Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya

From Darkness to Light

Preface
Diwali is a festival of lights. We celebrate it by lighting Diyas on a dark night. But have we
ever wondered how to eliminate the darkness that lies within? In this eye-opening talk, our
Celestial Friend, Shreee talks about the Darkness and how to find the real light within. How
to celebrate Diwali in the real sense.
Please note, this eBook is a spontaneous live talk delivered by Shreee to his disciples. This
talk is meant for the modern man with examples from the real world. YouTube links is
available for this talk.
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Contents
Preface .................................................................................................................................................... 2
Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya ......................................................................................................................... 4

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Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya
From Darkness to Light
Question: Diwali is just around the corner. How do you celebrate it?
Godly Morning, friends! Welcome to this Mahotsav. Diwali is just around the corner. Diwali
is a festival of lights which falls on an Amavasya or the no moon night, in which people light
diyas (candles, earthen lamps). It is a festival where people light many lamps because its
dark.
Just think, even when one lights up these diyas, lamps or candles to brighten up - it does
eliminate the darkness outside. But is it the same as eliminating the darkness from your life?
The firecrackers outside and these lights outside cannot make you rejoice.
Why has no one ever wished someone a Happy Diwali in broad sunlight? If Diwali is
concerned with the light outside, then by this logic, why don't we wish each other Happy
Diwali every day when we wake up every morning with every sunrise? And then why don't
we say Sad Darkness every night when the sun sets? If darkness signifies sadness, why do
we say good night instead of sad night?
Our life is a dark hole; we are living in this darkness and misery.
Now you will ask What kind of dark hole or misery is being referred to here? One has no
idea of what light is one is forever living in constant darkness. For example if someone is
sent to prison, he might be upset for the first few months. But then as time goes by, this jail
would become his life and slavery will become a way of life.
If you see, your inner world is only darkness and misery. But since you dont spend any time
with yourself, how will you realise this? You are only chasing the world outside and your
vision is limited to the outer world. Even if we get some time to spend with ourselves, we
constantly keep finding ways to get busy. It is difficult for us to just be -without doing
anything. We distract ourselves with books, read magazines, newspapers, or watch
television. If nothing else, we will just check our phone for messages and notifications that
are not there. You are unaware of the darkness inside because the entire focus is only on
the world outside. People live out their entire lives and eventually die but fail to realise
their real self. This is what I call darkness. One forgets his identity. Human being has
forgotten he is eternal consciousness. He has to realise that the inner is tremendously
powerful, the outer is very weak. The inner is eternal, the outer is temporary. No matter
how much money he makes, until he learns stay with his real self, he will continue to suffer.
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After fulfilling one desire, he enters the vicious circle of trying to fulfil other desires. He
completely forgets about the desires that he has previously fulfilled. If he buys a luxury car,
he will want to own an even more luxurious car than the one he has bought. Its like this
joke. A man marries a beautiful woman. After about six months of being married, he
realises, had he waited longer he would have found a better looking wife. Same way is our
desire for mobile phones.
Human being is full of desires. He is thirsty to get his desires fulfilled. Gautam Buddha called
this Trishna. If a person does not attempt to know his real self, he will always be miserable
because he will live in constant fear. Fear brings suffering. A rich man feels as insecure as a
poor man. Everyone feels insecure; irrespective of the amount of money they possess.
Human being is hungry for money, respect, name, fame. This constant fear inside of him is
Darkness. He has immense jealousy inside; and knowingly or unknowingly he continues to
compare himself with others. To compare himself with others has become a habit; a second
nature. It is very spontaneous. He constantly swings between inferiority and superiority
depending on who he is with. He feels superior sometimes, but 90 percent of the time, he
feels inferior. There is so much he wants to achieve. But it is not possible for him to attain
everything. If he has money, he may not be intelligent, if he has intelligence, he may not
have a healthy body, if he has a healthy body, he may not have a beautiful body with good
looks, if he has good looks he may not have a beautiful life partner. This comparison has
become his nature. He lives in darkness. This is Trishna, this is darkness and there is pain.
There is fear of losing what he has. There are thousands of reasons for which he lives in
misery. Anger is the biggest cause. Imagine if we lived in a world where there was no
punishment given to anyone for expressing anger, don't you think, people would go crazy
there would be utter chaos all around? I would invite you to just look at your own your face
in the mirror the moment you feel intense anger. You will see darkness there. There is no
awareness in us about this anger otherwise.
If you simply close your eyes when you are angry, you will witness the misery and pain of
life. We are not able to express anger in public because of the laws created by the
Government. That is why people express their anger on their spouses. They explode and spit
anger like a dragon spits fire. Loved ones continue to burn with rage for each other. Just a
little spark and they explode. Dragons fight dragons. Now I understand why Indian weddings
take place around fire.
