The radiant beauty of the Deepawali festival reminds us that God’s natural inclination is towards illumination and joy. On this festival, He encourages us to adorn our hearts with these sentiments and to firmly abandon the elements that hinder them. Likes-dislikes, ego-attachment, fear-anger etc. are the hindering elements due to which sadness, worry, discouragement and negativity overpower us in life.
In order to be rid of these, param pujya Shri Radha Baba has presented a beautiful simile. In the article ‘Bhagwan ki jyoti jaga lein’ from the book ‘Satsang-Sudha’ published by Gita Press, Gorakhpur, he says that five things are required to behold a worldly lamp – a lamp, ghee or oil, a wick soaked in oil, contact of the wick with a burning lamp and eyes to see the flame. Similarly, to see the light of God, the following five things are essential –
(1) First of all, to experience the light of God one must have eyes endowed with faith (shraddha). God is All-powerful and is an ocean of compassion – therefore, do not depend on any other human being or your own efforts (ego); rather, take refuge solely in the auspicious lotus-feet of God. Such a firm belief of the intellect in the power of God is the pristine eye of faith.
(2) Just as an inverted lamp has to be turned upright first in order to fill oil in it, in the same manner the senses have to be turned away from the sense-objects and turned towards God. All the pleasures that are obtained from the world, whether it is sense-gratification or the subtle desire for respect and honour, know these to be short-lived, and hence turn the senses towards God, the source of all happiness.
(3) As soon as the lamp of the senses is oriented towards God, the attraction of the senses towards God will start increasing moment by moment. This attraction will then transform into the smoothness (snigdhata) of love which will start getting collected in those lamps.
(4) Since the mind stays connected with the senses, the tendencies of the mind also become concentrated and turn towards God. It is as if the scattered fibres have joined together and transformed into a wick. In this way, the smoothness of divine love permeating the senses gradually soaks the mind, infusing it with affection for God.
(5) In this way, when there is faith and determination in the intellect, and the mind and the senses are attracted only towards God, then God Himself dons the form of a saint and comes to find us. The saint embraces us and illuminates our lamp with the divine light burning in his heart.
For implementing such instructions from scriptural texts and sayings of saints, the commentary ‘Shrimad Bhagvad-Gita : Jeevan Vigyan’ by pujya Nanaji (Sri Dharmendra Mohan Sinha) has pointed out two important steps in the explanation of chapter 12, shloka 20 –
(1) First of all, read these words carefully again and again and reinforce the belief that your ultimate welfare lies in implementing these words.
(2) If these words seem impractical or impossible to follow then know that the cause is the weakness of your own mind, hence fervently pray to God to remove that weakness.
So, this Deepawali, taking shelter in the feet of param-pujya Sri Hanuman Prasad Poddar ‘Bhaiji’, param-pujya Sri Radha Baba and param-pujya Nanaji, let us be determined to kindle the flame of God in our hearts and motivate our loved ones towards the same.
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