Vi­jay Ma­haraj

Di­vali is an­oth­er Hin­du cel­e­bra­tion which op­ti­mis­es the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of the re­li­gion. Light and the con­cept of light can be found in al­most every re­li­gion, so Di­vali’s in­creas­ing spread across the world is in­evitable.

Most ma­jor busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions, gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions and var­i­ous cor­po­ra­tions have em­braced the fes­ti­val of Di­vali, in some way, to com­ple­ment the cel­e­bra­tions of in­di­vid­u­als, vil­lages, groups and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions. This is a pos­i­tive sign for the 21st cen­tu­ry, as it is a sig­nal of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism.

In a cos­mopoli­tan coun­try of great ad­ver­si­ties, it is im­per­a­tive that every group widens its ac­cep­tance, un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of oth­er groups in the so­ci­ety. This will fos­ter a more har­mo­nious and co­he­sive so­ci­ety, and will fa­cil­i­tate greater sta­bil­i­ty, peace and progress in every sphere of na­tion­al life.

Light it­self is a very pow­er­ful sym­bol. The pow­er of light tran­scends every lim­i­ta­tion and brings il­lu­mi­na­tion. Prob­lems in the world are large­ly gen­er­at­ed through men­tal and spir­i­tu­al dark­ness or ig­no­rance, and the sa­cred fes­ti­val of Di­vali is a po­tent tool in dis­pelling the var­i­ous forms of ig­no­rance that per­vade so­ci­ety.

The bless­ings and aus­pi­cious­ness as­so­ci­at­ed with Di­vali are not con­fined to Hin­dus. The sun (light) shines equal­ly on all, as the ris­ing tide lifts all ves­sels. Many se­ri­ous is­sues that con­front our so­ci­ety are the lega­cies of in­di­vid­u­als who ben­e­fit from en­sur­ing var­i­ous di­vi­sions for their per­son­al ben­e­fits, pow­er-hun­gry and po­ten­tial ruth­less­ness. Di­vali as­sumes in­creas­ing sig­nif­i­cance as we strive to erad­i­cate such prob­lems and di­vi­sions.

Di­vali is a poignant re­minder of the in­te­gra­tion that must ex­ist in a per­son’s life. Hin­duism pro­motes the four­fold ob­jec­tive­ness as the goal of hu­man life. It refers to the virtue (dhar­ma), wealth (artha), fam­i­ly, chil­dren and the ful­fil­ment of le­git­i­mate de­sires (kar­ma), and sal­va­tion (mok­sha).

Wealth and re­la­tion­ships, which are based on the laws of dhar­ma, are con­sid­ered whole­some and can lead to per­fec­tion and sal­va­tion. These on­ly be­come ob­sta­cles in the path of spir­i­tu­al progress if one con­sid­ers ma­te­r­i­al wealth.

Wealth earned through un­right­eous meth­ods may lead to bondage and mis­ery. How­ev­er, wealth which is be­stowed by Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta is used for the up­lift­ment of every­one in so­ci­ety and cer­tain­ly leads to bliss­ful­ness.

Di­vali re­minds every­one that each per­son has a du­ty to se­cure the bet­ter­ment of the fam­i­ly and so­ci­ety at large. There is no room for hoard­ing wealth for self­ish plea­sures. Wealth is al­so to be used for no­ble pur­pos­es such as the build­ing of schools, hos­pi­tals, or­phan­ages, tem­ples and oth­er forms of no­ble work.

Such a phi­los­o­phy re­quires a di­vine bless­ing and Di­vali presents such an op­por­tu­ni­ty to every­one’s life. Wealth is a bless­ing or a curse, de­pend­ing on the means em­ployed to earn wealth and the us­es to which it is ex­pend­ed.

Those who want to do con­sid­er­able good in this world may ac­quire no­ble wealth through de­vo­tion to Lak­sh­mi Ma­ta, but the per­son who us­es this wealth wise­ly is the one who is men­tal­ly de­tached from world­ly pos­ses­sions, and whose on­ly wish is for the good of every­one. True pros­per­i­ty is based on con­tent­ment and the de­sire for God’s re­al­i­sa­tion.

Di­vali is a re­minder of our di­vine na­ture and our ca­pac­i­ty to act in no­ble ways through en­light­ened in­tel­lect and moral up­right­ness.

The na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go is now over­shad­owed by dark and evil forces that have made all of our peo­ple pris­on­ers in their own homes and in their own land. We live a life of fear and un­cer­tain­ty. Our in­no­cent chil­dren are now be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals and school­yard bul­lies.

The fes­ti­val, like all oth­er fes­ti­vals and rit­u­als, ex­plains the in­ner per­son­al­i­ty of man and his de­liv­er­ance from his ig­no­rance and ego to the at­tain­ment of his supreme na­ture of God-re­al­i­sa­tion. The dark­ness of the night rep­re­sents man’s to­tal ig­no­rance of his link with the Di­vine or su­per­soul.

To the stu­dents of the na­tion, I wish to re­mind you of an Eng­lish writer, John Ruskin, who cap­tured an im­por­tant as­pect of ed­u­ca­tion. He wrote: “Ed­u­ca­tion does not mean teach­ing peo­ple to know what they do not know; it means teach­ing them to be­have as they do not be­have.”

Ed­u­ca­tion is the key to free­dom of the mind and the spir­it. But for ed­u­ca­tion to achieve this goal, it must in­clude both sec­u­lar knowl­edge and sa­cred knowl­edge. God must be an im­por­tant part of your dai­ly lives.

May Moth­er Lak­sh­mi show­er her abun­dant bless­ings up­on you all!

Vi­jay Ma­haraj is the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha