Category:Becoming a Ghost
Theme Analysis
Becoming a ghost is a miserable state of existence where a living entity is forced to remain in the subtle body (mind, intelligence, and ego) without the facility of a gross physical body. Śrīla Prabhupāda explains that this is a "policy of nature" or a "punishment" for those who misuse the human form. The most frequent cause is suicide; because the soul refuses the body provided by nature, it is denied another gross body for a specific duration. Other causes include extreme sinful activities or intense material attachment at the time of death. In this condition, the ghost talks nonsense and creates disturbances for others but cannot enjoy anything grossly. The Vedic culture provides the pinda ceremony—offering the remnants of Lord Viṣṇu's food—to liberate such unfortunate souls from this hellish life.
- The Cause: Suicide and Sin: One who commits suicide out of frustration or disease is checked from transmigration. Instead of finding relief, they increase their misery by becoming a ghost.
- Subtle vs. Gross Body: Ghostly life occurs when the subtle body acts without the instrumental gross body. The living entity has all the desires of the senses but no organs to satisfy them.
- The Remedy: Viṣṇu-prasāda: The purpose of a son (putra) is to offer pindodaka to the lotus feet of Viṣnu. This pinda delivers forefathers who may have become ghosts, favoring them with a gross body or liberation.
- Attachment and Haunting: Intense attachment to opulent surroundings can lead a person to become a ghost, remaining in the same place after death because they cannot leave.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Becoming a Ghost - The Result of Sin and Suicide.
Pages in category "Becoming a Ghost"
The following 25 pages are in this category, out of 25 total.
2
A
- According to Vedic scripture, if some of my relatives or father and forefather did not get the body - are in the, what is called, ghost body . . . one has become a ghost
- After giving up the body, one is transferred to another body, but sometimes, if one is too sinful, he is checked from transmigrating to another body, and thus he becomes a ghost
H
- Haridasa must have committed suicide by drinking poison, and because of this sinful act, he has now become a brahmana ghost
- He thinks that "By killing this body, I am free from this bodily miserable condition of life." No. He's immediately . . . either he has to accept a next abominable body or he'll have to become a ghost, one who commits suicide
- He thinks, "I'm suffering. If I commit suicide, then everything will be stopped." But he does not know that by committing suicide he'll increase another set of varieties of miserable conditions of life. He'll become ghost
I
- If a man is chopped of his head, and if he has got attraction, then he becomes a ghost without head. So at the present moment, all these so-called educated civilized men are ghosts without head
- If one is habituated to taking the prasada of Lord Visnu, there is no chance of his becoming a ghost or anything lower than a human being
- If you accept natural death and natural body, then your karma ksaya, you annihilate your karma, but if you commit suicide, then you become ghost. Because nature's punishment. You got a body and you neglected it
- In other words, they (one's forefathers) do not have to become ghosts - by offering oblations with faith and devotion to either Visnu, or His representative Aryama
- It is not that everyone's father becomes a ghost, but the oblations of pinda are offered to the lotus feet of Lord Visnu so that if a family member happens to become a ghost, he will be favored with a gross body
S
- So long we are materially contaminated, we require this material body for enjoying senses. And the spiritual world, we get our spiritual body developed. So there is no question of becoming ghost
- Sometimes we become ghost. If we become too much attached, we cannot leave. Therefore too much opulent apartment, opulent life, is not very good for spiritual advancement because we get too much attached to it
T
- Taking for granted that some of my forefathers have become ghostly life and has not got the gross body, so by this pindodaka . . . pinda means offering prasadam of Visnu prasadam
- The heroes who died on the battlefield immediately became ghosts, and although their heads had been severed from their bodies, new trunks were generated, and these new trunks, seeing with the eyes in the severed heads, began to attack the enemy
- The Sanskrit word for son, putra means that the son is expected to deliver the forefathers from the hellish condition of life. Sometimes due to our sinful activities, we become ghost. That is very hellish condition
- They said, "We cannot see his material form but still we hear his sweet singing. Therefore he must have become a ghost." Svarupa Damodara, however, protested, This is a false guess