Sikh would ask Guru to cover. It does not seem to me that this is what's going on for you. It also does not seem to me that you are overly attached to your Mother; she did give you birth, so this relationship never fully fades so long as we are in body. Because women carry fetuses for so long, there is ALWAYS some of our mother in all of us. That is different than attachment. Bless her and let her spirit go, and recognize too that a piece of her lives on in you.
guru ang sang,
-DKK