00:00 A lot of our English speaking audience wants to know that tomorrow is the festival of lights,
00:14 so what should be the right way of celebrating Diwali?
00:16 It's too late now.
00:21 It's too late.
00:28 It's almost like asking that tomorrow is the UPSC exam.
00:37 What is the right way of preparing for it?
00:42 It's actually worse.
00:44 It's almost like asking tomorrow the UPSC results would be declared.
00:50 What is the right way to prepare for the exam?
00:58 A festival is not a free for all.
01:03 What do we think?
01:16 Shri Ram is an exception.
01:34 He is a rarity.
01:47 He is worshipped because he is special.
01:54 If he is special, how does every ABCD get the right to even utter his name, let alone
02:13 celebrate his festival?
02:27 You need to earn the rights to even utter Ram.
02:39 There has to be a certain qualification.
02:55 That's how the scriptures call it.
03:05 Otherwise it is just hypocrisy and cheap entertainment in the name of festival.
03:17 I say if for 364 days you have really lived up to Ram, only then must you honestly celebrate
03:38 the festival of Ramness.
03:44 How is it that for 364 days your life really had nothing to do with Shri Ram?
03:53 And on the 365th day, you jump up and join in
04:08 the noisy bandwagon, the chorus of the hooligans?
04:28 What would he say if Ram were there in a bodily shape, in his mortal body, and were he to
04:52 see you celebrating his festival?
04:57 You just did something taking my name?
05:04 All this tamasha is in my name?
05:11 He would be angered.
05:13 He would say you do whatever you want to do, but why are you doing it in my name?
05:19 Your life has no relation to mine.
05:28 There is no sameness between you and me.
05:36 You do not even love me at all, let alone worship me.
05:41 Had you loved me, you could not have lived your life the way you do.
05:54 Actually you stand in firm opposition to me, Ram would say.
06:02 If I look at the 364 days of your life, you stand really in firm opposition to me.
06:09 And now on this 365th day, what a pretense you are making.
06:20 I am the one who never cared for any worldly thing.
06:30 I just pushed aside the biggest worldly thing that one can have, an entire empire.
06:41 It was there for me to take it.
06:48 I could have as well told Raja Dashrath, father, not done.
07:00 I deserve the crown and the entire country wants me to be the king.
07:13 And Dashrath would have consented.
07:15 He would have said fine, sir.
07:19 But the moment my father said, leave the throne and not merely leave the throne, be gone into
07:36 the jungles for 14 years, I said fine.
07:39 That's the kind of person I was.
07:47 Did I care for the comforts of the palace?
07:53 Did I care for power and wealth?
07:59 Did I care for the so-called worldly material good life?
08:07 I didn't.
08:09 And look at yourself.
08:10 Even in the name of celebrating my festival, all you do is shop, shop and shop.
08:21 In fact, Ram's festival has become the festival of shopping, shoppers and shopkeepers.
08:31 Ram, who never had anything to do with shops, Ram, who was never a buyer or a seller or
08:45 a consumer.
08:46 Shri Ram, who stands for that which can neither be bought nor be sold, his festival has been
08:56 turned into an orgy of sales and discounts.
09:13 How would he feel were he to reappear in a bodily form today?
09:21 Let's see.
09:28 I have said before and I am repeating, Diwali for most people must be a festival of austerity,
09:40 of repentance, prayaschit.
09:43 We must on this day offer our prayers to Shri Ram and say, we are very sorry, O Holy One,
09:57 we are extremely sorry.
09:59 We couldn't live by your life, your message, your teachings.
10:09 We are very sorry.
10:10 We will observe this day as a day of repentance.
10:20 We do not deserve to celebrate.
10:22 What is there to celebrate in our life?
10:31 Festival of lights befits those who have light, first of all, in their lives.
10:37 If our lives are full of darkness, what right do we have to light the candles and the diyas
10:52 and the Chinese bulbs?
11:07 Every festival is like an examination day.
11:15 Yes, certain people do have all the rights to celebrate on an examination day, but who
11:23 will be those people who have prepared well for those exams, who have done justice to
11:33 their preparation throughout the year?
11:35 They are the ones who have the right to celebrate on that day.
11:38 Others, why are they celebrating?
11:43 First of all, you were dishonest enough to not to do justice to the preparations.
11:58 You miserably failed the exam and now you are stupid enough to celebrate your failure.
12:04 No, you are not stupid.
12:05 You are wicked.
12:06 By celebrating, you are trying to convince yourself that you have actually passed the
12:14 exam.
12:16 Look at the perverse logic.
12:20 Look at the inversion.
12:23 Those who clear the exam celebrate.
12:27 So we will celebrate and convince ourselves that we have cleared the exam.
12:33 That's awesome.
12:39 Great are the depths of depravity possible to us.
12:59 You are given an entire year to prepare for Diwali.
