Holi – a festival of colors is celebrated on Phalgun Purnima which comes in February and early March. Holi festival has an ancient origin and celebrates the triumph of ‘good’ over ‘bad’. This colorful festival bridges the social gap and renews sweet relationships among people.
On this day, people hug and wish each other ‘Happy Holi’ by applying colors to each other. Holi celebration begins with lighting up of bonfire on the Holi eve. Numerous legends and stories associated with Holi celebration makes the festival more exuberant and vivid.
In Sat Yuga, a very powerful and evil king called Hiranyakaship wanted his citizens to worship him as a God and not the Lord Vishnu. Despite several warnings from his father, his son Prahlada continued to worship Vishnu instead of him. Prahlad’s spiritual teacher, Deva Rushi Narada had taught him that the presence of Lord Vishnu is everywhere and he always protects and takes care of his devotees.
His father decided to discourage the boy by giving him hard times. Every time, the boy was protected by Lord Vishnu and survived without any harm. Finally, Hiranyakashipu decided to burn him by putting him in his sister Holika’s lap because she was blessed with a boon that fire never burns her out. Prahlada prayed to Vishnu to keep him safe. Holika was burnt to death as Prahlada was unscathed due to his bhakti for Lord Vishnu.
This event is celebrated as the Hindu festival of Holi. The logic behind this Holika Dahan celebration is that we should burn our evil thoughts and actions and embrace a praiseworthy belief in Lord Vishnu who is the supreme power and protector of this universe. In nutshell, Holi represents triumph of truth over untruth, and a win over ego, disbelief and mistrust.
The story of Prahlada teaches us that faith in God is paramount, God will always prevail, God saves his devotees, devotion can be practiced at any time, age does not matter, evil will be punished and God remains omnipresent.
Next day, people play colors with immerse joy and happiness. This colorful Holi took an impressive dimension during Dwapara Yuga when Lord Krishna played Holi with everyone in his Brija Bhoomi. His great qualities attracted all the persons of Vraja area. He was a supreme hero with wonderful personality, unmatched strength and magnetic power.
The charm of His flute was all pervasive. Whatever He did, He did it for the welfare and happiness of his devotees. Krishna played Holi with His beloved friend Radha, Gopis and Gwalasin such way and gave a message to the whole world that there is no difference between rich and poor, man and woman, superior and inferior castes. He maintained equality and harmony in the community by playing colors of love with everyone. He showed that love is really a powerful force in the world that binds people together and creates tuneful relationships among people.
Holi is foremost Hindu festival that is celebrated by people of all castes and religions together by applying colors to each other and forget their differences and hatredness on this day. People rub ‘gulal’ and ‘abeer’ on each other’s’ faces and cheer up saying, “bura na maano Holi hai”.
In self-centered modern societies, people are very selfish, egoistic and less interactive with people of other classes, castes, religion, and other socio-cultural groups. Colorful Holi plays an important role in bringing people together and creating harmonious relationships among people. Krishna’s Holi loving message is not for only Hindus but to people of the world to come together by crossing their borders and leaving aside their differences and power ego.
The Hindu Mandir of Lake County is celebrating colorful Holi on Sunday, 16th March with huge crowd that comes to play colors and enjoy delicious Indian foods. I invite you all on the behalf of Mandir to come and have fun, and take blessings and love of Lord Krishna with you.
Pandit Anil Joshi
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