Mystic’s Musings By Sadhguru – Founder, Isha Foundation

In the Indian culture, there was a time when there used to be a festival every day of the year — 365 festivals in a year. The idea behind this was to make our whole life into a celebration. Unfortunately, you won’t just celebrate while walking on the street or while going to the office, so these festivals were an excuse to celebrate.

The idea of Diwali is to bring that aspect of celebration into your life — that is why the fire crackers, to set fire to you a bit! So the purpose is not just to have fun on this one day and go. It must happen like this within us every day. If we simply sit, our life energy, heart, mind and body must be exploding like a live cracker. If you are a damp squib, then you need a cracker from outside every day.

Diwali is the Festival of Lights. On Diwali, you will see every town, city and village is lit up with thousands of lamps everywhere. But the celebration is not just about lighting lamps outside; an inner light has to come. Light means clarity. Without clarity, every other quality that you possess will only become a detriment, not a gift, because confidence without clarity is a disaster. And today, too much action in the world is performed without clarity.

On a certain day, a rookie Policeman was driving for the first time through a town with his experienced partner. They got a message on the radio which said that there was a group of people loitering on a certain street and were asked to disperse them. They drove into the street and saw a group of people standing at one of the corners.

As the car came close by, the new Policeman rolled his window down with great enthusiasm and said, ‘Hey, all of you. Get off that corner!’ The group looked at each other in confusion. Then he yelled louder, ‘Didn’t you hear me? I told you to get off that damn corner!’ They all dispersed. Then, pleased with the effect that he had on people when performing his first official task, he looked at his experienced partner and asked, ‘Did I do well?’ His partner said, ‘Not bad at all, considering that it was a bus stop.’

Without the necessary clarity, whatever you try to do will be a disaster. Light brings clarity to your vision — not just in a physical sense. How clearly you see life and perceive everything around you decides how sensibly you conduct your life.

Diwali is the day when the dark forces were put to death and light happened. This is also the predicament of human life. Like the dark clouds which brood in the gloomy atmosphere, not realising that they are blocking the sun, a human being does not have to bring any light from anywhere. If he just dispels the dark clouds that he has allowed to gather within himself, light will happen. The Festival of Lights is just a reminder of that.

[Sadhguru, a yogi, is a visionary, humanitarian and a prominent spiritual leader. An author, poet, and internationally-renowned speaker, Sadhguru’s wit and piercing logic provoke and widen our perception of life. www.ishafoundation.org]