13:06 What does it mean to prepare for Diwali?
13:08 To clean your house or to clean your life?
13:11 Did we clean up our lives?
13:14 And an entire year was available.
13:16 Did we prepare for the festival?
13:20 We didn't.
13:28 And when the festival has arrived, we want to show as if we really deserve it.
13:34 We don't deserve it.
13:49 Excellence has always been a rarity.
13:56 And Sri Ramchandra is the epitome of excellence.
14:08 Without bringing that excellence into our lives, what is this circus that we create?
14:25 So you are asking me how to celebrate Diwali.
14:38 I will say now start preparing for the next one.
14:43 This one you have already lost.
14:45 I don't want to console you.
14:48 This Diwali is totally lost on 99% people who will be celebrating it.
14:56 But there still is time.
14:57 Prepare for the next Diwali.
15:02 Live your life just as Ram lived his life.
15:07 And then you will have the right to celebrate Diwali.
15:16 What is it that Sri Ram stands for?
15:18 He stands for detachment.
15:21 He stands for fearlessness.
15:23 He stands for compassion.
15:27 He stands for dharma.
15:30 Is there dharma really in your life?
15:32 And by dharma I do not mean a creed or a cult or observation of certain rituals or the name
15:41 written against the religion column in your various identification cards.
15:49 That is not dharma.
15:51 Dharma means doing that which you must do.
15:57 Must do.
15:59 That is what Sri Ram stands for.
16:00 He does what he must do.
16:04 Do you do what you must do?
16:14 Is your touch compassionate enough to turn stone into life?
16:25 His was.
16:30 Bring some compassion into your life and then say that you want to celebrate Diwali.
16:37 You have one year.
16:38 Rather one year and one day.
16:45 Tomorrow is Diwali.
16:46 We are talking of the next Diwali.
16:58 Have you ever just let it sink into you what it means to spend 14 years in the wilderness
17:11 and try to wrap your head around the idea.
17:14 You are the crown prince, Yuvraj and you have been dispatched to the damn forest.
17:30 How does that even sound?
17:36 It sounds unacceptable to us.
17:38 He lived it and he lived it with unequaled grace.
17:43 Look at his poise.
17:47 Not once did he complain.
17:50 In fact he used these 14 years to the maximum and he fought the most powerful force of his
18:03 times.
18:09 And who was he?
18:10 He was somebody ostracized from his kingdom.
18:15 Somebody serving a sentence almost.
18:21 And he is fighting Dushanan, the one who is said to have incarcerated even the various
18:33 gods and goddesses in his prison cells.
18:41 That Dushanan was fought almost empty handed by one Shri Ram.
18:50 That's my Ram.
18:57 One needs to have at least 1% of him in oneself in order to worship him.
19:08 At least 1%.
19:16 What's 1% of 14 years?
19:38 What does that mean?
19:49 How many days?
19:52 Around 50 days.
19:58 51 to be precise.
20:07 How do you spend 51 days just because you are randomly told to?
20:18 That too on the eve of your coronation?
20:22 You are about to rise to the throne and somebody tells you no.
20:29 You are dispatched to the Amazon.
20:31 51 days.
20:34 No gadgets, nothing.
20:41 At least be 1% of Shri Ram Chandra.
20:46 I'm not asking you to try it out.
20:50 I just want you to see how unacceptable even the idea is.
20:57 Right?
20:58 Our securities, our comforts rebel against the very thought.
21:05 He lived it out.
21:09 And he lived it out in the most humane, just and compassionate way possible.
21:18 Without ever cribbing.
21:22 And he ended those 14 years bringing down the mightiest empire of his times.
21:33 That's my superhero.
21:40 And you want to reduce Diwali to a festival of Rasgulla, Rabdi, Son Papdi.
22:09 Kalakand.
22:10 Did Ramchandra enjoy all these things?
22:24 Why the hell are you enjoying all these things on his day?
22:34 Because we are very, very small and little and petty people who want just an excuse to
22:42 further their dirty instincts of consumption.
22:50 We just want to consume on some pretext.
23:00 So, Diwali becomes just another occasion to, it's an explosion of consumption.
23:24 So, next Diwali.
23:46 Let's emerge as deserving celebrants.
24:00 Let's assert our right next Diwali.
24:06 And then you will find that the festival has really invoked another dimension within you.
24:16 Then that night will be special.
24:21 As we are currently and as we celebrate currently, Diwali is come and go and nothing changes.
24:28 Does anything really change?
24:31 Does anything really change?
24:32 Diwali after Diwali, we remain the same persons, don't we?
24:39 Now prepare this entire year for that one next Diwali and see how that one Diwali can
24:48 do what the last 40 Diwalis have not been able to do.
24:57 And then Shri Ram will smile.
25:00 He will say, "Yes, now you have celebrated".
25:02 God Bless.
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