Diwali’s Sahaj Significance
‘Today we are going to celebrate the Diwali, which means the rows of lights or, you can say, group of lights.
This Diwali has been a festival of very ancient times in India..
Diwali was celebrated when it was the darkest night of the year. So now, it is very symbolic of these modern times because the worst time, as far as morality is concerned has been in these modern times. We call it the Ghor Kali Yuga, the worst modern times. That means a complete darkness and, as you see around, you’ll find out that there is complete darkness as far as morality is concerned, but that’s why there are all kinds of crises.
Because of that, also, there are many who are seeking the light, the truth… ‘
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi – the founder of Sahaja Yoga Meditation (Diwali compilation here)
“Let this Diwali enlighten you with light of love.
You yourself are the lamps which burn high and don’t get pressed by the cover.
They become much more powerful than the cover. It is their own asset.”
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi – the founder of Sahaja Yoga Meditation (excerpt from Shri Mataji’s Diwali Letter from 1976)
It’s time for Sharing our Burlington’s Diwali Celebrations this year in Stories, Photos and Videos
This year we ended up celebrating Diwali – known also as The Festival of Lights – multiple times, with different groups of people, at various locations and of course, not in the same way. That is expected from our team of volunteers that is active here for so long, with deep roots in Burlington, Oakville, and overall Halton and Hamilton wider communities.
Celebrating the Light of Joy provided by the Beautiful Canadian Nature
Our little garden is still generous, sharing beauty, fragrance and colors this cold November. Therefore we brought our harvest of roses and calendula flowers indoors, with their vibrant freshness and we ended up having enough gifts from Mother Earth for each and every room. We hope you’ll enjoy and appreciate their inner light of joy too!
Diwali Celebrations in Burlington with “Going Deeper” and “Cool Kids and Parents” Seminars offered by Sahaja Yoga Meditation Network
We started celebrating Diwali last week at Mama Carmela’s hospitable and coziest home, with an abundant Diwali Potluck Dinner, among new and older friends from our SYMN volunteering team. Classes. Lots of joy, we also attempted to sing Diwali songs and learned more about the subtle meaning of Diwali, directly from Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi.
The Diwali Festival’s spirit was also present at our Burlington and Oakville classes that week
We also mentioned Diwali – the Festival of Lights – at our weekly Sahaja Yoga Meditation classes in Burlington and Oakville. Starting to decorate the meditation room, also the generosity shared by participants bringing home baked goodies, as well introducing new knowledge, singing mantras and bhajans, truly elevated the atmosphere with the light of inner peace and joy.
Diwali with Friends and Family – Experience The Light of Love, Innocence and Joy
It was lovely to meet again with friends that came to visit from other provinces of Canada, also to be invited in other people’s little castles that decorated so nicely their homes for Diwali celebration and were eager to share their traditions with us!
It was also nice to experience the heartfelt sisterhood and brotherhood, also to see how each other’s kids had all grown up and one by one showed interest to meditate with us and learn some Light and Diwali related songs.
Interesting enough, after one such joyful celebration ended later in the night, and we were saying our good byes, I’ve noticed in that corner of Burlington a gorgeous tree that seemed to carry gold and shine bright for Diwali.
Find out more about out Diwali “Cool Kids and Parents” Diya Making & Meditation Seminar in the following paragraph
This article represents a Journey for the reader, giving you the opportunity to feel the many joys and lights that we’ve experienced during this week dedicated to Diwali. There are also videos shared below, that we feel that would enhance your experience.
Also, if you enjoy the photos in this article you might want to explore the Photo-Album from our Diwali 2023 [ with Canadian Nature too]; if your heart opens more and more, share your impressions in a comment by the end of the article. 🙂
This past weekend the sky was fabulous, let us know what you see in these photos, captured before and after our event: the special Diwali “Cool Kids and Parents” Sahaja Yoga Meditation seminar in Burlington; some teenagers joined for the first time, others already are regulars to our workshops. We meditated, cleared our chakras and felt so light and joyous before we started the artwork session. Everyone shinned bright in creativity, from start to end!
Time to say good bye from our lovely seminar, it seems that not everyone is IN the photos but that’s OK. In fact this became a two folded seminars, on one hand we had those focused on the Diya making especially the real Cool Kids and Parents, while a few others, Yogis and beginners from our regular classes have engaged into another creative activity: the choreography and decoration vision for our next big festival.
We felt the vibrations of the truth we shared and the inspiration that came upon us. We truly went deeper with the “sahaj experience” of how the Light of the Spirit works and how it is expressed through the vibratory awareness. Cool!
