Diwali is a festival I look forward to. I really cherish the moments spent doing colourful rangoli outside my house door. Placing little lamps everywhere. Swastiks of red vermilion and bright flowers to adorn the space. It is quite a bit of fanfare. In our house we don’t do too much of ritual or social gatherings – this is really great so we all just celebrate festivals to the extent we want and the way we want.

I really lose myself in all the decorating. If there were too many social engagements it would be exhausting for me – but the creative stuff is what I love. So much so that at one time, these creative activities gave me a new lease to life.

I keep writing all these spiritual-wala blogs here, a lot of thoughts and insights into spiritual matters but so far I have never highlighted the practical implications and benefits of these things in day to day life. On this occasion of Diwali I thought of sharing one such impact. How I sorted out an emotional imbalance with my understanding into life.

It so happened a couple of years back that on an emotional level I was feeling heavy. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Especially since I was running my entrepreneurial venture, I really didn’t get time to allot to it. So this emotional heaviness continued for a while. Then all of the sudden it escalated. A total emotional crash for a day or two every month. It was really scary. Because all of sudden I would become totally dysfunctional – emotionally crashed and physically also very weak. Scary! I did talk to my doctor and she mentioned maybe it was a hormonal imbalance. I didn’t want to get into that whole allopathic cycle to be honest as I don’t think they know what they are doing.

So after couple of months and these bizarre crashes kept happening, I really thought a bit deeply about the whole cycle. And took seriously the emotional heaviness I had been feeling. I remembered that in my self-evaluation metrics emotional well being is associated with creative activities like art and culture. I realised that in my hectic schedule of work I had not managed to really do some good bit of art for a while. So I did a bit of art when time permitted but it didn’t seem to help that much.

As it happened, Diwali was soon around the corner and I decided to take this opportunity to really indulge in all the art and cultural activities. So I went all out and made some diya bottles at home, did rangoli, flowers. I even made some mithai for the occasion. It was quite lovely. Coupled with all this is a bit of pooja and light family gatherings. All in all it really sorted my creative and emotional energies out. It was like such a breath of fresh emotion! 🙂

I felt much better after Diwali. And voila, it really eased up my monthly cycles as well & no emotional crashes.

After this experience I really indulge in Diwali. It is a time to notch up Art and Creativity in my life. Sort out those emotional cobwebs.

So two things,

1. It is because of my clarity in thought that I was able to associate emotional balance with creative tasks and this allowed me to look at the Diwali activities as a means to reach that balance. So this is important. People avoid bringing clarity in their lives, because they don’t want to think so much. But managing yourself is not rocket science. There are some very simple levers – if we get an idea about those then most of the simpler ailments can be sorted by being balanced – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually
2. This experience furthered my trust and love for the Indian culture. Now a days especially in urban areas our traditions are really corroding. In fact we are letting go of a lot of traditional activities. Sadly the understanding behind this culture is lost and the British occupation has made us think less of it. In the effort towards bringing ‘modern-ity’ – we are losing out on all the intelligence that is imbibed in our culture. And one of them is the ability to keep people emotionally centered. It is true that some overhaul is needed in our traditions – some of the practices especially related to women are archaic but I wish people did it without changing every thing or just rejecting it all.

So, looking forward to this Diwali week. A time of lamps, light, art, flowers and all those subtle things in life which are all important and yet often neglected in routine.

Happy Diwali 🙂