Last Updated on December 1, 2021 by astrologerbydefault
I am writing this short post because of a question I received on Bali. Apparently someone thought that killing birds and animals is a part of Sanatan Dharma aka Hinduism.
The short answer is, No!
And if you ever kill animals/ birds thinking the ‘sacrifice’ will help you, you are in for a traumatic time. If you ever kill any living being, thinking that this ‘sacrifice’ will take away your problems or give you happiness, you will create horrible karma for yourself. Such killing is not allowed, ever. This is applicable to everyone irrespective of the faith he follows.
बलि Bali is a Sanskrit word and has several meanings like levy, offering, oblation, revenue due to the king, tribute, worship, gift, offering, power, strength, might, karma etc. There was King of the Asuras named Maha-Bali who was extremely wise, strong, generous etc. The root word is Bala बल which essentially means strength. When you give ‘Bali’ you are essentially powering your intention with this act of Bali. In Sanantan Dharma, if someone says that you should give Bali, it means that you have to offer a coconut. Only this one item, नारिकेल coconut, is Bali. Nothing else is acceptable as Bali, ever.
You go to any temple in India, or at the ghats/ banks of sacred rivers, you will find that the flower vendors there always have the coconut as a part of the puja flowers set-up on sale. When you go inside the temple, you will offer this, coconut, flowers, sweets, kumkum, turmeric, akshata, camphor, incense sticks etc to the deity with your prayers/ intention. The priest will generally break open the coconut and give you half of it as a prasadam. Or he will touch the coconut to the deity’s feet and give it back to you, you are now expected to break it at a designated place inside the temple. This one fruit has the capacity to amplify your intention, to add power to your wish and will help in getting it fulfilled soon. You can offer a coconut /Bali in a temple or in your home puja-ghar or at sacred rivers/ sea etc. Bali is also performed when you start something new for the first time or when you need added protection or an added boost of power. eg when entering a new house, or entering your new office, when driving a new car for the first time, etc. All auspicious activities are powered by a Bali of the coconut.
A brief procedure would be this.
You take a brown coconut which has water in it. This water part is necessary, so do check if you can hear the water sloshing inside the coconut. Then remove the excess fibres on it leaving a tuft at the point where its ‘eyes’ are. If you do not remove these fibres, breaking it with a single dash will be difficult. Stand in front of your deity. Keep the coconut in front of it. Pray for whatever it is that you want from the deity. Or wish for general happiness and prosperity. You can use Sanskrit mantra-s if you know them or speak in the language you are comfortable in. Just keep your mind clear and intention strong. Then apply Kum-kum, turmeric, unbroken raw rice/ Akshata, flowers etc, if you have these items, to the deity and to the coconut. Then hold the coconut in your hand. Express your wish again intensely in your mind. Then dash this coconut on the ground before the deity so that it breaks. It must compulsorily break in one dash. If it does not break then it is considered inauspicious. This requires strength, so this part is generally done by the men, father/ brother/ husband/ son or the pujari in the temple will do it. The water from the coconut will spill as it gets broken, if you can catch it in your palm, you can drink it as a teerth. Afterwards you can eat the coconut white as a prasadam.
A coconut is a scared object but obviously it is also used in the kitchen. Like I use 1-2 coconuts in my kitchen in an average week. But even if I am going to use it in a chutney or a curry, when it is being broken, my husband will say aloud the name of the family deity and break it cleanly in a single dash.
There are some videos where animals/ birds are being shown killed in the name of deities, especially Ugra-roop of deities, often Devi Kali. This does not feel right in the energy sense. I was watching a weird ritual on Youtube where Her Moorti was drenched with the blood of these killed animals. The blast of negativity from the scene was unbelievable. So then I asked the Devi Kali Herself about this (even you can ask deities questions and they always answer). She clearly said that if you cannot give it life you cannot take its life. The energies of the animals/ birds who are killed are absorbed by Her Gana-s and not by Her. The Gana-s are the attendants of the deities and are capable of granting minor blessing, siddhi etc etc on their own. If you get caught in these minor things from the Gana-s you will never be able to focus on Her. This is a traumatic death of a living being, the energies are inauspicious so are more used for the maran, maaran, vidveshan etc types of prayog. This is a tamasic activity which cannot add auspiciousness. But people who do not know better indulge in this as it does give results. The energy of physical death is a powerful force which can be used for hurting others. But it is a power born of trauma and will eventually give only trauma. It always turns back on the practitioners themselves. Regular people like you and me should never get into these types of prayogs, they will turn on you later and give spectacularly horrid results.
