Deepavali - The Festival of lights!
Hello all,
Namaste! Hope
all of you are doing well, keeping yourself safe, socially distanced,
and availing the vaccines whenever you are able to. As many of you know, yesterday was Diwali, the festival of the lights! I already wrote a post on the significance of the lamp and that of Diwali. Republishing the same once again. The same, I previously published on October 27, 2017. Time flies, isn't it??
Wishing all my lovely blog readers a Happy Diwali, 2021!! We as humanity has been through a lot on the last two years. But still we are standing strong, resilient and powerful despite unfortunately many had to leave this physical realm. May all of those Souls find peace and joy wherever they are. For all others who are still here toughening it out- may this festival of lights bring health, wealth, happiness, prosperity, abundance, joy and deep inner wisdom. Indeed the light signifies the inner light that is within us as a divine spark that is always there to give us guidance, support, joy and a golden rod of integrity. Let us all have the courage, power and dedication to access that. Happy Diwali!! Here is the previous post......
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| Diwali - The Festival of the lamps Image credits - Photo by Jyoti Singh on Unsplash |
Happy Diwali! Wishing the 'Festival of lights' to bring happiness, light, and love into all of our life. Many of us are happy to light the lamps and feel very happy celebrating Diwali with the family and friends. Hope all of you celebrated too, last week. But did we anytime think about the underlying significance of the lamp? Let us discuss today, how we can interpret it from a mythological and philosophical sense.
Narakasura:
The previous day of Diwali is celebrated as 'Naraka Chaturdashi". The
mythology is Naraka was born to the earth mother or Bhudevi (Bhu- Earth,
Devi-Goddess) and Vishnu or Hiranyaksha (both versions have been
narrated in mythology). Anyway mother Bhudevi wanted her son to be very
powerful and prayed to Vishnu; Vishnu, in turn, blessed her with that
boon. Now Naraka was a very powerful king, learned in all tantras and
mantras and ruled over his kingdom very well. But later he became
friends with another asura called Bana. Now Banasura was not that good
in character.
Remember when we select friends we have to be utmost careful, they can bring us up or down. Unfortunately, Naraka chose Banasura and because he started doing bad activities along with Bana, he was started being called Narakasura. Once he felt he was very powerful, he became egoistic and arrogant. Every time an asura becomes egoistic the first thing he does is to go and attack the heavens or Indra Loka. Now this one also did the same. He went and attacked the heavens and defeated Indra and the Devas and started ruling from the heavens.
Now Devas usually what do they do? They rush to Vishnu, our strategist to ask for help; this time also they did the same. Vishnu said as Narakasura's mother Bhudevi has got a boon from him, Naraka has to rule the earth and heaven for a very long time and when he, Vishnu takes the avatar (another form to save the world) as Krishna he will kill Naraka.
Anyway, Naraka ruled a long time and later Krishna was born as an avatar. At this time Naraka, not satisfied with his shenanigans, went and stole the earrings of Aditi, the mother of the Devas and captured a lot of deva ladies as well. Because Aditi became very upset about this she came to Sathyabhama, wife of Krishna and asked for help. Now hearing this, Sathyabhama also became very upset and asked Krishna to help her in the war.
Remember in those days the ladies especially queens and princesses were very well trained in the strategy of war, leadership and how to fight a war. So along with Krishna, Sathyabhama went to war and in the war, after a well-fought battle, Narakasura was killed by Krishna using his disc (Sudarshana chakra).Now before dying, Sathyabhama gave Naraka a boon that everyone will celebrate his death with beautiful lights and the day before Diwali is celebrated as 'Naraka Chathurdasi' to symbolize the victory of good over evil.
In many houses before Diwali, people clean the house, remove all the old clothes and things and buy new clothes and amenities. This is to remove the old energy from our life and bring in new energy in the form of fresh ideas, perspectives, and prosperity into our lives. Many sweetmeats are made for the kids and all the people, young as well as old light firecrackers, light lamps and have a lot of fun. Many light the lamps as part of Diwali, what is its significance?