There are people who suppress their anger because the society doesnt allow expression.
This suppression of anger is a normal characteristic of our so-called civilised society. If you
express anger, will you be able to survive in this society? No. It is a survival mechanism. We
have in fact now mastered the art of this suppressing anger. We have become excellent
suppressive elements. We choose to smile at the other person when we feel angry at them.
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But deep down, are we not frustrated? I invite you to simply just lock yourself alone in a
room and sit down without any distractions like T.V, radio or anything. You will find only
darkness surrounding you. There is extreme restlessness and frustration in you. You will only
remember negative incidents from your past. You will remember incidents when someone
insulted you or betrayed you. If you spend four to five hours alone with yourself, you get to
see your true self. You might start screaming, laughing, fighting these are all forms of
suppression. You will experience various emotions. Since childhood you have been asked to
behave in the right manner and suppress all emotions. All these suppressions cause
diseases. Ninety percent of the diseases are created by the mind. Isn't this darkness?
Theres so much darkness within us and yet for Diwali we are lighting lamps on the outside.
There is darkness of ignorance. We are living with these diseases and despite this; we are
continuously fooling ourselves saying were not unhappy.
We are so ignorant that we are not even aware of our own unhappiness. One has to first
experience happiness to be able to decide whether theyre happy or not. Only then you will
be able to tell the difference. Youve never even tasted real happiness and thats why
there is no contrast. People working in the fish-market are not aware of the smell there.
Theyre completely ignorant towards it. They go on playing cards, listening to the radio and
even having tea at such a smelly place, because they do not realise the smell. Just as these
ignorant people in the fish market invest their time there, we invest in stocks in the fishmarket called life. I know people who will continue investing in stocks and property even
after crossing eighty five years of age. What will he do with his investments when hes
dead? Nobody thinks in that direction. There is no awareness in this direction. For this, he
needs to experience stillness. He needs to ponder, contemplate, introspect and think about
what he is doing? But he is scared to sit even a moment alone all by himself.
Was Shakespeare wrong in making this statement: Life is a tale told by an idiot, having lots
of fury and noise signifying nothing?
Was Freud wrong if he said Man can never be happy and unhappiness is his destiny?
Despite many luxuries, human being is not happy. Human being has become modern with
time, in the sense that he can now wipe his tears with better quality, fragrant tissues but is
still unhappy at the end of the day. Despite of attaining comforts, luxuries, he is unhappy. It
is admirable the world is becoming advanced and I am not against it. But just compare how
much inner growth has taken place in a person as compared to his outer growth? There is
only outer growth. Thousands of years ago people were greedy for money. Has that
changed? Were still greedy and aggressive. What has improved then? Has anything
changed? People still keep looking for happiness in the outside world. One will have to turn
inside in order to find permanent bliss and happiness.
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According to Darwin's theory, man descended from apes. When Darwin died, these apes
cornered the spirit of Darwin and questioned How dare you say man is more evolved than
us? They challenged Darwins theory of human beings being more evolved than them. You
will never find an unauthentic ape in your whole lifetime. To find a fake human being is a
piece of cake. Apes sleep peacefully every night where as a human is spends sleepless nights
due to baseless anxiety. So these apes claimed that fallen and lowly apes who went through
reverse evolution became human beings; not the other way round. Human beings still
experience the same frustration, insecurity, anger, jealousy, greed, and fear of death. He is
still living his life in darkness. He is ignorant of fact that he is living in darkness. He has
completely forgotten there is this light within him which he has to discover. He has to learn
to come to the center to his source and find light within. If he starts to meditate, in the
beginning he will see there is only darkness. Gradually with regular meditation he will begin
to see glimpses of bright rays within himself. Gradually this darkness will turn into light and
he will become full of light and be liberated. Only then can we call it Diwali in the spiritual
sense.
If you want to celebrate Diwali, then you have to meditate and go deep within your Being. If
Diwali has spiritual relevance, then how can the worship of money be justified? If one is
worshipping money on Diwali and money is his God, then how can you call him a spiritual
person?
Diwali in the spiritual sense is the symbol of lighting a diya within yourself and not outside.
Otherwise Diwali is just a consolation to light lamps outside, burst firecrackers, buy new
clothes because we return to same gloominess, same prison, same misery, and the same
anxiety year after year. Life should be a continuous celebration not dependent on the
calendar. Life should be a continuous celebration of the festival of lights - all year round.
We are only here for a short while. This life is but a bridge that we will cross between one
end to the other. We have to cross the bridge and not build houses on it. If we can worship
money as God, then God is merely an empty word with no significance. The path where we
worship money will only lead to misery and suffering; not Samadhi or happiness. That is why
for us spiritual beings, Diwali is about going into mediation and looking at these bright diyas
or lamps burning within. Keep looking within and you will find the light. This treasure and
light is already there. You only have to find it as you have been unaware of this. So friends
celebrate Diwali in the real sense. I wish you a Happy Diwali in the real sense.

Click here to watch this recorded talk on YouTube.

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