Hin­dus be­lieve in the one­ness of an om­nipresent all-per­vad­ing God found in every atom of cre­ation as both en­er­gy and mat­ter known as Brah­man that has tak­en many forms as male and fe­male for dif­fer­ent func­tion­al­i­ties to save mankind.

God is in­side you as the essence of your soul. Moth­er Lak­sh­mi is both in the heav­en­ly re­gion and she rep­re­sents with­in us all bless­ings, both ma­te­ri­al­ly as wealth (mon­ey) and health; so­cial­ly as fam­i­ly bonds and friend­ships; our tal­ents and skills; and spir­i­tu­al­ly as our knowl­edge of right (to cre­ate Good Kar­ma) and wrong to not have any hate, anger, lust, greed, jeal­ousy and self­ish­ness (bad Kar­ma).

Di­vali day cel­e­brat­ed in T&T is re­al­ly the third day of five where Hin­dus per­form the mir­a­cle rit­u­al of Poo­ja that both is a thanks­giv­ing for all the bless­ings of Moth­er Lak­sh­mi in our life and ask­ing that one God in the form of Moth­er Lak­sh­mi to give us heal­ing, fi­nan­cial (mon­ey) and spir­i­tu­al pros­per­i­ty to make us and those around us hap­py.

The first day of Di­vali a deya of pro­tec­tion is lit by the Jhan­di or the front gate ask­ing for God to re­move all sick­ness from any­one in our home. The sec­ond day a sim­i­lar deya is lit ask­ing God to re­mind us that God is the essence of our be­ing, so we would know we have an ever­last­ing life.

The fourth day a com­mu­ni­ty poo­ja is done known as Goverd­han Poo­ja where the com­mu­ni­ty is asked to pray to God to pro­tect the coun­try from nat­ur­al dis­as­ters like floods, hur­ri­canes and earth­quakes. The last day of Di­vali is a day of for­give­ness (Bhaidooj).

Fam­i­ly and friends who are an­gry and vexed should for­give one an­oth­er and ex­change gifts or to­kens. For if we all want God to for­give us, we have to for­give oth­ers who have tres­passed against us.

So this last day we pray for for­give­ness and for peace, love and hap­pi­ness in our fam­i­ly.

The word mur­ti means mir­ror and by sim­ply look­ing at a mur­ti (pic­ture or stat­ue) and if pos­si­ble to light a deya by her pic­ture again or for the first time one will be blessed to see that Moth­er Lak­sh­mi is not on­ly in the hearts of Hin­dus but every­one.

She is our wealth, she rep­re­sents our love, our un­con­di­tion­al or di­vine love for every­thing (our en­vi­ron­ment, so keep it clean) and our love for hu­man­i­ty for peace, peace, peace.

So as you light a deya this Di­vali both in­ter­nal­ly and ex­ter­nal­ly may your life be healed, touched by God almighty to be­come hap­pi­er, health­i­er, wealth­i­er and more spir­i­tu­al. Shubh Di­vali 2015.

Pun­dit Roop­nar­ine Seenath,

Moti­raam Shi­va Mandir,

Erin Road Debe