By Ashok Vyas
In the time of coronavirus and touch-me-not, better skip the abeer and gulal, and take a deep dive into the true spirit of the timeless Hindu festival.
Here is an invitation to join a colorful ride with Ashok Vyas. We have tried to put Holi in the bracket of a ‘fun filled festival’. Nothing wrong but we are not telling people about the spiritual import of this spring festival.
Let me take the mike of a reformer and say that ‘bringing down the level of all festivals to marketing or social mingling and fun is taking away the soul from the festivals. Well, why pretend that ‘Holi means victory of good over evil’, while you are not doing anything to strengthen goodness in the world and not even recognizing that there is evil in the world.
Please don’t mind, I am wearing the mask of a ‘preacher’, but just very briefly,
I hope. So the point is, Holi is not going to do anything for us, until and unless we imbibe the spirit of Holi by learning about its roots. See, colors and dancing and meeting and enjoying is all fine, but that is not going to sustain the true values which were coded in this festival by visionary sages.
All right, let me ask you, have you ever heard the name of Prahlad in the conversations happening around Holi? Who was he? He was much more modern and liberal and courageous than many people who are wearing the mask of crusaders of Azadi. He was son of King Hiranyakashipu. Here is a fun fact. ‘Hiranayaksh’ means ‘one with the eye of gold’, symbolic meaning, ‘the one who gives prime importance to materialism’.
So, Prahalad, a devotee of Lord Vishnu, was expected to sing the glory of his father, who was powerful and wanted to be treated as God. He actually employed teachers to inculcate this mindset in Prahlad. They failed, and ironically, his co-disciples were initiated into the joy of singing Lord Vishnu’s glory. They were caught by King’s observers. Displeased with his rebellious son, Hiranyakashipu wanted to kill Prahlad. Several methods were employed. But somehow Prahlad was saved from drowning in water and remained unhurt even after having been thrown from a hill. Interesting, isn’t it? There was a power that was saving him. In desperation, finally the King summoned his sister Holika, who had a boon that wearing a ‘fireproof garb’, she would remain unhurt in any blaze.
One day, arrangements were made. Prahlad was made to sit in the lap of his aunt Holika, and a pyre under the two put to fire. Miracle again. The boy came out unscathed from the fire, whereas Holika died.
So here it is, one reference point associated with the young devotee Prahlad. Let us stay with this story. Why did the Lord save Prahlad? The obvious answer is, because he was a devotee. Let us say being devotee means having intense conviction in the truth to the extent that you are willing to sacrifice the kingdom, the luxuries and everything.
When we celebrate Holi, we don’t talk about Prahlad, so we don’t know about his struggle, we don’t talk about his sustained commitment to truth. If we hear a mere outline of this story, we only know that Prahlad was saved from the fire. Victory of good over evil! Done! No Sir, we got to do something to become eligible for being saved in this fashion from the strategic attacks to destroy us on many levels.
Each festival is a source of learning. When everything is hunky-dory, we don’t pay attention to life lessons. But in today’s world facing several challenges, we need to connect with the inspiring colors of Holi for staying in tune to our truthfulness.
Truly speaking, Holi offers a fun filled structure to celebrate the arrival of Spring with colors.
Let us take the example of a wedding ceremony. While the priest is chanting the auspicious mantras, if the couple who are getting married keep on greeting the guests, will they have the required concentration to assimilate the essence hidden in various steps that are being conducted by the priest. No, they won’t, because they are not attentive, they are not participating in it.
Now in the case of Holi, we are more concerned about involving those who don’t understand us and thus while diluting the spiritual import of this festival and downplaying the ‘Dharmic side’ of the festival, we want to make it popular, politically correct and tailor it to suit everyone.
What does it mean? Holi is crying, you are not recognizing me. Well, I know, some of us dance on Holi based film songs or even sing along to ‘Rang barse, bheege choonar wali…’ But is that all? Is it like any other party day?
Guess what, I don’t want to let you go, so I will say, yes! Let us have fun with another story related to the day of Holi.
What we have done in the name of Holi sometimes is to take this as an excuse to touch someone on the cheek while applying Gulal and some people go further in that direction designed by desires.
Hold on, Holi is not all about playing with desires. If we look at the act of coloring and playing, finally we have to wash our faces and take off the color from different parts of our body.
We have heard wise people say, play with all these colors of maya or illusion with awareness that they are transient. The drama is played to make our journey towards truth more interesting.
Here is another interesting side of Holi, have you heard of ‘Tarakasur’? He was a demon and devas sought Lord Shiva’s help to kill him. Shiva was in deep meditation, so they engaged Kamadev, who threw arrows of lust to divert his attention. Alas, it was not meant to be, Lord Shiva opened his eyes and Kama was burnt.
There are many branches of interesting tales of Puranas. For our present purpose, Lord Shiva burning Kaamdev on Holi means we should look at Holi as a day to remember that we need to move away from our lustful tendencies, we must learn to control our desires.
By the way, as predicted, demon Tarakasur was killed by Lord Shiva’s son Skand.
Moving forward, Holi festival has an in-built provision for networking. You meet, you greet, you apply colors, eat sweets, have fun and work together towards everybody’s development. This is also a turning point for a fresh start. In the typical New York tradition, most of the Holi celebrations due this year on the March 7-8 weekend were cancelled. Vaishnav temple of New York had somehow organized their Holi event a week ago, so there were people with colorful faces on a ‘non-Holi’ day. Immigrants work on recreating the spirit of Holi with lot of passion and dedication. This year, the threat of Coronavirus resulted in cancellation of many Holi events by the Government of India too. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also cancelled his Holi event.
The Indian Consulate celebrated Holi in an innovative way: Consul General Sandeep Chakravorty and the consulate family painted together. Wonderful!
Holi is actually like the tasty Bhel Puri of Mumbai.
Eat fresh!
Keep the spirit of Holi fresh by diving deep into the spirit of Holi in your own unique way. An uplifting greeting of ‘Ram Ram’ to mark the spring festival: Happy Holi!
Ashok Vyas is disciple of Swami Shri Ishwarananda Giri ji Maharaj;
Author, Poet, Program Director, ITVGold
President – Insight for Creativity
Founder – Creative Hindu Alliance
Youtube Channel, Ashok Vyas – Hindu Speaker
