Diwali ~Festival of Lights

Last week was Diwali here in India. While Diwali is popularly known as the "festival of lights", the most significant spiritual meaning is "the awareness of the inner light".* A very new agy philosophy rooted and central in Hindu religion and customs is the assertion that there is something beyond the physical body and mind. After some research on this topic we found it explained that just as we celebrate birthdays (the birth of our physical being) Diwali is the celebration of this inner light.This inner light is in particular the "knowing of which outshines all darkness awakening the individual to one's true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality."* With the realization of the inner light supposedly comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). "This inner light and higher knowledge brings Ananda" (joy or peace)* "While the story behind Deepavali and manner of celebration varies from region to region (festive fireworks, worship, lights, sharing of sweets), the essence is the same – to rejoice in the Inner Light (Atman) or the underlying reality of all things (Brahman)."*

Photo of the little girl:(free)courtesy of michaelckw.blogspot.com.

This is a crazy holiday and probably bigger than any other of the calendar year. Diwali is a day to give presents, candy, and jewelery and gifts to loved ones and much like any other holiday is filled with much noise and fan fair, however this festival outweighs them all by way of the amount of noise. We were warned it would be comparable to a real war zone and it truly sounds like that. If we had not been warned we might be hiding underneath our beds and thinking it was the end of the world. It really was that crazy! Not over exaggerating or anything here, but people spend thousands of dollars on firecrackers and chains of them 10,000 long and fire them off. So the amount and length of the noise is unlike anything else we have ever heard. One strand of crackers can last for 10 minutes straight and sounds exactly like automatic weaponry firing at will. There are no safety laws here either or awareness of safety that we can see. While we loved to watch the entire ordeal from our balcony it was horrifying to watch little tiny children lighting some big rockets sized fireworks off and not getting fast enough out of the way. The other thing that made us nervous was some people we saw who live in some apartments near our house who were lighting fireworks off their balcony. Remember I said "balcony apartment" (which here means the same as back in the states) there is often an apartment above them and they were shooting them directly into the roof of their balcony which ricochet off and went all sorts of different directions. Ay YAY YAY! I could not watch as I was terrified that some little one was going to have his toes ripped off or worse lose a foot or two. I am sure it happens as we watched several people encounter some close callsThe fireworks and crackers were going on all week but at a distance...they really started more heavily the night of November 4th and went all night, all day the 5th, all that night, and really taperd off but could still be heard for the rest of the week. Amazing!.

It was a beautiful site. We had such a great view off our balcony. It was one of the best fireworks shows ever as the entire skyline at times were filled with firey colors exploding into other colors...It was better than the NYC Fireworks show on the 4th of July (I would know, I have been there, right Aunt Linda?) and better than any show in the US as these fireworks when on for 24 hours straight! We had wished we had requested reservations at a local roof top restaraunt to get an even better view of the city but alas we were too late in doing so and every one in town was booked. Although we did not participate much in this particular holiday it was beautiful and it was neat to be here to witness it as it is an experience we will for sure never forget.

* Quotes taken from the blog: His Grace Is Sufficient at: http://michaelckw.blogspot.com/

-Jenny