After the Diwali “Cool Kids and Clay Diya” Meditation Seminar, we went home, but the weather was so enchanting, we had to go out again, this time on a trail in our beautiful Halton region. The Sun was so playful so we teased each other, from my end the camera was able to get some really great “enlightening” shots. Enjoy them below!
When we reached home, again the universe (or let’s call it the Sky :-), was again talking to us through symbols in the ether: one can see an immense elephant head, or representing the upper part of Shri Ganesha — the Eternal Child within that governs our chakra of innocence, bestows divine wisdom and removes the obstacles from our path towards enlightenment. He was right there, above our neighborhood, welcoming back home, along with the roses.
I could not resist and jumped again into the role of a true paparazzi following Mother Earth’s endless beauty, generosity, humor, balance and grace. Thank You!
The Canadian Nature is just teaching splendor at every step. Please, bear with me sharing a few more photos captured this weekend; such wisdom encapsulated in earthlings of various shapes and colors need a voice, are meant to be seen and acknowledged.
My personal Diwali Experience with the Guiding Light of Spontaneity in a State of Connection
Some photos from today, when I actually used the Diya (Indian lamp) I made of clay, in about five minutes rushing towards the exit as we were wrapping the seminar up. I did not want to be the only one leaving without a Diya, but had no time to “think about it”, instead I just followed my intuition while maintaining the meditative state of ‘thoughtless awareness’. When I reached home, I’ve been astounded how the color pallet matched perfectly the little statue representing Shri Mahalakshmi — the feminine principle of generosity, evolution, peace and balance – who is in fact at the core of the Diwali celebrations.
Another sign from the universe that when we are connected, the energy of life that connects everything, is guiding us for the best choices in life, and creativity. We hope you’ve enjoyed this article and celebrated Diwali again with us!
We have three video-clips that you might not want to miss, a videoclip with a gorgeous sky and two “shorts” from the Seminar.
You might have observed that we are also sending subtle messages through the images shared in the article. You’ve seen the parallels found in Nature and in our personal life; we are never dis-connected if we allow the intelligence of Life and not our ego to make the right choices. Happy Diwali Everyone! Let’s honor our Inner Lights and each others!
Videos related to the Diwali Weekend in Burlington, November 2023
What our we taking to heart from the Diwali Festival’s subtle and meaningful message?!
” You all should promise to yourself that you will create a Deepawali [row of lights[ in every household,
in every country,
in the whole world.”
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi – the founder of Sahaja Yoga Meditation
“In Sahaja Yoga you develop another dimension which is Collective Consciousness.“
“That is the modern Sahaja Yoga. In the olden days they didn’t have this, so they just all got lost. Now you have collective consciousness and in that collective consciousness you start feeling others, feeling for others, compassion for others and you start working out for others.”
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi – the founder of Sahaja Yoga Meditation [ excerpt from her Talk to Yogis about Diwali in Lisbon, Portugal in 1996 ]
Beautiful and so beautifully articulated with an enlightened approach. Could help praising the enlightening joy through writeup and experience shared with subtle messages of the essence of Deepawali an Indian word signifying Deepa means the Lamp and Wali in lose sense in a row. So it’s the light of the lamp in row.
Shri Mataji very explicitly enlightened us. A deep or light that is articial cannot move. Only fire moves. It may spill. So when a person is enlightened with the light of awareness and Sahaja Yoga. He moves and not only enlightens many but doesn’t burn alike material display of deepas or the light. A very subtle message.
Let’s all try to get that light to move to the other with the oil of live and compassion to enlighten with our wick of Spirit that wants to express the joy.
Let’s celebrate the Diwali or Deepawali in our real lifestyle. As saints required none. We required them for the wisdom. Let’s be blessed that.
Sorry for lot of typos in above comments. Which may not have been clearly understood.
Therefore, it is better to quote exact except from one of such messages of Shri Mataji in 1988 where Shri Mataji provides the analogy of the light in material sense and spiritual sense. A beautiful draw.
So now the light of Sahaja Yoga has kindled within you all these small, small lights, which are going to enlighten the path for humanity, for their emancipation. So responsibilities of Sahaja Yogis are great. They should get over all these limitations, like the light has got over all the limitations and spread all over. If you have a way of measuring how far this little light has gone you cannot measure it with ordinary human instruments. But once it starts it is spread to the last bit of it and comes back to it. In the same way this light which is kindled within you spreads all over, is emitted all over and comes back to you. But of course it is just a material light. This is a spiritual light. The difference is this light has its own power of burning, that’s all. Also it has a power of giving some light in the darkness. Also it has one more thing, that it can enlighten another light.
