If you are wondering what is the best thing to do for your ancestors who passed away, what is the “right” thing to do for them, then this is the article for you. I suggest you read over the other ones in our “after-death” section first because you would need some of that knowledge before you can understand the terms and theories in this article. If you are ready, then welcome to read on.
Where is Your Ancestor
The first thing you want to know is where are they, and are they even still around or not. Everyone just thinks they can put up an ancestor altar then burn incense and somehow magically you can reach the other side, the right person; that’s just not possible.
To search for an ancestor, you must ask the gods for help. To do so, you will need to provide us with some information and things that can allow us to track down the ancestor’s soul. The best thing is a photo with the name and date of birth/death. The minimal requirement is a name and some info or things related to them. After we have got the result back then we will let you know if the person is still around, and where they are. The possibilities are:
- The person is lost/gone somewhere
- The person is living in D9
- The person is wandering in D6, lost or trapped
- The person has united with the Yuen Sun already and became a ghost immortal
- The person is too negative and has been bounced off to the “Ling Law” zone etc.
If we cannot search for the soul, then we cannot do anything for them, because that’s just how it is.
If we can get a grip of the soul, then we can help you setup your ancestor altar.
Purpose of the Ancestor Altar
Why shall you setup an altar for the ancestor? The only reason is that they are in the Yuen Sun already as a ghost immortal because the altar can allow you to communicate with them like opening a channel to talk and send your packages to them. If they are not in the Yuen Sun yet, there is no way they can communicate with you through the altar, and there is no way you can send things to them at all.
Therefore, when we search for the soul, and if they are found not in the Yuen Sun area, we will have to do the funeral ceremony to pull them out of where they are and send them to the Yuen Sun first. After that, then the altar can be built.
Building an ancestor altar by yourself is really not going to work much. Instead, you might be just opening a free-house for anything to come in and pretend to be your relative and loot your soul energy daily.
The ancestor altar also needs protection and security, so that it cannot be hijacked or hacked by the evil ones. If you build this altar yourself, then for sure you have no backup to keep your connection safe too. You can see how dangerous it is for an ordinary person to put up an altar like this.
Worshipping Mindset
What should you be giving or doing for the ancestor in the Yuen Sun, while they are being ghost-immortal?
Your ancestor can see, hear and sense your feelings, your thoughts, and sometimes even see you when your thoughts are connecting to them. They have all the powers they want to help or harm you, and they kept all the memories from the previous life, so they know about who you are, what is going on, and all that.
The primary goal for you is to make them happy about you. You don’t need them being your lifetime enemy and keep cursing you from the other world. Therefore, you will do anything to make them happy.
To make them happy, you would want to go to the altar daily with discipline, meaning that you want to go there to burn incense and talk to them daily around the same time (so they can expect it too). When you burn incense, make sure you do some talking like to a real person, don’t just burn incense then go to work or something like that. Just treat them like a real person, but you are talking to them daily “one way” for now.
Remember their special dates, like date of birth and death, and make sure you show them some offerings on those dates. They don’t need to physically consume it, but just seeing you “give” all that is already a happy thing for them. They will bless you back in return by putting their blessings onto the food. You can eat them back later to receive the blessings.
Your altar is like a computer or webcam with mic, anything you do there can channel to them and they can see you too. So if you are eating around that area, then you start to bad mouth about that person or complain about how annoying it is now that you have to burn incense to them etc. You know it’s all heard, and they will not like it. Don’t do that!
You might think that not having an altar is the best then, so they cannot “spy” on you and suddenly bring in so many taboo into your life. The fact is that no matter you have or not have the altar, they can still see you and hear you at times as I have said above, so it doesn’t matter. As long as they are in the Yuen Sun, they can freely “spy” you anyway. The difference is only that the altar allows you to formally pay your respect and also make them happy so they will bless you. Just don’t be an a-hole, then you are good, don’t complain.
Burning Offerings
Some cultures like Taoism have the traditions of burning offerings for the dead, and I can just simply say that is not needed. However, if you want to learn about that subject, we need to teach you in another article. We have a much more professional way of doing it, and it is not like just buying from the shop and burning things randomly. The rule of thumb is, if you don’t know something, don’t do it. Keep it simple. Just burn incense after the altar is opened. Burn incense is like starting the timer for the communication session.
By the way, if a whole family is going to talk to this ancestor at the altar, you don’t all need to burn incense, only one person needs to do that. It’s like opening a zoom call to talk with the other side, you don’t need to open 5 calls with the same person if you are all in the same house. Just one call is fine.
Ghost Immortal Goes Wrong
The main point in this lesson is that you have to have real respect for the dead, no matter with or without an altar, or else they can curse you and hurt you from far away. If they successfully became ghost immortal, they are already your “god” above, you got to know that humans should not offend the gods, and this is very true.
What if your ancestor is bad and they go attacking you first, so it is not your fault but they kept coming at you to take advantage of their powers? No worry, that can be fixed too. If we are the ones who did the formal funeral ceremony for them, we can purify them and remove their feelings of anger and such to settle them. If any of them dare to fight back, we also have the power to kill them just like how we kill evil spirits. They cannot just overpower everyone and become a lord up there. In fact, our gods from the celestial court can also kill these ghost immortals too. You don’t have to worry. If your ancestor is that bad and evil, we are also able to help you deal with the case!
However, most of the ghost-immortals are good, because if they are bad they won’t be able to group back into the Yuen Sun anyway. They will become something else which we will talk about in another post.
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