(November 1979)
Out of
all the festivities, that the Hindus celebrate, Deepawali is the most important
one. This festival is celebrated not only all over India, but all the Hindus,
who have gone out of India, also celebrate this festival there with all the
pomp and show. The peculiarity of this festival is this that all the rank and
file of the society celebrates it irrespective of caste, creed, social status
or financial condition. Due to floods in Gujarat, Maharashtra and other Indian states, and due to uncertain
and untimely rain, the farmer is not quite sure of his crop this year and hence
some sections of the society may not have that light-heartedness and mood,
which is required for celebrating this
yearly function; but this festival has such charm and magic that all the people
will join in its celebrations and will enjoy in their own way.
In
ancient Indian society, the common tie
which bound the society together was the religion and even today we find that inspite of several castes and creeds,
the people come together and associate themselves with each other on the common
ground of religion. The common
people of ancient India had
also great faith in religion. The reason for that may be absence of education
among the masses; but the fact remains that religion dominated on the minds of
the common people. Hence taking advantage of this blind faith
of the masses, our seers of ancient India tried to give a religious base to
everything. Fasting on Ekadashi days
for the whole day and fasting for half
a day on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, which is really a very good rule for
maintaining good health, from the
medical point of view, was given a religious background and coupled with some religious
observances. Similarly fasting for some
days in the Chaturmas (Four months of
Monsoon) is also good from the health point of view and it has also been included as a
religious practice. Eating of the leaves of the neem tree on the Gudhi Padwa
day, distributing gold (leaves of the Apta tree) on Dasara and giving 'Tilgul'
to all on the Sankrant day are other examples, where health has been given due
consideration together with social intermixing under the garb of religion.
Taking a bath every day in the morning before worshipping God, is also a good practice
from the point of view of hygiene and this has also been included in our
religious practice. Thus because of this all-pervading nature of religion in
the Indian life, all our festivals also have been given some religious base.
Mythological stories are being told almost for every one of our festivals and
some festivals have a number of stories behind them.
Deepawalj
or Diwali festival, as it is very commonly known, is usually celebrated for four days.
Sometimes it extends for five days
and sometimes it is cut short to three days. Every day of the festival is celebrated because of
some mythological story connected
with it. The first day of the festival is known as Narak Chaturdashi and it is connected with
killing of the demon Narakasur. The joy of the people was publicly
expressed by the
celebration of the festival and by lighting lamps. The second day is dedicated to the worship of Goddess
Laxmi. The new moon
day (Amavasya) is not usually
considered as auspicious.
If a
child is born on that day, then some religious ceremonies are required to be done, in order to
appease the evil stars dominating
that day; but this day coming in the month of Ashwin is considered auspicious
and is celebrated by the worship of
Godess Laxmi. The businessmen
celebrate this day, on a mass
scale, by inviting their friends to their place of business and by
entertaining them. The third day is known as Balipratipada. Bali, who was pressed in the underworld by Vishnu in the Wamanavatar, requested Shri Vishnu to
nominate a day, on which he would be remembered. This request was granted by Shri Vishnu and the first day of the month
of Kartik was assigned
for that purpose. This is usually the third day of the festival. The last day
i.e., the fourth day is the day of the brothers and sisters. Yama, the God of
death, is supposed to go to his sister on this day and hence the sisters
staying on the earth, call their brothers to their house on this day and feed
them sumptuously. Thus though the people eat delicious food on all these days,
meet their friends and relatives and entertain them, still all the days of this
festival also have a religious background and orthodox and religious minded
people take interest in the celebrations of this festival because of that.
Apart
from the religious base of this festival, it appears that the time, for
celebration of this festival, was also selected after taking into consideration
the economic condition of the people. From times immemorial, India was
basically an agricultural country. The entire economy of this country was based
on the agricultural produce. Even today, though industries have been started in
this country, still about seventy percent people of this country are engaged in
agricultural work or work connected with it. The prosperity of the people of
India, therefore, even now depends on the agricultural produce. In older days,
the agriculture of this county entirely depended on the rainfall in the monsoon
season. Though a few dams have now come up in this country and they supply some
water to the fields through canals, still the major part of our agriculture
still depends on the monsoon. A rough estimate of the produce of the fields
could therefore be drawn at the end of monsoon. The question of leisure is also
considered in fixing up the Diwali festival at this time of the year. Thus with
the expectation of the new crop, the mind of the farmer is at rest and as at
this time he is free from the work of the monsoon crop, he has enough leisure
and mental peace to take part in the celebration of this festival. It is
because of this that one and all enthusiastically celebrate this function with
great joy.
The very
name of the people, who got rid of the
fright from the demon Narakasur, expressed their joy by lighting a number of lamps by night and placing them in
rows and hence this practice of lighting lamps, during the Deepawali festival,
came into being; but apart from the thinking of the common man, we must see the
inner meaning of light. What is light and what does it do ? Light drives the
darkness and illuminates a place. Even
in the ordinary course, darkness causes depression and light creates enthusiasm and alertness ! In
philosophical discussion the term darkness is used as a synonym of ignorance or
sin. A guru is said to enlighten his student. He is therefore supposed to light
the lamp of knowledge in the mind of his disciple and thus drive away the darkness of ignorance from him. Our sages
from the Vedic times were praying for light in this fashion “lead me from
darkness to light”. They wanted that
the God should lead them from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge.
They were all the time eager to acquire knowledge and get rid of their
ignorance. This is therefore the inner meaning of lighting the lamps and
celebrating this festival. Get rid of ignorance in various forms and become
enlightened. We may say that this is the inner message of this festival.
We come
to know from the Sai Satcharita that Shri Sai Baba was fond of lighting lamps.
The anecdote of how He was originally lighting the lamps from the oil, which He
used to collect from the local grocers and after their refusal to give it, how
He lighted the lamps by using water and how He kept them burning for the whole
night, is always told, when the greatness of Shri Sai Baba is eulogised. The
common people only look at this incident as a miracle in the life of Shri Sai
Baba and they keep a lamp burning before His statue or photo. In all the
temples of Shri Sai Baba also, lamps are kept burning constantly as it was a
practice liked by Shri Sai Baba; but we always say that Shri
Sai Baba did not write volumes for communicating His message or advice or He
did not give sermons for that purpose. He only indicated everything by His
actions and by His straightforward speech, which often had a deep, underlying
meaning. Thus His fondness for light must be nothing else than His intention to
remove the darkness or ignorance from the minds of His devotees and to
enlighten them and put them on the right path of righteousness and thus lead
them to Moksha, which is supposed to be the greatest spiritual achievement of
human life.
We
therefore pray to Shri Sai Baba on the occasion of the Deepawali festival and
hope that all the Sai devotees will join us in this prayer, that with the lighting
of the lamps during this unique festival of the year. He may remove the
ignorance, if any, from the minds of His devotees and enlighten them. We also
take this opportunity to wish a happy Diwali and a prosperous new year to all
our readers, contributors, subscribers, advertisers, well-wishers and to all
the Sai devotees, spread all over the world !