Every year in India, we perform rituals for the departed — shraddha, tarpan, pind daan. Offerings are made. Prayers are chanted. Rivers are visited. It’s all very sacred on the outside.

But let’s pause here.

How many people performing these rites actually understand why they’re doing it?
How many know what it means to “set an ancestor free”?
And more importantly — what if your ancestors aren’t somewhere out there waiting for you… but living quietly within you, waiting to be acknowledged?

This isn’t metaphor. It’s not esoteric mysticism. It’s both spiritual insight and biological reality. Let’s explore that.

Your Pitris Are Not Ghosts. They’re Patterns Living Through You.

We’ve all heard yogis say, “God lives within you.”

Beautiful.

Familiar?

We’ve explored this often in Scimonk — that the divine isn’t an external force, but a consciousness within.

But here’s a deeper, more uncomfortable truth:
Your Pitris live within you too.

Not as spirits haunting your house. But as codes inside your nervous system. As behavioral loops, cravings, reactions, and emotional triggers you didn’t personally create.

This is what Indian tradition refers to when it speaks of samskaras — impressions carried from one life to the next.

Cravings Aren’t Always Yours. They’re Evolutionary.

Let’s talk about food for a moment — simple, relatable.

Say you’re vegan, walking past a sweet shop. You see rasgulla, gulab jamun, pedha. You weren’t hungry, but now? Your body wants it. Hard.

Or maybe you’re a non-vegan — and a hot plate of butter chicken hits your senses like a memory you can’t name. You crave it. You eat it. The next day? Same craving.

Now here’s the important question:
Is that desire truly yours? Or is it an echo from the evolutionary script written into your brain long before you were born?

Robert Sapolsky — a world-renowned neuroscientist and author of Behave — explains this beautifully.

“You are the outcome of millennia of biology. The choices that helped your ancestors survive are etched into your brain, whether they still make sense or not.”

This isn’t spiritual poetry. This is evolutionary programming passed on through genes. Your ancient ancestors who chased sugar, salt, and fat were the ones who made it through droughts, famines, and brutal winters. That preference helped them survive.

And now? That same neural circuitry fires when you scroll food reels on Instagram.

Your craving isn’t demonic or divine. It’s inherited.

Not as “memory” — but as biologically preserved motivation.

The Brain as an Inherited Battlefield

Let’s look inside the brain.

At its core lies the reptilian brain — the oldest structure, responsible for survival: aggression, fear, reproduction, basic instincts.

Above that is the limbic system — where emotions live. Love. Grief. Joy. Attachment.

And finally, the neocortex — the human layer, capable of logic, reasoning, and reflection.

But here’s the catch: The neocortex isn’t always in charge. Especially under stress, hunger, or emotional overwhelm — we default to the older brain layers. The inherited ones. The ancestral ones.

That sudden urge to lash out? That loop of anxiety you can’t explain? That emotional pattern that keeps showing up in relationships?
Those are Pitris, playing their karmic track through your biology.

So What Is Pitri Moksha, Really?

It’s not just offering sesame seeds in a river. That’s the symbolic part.

Real Pitri Moksha begins when you become aware of the ancestral patterns living through you — and choose not to repeat them unconsciously.

Your grandfather may have struggled with anger. Your grandmother may have internalized fear.
You inherited their emotional architecture — not as destiny, but as a default setting.

Moksha of ancestors happens when you recognize the default, and respond consciously.
When you do the work they didn’t have the space or freedom to do.

When you heal what they carried, without even knowing it — you release them.

Science and Spirituality Are Not at War

Ancient Indian philosophy has long spoken of the karmic field — the energetic memory that connects generations.

Modern science calls it epigenetics — the way trauma, behavior, and emotional response can be passed down without altering the DNA sequence, but changing how it’s expressed.

The mouse study is famous now: Mice trained to fear the smell of cherry blossoms passed on that fear to their children — who had never experienced the smell before. No trauma. No learning. Just biologically transmitted fear.