Deepa: Now Deepa in Sanskrit means lamp. The Deepa signifies light, which removes darkness. The darkness here can be thought of as ignorance or lack of knowledge or wisdom. The Deepa symbolically removes our ignorance while showing the way to the light or wisdom. Now, this is the most simplest of the interpretation.
Interpretation 1: The Deepa is made of the lamp body, the oil or ghee, the wick, and the flame. Here let us go deep into the symbolism! Consider your body as the lamp. The lamp usually has to be kept polished and shiny. The same way we need to keep our physical and emotional body healthy and well maintained without diseases, lower emotions and ego. Once we are successful in that, let us turn our focus onto the oil or ghee.
The oil or ghee can be considered as our Vasanas
or Sanskaras. These are the the internal tendencies/ cultural
conditioning we get being part of the society in this life. If we take
the previous lives, then these are the inherent tendencies we bring into
our this life from our past rendezvous of lifetimes. Vasana
is mainly the cellular memory we bring into this life from our previous
ones and we ourselves may not be aware of it. Samskaras are our
cultural conditioning of this life or the previous life.
Remember when we select friends we have to be utmost careful, they can bring us up or down. Unfortunately, Naraka chose Banasura and because he started doing bad activities along with Bana, he was started being called Narakasura. Once he felt he was very powerful, he became egoistic and arrogant. Every time an asura becomes egoistic the first thing he does is to go and attack the heavens or Indra Loka. Now this one also did the same. He went and attacked the heavens and defeated Indra and the Devas and started ruling from the heavens.
Now Devas usually what do they do? They rush to Vishnu, our strategist to ask for help; this time also they did the same. Vishnu said as Narakasura's mother Bhudevi has got a boon from him, Naraka has to rule the earth and heaven for a very long time and when he, Vishnu takes the avatar (another form to save the world) as Krishna he will kill Naraka.
Anyway, Naraka ruled a long time and later Krishna was born as an avatar. At this time Naraka, not satisfied with his shenanigans, went and stole the earrings of Aditi, the mother of the Devas and captured a lot of deva ladies as well. Because Aditi became very upset about this she came to Sathyabhama, wife of Krishna and asked for help. Now hearing this, Sathyabhama also became very upset and asked Krishna to help her in the war.
Remember in those days the ladies especially queens and princesses were very well trained in the strategy of war, leadership and how to fight a war. So along with Krishna, Sathyabhama went to war and in the war, after a well-fought battle, Narakasura was killed by Krishna using his disc (Sudarshana chakra).Now before dying, Sathyabhama gave Naraka a boon that everyone will celebrate his death with beautiful lights and the day before Diwali is celebrated as 'Naraka Chathurdasi' to symbolize the victory of good over evil.
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| Diwali lamps |
In many houses before Diwali, people clean the house, remove all the old clothes and things and buy new clothes and amenities. This is to remove the old energy from our life and bring in new energy in the form of fresh ideas, perspectives, and prosperity into our lives. Many sweetmeats are made for the kids and all the people, young as well as old light firecrackers, light lamps and have a lot of fun. Many light the lamps as part of Diwali, what is its significance?
Deepa: Now Deepa in Sanskrit means lamp. The Deepa signifies light, which removes darkness. The darkness here can be thought of as ignorance or lack of knowledge or wisdom. The Deepa symbolically removes our ignorance while showing the way to the light or wisdom. Now, this is the most simplest of the interpretation.
Interpretation 1: The Deepa is made of the lamp body, the oil or ghee, the wick, and the flame. Here let us go deep into the symbolism! Consider your body as the lamp. The lamp usually has to be kept polished and shiny. The same way we need to keep our physical and emotional body healthy and well maintained without diseases, lower emotions and ego. Once we are successful in that, let us turn our focus onto the oil or ghee.
