Sadhguru:
This is Deepavali time. What is the significance of this? This is a festival
that always comes in the month of Karthika, as per the lunar cycles. On the
thirteenth day of Kartika month, which is called as trayodashi, the thirteenth
day of the Kartika month is the festival. Traditionally the science behind is,
on this day everybody worships… on the Deepavali day everybody is supposed to
worship Dhanavantri, the deity dedicated to one’s health and well-being. Today
the word Dhanavantri has almost become synonymous with a doctor. Dhanavantri or
the deity Dhanavantri is supposed to be the source of Ayurveda, the science of
long and healthy lives. Well, a lot of North Indian people, I don’t know when
they did this because the nature of the language is like that – in Northern
India, most people speak Hindi language and the last syllable they’ll cut it
off. If you say Dhyanalingam, they’ll say Dhyanaling. If you say, Shiva,
they’ll say Shiv. If you say, Rama, they’ll say Ram. The language has the habit
of cutting off the last syllable always, almost everything. Krishna, Etch, Krishna.
Deepavali, Diwali like this. So someone cut this Dhanavantri and trayodashi and
made it Dhantera. What was about health became about wealth. Dhan means money,
now everybody thinks Deepavali is about money. Why it is about health is, for those
of us who live in the northern hemisphere it is from this day onwards certain
things change - from the trayodashi of Kartika masa things change. In a way, there is a slowdown of life. So for the winter months what you should do with
yourself, what time you should wake up, what you should eat, how your food
habit should change, how your practices should change, for all this
traditionally they created science as to how one should behave to pass
through winter months without getting sick, without getting depressed, without
losing our sense of balance & purpose in life, how to do this? For this, there was an entire science, the lighting of lamps, and bursting of crackers was one
of those things so that you don’t slip into a slowdown. It is genetical –
there is a dimension, the evolutionary memory within us thinks that as winter
months come whether it actually got cold or global warming kept you warm,
that’s not the point, the changes have happened. The distance between the
planet and the way the planet and the sun are positioned has changed because of
that slowdown of life happens. If you were a bear, I believe you were some time
ago, you would be hibernating. So there is a tendency for the body to
hibernate. If you do not know this, the seed doesn’t sprout. Nobody plants a
seed from this season to the fourteenth of January in India because the seed will
not sprout fully or will not sprout at the same speed as it would in other
seasons. Everything life slows down in the northern hemisphere. Because life is
slowing down, we are preparing to do more energetic things around us so that we
don’t really slow down and become a part of that. In a way, we are trying to
assert our evolution. Yes, if we were some other creature we would go and curl
up somewhere. But now we have become human, we have transcended our biology, etch,
am I assuming too many things? You are supposed to transcend your biological
tendencies. So to transcend this there is a whole lot of activity created so
that you don’t go into a hibernating kind of state, physically slow down, a mentally little bit of depression could easily happen in everybody because the
season is like that. In colder countries definitely people experience this. Yes
or no? Sadhguru: It seems the maximum number of suicides in Minnesota happened
in the winter months, and this is so in the Nordic countries also because
things have slowed down within you. In the northern hemisphere, not just you,
everything has slowed down because our relationship with the sun has changed
which is the basic source of life. The basic source of energy on this planet is the sun, not because you came up with a solar panel, it’s always been so. Now
because the northern hemisphere, its relationship with the sun has changed you
are looking away from the sun, there is a slowdown from this month, the
thirteenth day of this lunar month which is called the Karthika Trayodashi.
So to make up for this, in India, there are various things done. From this
month onwards, normally – traditionally the roles of males and females are
interchanged at this time. For example, it is a part of daily activity for a
woman, not anymore. In rural India still, that first thing in the morning she
cleans the front of her house and draws some geometric figures. These
geometries, today she knows only one design, unfortunately, she keeps putting
the same thing or she got it painted or she has a template and she puts it; Otherwise,
she is supposed to use rice flour and every day, Monday, Tuesday like this,
every day of the week she is supposed to draw a specific design, geometric
design to attract a certain kind of energy into her home. If it’s a full moon day,
then certain kind of design & if it’s a new moon day then certain kind of
design. So twenty-eight patterns were there which people knew on which day what
to put. So, during these months it will become the duty of the men to do this.
And this is the only month where men are supposed to out singing on the street
in the morning, the early morning they are supposed to go singing on the
street. Even today a small number of people are doing this in rural India to
some extent in urban India once again a little bit of revival is happening. In
Mysore city, a group of dedicated people has revived this once again, that
early morning by the time sunrise happens, and at that time they are walking on
the street with a drum and singing because the entire town needs this. The
entire… today we have become very large cities otherwise if you lived in a
village, everybody who lives there needs this beat of drum and music to
reverberate in their system so that they don’t hibernate so that their those
systems don’t slow down. All music festivals are happening at this time. If you
do not know this the greatest music festival in, the world the largest in the
world happens in Chennai with over 1,800 concerts in forty-five days. Most of
the world does not know such a grand scale of music is happening at this time.
All this is done so that people don’t become sedate. Your cellular activity
does not become hibernative because this will lead to various other
complexities in one’s life. So Deepavali is about that. If you cannot see the
light, that’s why the crackers so that you anyway wake up. At 4:30 in the
morning, they will start bursting crackers all over the town so that everybody
wakes up and everybody becomes alive because it is important in the winter
months that you come up before the sun. The first ray of the sun should not hit a blade
of grass or some other worm or insect, the first ray of the sun must hit you. This
is a commitment that is why before sunrise everybody is out to receive the
first rays of sun upon themselves, not upon the ground. So, the significance of
the festival has largely been ignored, but still, people are singing a bit and
bursting crackers a bit. It is time to bring this back especially in colder
weathers this would be wonderful if some of these things are revived because
Diwali is not a religious festival, it’s got something to do with our
geographical location on this planet because we are in the northern hemisphere
these changes are happening to us, to our bodies, to the plants, to the
animals, everything it’s happening. You see everything slows down. But, if you slow down within yourself - mentally if you slow down you will become a little dim.
Physically if you slow down, you will become susceptible to various other
ailments that you may not be susceptible to if your body is vibrant and alive. If
this body is vibrant and alive, there are a thousand infections within you right
now, but you don’t get sick because the body is alive and vibrant. If a little
slowdown happens all these little, little things become major problems within
you. This is why the whole thing about Dhanavantri, the science of health, and
well-being that it must be kept alive till the fourteenth of January everything must
be kept alive. You need music, you need more light, you need lamplight, you
need all kinds of things to keep the atmosphere alive for yourself so that you
don’t sink down and do not become susceptible to various negative forces which
are always working upon us. It is just that some are sailing above it; some are
sinking into it. So this is the significance of Deepavali. It is Dhanavantri’s
trayodashi. North Indian people must connect, you know, don’t go on clipping
away one, one syllable and come… Dhanavantri become Dhan, trayodashi become tera,
don’t keep clipping it away. So, here we are, we are in the middle of a
bhavaspandana on the Deepavali day. Can’t be in a better place, can’t be in a
more vibrant space.
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