Your ancestors might have feared hunger, shame, judgment, war.
And now — you fear failure, scarcity, being left behind. Not because you chose it. But because it’s in you.

That’s not superstition. That’s neuroscience.

You Are the Living Frontier of Your Lineage

Here’s where it gets spiritual again — and personal.

You are the point where your entire ancestry culminates. You are their biological future — and their spiritual opportunity.

They couldn’t always heal. They couldn’t always evolve. But now, you can.

You carry not just their DNA, but their unresolved potential.
You are not just their child — you are their chance.

So when you break a pattern — when you respond instead of react, when you pause instead of lash out, when you reflect instead of repeat — that’s not just growth.

That’s liberation.

Yes — do the rituals. Honor the ceremony. There’s beauty in it.

But don’t stop there.

Create your own rituals of consciousness:

• When you feel triggered — pause. Breathe. Ask: Is this mine?
• When you notice a craving or pattern — observe it. Feel it without obeying it.
• When you act differently than your conditioning — smile. That’s an offering too.

Every moment of awareness is a step toward moksha — for you, and for them.

You Don’t Just Free Ancestors. You Free Yourself.

Pitri Moksha is not about doing something for them because tradition demands it.

It’s about becoming someone who no longer carries their pain blindly.

When you shift even one generational pattern — you liberate not just the past, but the future.

This is your sacred task.

You’re not just the descendant of your lineage.
You’re its healer.

And that — more than any mantra or rice ball — is the true offering.

Rituals Are Not Just Symbolic. They Are Psychological Interfaces.

You might ask — if liberation is internal, if it’s all about awareness and breaking patterns…
Then why do we still perform rituals like pinda daan or fasting (upawas) after someone dies?

Why offer rice balls, sesame seeds, and water to the departed? Why starve the body for a day?

Here’s the insight: Rituals are bridges. They connect the outer world to the inner subconscious.

Let’s take pinda daan.

A pinda is a rice ball — usually made with rice flour, black sesame seeds (til), barley, sometimes jaggery. It’s offered during shraddha as food for the ancestors.

But what does it represent?

In yogic symbolism, pinda means the body. The pinda represents the physical form — the karmic vessel. When you create a pinda, you’re symbolically recreating the ancestor’s presence — giving form to the formless.
When you offer it to fire or water, you’re saying:
“I recognize you, I release you, I feed you one last time — not to bind, but to let you go.”

It’s a sacred act of closure.

And when done with mindfulness — not as obligation, but as a conscious gesture — it becomes a powerful psychological release. It brings peace to the grieving. It aligns the inner field with the act of letting go.

Fasting (Upawas): Rewiring the Body-Mind-Ancestor Loop

Now take upawas — fasting after a death.

Why deny the body food?

Because in ancient understanding, grief is stored in the gut. Emotions, especially sorrow and ancestral pain, sit heavy in the digestive system. Fasting allows the body to reset. It also teaches detachment — breaking dependency not just from food, but from emotional attachments.

Scientifically, fasting initiates autophagy — the body’s cellular detox mechanism. Emotionally, it creates a liminal space — a pause from regular life. It says:
“Something has ended. Let me step into stillness and reflect.”

Spiritually, it sends a clear message to the subtle body of the deceased:
“You are remembered. You are honored. And now, I’m ready to release you.”

The first three days after death — when the sukshma sharira (subtle body) is said to linger — are a window for this release. Fasting and ritual during this time align the physical, emotional, and energetic bodies of the living, creating the conditions for the Pitri’s journey forward.

Simple Acts. Deep Impact.

You don’t need elaborate arrangements to free your ancestors.

A simple pinda daan under a tree. A cup of water with sesame offered with intention. A day of silence and fasting. A whisper of “I forgive you” or “I release you” under your breath while meditating.

These small, conscious acts go further than grand ceremonies done in mechanical ways.

Because liberation doesn’t require performance. It requires presence.

And when presence is there — even the simplest ritual becomes powerful.