How to celebrate the next Diwali? || Acharya Prashant, archives (2019)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: Advait Learning Camp, 27.10.2019, Advait BodhSthal, Greater Noida, India   Context:  Have you earned the right to celebrate Diwali? How to celebrate this Diwali? What is the real Purpose of Diwali? Who is Ram? How to celebrate Diwali without Ram?   Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~  #acharyaprashant #diwali #dipawali #ram

Transcript

00:00 A lot of our English speaking audience wants to know that tomorrow is the festival of lights,

00:14 so what should be the right way of celebrating Diwali?

00:16 It's too late now.

00:21 It's too late.

00:28 It's almost like asking that tomorrow is the UPSC exam.

00:37 What is the right way of preparing for it?

00:42 It's actually worse.

00:44 It's almost like asking tomorrow the UPSC results would be declared.

00:50 What is the right way to prepare for the exam?

00:58 A festival is not a free for all.

01:03 What do we think?

01:16 Shri Ram is an exception.

01:34 He is a rarity.

01:47 He is worshipped because he is special.

01:54 If he is special, how does every ABCD get the right to even utter his name, let alone

02:13 celebrate his festival?

02:27 You need to earn the rights to even utter Ram.

02:39 There has to be a certain qualification.

02:55 That's how the scriptures call it.

03:05 Otherwise it is just hypocrisy and cheap entertainment in the name of festival.

03:17 I say if for 364 days you have really lived up to Ram, only then must you honestly celebrate

03:38 the festival of Ramness.

03:44 How is it that for 364 days your life really had nothing to do with Shri Ram?

03:53 And on the 365th day, you jump up and join in

04:08 the noisy bandwagon, the chorus of the hooligans?

04:28 What would he say if Ram were there in a bodily shape, in his mortal body, and were he to

04:52 see you celebrating his festival?

04:57 You just did something taking my name?

05:04 All this tamasha is in my name?

05:11 He would be angered.

05:13 He would say you do whatever you want to do, but why are you doing it in my name?

05:19 Your life has no relation to mine.

05:28 There is no sameness between you and me.

05:36 You do not even love me at all, let alone worship me.

05:41 Had you loved me, you could not have lived your life the way you do.

05:54 Actually you stand in firm opposition to me, Ram would say.

06:02 If I look at the 364 days of your life, you stand really in firm opposition to me.

06:09 And now on this 365th day, what a pretense you are making.

06:20 I am the one who never cared for any worldly thing.

06:30 I just pushed aside the biggest worldly thing that one can have, an entire empire.

06:41 It was there for me to take it.

06:48 I could have as well told Raja Dashrath, father, not done.

07:00 I deserve the crown and the entire country wants me to be the king.

07:13 And Dashrath would have consented.

07:15 He would have said fine, sir.

07:19 But the moment my father said, leave the throne and not merely leave the throne, be gone into

07:36 the jungles for 14 years, I said fine.

07:39 That's the kind of person I was.

07:47 Did I care for the comforts of the palace?

07:53 Did I care for power and wealth?

07:59 Did I care for the so-called worldly material good life?

08:07 I didn't.

08:09 And look at yourself.

08:10 Even in the name of celebrating my festival, all you do is shop, shop and shop.

08:21 In fact, Ram's festival has become the festival of shopping, shoppers and shopkeepers.

08:31 Ram, who never had anything to do with shops, Ram, who was never a buyer or a seller or

08:45 a consumer.

08:46 Shri Ram, who stands for that which can neither be bought nor be sold, his festival has been

08:56 turned into an orgy of sales and discounts.

09:13 How would he feel were he to reappear in a bodily form today?

09:21 Let's see.

09:28 I have said before and I am repeating, Diwali for most people must be a festival of austerity,

09:40 of repentance, prayaschit.

09:43 We must on this day offer our prayers to Shri Ram and say, we are very sorry, O Holy One,

09:57 we are extremely sorry.

09:59 We couldn't live by your life, your message, your teachings.

10:09 We are very sorry.

10:10 We will observe this day as a day of repentance.

10:20 We do not deserve to celebrate.

10:22 What is there to celebrate in our life?

10:31 Festival of lights befits those who have light, first of all, in their lives.

10:37 If our lives are full of darkness, what right do we have to light the candles and the diyas

10:52 and the Chinese bulbs?

11:07 Every festival is like an examination day.

11:15 Yes, certain people do have all the rights to celebrate on an examination day, but who

11:23 will be those people who have prepared well for those exams, who have done justice to

11:33 their preparation throughout the year?

11:35 They are the ones who have the right to celebrate on that day.

11:38 Others, why are they celebrating?

11:43 First of all, you were dishonest enough to not to do justice to the preparations.

11:58 You miserably failed the exam and now you are stupid enough to celebrate your failure.

12:04 No, you are not stupid.

12:05 You are wicked.

12:06 By celebrating, you are trying to convince yourself that you have actually passed the

12:14 exam.

12:16 Look at the perverse logic.

12:20 Look at the inversion.

12:23 Those who clear the exam celebrate.