But a Sahaja Yogi is not only the light himself, but also the one who can go to others. It cannot walk. When it walks it is fire. It cannot walk in its own limitations. Somebody has to carry it. So the Sahaja Yogis are the ones who can carry this light within themselves – very well preserved and very beautifully enlighten another person. Without creating a fire, without burning anything.
You move this from here to there one has to think thrice if you can move because you may spill something or you may burn something. But not a Sahaja Yogi. And it is for the redemption. This can give you light, which is outside, by which you can see only – but you cannot feel and you cannot cure. You cannot give counsel, nor can you comfort and you cannot redeem with this material. It is spiritual light that is within us.
The above post had typos. So quoting exact except from Shri Mataji speech of 1988 on materialistic and spiritual lights.
Very profound
So now the light of Sahaja Yoga has kindled within you all these small, small lights, which are going to enlighten the path for humanity, for their emancipation. So responsibilities of Sahaja Yogis are great. They should get over all these limitations, like the light has got over all the limitations and spread all over. If you have a way of measuring how far this little light has gone you cannot measure it with ordinary human instruments. But once it starts it is spread to the last bit of it and comes back to it. In the same way this light which is kindled within you spreads all over, is emitted all over and comes back to you. But of course it is just a material light. This is a spiritual light. The difference is this light has its own power of burning, that’s all. Also it has a power of giving some light in the darkness. Also it has one more thing, that it can enlighten another light.
But a Sahaja Yogi is not only the light himself, but also the one who can go to others. It cannot walk. When it walks it is fire. It cannot walk in its own limitations. Somebody has to carry it. So the Sahaja Yogis are the ones who can carry this light within themselves – very well preserved and very beautifully enlighten another person. Without creating a fire, without burning anything.
You move this from here to there one has to think thrice if you can move because you may spill something or you may burn something. But not a Sahaja Yogi. And it is for the redemption. This can give you light, which is outside, by which you can see only – but you cannot feel and you cannot cure. You cannot give counsel, nor can you comfort and you cannot redeem with this material. It is spiritual light that is within us.
As we were driving to this special event, we all noticed how beautiful the clouds looked, we took some pictures on our way. During meditation, I felt Nabhi chakra on my palm (2nd finger) during the start and once we were clearing it, I felt better. Then I noticed my left ring finger was also tingling, and that’s when aunty Ioana explained to us how it can get caught up and how to clear it. I liked the wide selection of supplies available for diya making. It was so much fun. I really enjoyed the yummy snack we had at the end which was made with love by Mamma Carmela.
During the session in the class, I liked how we cleared the energy centers and cleared the guilt that we collect knowingly and unknowingly. Also how we worked on forgiving everyone; the teacher (aunty Ioana) gave a very good explanation to some chakras and the collective (energy) clearing was great. Especially, we had to clear the left Vishudhi chakra (left index finger) and cleared the guilt on our left neck area. Thank you to all the uncles and aunties from Cool Kids Meditation family for their help to inherit Sahaj values in us.
I was feeling a lot of joy while meditating. I felt like it was opening my heart and calming my thoughts down. The meditation allowed the creativity to flow for clay making.
These beautiful seminars with children and parents are so precious, my heart was bubbling with joy the whole time. I was just mesmerized by how the sky looked, I felt as if the ether was blessing us. The collectivity and togetherness with so much laughter was what I enjoyed the most. Everyone did a great job in Diya making and in bringing their inner child alive in a fun way. Thank you from bottom of my heart to all those who made this happen.
Such a light! Such a feeling of oneness! Such beauty and hope! Images are taking my thoughts away…replacing them with love and reverence for nature and the creation. Happy Diwali everyone. It’s a warm, welcoming feeling to be in the presence of so many whose inner lights are awakened.
Dear Burlington collective, it is slways a great joy to read your posts and to feel your collective Light of the Spirit. Continue to spread Mother’s love and Nirmal vision so the whole world will be filled with the Divine Vibrations . Thank you for sharing your dear moments and experiences . Lots of Love. Jai Shri Mataji!
Wonderful Celebration,it is amazing to feel the joy and the light and hope,in this time when bad things are going on in the world.
Amazing article about the true meaning of Diwali by Shri Mataji.I enjoyed all the beautiful pic and videos,filled with amazing beauty and love of mother earth,sky which is full of the vibration of divine.Thanks for sharing,Love to see all the efforts of Halton collectivity to spread the message of mother,by enlightening others,which is the true meaning of Diwali.Thanks Ioana.
To be part of it. Isn’t that what we all want? To belong and be part of the parcel of the whole. To connect and enjoy our purpose . To feel we belong. May this Diwali find all those who are lost to find their light . For you DO matter..