In some cultures all over the world, mass killing of animals as ‘sacrifices’ is practiced routinely. This energy of traumatic death increases the negativity of these people and the place too. In fact it feeds the energies of dissonance, discordance and strife in the subtle planes around the Earth. And obviously create negative karma for those doing it.
So if you feel that you have to do a Bali, go ahead, dash a coconut and power your intention, it will always help. But never ever harm an animal/ bird thinking that its death will help you gain your desire. This is short term gain for long term pain.
15 responses to “Bali”
Thanks for posting this. It has, always baffled me as to how people can hallucinate that someone else”s blood flowing is going to give divine blessings to the one conducting sacrifice. Sacrifice of any nature can only be conducted of ones own self. Not by dragging any other creature into it. That is just cowardice and torture. Invariably the people who believe in this form of hapless torture of other creatures in the name of ‘bali’ are the ones who self preserve the most.
Dear T,
This is just horrible, how can people ever think taking innocent lives will even be acceptable by pure beings! Thankyou for setting the record straight .
How does one who isn’t as advanced in Dhyana or spiritual practice go about asking questions and how will these answers manifest ?
Dear Tejaswini,
Thank you for yet another enlightening post. Could I please check with you that only male members of the family smash the coconut? Is strength as you mentioned in your post the only reason as I have been advised that the coconut represent the womb and women smashing the coconut is equivalent of hurting the womb.
The reason I am asking is: as a single woman living away in the west, whereby often we have to perform a lot of rituals by ourselves for example when I offer a whole coconut to Durga Ma during Navratri, I would normally put it away in flowing water at the end of the puja and not use it as prasadam.
Many Thanks
Himalayas13
Hi there
Women generally dont break coconuts, main reason is strength. Thts sufficient fr this blog. there are other reasons related to the different mindsets of men /women .I think i have written about this in some previous post.
Dashing the coconut and breaking it was for Bali, and only Bali!
The coconuts which are used in Kalash puja and other Anushthans are not broken. Dont break them! They r to b put in flowing water or the sea.
I was wondering maam. Even after the soul has departed ,months or years later, if people recall the soul and send gratitude or blessings or on other hand send energy of anger or despise for its misdeeds, will that energy also impact the soul? (Ages after that soul has left that particular lifetime) .
Hi there
Yes it does and will impact it even after it takes another birth.
how to add rune in chi ball? if i move fingers the energy ball gets disturb…this might sound dumb but i am not getting it…
Dearest Tejaswiniji,
Thanks a ton for posting this article♥️ I have always hated killing of innocent defenseless animals/ humans in the name of sacrifice, religion, narabali, whatever. And you have so perfectly explained the true concept of Bali👍🏻♥️
No animal is ready to be killed. Many times they see other animals being killed and are deeply fearful and traumatized. The trauma they suffer is stored in the energy of their meat which is then consumed by the people. Obviously, no good can come from consuming a food that is energetically imprinted with fear and pain.
Please permit me to digress. Among others, I loved your articles on haunted places and loks souls go to. Since comments were closed when I read your articles, I couldn’t ask you a question. I have a query about people who died a horrible death after being tortured. You mentioned that if tarpan is not done by a male relative, a dead person who was buried stay earthbound and suffer. Maybe they turn into malevolent spirits. Mostly these people when alive were innocent and good people who suffered excruciating pain at the hands of cruel person/s and died a painful death. Very often they were even psychologically damaged from their trauma. Is there no hope for such souls to heal from such trauma and progress forward? Other than among Hindus, there is no concept of tarpan, especially in other religions and abroad.
What about people who are murdered/ killed as punishment (death sentence)? Don’t they die before their time? Even if their horoscope indicates a violent death. If it is karmically tied to their past life, does it mean that in some past life they tortured/ murdered the ones who tortured/ killed them? Are there beings in other worlds who help heal such souls?
Sorry for such morbid questions. But I want to know your thoughts on this.
Lots of love and gratitude
Hi there
i was 22yrs old, didnt know much about things, had gone to port blair and went to see the light and sound show in the kalapani jail, evening twilight.
unbearable, the souls of those who were tortured, ie our freedom fighters, were still there, insane. i had visions and hideous dreams for the one week i stayed in andamans. these souls were desperate for getting free.
