Lead Kindly Light
Diwali is possibly the most widely celebrated festival in India today. In fact, people of Indian origin all over the world, look forward to the five days of Diwali with great enthusiasm. A time of refreshment and renewal, this festival symbolises new beginnings. However, in recent times, Diwali has come to be associated with one thing more than anything else -this is the time to buy.
Like Christmas in western countries, which has been all but usurped by aggressive market forces, Diwali too stands the risk of being consumed by companies selling gold, diamonds, mobile phones services, televisions, cars and a thousand other consumables.
Any adult in India will probably be aware that fire crackers cause air pollution. However the impact of increased consumerism on nature is not as immediately tangible and few people are aware that festivals such as Diwali adversely affect the earth in more ways than just air pollution.
The multitude of things that are being produced , sold, bought and accumulated by human beings, ultimately all come from nature. The raw material for every man made object comes from natural resources. Nature is the only true source of wealth.
Unfortunately, nature has its limits. Those natural resources that are not renewable such as fossil fuels and minerals are all eventually going to run out. Plastics and metals that fill our homes today are fast depleting natural reserves of petroleum and minerals. In the meantime, all the things that we throw away, also have no other place to return to, except back to nature. The materials that humans produce are not bio degradable – which means that they will sit under our feet in landfills for centuries before getting reabsorbed into the soil, if at all they do.
What is being offered on sale then, is the earth itself. The wholesome, interconnected living planet we inhabit is being mutated into isolated, disconnected bits and put up for sale. The discounts are fabulous but if we were truly consider the costs of our things on nature – they would be simply unaffordable!
Diwali is also the time of offering and sharing. A time to think about family and friends and to experience generosity and abundance. The traditional Diwali ritual of offering gifts to each other was meant to reinforce bonds of love and gratitude. In today’s business world, Diwali gifts take on a whole new meaning. They have become symbols of business loyalty, proof of financial credibility and invitations (often pleas) for more business.
‘Enough’ went out of fashion a long time ago. The corporate gods of wealth systematically feed the sense of lack in people, emphasising constantly that more and bigger translates into better and happier.
Beyond the basic necessities of life, the sense of wealth and abundance comes not so much from what one has but what one can give away. ‘Feeling’ wealthy is paradoxically not directly related to ‘having wealth’. Unfortunately the feeling of abundance remains elusive in the modern world, which focuses primarily on the sense of lack and feels that the only way to get is to take.
The manner in which human beings have been ruthlessly taking from the earth is symptomatic of this larger sense of lack.
In all of this, what of the beautiful goddess, clad in white and seated on a lotus, who is so lovingly invited to enter homes, on the darkest night of the year that is Diwali? The ancients spoke of her as the primordial energy, the destroyer of sins and the bestower of success and prosperity. But more significantly she was also said to be mahashatru vinashini - the destroyer of the great enemy, the ego.
Luckily, the goddess is also manifesting as wisdom and one can just begin to see efforts to reinterpret Diwali to be both socially and environmentally sensitive. The students of the NCL school in Pune set an example, by offering one pair of clothes they already owned to needy children as Diwali gifts. As a result of the ‘No to Crackers’ campaign in Delhi, several children are very conscious of the impacts of firecrackers and themselves deny the use of these, forcing their parents to follow suit.
Some business houses have prohibited the give and take of Diwali gifts to and from clients or partners. These initiatives seem simple but they are probably closer to the true spirit of the festival.
These efforts will probably illuminate the collective darkness of human ego much more effectively than any number of gold ornaments.
The author is a member of Kalpavriksh.
