One Flame, a Billion Lights
Bhagavan Baba has emphasized that we must enlighten ourselves by destroying our lower tendencies and celebrate the Deepavali festival. This year it falls on October 26th.
In various parts of India, there are different versions of the origin of this festival. In north India, the story is that it marks the triumphant return of Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana to Ayodhya [Rama’s kingdom] after their long period of exile and after the destruction of the rakshasa [demon] race. In other areas of this country, it is associated with the destruction of the demon called Naraka by Sri Krishna and His consort Sathyabhama. In some regions its supposed to celebrate the incarnation of Vamana [the dwarf incarnation of the Lord] and the blessings He invoked on Bali, the demon king, after subjugating his pride.
But the most prevalent and significant of these lessons is the one that relates it [Deepavali festival] to Narakasura and his downfall. His very name indicates that he was promoting the path of naraka or hell. He patronized all vices and sins. So even his own mother, the Earth, prayed to the Lord to annihilate him and his gang of wicked demons. She pleaded that the Lord himself should put an end to her son’s evil career and that the day of her son’s death should be declared a festival day for the whole world, when mankind could express its joy at the deliverance. This is the reason why people of all classes and all ages celebrate this day with merriment and feasting.
People wake up very early this day and light lamps all over their homes and all along the streets, to indicate that the dark days of the demon are over. They take ceremonial baths, wear new clothes, dance around crackers and flares, and enjoy themselves.
Narakasura represents the down—dragging tendencies of man and Deepavali [the festival of lights] celebrates the conquest of man over them. His capital city had a name which reveals his fundamental fault. Prag‑jyoti‑aba‑aura means the city where people are not aware of the primordial light, the splendor of the atma [soul]. The citizens put their faith in the body and the senses, ego passions, impulses, and emotions that arise there from. Narakasura is the son of Mother Earth. All men are children of the same mother and all have in them the down‑dragging pulls from which Narakasura suffered. The Narakasura story is thus a challenge and a warning to all mankind.
The Lord destroyed this asura [demon] and his brood with Sathyabhama by His side. This fact is fraught with a meaningful lesson that truth is the best weapon to overcome evil. Sri Krishna is the prema [love] principle and His shadow is sathya [truth]. They are both inseparable and complementary.
In the story about Deepavali popular in North India, there is a profound meaning. Ayodhya means the city that can never fall into the hands of an enemy force, that is to say, the atma itself. But darkness overpowered it for 14 years when Rama was away in exile. Rama means that which gives delight, and nothing gives greater delight than the atma. That is why we say atmarama, while referring to oneself. We never use the words atmakrishna or atmashiva. It is always atmarama. When Rama is not ‘present’, delight disappears. So when Rama returned, it was indeed as if Ayodhya was born anew; it was a festival of immense and spontaneous rejoicing. Sita lit the lamp in the palace of Ayodhya and spread delight in the hearts of millions of people. Sita is the ‘shadow’ of Rama; She embodies shanti [peace]. When Rama (dharma) and Sita (shanti) were restored to the empire, it became a festival of lights.
It must be noted that the name Krishna also means, “that which attracts and gives delight.” It is the characteristic of God that He acts like a magnet and draws beings back into the source from which they came. The symbolism behind the long lines of lamps hung on every house, marking its outline and the strings of little lamps that are hung over every door is also highly illuminating. The lamps are all lit from one initial lamp, just as all the millions of individual beings are emanating from the One original source of life. Each one is a jyoti [light] lit by the initial param-jyoti [eternal light].
Though billions of lamps are lit from the flame of the one principal jyoti, it doesn’t lose its splendor or diminish its illuminating power. That is the lesson on the omnipresent Divine principle that Deepavali teaches. “Meditate on the one paramjyoti out of which your own jyoti has derived its power to shine; you are but a spark of that eternal universal flame. When this is realized, you are led from tamas [laziness] to jyoti.”
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Dec. 1978
