Post meant specifically for people born in Brahmana families but not living as Brahmanas:
What happens when you don’t do Sandhyavandana (while doing everything else under the sun such as charity, temple visits, meditation/ maintaining a “pure, good” heart or doing good things, attending spiritual discourses or tours, reading spiritual books, performing ancestral/Pitru worship)?
If you recite even a simple Achamana mantra thereafter, it won’t have any effect.
If you do Pitrutarpana, your mantras will have no effect. Your pitrus will starve and curse you ensuring that you will get similar pain. Tamil Brahmin community people have this habit of doing pitrukaarya but won’t do Sandhyavandana. You are basically doing this to your pitrus. And don’t worry - their curses will ensure that similar pain will hit you. Enjoy then.
Your offspring that comes off you will be very very likely to be an asuric human.
The events in your life will get increasingly asuric - you will lose sattvika mind, you will gain all sorts of evil thoughts and habits, all the daanas you do will go with sin only, your wealth will be cursed as no Devas will touch them, etc.
Your lineage will become more likely to convert to other religions or become atheists. This is why Tamizh Brahmin community’s present generation is the way it is. The last time Sandhyavandana and a sattvika life was actually common in this community, was over 100 years ago.
I myself am told in multiple sides of families personally known to me (hailing from Thanjavur-Sirkazhi-Kumbhakonam belt) that it has been over 5 generations easily that someone regularly - marked their forehead, did Sandhyavandana, did not eat onion-garlic, keep shikha, recite Vedas, etc. 5 Generations at least. That is easily 100 - 150 years.
Where do you think all that sin goes? A large chunk of it comes to you - assuming you are a Tambrahm reading this and are from such a house and are like this. You can either expiate that sin, or go to hell.
Your Tirthayatras and phalas gained thereof will have minimal effect on you as the sin you gain side by side of not doing Nityakarma Sandhyavandhana will be staggering.
If you are such a Brahmabandhu (a term for those born in Brahmin families but not living as Brahmanas), are reading this and think to yourself - “But I graduated from a tier 1 college, i have 2 cars, the most beautiful wife, and no problems…so what is this fellow talking about?” - wait until your son stabs you in the stomach for your wealth, or your daughter elopes, or your grandchildren destroy your property, or your spouse cheats you (after all, one asura would’ve likely attracted only another), or you get all kinds of mental and physical illnesses into your old age and rot away on life support and a catheter - reduced to a useless vegetable of a human that cannot even stand up or control his own bowels.
Note that all this can happen even if you practise Shastras. But at least then your afterlife/next life would be one of greatness, or you could at least get mukti thereafter.
Imagine what would happen if over and above such physical suffering, you are destined to worse pains because you never lived as a Brahmana when you were supposed to? And if you are an old Brahmabandhu and are reading this and think that you are in perfect health and therefore scriptures are wrong, please read the next point.
Your rebirth will be first in Naraka in some place like Maharaurava (which is basically a sweet planet described in Garudapurana, as having a surface that is 5000 yojana in area, having a reddish eerie looking sky, having a deserted barren dry surface. This loka is heated from within such that all the entities on the surface will roast without the ability to die either….imagine this going on for a few decades or centuries. Let’s see you flaunt your IIM degree to Yama then and try to escape the way you did in that McKinsey interview).
The residual sin of the aforementioned trajectory will now make your cursed rebirth do more adharma. You might be an asura that breaks temples, or an atheist that kills Brahmanas, or a cannibal, or a Bauddha. The possibilities are endless. Exactly when this cycle of adharmic rebirth after rebirth will end for you simply for having abandoned your Brahmana life - will remain unknown. Until then you can enjoy yourself.
Oh and in all these rebirths, that residual sin will keep spontaneously generating opportunities for you to run into evil people and befriend them, marry evil spouses, beget evil children - all of whom will try to make you repeat that sin again….and again….and again. If this goes on for several lifetimes, you will be caught in this for God knows how many Kalpas. Sometimes, if you miss one bus, the next bus might be a few billion years away. Keep waiting.
These are just a FEW things that would happen to you and happen because of you. Ok if you have read until this point, you may go back to watching your important cricket match. Bye.
- Perumalpichai Vasudevan