Delhi is another place with such horribly tied souls.
i know someone who was ritually killed in a past life and tied as a pret-atma by a black magic tantric, this soul was lucky it was able to get free, this soul was born as an insane person for a few lives after tht, the trauma was so much, even now this person has a horoscope which shows that the effects of these incidents are very much active in his astral self. his mind is different, and astral body is still damaged.
why do you think tht we are facing such problems on earth now? religions are burying their dead family members, no anteyshti being performed. these religions even intends tht these souls remain tied to the grave. they go insane or are used as servants by higher level negative entities.
Dharma means that anteyshti has to be performed, body given to Agni and then asti to Jal. this 16th sanskar is the most importnat. males of the family are responsible, its their designated work. they have to do it.
there are evolved souls, Guru-s, who come once in a while to release these souls from this earth from time to time. but this happens when the right time comes, this can come after hudnreds/thousands of years after the event.
Dearest Tejaswiniji,
Thanks for the prompt response 🙏🏻
It must have been traumatic to be getting visions/ dreams of the souls of our beloved freedom fighters. With the freedom fighters, their relatives may not have got their bodies to do anteyshti. Similarly for people who die in a way where the body could not be recovered – the last rites cannot be done. Will doing a Tarpan or a Til homa help such souls? I do not have anyone like this in my family and I am asking out of curiosity.
I have always felt uneasy to be near places where people have been buried. Your articles have confirmed my inner feelings. In communities where burial is practiced it is indeed sad. Years ago a colleague told me about a woman she knew who had been dead for 25 years. When they opened the coffin to place the body of a dead relative the body of the woman looked fresh and as if it was sleeping, it had not decomposed at all in 25 years. Since this happened in a place with a warm climate and where there is no snowfall, this was shocking. Could it have been a vampire? What could have kept the body from decomposing in 25 years? You have never mentioned vampires in any of your articles. Do they really exist? Just wondering….
Once again, thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻♥️♥️
Lots of love and gratitude
Hi there
I dont feel trauma in that sense
What is, Is
these souls can be helped if
1. A Guru or someone of that capacity decides that its their time to be free and releases them
2 .someone with a pure intention pours Ganga-jal at these sort of haunted campuses
3. if their descendants or anyone frm their Gotra does the necesary tarpans.
these people embalm the bodies
vampires as shown in popular movies/books are a joke, utterly idiotic nonsense. some silly author thought that they look so handsome and all. if they ever really see one they wont be able to sleep.
anything that can drain your astral energy is a vampire, a negative being which inserts its substance into your astral body like a straw and drinks away , lots of them are around, generally all of us will have faced them at some point of time.
i have mentioned them in several posts, i have written their real Sanskrit names too somewhere,
dont want to write these words again as me writing more on them will be enough to call them, the readers will suffer.
Namaste Tejaswiniji,
Thanks a lot for the answers 🙏🏻
Yes, I have experienced human “vampires” – people who drain your energy – and I just want to avoid them. Anyways, like you said, enough about them. Even I don’t want to dwell on such topics!
Lots of love and gratitude
Dearest Tejaswiniji,
I read years ago about ‘walk-ins’ – souls who will take over the body of a person who has decided to die; this soul has made a pact with the soul of the person who has decided to die. This is because the soul does not want to waste it’s time spent in childhood. When this happens the dying person appears to survive miraculously but in the coming months becomes a different person altogether. Is this true? Are ‘walk-ins’ real?
Also, are ‘split-personalities’ and ‘schizophrenics’ possessed by ghosts? What causes such changes in a person, other than some traumatic events?
I did read your articles on how the birth chart will show a person’s tendency towards depression or suicide or hauntings. I am keen to know what you think about such cases from a non-astrological perspective.
You need not post this message of mine. If you will kindly write an article or articles in future, that is enough for me🙏🏻
Thanks from the bottom of my heart for this blog🙏🏻♥️
Lots of love and gratitude
Hi there
there are no soul-pacts like this,
“mental illnesses” of whatever sort requirea inauspicious Ketu, Mercury Moon, this will interfere in the link between the conscious and the subconscious minds.
this does not interest me as there is nothing new about it so will not write more on it.
there is no ‘non-astrological’ perspective, everything can be predicted,
and whatever cannot be predicted is the Vedant, I can write several books on the Upanishads, might write on my favourite Mandukya upanishad sometime ..
Namaste Tejaswiniji,
Thanks for your prompt response 🙏🏻
Please do write about the Upanishads as and when you can 🙂
Lots of love and gratitude