Chronicles Of Deepavali: Deepavali & New Year

There are n-numbers of blogs and website telling the mythology and history of Deepavali so I am not going to join that club. Instead I will try to provide spiritual and yogic view point on three major aspect of Deepavali; oil lamps, rangoli, and cleaning.

Deepavali is observed on 15^th day of Krishna paksh/ Amavasya of month of Krtik/Ashwain according Hindu Lunar calendar. Though Deepavali trace its origin as religious festival, in reality it has more to do with geography and climate of India, everything from Indian culture is designed on the basis of science to improve human life. Deepavali is festival of light, but what does this means spiritually? We have five senses but out of the five visual senses is the most important one. We observe and analyse our surrounding through our eyes. So light plays very important role in our life to perceive the world around us. Traditionally speaking we have to ignite more lamps in month of Kartik, so spiritually it means we have to multiply the light in our life. Unfortunately, LED blubs have replaced the oil lamp and we lost the meaning behind Deepavali.

शुभं करोति कल्याणमारोग्यं धनसंपदा ।
शत्रुबुद्धिविनाशाय दीपज्योतिर्नमोऽस्तुते ॥

Salutations to the Light of the Lamp, Which brings auspiciousness, health and prosperity, Which destroys inimical feelings; salutations to the Light of the Lamp.

There are n-numbers of blogs and website telling the mythology and history of Deepavali so I am not going to join that club. Instead I will try to provide spiritual and yogic view point on three major aspect of Deepavali; oil lamps, rangoli, and cleaning.

Deepavali is observed on 15^th day of Krishna paksh/ Amavasya of month of Krtik/Ashwain according Hindu Lunar calendar. Though Deepavali trace its origin as religious festival, in reality it has more to do with geography and climate of India, everything from Indian culture is designed on the basis of science to improve human life. Deepavali is festival of light, but what does this means spiritually? We have five senses but out of the five visual senses is the most important one. We observe and analyse our surrounding through our eyes. So light plays very important role in our life to perceive the world around us. Traditionally speaking we have to ignite more lamps in month of Kartik, so spiritually it means we have to multiply the light in our life. Unfortunately, LED blubs have replaced the oil lamp and we lost the meaning behind Deepavali.

Deepavali means of row of lights. So we are not igniting a single lamp, but a series of lamps and everyone of it as important as important as other one. It is scientifically proven that oil lamp have ability purify the environment. When the oil lamps are burning, chemicals release from, light emerges from it, both have positive attributes in our mind. So let’s celebrate this Deepavali by igniting lamp not only for ourselves or for dear ones but also for the one who is not to so dear to us. Light does not discriminate.

Rangoli is another important tradition during Deepavali. Rangolies are believed to have spiritual perspective and benefits. Colours and designs attract positive energy. During the making of rangoli female chants the hymns or sing devotional songs so they create sound energy with positive vibrations at the entrance of the house. So when guests come they were motivated by this positive energy and enter into home with pleasant mindset.

It is a tradition in India to clean entire house before we start celebrating Deepavali. On rudimentary level it appears as the process of cleaning to welcome new-year and welcome with fresh start, but if you view these tradition under the lens of spirituality it holds much greater meaning and merits. We clean our house, remove all the unnecessary, unwanted things and think about buying new materials, objects in new-year. Likewise, we must eradicate unwanted thoughts and emotions, overall negativity from our mind so when we create new memory of positive experience it has better place to stay. When we remove unwanted garbage from our house, it automatically become clean but this not how cleansing of our mind and soul works.

Remove negativity like; Feeling of deprivation, rejection, failure, anger and dissatisfaction and that can achieve by creating the feeling of abundance of love, satisfaction with what you have, accept yourself and people as they are, humbleness in every situation, forgiveness to all and forgot the past, no more guilt, and overall happiness with your current status quo. Also find happiness within yourself and do not waste your time and energy finding your happiness outside yourself.

In western culture it s believed that we perceive the world as what we are. A good person will perceive his surrounding as a positive environment and bad person will perceive his surrounding as a negative environment. But in India, we believe that we create the world as what we are. A good person will create beautiful, pleasant environment around him, while a bad person brings the cloak of heaviness and depression to his surroundings. So if we want our new year filled with happiness, joy, and prospectively we must change ourselves by being more compassion, more grateful and more humble towards not only ourselves but to other also.

People perform chopda poojan in some part of India by closing previous account books and open new account books for next year. We must close our Karmic account in a similar fashion and open new account of Karma with removal of spiritual debt. This spiritual dept can be our non-functional relationships, our dissatisfied emotions, feeling of failure, and overall depressive negative attitude towards other. We should try to remove all these debt by either communicating with concern person, try to understand other’s point of view, and either ask for the forgiveness or forgive him or her. We should be aware about our Karma and try to bring positive Karma in our new Karmic book. For that we should increase our spiritual awareness and meditation can be good tool for it. Another method can be giving positive contribution in the society by some charity or just by being ideal citizen of society. It is very famous tradition to give sweets to others; we should spread sweetness of love in this divine festival.

First day of the Kartik month of Shukla Paksh of Hindu Lunar calendar is celebrated as New Year of Vikram Samvat calendar system. It is also celebrated as Govardhan Pooja day. During the era of Shri Krishna people were mostly worshiping the God in the sky, out of the fear specially the lord Indra who is the God of rain and thunder. Many people worshiped him just too insured harvest of that year. Krishna tried to aware the people about this wrongful way of worshiping and motivates people to worship nature because worshiping nature comes out of respect not out of fear. When lord Indra know about this he tried to sabotage entire village by heavy rain fall but Krishna lift the mount Govardhan and use it as shield against Indra’s heavy rain. On the 8^th day Indra accepted his defeat.

We have to learn that we should our keep faith in only those things which we feel respect and gratitude about it. Faith originate as a fear does not holds any merit. Worshiping nature is the best way to protect our environment and secure sustainable living. This day is also with Annakutta or Chappan bhog. Annakutta means mountain of food and chappan bhog means 56 types of food articles offered by devotees to Krishna because lifted the Govrdhan for 7 days without consuming any food. It is beautiful iconography that God himself sacrifice for his devotees and we should learn from this.

In a similar manner how Krishna started new way of life by nature worshiping, we should left our old ways if they are not effective and try to incorporate new methodology and thinking after doing introspection. It is not necessary if its age old tradition it must be follow. But like Krishna, we should be ready to sacrifice for new things. These new things can be our way of thinking, our way of behaving and our way of dealing with problems. This is beginning of new-year if we introduce new goals and new methods, it can be beginning of new era.

ज्ञानविज्ञानतृप्तात्मा कूटस्थो विजितेन्द्रिय: |
युक्त इत्युच्यते योगी समलोष्टाश्मकाञ्चन: || 8||

-Bhagwad Gita Chapter-6

A person is said to be established in self-realization and is called a yogi [or mystic] when he is fully satisfied by virtue of acquired knowledge and realization. Such a person is situated in transcendence and is self-controlled. He sees everything, whether it is pebbles, stones or gold—as the same.