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Video Information: Advait Learning Camp, 27.10.2019, Advait BodhSthal, Greater Noida, India

Context:

Have you earned the right to celebrate Diwali?
How to celebrate this Diwali?
What is the real Purpose of Diwali?
Who is Ram?
Why we celebrate Diwali without Ram?

Music Credits: Milind Date
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Category

📚
Learning
Transcript
00:00The last question Acharya ji. A lot of our English speaking audience wants to know that
00:14tomorrow is the festival of lights. So what should be the right way of celebrating Diwali?
00:20It's too late now. It's too late. It's almost like asking that tomorrow is the UPSC exam.
00:41What is the right way of preparing for it? It's actually worse. It's almost like asking
00:49tomorrow the UPSC results would be declared. What is the right way to prepare for the exam?
01:01A festival is not a free for all. What do we think?
01:20Shri Ram is an exception. Shri Ram is a distinction. He is a rarity.
01:50He is worshipped because he is special. If he is special, how does every ABCD get the right to even utter his name let alone celebrate his festival?
02:18You need to earn the rights to even utter Ram.
02:38There has to be a certain qualification.
02:47Yogyata, Patrata, Arhata. That's how the scriptures call it.
03:09Otherwise it is just hypocrisy and cheap entertainment in the name of festival.
03:21I say if for 364 days you have really lived up to Ram, only then must you honestly celebrate the festival of Ram-ness.
03:47How is it that for 364 days your life really had nothing to do with Shri Ram?
03:55And on the 365th day, you jump up and join in the noisy bandwagon, the chorus of the hooligans.
04:17Just think, if Ram were there in a bodily shape, in his mortal body and were he to see you celebrating his festival,
04:46what would he say? He will call you. You come here. You just did something taking my name.
05:03He would be angered. He would say you do whatever you want to do. But why are you doing it in my name?
05:21Your life has no relation to mine. There is no sameness between you and me.
05:39You do not even love me at all, let alone worship me. Had you loved me, you couldn't have lived your life the way you do.
05:57Actually, you stand in firm opposition to me, Ram would say. If I look at the 364 days of your life, you stand really in firm opposition to me.
06:12And now on this 365th day, what a pretense you are making. I am the one who never cared for any worldly thing.
06:34I just pushed aside the biggest worldly thing that one can have, an entire empire. It was there for me to take it.
06:51I could have as well told Raja Dashrath. Father, not done. I deserve the crown and the entire country wants me to be the king.
07:15And Dashrath would have consented. He would have said fine sir. But the moment my father said, leave the throne and not merely leave the throne,
07:36be gone into the jungles for 14 years. I said fine. That's the kind of person I was. Did I care for the comforts of the palace?
07:54Did I care for power and wealth? Did I care for the so-called worldly material good life? I didn't.
08:11And look at yourself. Even in the name of celebrating my festival, all you do is shop, shop and shop.
08:23In fact, Ram's festival has become the festival of shopping, shoppers and shopkeepers.
08:33Ram, who never had anything to do with shops. Ram, who was never a buyer or a seller or a consumer.
08:50Sri Ram, who stands for that which can neither be bought nor be sold. His festival has been turned into an orgy of sales and discounts.
09:04How would he feel were he to reappear in a bodily form today? Just see.
09:25I have said before and I am repeating. Diwali for most people must be a festival of austerity, of repentance, prayaschit.
09:47We must on this day offer our prayers to Sri Ram and say we are very sorry. O Holy One, we are extremely sorry.
10:02We couldn't live by your life, your message, your teachings. We are very sorry. We will observe this day as a day of repentance.
10:19We do not deserve to celebrate. What is there to celebrate in our life? Festival of lights befits those who have light first of all in their lives.
10:40If our lives are full of darkness, what right do we have to light the candles and the diyas and the Chinese bulbs?
11:10Every festival is like an examination day. Yes, certain people do have all the rights to celebrate on an examination day.
11:27But who will be those people who have prepared well for those exams, who have done justice to their preparation throughout the year?
11:38They are the ones who have the right to celebrate on that day. Others, why are they celebrating?
11:46First of all, you are dishonest enough to not do justice to the preparations. You miserably failed the exam and now you are stupid enough to celebrate your failure.
