A single Diya or lamp holds infinite beauty and hope. Diwali is a
celebration of victory over evil or darkness and the coming of a New
Year. But if we think deeply, what is this darkness we want to remove?
Light
means to follow a virtuous path such that our thoughts are always pure
in heart, our words are sweet and peaceful and bring joy to the listener
and our actions are always beneficial first to ourselves, and to others
as well as to the environment. Darkness on the other hand is when our
thoughts are negative and when these thoughts are reflected in our words
or actions, they bring hurt and sorrow to others at every step.
In
reality, evil or darkness does not have an identity of its own it
exists due to a lack of goodness or light. Knowledge, power and all that
is pure, are very real characteristics since they are part of us,
perhaps hidden yet existing. The Festival of Lights is the fight against
evil forces and creation of peace and happiness. Diwali brings up a
number of things in the mind's eye sweets, new clothes, account books,
Goddess Lakshmi, fireworks etc.
So instead of celebrating Diwali, LET'S EXPERIENCE DIWALI.
As we clean our homes, let's clean our minds and intellects too.
As
we wear new clothes, let's also get rid off our old, unwanted,
disturbing habits of anger, jealousy, worry.... and emerge our new but
original qualities of peace, love, bliss and happiness.
Tonight
we will settle our old account books and begin new ones, simultaneously
let us settle our old karmic accounts, any unpleasant relationships and
begin our relationships in a new, positive way.
We are all aware
of the pollution caused by firecrackers, but it is Diwali, we need to
burn crackers, so why not burn all the crackers of evil characteristics
within ourselves - this burning will in fact purify our minds and the
environment.
As we exchange sweets let us also exchange meaningful sweet words, good wishes and blessings.
If
we really experience Diwali we will succeed in invoking (calling upon)
Goddess Lakshmi. Her name comes from the word, 'Laksh' meaning the
GOAL', experiencing Diwali (as explained above) will help us reach our
ultimate goal of heavenly perfection which Goddess Lakshmi stands for.
Worshipping
Goddess Lakshmi is good, but what is even better is making the wealth
of spiritual(Ruhani) knowledge and qualities (which Goddess Lakshmi has
to offer) a part of our life. A divine character alone can attain
prosperity and peace.
The key lies in lighting a single 'Diya' -
my own conscient awareness. The Rajyoga meditation - connecting with
the Supreme Diya, the Supreme Soul, helps me in doing that.
The
True meaning of Diwali is not known to many & majority of Hindus in
modern times. Generally, it is linked to Ram, symbol of Virtues winning
over Ravana, symbol of vices. In fact it should be celebrated as
Universal Festival if its true meaning is understood by all. "
Diwali is celebrated for various cultural reasons but
historically, it is called Naraka Chaturdashi because Narakasura, a very cruel
king, was killed. Because of that, this celebration happened in such
a big way. The celebration is auspicious in so many different ways. On this
day, it is said that if someone needs money, Lakshmi will come in. If someone
wants health, Shakti will come in. If someone wants education, Saraswati will
come in. These are all dialectical ways of expressing that it will lead to
wellbeing.
Diwali is the Festival of Lights. On Diwali, we see every town, city and village is lit up with thousands of lamps
everywhere. But the celebration is not just about lighting lamps outside – an inner light has to come.
Light means clarity. Without clarity, every other quality that we possess will
only become a detriment, not a gift, because confidence without clarity is a
disaster.
Without the necessary clarity, whatever we try to
do will be a disaster. Light brings clarity to our vision – not just in a
physical sense. How clearly we see life and perceive everything around us
decides how sensibly we conduct our life. Diwali is the day when the dark
forces were put to death and light happened. This is also the predicament of
human life. Like the dark clouds which brood in the gloomy atmosphere, not
realizing that they are blocking the sun, a human being does not have to bring
any light from anywhere. If he just dispels the dark clouds that he has allowed
to gather within himself, light will happen. The Festival of Lights is just a
reminder of that.
Life as a Celebration
In the Indian culture, there was a time when there used to be
a festival every day of the year – 365 festivals in a year. The idea behind
this was to make our whole life into a celebration. Today, maybe only thirty or
forty festivals remain. We are not able to celebrate even those now because we
have to go to office or do something else daily mechanically having too much worries in mind. So people usually celebrate
only around eight or ten festivals annually. If we leave it like this, the next
generation will not have any festival. They will not know what a festival is.
They will just earn and eat, earn and eat – they will go on and on with just
this. It has already become like this for many people. A festival means they
give us a holiday, and we wake up only at noon. Then we just eat more, go
for a movie or watch television at home. And only if they take some external
stimulants, will these people dance a little. Otherwise they will not sing or
dance. It wasn’t like that before. A festival meant that the whole town would
gather in a place, and there would be a big celebration. A festival meant we
got up at four in the morning, and very actively, lots of things happened all
over the house.
Non-serious but Absolutely Involved
If we approach everything in a celebratory way, we learn to be non-serious about life but absolutely involved. The problem
with most human beings right now is, if they think something is important, they
will become dead serious about it. If they think it is not so important they
will become lax about it – they don’t show the necessary involvement. When
someone says, “He is in a very serious condition,” that means his next step is we know where. A lot of people are in a serious condition. There is
only one thing that is going to happen to them which is of any significance.
The rest will bypass them because with anything that they think is not serious,
they are unable to show involvement and dedication. That is the whole problem.
The passage, the secret of life is in just this – seeing everything with a
non-serious eye, but absolutely involved – like a game. That is the reason the
most profound aspects of life are approached in a celebratory way so that we
don’t miss the point.
The idea of Diwali is to bring that aspect of
celebration into our life – that is why the fire crackers, to set fire to us a bit! So the purpose is not just to have fun on this one day and go. It must
happen like this within us every day. If we simply sit, our life energy, heart,
mind and body must be exploding like a live cracker. If we are a damp squib,
then we need a cracker from outside every day.
