In a year of firsts, and what we hope will continue to be an Era of Firsts, the President of the United States has sent a videotaped greeting to all those who celebrate Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," in the U.S. and around the world. The holiday, which runs over five or six days in different regions, is observed by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs for a variety of reasons, and it is a national holiday throughout India. In the President's message, he creates yet another first by quoting from Hindu Scripture, specifically the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 1.3.28:
From the unreal lead me to the real,
From darkness lead me to the light,
From death lead me to deathlessness. (trans J. Mascaro)
In a year in which the primordial sound of OM was referred to in an acceptance speech at the Oscars, and Vice President Biden spoke the traditional Hindu Greeting "Namaste" on CNN, this adds another link in the chain of worldwide spiritual awareness emanating from America, the most spiritually diverse nation on Earth. We may have our failings as a country, as a political and economic force in the world, but it is hard to find another place more accepting of the world's religious traditions, from Atheism to Zen.
From the unreal lead me to the real,
From darkness lead me to the light,
From death lead me to deathlessness. (trans J. Mascaro)
In a year in which the primordial sound of OM was referred to in an acceptance speech at the Oscars, and Vice President Biden spoke the traditional Hindu Greeting "Namaste" on CNN, this adds another link in the chain of worldwide spiritual awareness emanating from America, the most spiritually diverse nation on Earth. We may have our failings as a country, as a political and economic force in the world, but it is hard to find another place more accepting of the world's religious traditions, from Atheism to Zen.
Diwali has varying religious significance for members of the different traditions who celebrate it in India, Nepal, Maylasia, and Singapore; if you want more detailed information I recommend this comprehensive site. But the transcendent significance of Diwali, as alluded to by our spiritually attuned President, is an awareness of the inner light within each of us. Hindu spirituality focuses on the belief that something inside of us--called Atman, or Soul--goes beyond the physical body and mind and connects to the Divine, sometimes called Brahman. Diwali celebrates this inner light that outshines all darkness, removes all obstacles and dispels ignorance. Like the broken shards of the Light that burst its vessel at Creation according to the Kabbalistic tradition. It recognizes our connection to and, indeed, identification with, the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent Reality. Although India supports many varied understandings of Hindu beliefs, one path is to achieve mukti, or liberation, is by experiencing God as identical with the Self or Atman, which dwells in each person, and which it is one's life-work to locate, identify, and ultimately realize as one's True Being.Buddhists might call this True Nature or Buddha Nature; St Paul would say "I live now, not I, but Christ lives in me." Kabbalists call it the Light and the Holy One. The rest of us just call it the Divine Within. You don't have to look for God, because God is already here, in you. And since we know that we are all One, then the same Divine Being is in each of us, so it's impossible to worship a God that isn't identical with each other's conception of God. The crazy thing is that I think Obama knows this on some level, and isn't just saying words that some scholar wrote for him--although he may have had help. I would need help to explain everything as well as he did in that brief celebratory message that probably touched the hearts of a few billion people on the globe. So even if he seems to be less than optimal in some areas, his God is in the right place.
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