12:27 So we will celebrate and convince ourselves that we have cleared the exam.

12:33 That's awesome.

12:39 Great are the depths of depravity possible to us.

12:59 You are given an entire year to prepare for Diwali.

13:06 What does it mean to prepare for Diwali?

13:08 To clean your house or to clean your life?

13:11 Did we clean up our lives?

13:14 And an entire year was available.

13:16 Did we prepare for the festival?

13:20 We didn't.

13:28 And when the festival has arrived, we want to show as if we really deserve it.

13:34 We don't deserve it.

13:49 Excellence has always been a rarity.

13:56 And Sri Ramchandra is the epitome of excellence.

14:08 Without bringing that excellence into our lives, what is this circus that we create?

14:25 So you are asking me how to celebrate Diwali.

14:38 I will say now start preparing for the next one.

14:43 This one you have already lost.

14:45 I don't want to console you.

14:48 This Diwali is totally lost on 99% people who will be celebrating it.

14:56 But there still is time.

14:57 Prepare for the next Diwali.

15:02 Live your life just as Ram lived his life.

15:07 And then you will have the right to celebrate Diwali.

15:16 What is it that Sri Ram stands for?

15:18 He stands for detachment.

15:21 He stands for fearlessness.

15:23 He stands for compassion.

15:27 He stands for dharma.

15:30 Is there dharma really in your life?

15:32 And by dharma I do not mean a creed or a cult or observation of certain rituals or the name

15:41 written against the religion column in your various identification cards.

15:49 That is not dharma.

15:51 Dharma means doing that which you must do.

15:57 Must do.

15:59 That is what Sri Ram stands for.

16:00 He does what he must do.

16:04 Do you do what you must do?

16:14 Is your touch compassionate enough to turn stone into life?

16:25 His was.

16:30 Bring some compassion into your life and then say that you want to celebrate Diwali.

16:37 You have one year.

16:38 Rather one year and one day.

16:45 Tomorrow is Diwali.

16:46 We are talking of the next Diwali.

16:58 Have you ever just let it sink into you what it means to spend 14 years in the wilderness

17:11 and try to wrap your head around the idea.

17:14 You are the crown prince, Yuvraj and you have been dispatched to the damn forest.

17:30 How does that even sound?

17:36 It sounds unacceptable to us.

17:38 He lived it and he lived it with unequaled grace.

17:43 Look at his poise.

17:47 Not once did he complain.

17:50 In fact he used these 14 years to the maximum and he fought the most powerful force of his

18:03 times.

18:09 And who was he?

18:10 He was somebody ostracized from his kingdom.

18:15 Somebody serving a sentence almost.

18:21 And he is fighting Dushanan, the one who is said to have incarcerated even the various

18:33 gods and goddesses in his prison cells.

18:41 That Dushanan was fought almost empty handed by one Shri Ram.

18:50 That's my Ram.

18:57 One needs to have at least 1% of him in oneself in order to worship him.

19:08 At least 1%.

19:16 What's 1% of 14 years?

19:38 What does that mean?

19:49 How many days?

19:52 Around 50 days.

19:58 51 to be precise.

20:07 How do you spend 51 days just because you are randomly told to?

20:18 That too on the eve of your coronation?

20:22 You are about to rise to the throne and somebody tells you no.

20:29 You are dispatched to the Amazon.

20:31 51 days.

20:34 No gadgets, nothing.

20:41 At least be 1% of Shri Ram Chandra.

20:46 I'm not asking you to try it out.

20:50 I just want you to see how unacceptable even the idea is.

20:57 Right?

20:58 Our securities, our comforts rebel against the very thought.

21:05 He lived it out.

21:09 And he lived it out in the most humane, just and compassionate way possible.

21:18 Without ever cribbing.

21:22 And he ended those 14 years bringing down the mightiest empire of his times.

21:33 That's my superhero.

21:40 And you want to reduce Diwali to a festival of Rasgulla, Rabdi, Son Papdi.

22:09 Kalakand.

22:10 Did Ramchandra enjoy all these things?

22:24 Why the hell are you enjoying all these things on his day?

22:34 Because we are very, very small and little and petty people who want just an excuse to

22:42 further their dirty instincts of consumption.

22:50 We just want to consume on some pretext.

23:00 So, Diwali becomes just another occasion to, it's an explosion of consumption.

23:24 So, next Diwali.

23:46 Let's emerge as deserving celebrants.

24:00 Let's assert our right next Diwali.

24:06 And then you will find that the festival has really invoked another dimension within you.

24:16 Then that night will be special.

24:21 As we are currently and as we celebrate currently, Diwali is come and go and nothing changes.

24:28 Does anything really change?

24:31 Does anything really change?

24:32 Diwali after Diwali, we remain the same persons, don't we?

24:39 Now prepare this entire year for that one next Diwali and see how that one Diwali can

24:48 do what the last 40 Diwalis have not been able to do.

24:57 And then Shri Ram will smile.

25:00 He will say, "Yes, now you have celebrated".

25:02 God Bless.

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