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| A traditional 'Deepa' called 'Nilavilakku' |
Now think about
a quality, we have never worked on in this life, but we are so good at
it, we ourselves become amazed by it; this quality may be we worked on
in another lifetime (this only for people who believe in the past life
theory) or somehow we inherited from our ancestors (for people who don't
believe in past lives). The above-said scenario will be about a good
quality in a societal sense; in a bad sense, it can be something like
uncontrollable anger or jealousy, which we ourselves are not able to
manage. These are our previous lifetime Vasanas (inherent tendencies) or
Samskaras (cultural conditioning). Anyway, these Vasanas and Samskaras,
many times get in our way of being wise to know that we are 'Tat Twam Asi'.
The wick of the lamp can be considered as the focus or intention we have to come out or destroy these Vasanas or Samskaras. Any action if we want to do, first we should have the intention and focus to do it. Otherwise, we end up not doing it. So, the wick is considered as our focused intentions, which absorb our Vasanas and Samskaras as the wick is absorbing the oil or the ghee.
Finally, the flame is our undying devotion towards the divine, God, Universal source, infinite wisdom or any name we call it. The flame is the deep devotion and through the wick of our focused intentions, absorbs and burns up all the Vasanas or Samskaras in the form of oil, we carry around in our cellular memory (or maybe DNA, who knows) as baggage from various lifetimes or conditioning of this lifetime.
Only after burning up all these Vasanas and Samskaras we can be clear about our path towards our highest purpose. Otherwise, the Vasanas and Samskaras do and will interfere with our spiritual progress as a soul. So symbolically a Deepa is showing us the way towards our highest purpose, but never material and always spiritual and this is the real symbolism of a lamp. The same can be said about a candle where the oil or ghee takes the form of the wax. But to burn up or work on our baggage we always need the grace of the Universal wisdom or Brahman. Otherwise we stagger as a blind person in the darkness of our ignorance.
The wick of the lamp can be considered as the focus or intention we have to come out or destroy these Vasanas or Samskaras. Any action if we want to do, first we should have the intention and focus to do it. Otherwise, we end up not doing it. So, the wick is considered as our focused intentions, which absorb our Vasanas and Samskaras as the wick is absorbing the oil or the ghee.
Finally, the flame is our undying devotion towards the divine, God, Universal source, infinite wisdom or any name we call it. The flame is the deep devotion and through the wick of our focused intentions, absorbs and burns up all the Vasanas or Samskaras in the form of oil, we carry around in our cellular memory (or maybe DNA, who knows) as baggage from various lifetimes or conditioning of this lifetime.
Only after burning up all these Vasanas and Samskaras we can be clear about our path towards our highest purpose. Otherwise, the Vasanas and Samskaras do and will interfere with our spiritual progress as a soul. So symbolically a Deepa is showing us the way towards our highest purpose, but never material and always spiritual and this is the real symbolism of a lamp. The same can be said about a candle where the oil or ghee takes the form of the wax. But to burn up or work on our baggage we always need the grace of the Universal wisdom or Brahman. Otherwise we stagger as a blind person in the darkness of our ignorance.
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| Diwali- The festival of the lights |
Interpretation 2: As we previously discussed, it can also be the removal darkness of ignorance and lighting the lamp of the wisdom. Now we can light any number of lamps from one lamp and the light of the first lamp never gets reduced even after lighting a thousand lamps.
Let us consider the first lamp as a teacher or Guru who is removing the darkness of ignorance from the minds of students and lighting up their lives through the wisdom of knowledge. Even after teaching 100,000 kids, the knowledge of the Guru is only increasing and as bright as the first flame as ever, never decreasing and the lamp lighting can be continued through the students and their students. Thus the light of wisdom or knowledge helps in the removal of the darkness of a whole society, country or even the world.
Lighting the lamp: So, by lighting the lamp, we are asking the Universal wisdom to show us our pathway towards our highest good, while removing all the baggage of Vasanas and Samskaras we have been carrying from many previous lifetimes or just this current lifetime. Isn't it an amazing symbolism to make us aware of our true purpose in case we have forgotten?
Because of the aspect of symbolically removing the darkness, lighting a lamp during any function is considered auspicious or sacred. In Diwali, we light thousands of such lamps to symbolically show that we are removing all our darkness and proceeding as a group towards the light of wisdom and knowledge. Once more a very Happy Diwali all!