Saturday, October 17, 2009

Happy Deepavali!!

Wishing all of our readers a very Happy Deepavali and a prosperous New Year. Our sincere apologies for the more than ever sporadic posting these days but our professional life is taking a serious toll on our creative abilities. As of now, the best we can promise is merely one post per month.




But for today, an explanation from a personal blog about the story of the five days of Deepavali.
A brief excerpt is as follows:

On this Diwali day, we light lamps to commemorate the sacred memories of those great men who lived to brighten the lives of millions of their fellow beings:

● Lord Shri Krishna around whom revolved the entire story of our great epic Mahabharat and the philosopher, who preached Karmayog through his Geeta to Arjun on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, discarded his body.

● Bhagwan, Mahavir, the Jain prophet also attained nirvana on this day.

● Swami Ramtirth, the beloved "Ram Badshah" of millions of Indians was not only born on this day and took both sanyas and samadhi on this day.

● Swami Dayanand Saraswati, founder of Arya Samaj in 1875 in Mumbai, with his superb yogic powers freed his soul from his body and mingled with divinity on this auspicious day of Diwali.

Another very interesting story about this Diwali day is from the Kathopanishad. In this story, a small boy called Nachiketa believed that Yam, the god of Death was as black as the dark night of amavasya. But when he met Yam in person he was puzzled seeing Yam's calm countenance and dignified stature. Yam explained to Nachiketa on this Diwali day of amavasya that by only passing through the darkness of death, man sees the light of highest wisdom. It is only then only his soul can escape from the bondage of his mortal frame to mingle with the Supreme Power. It was then that Nachiketa realized the importance of worldly life and significance of death. All of Nachiketa's doubts were set to rest and he whole-heartedly participated in Diwali celebrations.