Divali

Rev. Paul Sprecher

Second Parish in Hingham, www.secondparish.org

November 7, 2010

 

^Reading

Rev. Kim told the children the story of Rama and Sita, and how they were welcomed back to the capital of their country as King and Queen by candles lit all over the city after their great struggles, an event still remembered in the celebration of Divali, the Festival of Lights.  There are many such stories of how Divali came to be, as recounted by Dr. Vasudha Narayanan:[i]

Among the many days of feasting and fasting on the Hindu calendar, Diwali—or Deepavali, as South Indians like me call it—is one of the most important and joyous holidays of the year.

Hindus have rich and diverse traditions, and people from various parts of India connect Deepavali with different narratives. Most Hindus do not think one story is real and the others are wrong; like many other Hindu concepts and festivals, we think of Deepavali as having multiple narratives and meanings.

All the stories associated with Deepavali, however, speak of the joy connected with the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and goodness over evil. Since the time of the Upanishads (part of the Vedas, the earliest holy texts of the Hindus), darkness is connected with ignorance, untruth, and death.

Most Hindus, though not all, think of Vishnu as the Supreme Being who creates, protects, and eventually destroys the universe. This cycle of creation and destruction is repeated again and again. Within these enormous cycles of time, sometimes lasting billions of years, Vishnu comes to Earth in various forms. Many Hindus believe that he does so to rid the Earth of evil. Deepavali is associated with many of these incarnations of Vishnu: as Krishna, Rama, and to some as Trivikrama

Most people from the south of India celebrate the victory of Krishna over a demon called Narakasura ("the demon of hell"). Some Hindus believe that Krishna and his wife Satyabhama won the war over this demon just as dawn was breaking. During the celebration of Deepavali, people set off fireworks at home anytime after 3 a.m. As the light of the fireworks, and then dawn, overcomes the darkness, we think of Krishna's victory.

^Sermon

A young woman named Madhul was flying home to see her family to celebrate Diwali with them. Fifteen minutes into the flight from Bombay to Delhi, the captain announced, 'Ladies and gentlemen, one of our engines has failed. There is nothing to worry about. Our flight will take an hour longer than scheduled, but we still have three engines left.'

Thirty minutes later the captain announced, 'One more engine has failed and the flight will take an additional two hours. But don't worry . . .we can fly just fine on two engines.'

An hour later the captain announced, 'One more engine has failed and our arrival will be delayed another hour. But don't worry... we still have one engine left.'

Madhul turned to the man in the next seat, sighed and said, 'If we lose one more engine, we'll be up here all day.'[ii]

Namaste!

“Namaste” is a traditional Hindu greeting which can be translated a number of ways:  “I bow to the divine in you;” or “The God/Goddess in me greets the God/Goddess in you;” or, in a manner reminiscent of the Quaker celebration of the divine light within each of us, we might also say “The light in me honors the light in you.”  In Jewish or Christian terms, we might understand this by remembering the God is said in Genesis to have made human beings in God’s own image – so in that way we each have the image of God within us.

Divali, whose celebration started this year last Friday, November 5^th, is the most widely celebrated holiday among Indians around the world.  But when we try to describe it exactly, we find that there is a wide diversity in the stories told about how this holiday of lights came to be.  Consider other festivals of light – celebrations in many cultures in the fall or winter of the year that cheer us up as the cold and dark grow more and more discouraging.  Hanukkah:  We all know the story of the miraculous oil that lasted for eight days instead of only one – hence the Menorah.  Christmas:  All around the world, the holiday is a remembrance of the birth of Jesus.  Each has just one story; you can tell it lots of ways, but there’s just one of them.  So far, you’ve heard two stories from the Hindu tradition which provide a basis for Divali this morning, and, as Dr. Narayanan mentioned in our readings this morning, there is at least one more independent story that explains how it came to be.  Then there’s the matter of the name of the holiday.  I announced the title in the newsletter as “Duwali,” surprised at the spelling but willing to be corrected; then I found a book about the holiday with the title “Diwali;” and now I learn from Dr. Narayanan that the real name is “Deepavali.”  That last variant I can understand as the spelling out of what is otherwise contracted as “Diwali” or “Divali;” and the other variants I can understand as different transliterations from one of the many native languages of India, but it’s a little hard to know what to say when you’re just trying to say it right!

