DIVALI OR DEEPAVALI

India is a land of festivals. Divali is the festival of lights, a festival of the \ Hindus traced back to ancient times. It is the most gorgeous festival celebrated all over the country.

‘Divali’ is derived from ‘Deepavali’ meaning ‘a cluster of lights’. The celebration of Divali is marked by illumination everywhere. Rows and rows of small earthenware lamps are seen in every town and village. Divali is also known for fireworks which go on practically the whole night. In every house the children and even the elders light fire crackers. That night sounds like a battle field everywhere.

Early next morning before sunrise every member of the family takes the holy bath and wears new clothes. From the poorest to the richest Indian wearing new clothes is an established ritual. Thereafter all of them visit relatives and friends where gifts are exchanged and sweets consumed with much gaiety.

Divali, or more correctly Deepavali is a joyous celebration of the death of the Titan of hell, Narakasura at the hands of Lord Krishna. Narakasura, the son of the earth as he was known, was all-powerful. He was an intolerable menace to the gods, sages and all men of peity. He looted and plundered not only the earth but heaven as well. He carried away 16,000 fair daughters of the gods and imprisoned them in his harem. The gods led by Indra approached Lord Krishna and supplied the Lord to destroy the demon. Krishna readily agreed. He fought a fierce battle. After destroying thousands of demons Krishna slew Narakasura. Thereafter he rescued the imprisoned damsels and at their earnest prayers took them as his wives.

This festival, like all other festivals and rituals, explains the inner personality of man and his deliverance from his ignorance and ego to attainment of his supreme nature of God-realisation. The darkness of the night represents man’s total ignorance of his Self ignorance of his godhood. In that darkness reigns the desire ridden ego which destroys peace and brings about sorrows and misery in the bosom of man. The 16,000 damsels represents the desires that arise in an egoistic man. Desires dwell in ignorance under the control of ego. All these desires cannot find fulfilment in this limited world. They remain frustrated. Thus man is driven to a state of sorrow and suffering by his own negative tendencies.

To pull himself out of this state man has to employ his positive tendencies to direct his attention to the higher Self. Every man has within him both positive and negative tendencies. They have been represented in almost all religions as gods and demons respectively. The gods approach of Krishna for help signifies man’s positive tendencies reaching the Self. When man turns introvert and seeks the inner Self his negative tendencies get destroyed one by one. His desires get annihilated. This is represented by the fireworks on the night of Divali. The battle with the ego, the fight with the negative tendencies, the destruction of the desires go on the whole night, that is as long as ignorance lasts. With the rising of the sun all darkness is dispelled, all ignorance removed, all desires destroyed. Ego, the Narakasura is killed. Man is transformed to his original godhead.

The bath at dawn of Divali indicates the cleansing of the egoborn, ego centric desires. The new clothes signify the newly acquired godhood. That transformation brings about gaiety, joy, bliss represented by eating sweets and merry-making. The visiting of relatives and friends the next morning carries this new vision, the vision of divinity, the vision of the supreme Self in one and all.

DUSSEHRA VIJAYADASHAMI

Dussehra is another popular festival of India. The festival lasts for ten days beginning on the first day of the Hindu month of Ashwin (September/ October). It is celebrated in various ways all over the country. It is observed as Durga puja, as Vijayadasami celebrating the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana, as Navaratri or the festival of nine nights.

The goddess Durga was created by the three gods – Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara—for destroying the dasyus or demons. The demons sent their most powerful representative Mahishasura in the form of a buffalo to fight Durga. The goddess fought with this great demon and killed him. The buffalo represents great demon and killed him. The buffalo represents the lower animal instincts in man in an aggressive form. The goddess represents the higher, nobler tendencies also in an aggressive form—the form of Durga.

Man is a mere expression of his inner nature. Man’s inner nature falls under two broad classifications. You may call them the aggressive and the passive. Again each of these is of two types depending on their qualities of goodness or badness. Thus there are four distinct natures covering the entire range of inner personalities of human beings.

