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Published: March 5th 2010
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We celebrated the Holi festival, also known as the festival of Colours, honouring the value ingrained since time immemorial of evil overpowered by love, truth and devotion. It also commemorates 'Ras Lila' - the enduring love saga of Radha and Krishna. Holi is a uniting festival in India, participated by all the various religions and castes. There are numerous legends and stories associated with this day.
Here is one version: Long ago there was a King and his name was Hiranyakashipu. He asked God for immortality. Although God said it was against the natural and cosmic laws, the King was persistent. He insisted that God bless him so that he would not die either in or outside his house, by day or night; that neither weapons, humans, animals, illness or elements be the cause of his death. Although he knew no-one could now kill him, he was angry God did not make him immortal, so he returned to his kingdom and condemned anyone that praised God. He ordered any remaining public devotees to be burned in a fire.
The King's son (Prahlad) was constantly singing praises to God. After many failed attempts to change his thoughts, the King ordered
Prahlad to walk in and hug the iron pillar in the center of a bonfire. He entered the fire with Holika, his Aunt who had a supernatural power allowing her to sit in the fire without being burnt. Prahlad sat on Holika's lap. Although the demoness Holika burned, Prahlad's devotion and fervent prayers to God Vishnu left him unharmed. When Prahlad hugged the pillar, it broke in two parts. Upper body was lion and lower body human (Narasingh).
So.... 'Like leaves and Kings, all things must fall'.... The King turned to run into the house. He was stopped by the human-animal as he crossed the doorway of his house, neither out nor in, just on sunset, without weapons. All promises fulfilled, death came, hence the celebration of truth and dharma over something working contrary to that of existence.
Commemorative bonfires are lit the preceding evening in memory of the miraculous escape of young Prahlad. Our Satsung topic was that we take up the challenge, enter 'the fire', it's not meant to be easy...
The main day (this year was the 1st of March) is celebrated with throwing of coloured powder (traditionally made from medicinal herbs) and water.
The boys dabbled in the colours on the veranda the week before and got in on a bit of the action. AP caught A off guard and coloured his head though I must say it seemed to be the quick-wash-off-variety of dye as he had not much stain left afterwards, completely the opposite of most of the other Indian workers in the Ashram who had coloured cloth and skin for many days! Here is an Indian poem about Holi called Holika Dahan:
Year after year
purity of fire
is challenged by evil,
appeased with offerings
A full moon looks on
as winds stoke embers,
flare flames
to a flickering dance
Right in the center
of crimson blaze
sits Holika,
Prahlad in her lap -
her arms a circle of heat
White sparks fly from her hair,
eyes smolder in fury;
her mouth sucks in air,
engulfs rice and wheat
Wood chars,
coconuts splinter,
flowers singe
smearing earth with ash.
Year after year
faith survives.
Holika burns....
We took advantage of the absence of workers on the OM construction site (nearly all had returned to their villages for festive family time) to start the
long overdue stocktake of what exactly we have taking up space in the tunnels under the OM building, as well as on site scaffolding, shuttering and tools. Basically noting the numbers of anything that was accountable and would also benefit from being in a working register for future reference. It did cross my mind many times while involved in this game, why do we put such large walls around spaces to store things?!
The tunnel bats were some random entertainment. Swami Niranjanji's biological police, keep other bugs to an absolute scarcity. They lined some of the darker walls and flew about when startled by our noise or torches. It was a good team work exercise and for such a big task from the outset, I must say there was a significant amount of optimism in carrying it out. I don't know if you can receive Moksha as a result of counting clamps though I guess everything is possible and we are one step closer!
We stood atop the Surya Temple taking in the view at the end of a days counting. You could see what the next generation of Karma Yogis would be doing. Let's just say there
will be a lot of cleaning and maintenance once the construction is completed! Also scoped out possibilities for where the helicopter pad will one day be. The silence was the most striking feature of the day. To be on a construction site on a National Holiday is quite a paradox! Something like the silence between mind chatter. It's always there, just how often do we really listen to it?....
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