To pile on just a little more, you should know that Divali is not only a Hindu festival, accounted for by one of several lovely stories of the struggles of the Gods to explain its origins. 

In Jainism, Diwali marks the attainment of moksha by Mahavira in 527 BC.  In Sikhism, Diwali commemorates the return of Guru Har Gobind Ji to Amritsar after freeing fifty-two Hindu kings imprisoned in Fort Gwalior by Emperor Jahangir; the people lit candles and divas to celebrate his return, which is why Sikhs also refer to Diwali as Bandi Chhorh Divas, "the day of release of detainees".[iii]

That’s the thing about trying to understand the many-faceted character of the religions of India, especially Hinduism, which itself is best thought of not as a single world religion with a central set of beliefs, but rather as the religion of the most of the people in the whole country of India.  Indeed, the name comes from the Persian name for the river Indus and means, roughly, “the religion of the people beyond the Indus.”  But to be a little more specific, consider this from Arvind Sharma:

What is true of the gods of Hinduism is also true of the Hindus. The Hindus, no less than their gods, are difficult to pin down. This aspect of Hinduism is best illustrated by the experience of the Muslim savant of the eleventh century, Alberuni, who wrote a masterly treatise on India….  At several points he is constrained to observe: "The Hindus differ among themselves ..." or that "some Hindus believe ..." until, finally, he bluntly states that there is not one thing that one Hindu says that is not denied by another!

…. While no strict definition of Hinduism's essence is possible, it may be defined descriptively. Fundamentally, a Hindu may be identified as one who does not deny being one. The collectivity of the beliefs and practices of those who accept the designation constitutes Hinduism. It is a peculiarly Hindu phenomenon that Hinduism may be defined as the religion of the Hindus and that this definition should, however narrowly, escape tautology.[iv]

Diana Eck, professor and director of the Pluralism project at Harvard Divinity School, writes in Encountering God, [60-62] that

The Hindu tradition is both monotheistic and polytheistic. Oneness and manyness are not seen as true opposites. In the Hindu tradition, matters of importance are thought of quite naturally in the singular and in the plural. Singularity or uniqueness is not the sole mark of significance….

India's thinkers have explored the complexities of manyness more thoroughly and persistently than any on earth. Whether one is charmed, perplexed, or repulsed by India's unabashed polytheism, Hindu theological strategies for thinking about the manyness of God might enable us to get out of our conceptual ruts and think about God in new ways….

Hindu polytheistic consciousness has little to do with the number of gods a person recognizes; it has, rather, to do with that person's ability to take multiple perspectives.[v]

Beyond the dazzling and overwhelming multiplicity of the representations of God/the Gods in Hinduism – 330 Million by some accounts – we find a core of common expressions about how we ought to lead our own lives, what we ought to aspire to in our brief time upon this earth.  Houston Smith, in his masterful account of Hinduism in The World’s Religions, describes Hinduism this way:

If we were to take Hinduism as a whole – its vast literature, its complicated rituals, its sprawling folkways, its opulent art – and compress it into a single affirmation, we would find it saying:  You can have what you want.[vi]

That does not mean that anything goes; it means that life unfolds in many stages and differently in every person.  We begin by wanting pleasure, and Hinduism encourages seeking pleasure, following of course the rules of morality, not harming others in attaining our desires and learning to defer immediate gratification for more desirable pleasures in the future.  Eventually, though – perhaps not even in a single lifetime – pleasure no longer satisfies.  He continues:

“Sooner or later everyone wants to experience more than a kaleidoscope of momentary pleasures, however delectable.

