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144
THE FAMILY AND THE NATION
prejudices become an obstacle for a wife, and vice versa. The generation gap also poses its own problems. A father's prejudices will not be acceptable to a son or daughter. Such mentality of bias eventually leads to family disorder.
Here, a distinction has to be made from the sixteen sacraments mentioned in scriptures. These range from conception to funeral ceremonies: (1) Sacrament of impregnation (garbhadhan); (2) second or third month of pregnancy (punsavanam); (3) between the fifth and eighth month of pregnancy (simantonnayana); (4) the time when the child is born (jatakarma); (5) naming the child (namakarana); (6) the time the child is brought out of the house from the place of birth and initial caring (niskramana); (7) the first feeding of cereal at six months (annaprashana); (8) first cutting of hair in the first or third year (chudakarma); (9) piercing the ears in the third or fifth year (karnavedha); (10) investiture of religious sacrament from eighth year (upanayana); (11) when studies are completed (samavartana); (12) marriage ceremony (vivaha samskara); (13) sacraments relating to householders (grihasthashrama); (14) renouncing the householder's life (vanprasthashrama); (15) leading the life of a monk (sanyasashrama); and finally, the last rites of the dead (antyeshti). These are essentially rituals marked by certain sacrifices. It is believed that by virtue of performing these, the life of the performer receives a higher sanctity. Just as gold and diamonds that are dug out from the ore need refining and polishing in order to shine in all their splendour, man too needs these samskaras or pacificator ceremonies in order to shine in his best form physically, psychically and spiritually.
There are multiple layers of our psychological being. In the centre is our soul, our inner being, our true self. This is who we really are, and in an ideal world, this is what we would experience and express from the moment of our birth.
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