12:07No, you are not stupid. You are wicked. By celebrating, you are trying to convince yourself that you have actually passed the exam.
12:18Look at the perverse logic. Look at the inversion. Those who clear the exam celebrate, so we will celebrate and convince ourselves that we have cleared the exam.
12:34That's awesome. Great are the depths of depravity possible to us.
12:48You are given an entire year to prepare for Diwali. Aren't you? What does it mean to prepare for Diwali? To clean your house or to clean your life?
13:15Did we clean up our lives? And an entire year was available. Did we prepare for the festival? We didn't.
13:32And when the festival has arrived, we want to show as if we really deserve it. We don't deserve it.
13:51Excellence has always been a rarity and Sri Ramchandra is the epitome of excellence.
14:11Without bringing that excellence into our lives, what is this circus that we create?
14:39So you are asking me how to celebrate Diwali. I will say now start preparing for the next one.
14:45This one you have already lost. I don't want to console you. This Diwali is totally lost on 99% people who will be celebrating it.
14:59But there still is time. Prepare for the next Diwali. Live your life just as Ram lived his life and then you will have the right to celebrate Diwali.
15:14What is it that Sri Ram stands for? He stands for detachment. He stands for fearlessness. He stands for compassion. He stands for dharma.
15:32Is there dharma really in your life? And by dharma I do not mean a creed or a cult or observation of certain rituals or the name written against the religion column in your various identification cards.
15:51No, that is not dharma. Dharma means doing that which you must do. That's what Sri Ram stands for. He does what he must do. Do you do what you must do?
16:09Is your touch compassionate enough to turn stone into life? His was.
16:30Bring some compassion into your life and then say that you want to celebrate Diwali. You have one year, rather one year and one day. Tomorrow is Diwali. We are talking of the next Diwali.
17:00Have you ever just let it sink into you what it means to spend 14 years in the wilderness and try to wrap your head around the idea you are the crown prince Yuvraj and you have been dispatched to the damn forest.
17:29How does that even sound? It sounds unacceptable to us. He lived it and he lived it with unequaled grace. Look at his poise.
17:48Not once did he complain. In fact he used these 14 years to the maximum and he fought the most powerful force of his times.
18:07And who was he? Somebody ostracized from his kingdom. Somebody serving a sentence almost.
18:27The one who is said to have incarcerated even the various gods and goddesses in his prison cells.
18:44That Dasanand was fought almost empty-handed by one Sri Ram. That's my Ram.
19:01One needs to have at least 1% of him in oneself in order to worship him. At least 1%. What's 1% of 14 years?
19:31Quick. Yes, 0.14 years. But what does that mean?
19:53How many days? Around 50 days. 51 to be precise.
20:11You spend 51 days just because you are randomly told to. That too on the eve of your coronation. You are about to rise to the throne.
20:31You are dispatched to the Amazon. 51 days. No gadgets, nothing. At least be 1% of Sri Ramchandra.
20:50I am not asking you to try it out. I just want you to see how unacceptable even the idea is.
21:02Our security, our comforts rebel against the very thought. He lived it out.
21:12And he lived it out in the most humane, just and compassionate way possible.
21:21Without ever cribbing. And he ended those 14 years bringing down the mightiest empire of his times.
21:32And you want to reduce Diwali to a festival of Rasgulla, Rabdi.
22:00Sonpapdi. Kalakand.
22:21Did Ramchandra enjoy all these things? Why the hell are you enjoying all these things on his day?
22:31Because we are very very small and little and petty people who want just an excuse to further their dirty instincts of consumption.
22:53We just want to consume on some pretext. Something.
23:08So Diwali becomes just another occasion to, it's an explosion of consumption.
23:38So next Diwali, let's emerge as deserving celebrants.
24:00Let's assert our right next Diwali. And then you will find that the festival has really invoked another dimension within you.
24:20And then that night will be special. As we are currently and as we celebrate currently, Diwali's come and go and nothing changes.
24:32Does anything really change? Diwali after Diwali we remain the same persons. Don't we?
24:42Now prepare this entire year for that one next Diwali and see how that one Diwali can do what the last 40 Diwali's have not been able to do.
25:00And then Shri Ram will smile. He will say, yes, now you have celebrated.

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