When this time comes the individual’s interests usually shift to the second major goal of life, which is worldly success with its three prongs of wealth, fame and power.[vii]

The attractions of worldly success, too, fade in time, and we come to feel, as Aldous Huxley put it, that “There comes a time when one asks even of Shakespeare, even of Beethoven, is this all?”  The Hindu answer is unequivocal:  Life holds other possibilities, and at last we turn to the cultivation of being, of knowledge, and of joy, “a feeling tone that is the opposite of [the] frustration, futility and boredom,” which were the ultimate outcome of the pursuit of pleasure and worldly success.[viii]  We find here, then, a path to wisdom and indeed enlightenment.

In the face of this bewildering swirl of manyness and oneness, of theology, mythology, morality, ethics, and life orientation, it might not come as a surprise that there would be intersections between Hinduism and an American religion struggling with the same issues on a smaller scale – the founders of the Unitarian tradition in America, who were asserting the oneness of God in contrast to what they perceived as the manyness of the Trinity.  Rommohun Roy, who lived from 1772 to 1833,

sought to integrate Western culture with the best features of his own country's traditions. He promoted a rational, ethical, non-authoritarian, this-worldly, and social-reform Hinduism. Thus he has been called the "Father of Modern India." His writings sparked interest among British and American Unitarians, inspired Unitarian missionary work in India, and influenced the Transcendentalists….

Roy used a historical-critical study of Christian scripture to show that Jesus was not divine and not part of the Trinity, that salvation came through the teaching of Jesus and not vicarious atonement, and that the Holy Spirit had no separate existence. He did not, however, assert that Jesus was a mere man, but a being with special powers and a status "superior even to the angels in heaven."….

[In 1822,]Roy published William Ellery Channing's landmark sermon, "Unitarian Christianity," together with a critical review.[ix]

In correspondence with Henry Ware, Sr., Unitarian Professor of Divinity at Harvard and previously minister of First Parish/Old Ship here in Hingham, Roy described the nature of his own reform within Hinduism that had led to his Unitarian views.  In 1828, Roy founded “a new group, the Brahmo Samaj, dedicated to one God and taking its scriptural authority from the Vedas [the ancient Hindu scriptures].”  To this day, his portrait is hung on the second floor of the headquarters of our Unitarian Universalist Association at 25 Beacon Street, with dignity equal to the portraits of William Ellery Channing and Hosea Ballou, the founders of Unitarianism and Universalism in America.

Another intersection is found among the Unitarians of the Khasi Hills in India.  They describe their own history this way:

The Unitarians of India live mostly in the northeast corner of India near the Himalayas. This area became part of India under British rule. Along with colonial rule came Welsh Presbyterian missionaries, who came in the early 19th century. They introduced a school system, a written form of the Khasi language using our English alphabet), and the Christian religion. Welsh Presbyterians believed that God was male, three-part, and harshly judgmental.

Hajom Kissor Singh rebelled against this view. He proposed a new religion that reclaimed the traditional tribal beliefs of monotheism in a new form and established several congregations based upon these beliefs. British missionaries told him that he sounded like a Unitarian, and he was put in touch with British and American Unitarians. He recognized beliefs he held in common with them, and the churches he was establishing received support and became known as Unitarian, as they are still. Their number has grown steadily in recent decades and now there are about 8000 Unitarians in 32 churches and 5 fellowships.[x]

So, then, Divali becomes for us an opportunity to reflect on our own ways of formulating our understanding of that which lies beyond what Forrest Church calls “The Cathedral of the World,” that many-windowed house of worship in which there are almost infinitely many windows, each taking in more or less of the light which shines in from the outside, none of which can fully encompass or understand or express the multiplicity of that mystery which lies outside of the cathedral, whose reality, if we could only see it straight on, would be seen to be one.

This festival of lights, like so many others, celebrates the triumph of good over evil, right over wrong, faith against many obstacles toward the fulfillment of the highest of ideals to which we can only direct ourselves but never finally achieve.

May we be enlightened and blessed by the lights of Divali.

Amen.

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