27th December, 1995
Chapter 2 - The Path To The Goal That Is You
Day 68 - True Celebration
Today is Diwali, the Festival of Lights. The streets and buildings are lit up with colorful lights. The 4 aspects of Diwali are :
1. Lights - symbolising the spreading of Knowledge.
2. Firecrackers - Watching the firecrackers gives a relief to the explosive tendencies inside. When the explosion happens outside, the explosion inside is diffused.
3. Gifts and sweets - Sharing gifts and distributing sweets dispels bitterness and renews friendships.
4. Abundance - Feeling a sense of abundance brings awareness and gratefulness for what one has.
Celebrate the knowledge and feel the abundance. Those who have will be given more. Human life is a combination of body (or matter) and spirit (or vibration). Joy is becoming intense vibration and forgetting that you are matter. Carnal instincts can make you momentarily feel intense vibrations.
That is how they give you a glimpse of joy but such joy is short-lived, and it makes you dense later on. Pleasure that comes from satsang is of a higher nature. Mantras and singing create vibrations in the spirit. That is why when you sing, ecstasy continues for along time. Pleasure in the subtle is long lasting, energising, refreshing and freeing.
Pleasure from the gross is short lived, tiring and binding. When you know you are electricity vibration or energy - then craving, greed, lust and anger disappear and you become true celebration. You are the Christmas tree that
points upwards with branches on all sides.
At the time of the year when other trees are barren, you are green with many gifts to offer. You bear gifts and lights, not for yourself, but for others. Remember that all the gifts you are carrying in your life are for others. Anyone who comes to you, offer them your gifts.
Let time celebrate your presence. People usually make a wish for the New Year, but this year, make no wish. Let the New Year celebrate you. If the New Year wants to bring you nicer things, just let it. Usually you are lost in celebration. When you let time celebrate you, you are a witness amidst celebration.
The New Year is fortunate because you are living at this time. You are not living for yourself, but for the world. Whatever the world needs or wants, you are here for that.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
Celebrating Silence