A passive man is one who functions according to the fancies of his mind without The intervention of his intellect. He follows a routine, mechanical, traditional pattern of life. His actions emanate from his feelings and emotions rather than his discrimination. He does not question the merit or demerit of his actions. He lives blindly the life set by his predecessors and ancestors. Environment and circumstances shape his individuality shaping them. In short, he lives an unintelligent dogged life of passive acceptance of whatever he encounters in the world. He has neither the initiative nor the enthusiasm to utilize his resources intelligently for a more meaningful and purposeful life.

Passivity in man may lean towards good or bad . A passively bad man is one who is involved in wrong. Immoral activities but does not intend to be so. He does not willfully and cunningly plan or scheme activities to meet his private ends. He does not mean to be bad. He merely continues a wrong way of life usually inherited from his past. His intellect does not consciously analyze and supervise his activities or their repercussions. He is caught up in a mode of living which happens to be bad. So it is with a passively good man. A passively good man also does not intellectually analyze and supervise his activities or their consequences .such unintelligent benevolence at times roves detrimental to his community and himself.

The aggressive nature of man’s personality is distinct and different from his passivity. Contrary to the passively bad, an aggressively bad man is one who intends to be bad. He willfully and viciously plans and schemes, manipulates and maneuvers corrupt and immoral ways of life for meeting his own selfish ends. He has no scruples to follow . he breaks customs, tradition, rules and regulations to get things done to satisfy his ego and egocentric desires. The aggressive are more powerful; they dominate over the passive good and bad. The simple reason for their superiority is that they employ their intellect whereas the passive use only their mind in their activities.

An aggressively good person is one whose basic nature is good. He also uses his power of discrimination all the time to decide the type of activities that he executes. He does not act impulsively. He studies facts, foresees consequences, reasons carefully and of the aggressively good may appear prima facie bad but they are benevolent to the core. They may be ‘cruel only to be kind’. Even a single aggressively good person present in a community can bring about peace, prosperity and happiness to all its people.

The proportion of passive individuals in any society far exceeds the aggressive. Most human beings are content to lead a routine stereo-typed life. they do a mechanical existence. The aggressive ones who utilise their superior power of reason and reflection are fewer in number. Even among the aggressive the percentage of the good is small.

The law pertaining to the inner personalities of human beings holds good universally. The layman is not even aware of its existence, much less does he understand how it functions. Consequently he does not make use of the law in practical living. He becomes frustrated in life. He complains bitterly that the world is polluted, that honesty does not pay in these days. Why do the good and honest have to suffer at the hands of the bad and dishonest ? –that is his question. The problem is easily answered in light of the above analysis of human nature. The vast majority of human beings are passive. The aggressive bad prey on the passive good and bad. They intelligently calculate and manipulate things to benefit themselves at the expense of others. The passive continue to be passive. They merely mumble and grumble at the success of the aggressive. The only solution to the problem is for them to shed their inertia and operate with their intellects. They must appreciate the working of the law of human nature. Remaining in their mental and emotional plane they cannot combat those who operate from a higher level of human personality. They must employ their available intellectual facilities and seek, if necessary, intellectual guidance from others to meet the viciousness of the aggressive goodness to be able to fight and conquer the aggressive bad elements in the society. There is no other way to do it.

The nine day’s worship is divided into three days worship for each of the three goddesses—durga the goddess of protection and valour, Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge. the tenth day, Vijyadashmi,is the day of victory when huge effigies of the demon Ravana are burnt with fireworks.This is followed by feasting, entertainment and rejoicing.

The effigies represent the ego. The fireworks is the battle with the ego. when the vasanas are all destroyed, the Self, the Atman is realised. The worship of Durga for the first three days of the festival signifies the destruction of negative tendencies or vasanas inherent in man like jealousy, greed, passion etc. The next three days worship of Lakshmi signifies the establishment of positive tendencies like affection, charity, forgiveness, etc. The last three days dedicated to Saraswati is the gaining of knowledge of the supreme Self. Three days are allotted to each Goddess to indicate the discipline and training to be practised at the three levels of personality namely physical, mental and intellectual to achieve the goal set for each type of worship. The nine days of spiritual discipline and training are only symbolical. It is not to be considered as the time required for a man to achieve spiritual unfoldment. The tenth day –Vijaydashami – represents the day of enlightenment when all vasanas are destroyed and the knowledge of the Self has dawned in the individual. The individual is said to have attained God-realisation.

back to homepage