Diwali festival begins today with Dhanteras 

Diwali is a three-day festival beginning on Dhanteras two days before the main festival of lights, crackers and Laksmi pooja. This day Dhanteras is important for shopping when people go out to shop all big items particularly planned for Dhanteras day. The list may include from plot for building a house, a constructed house or a vehicle but most people shop for jewelry and utensils as mandatory items for this day if nothing big. 

Diwali festival is primarily celebrated for celebrating ‘win of good over evil’. May God Ganesha and Goddess Lakshmi bring us lots of fortunes with our efforts put during entire year and hoping to do better during coming year! But does that mean we are looking forward to accumulate more wealth by seeing things from a particular viewpoint - where money is prime factor of our life, is that so? That is not my idea of celebrating this festival. Money counts of course it does for sure but there are certain other points however, we are not looking at those crucial aspects of life like the traditional relations, peaceful co-existence and helping each other in times of need have lost their way somewhere behind the fake values of festival.

The glitter of gold has perhaps hidden the brighter side of life and relations behind money. What we see today is lights, a sea of lights all around but the darkness deep inside, no one wants to look inside to remove some of it to celebrate the festival with its true values. Today money seems to be prime object; we worship Lakshmi expecting to bring more of it by firing extra crackers on this occasion or lighting a few hundred extra bulbs or lighting more candles. We, while celebrating the festival of Diwali forget the millions who have no electricity to light their houses but we enjoy and look at those selected few thousands who spend billions and consume the better part of the resources available in this poor country. 

Few thousand people can go out and purchase deities studded with diamonds worth millions but what about the millions who are looking from distance inhaling fumes coming from firing crackers! No one is looking at them every one is busy showcasing his Lakshmi so shamelessly. Is this real Diwali, do we get any thing out of this celebration? Do we know how many suffer from lungs related problems every year because we overdid our cracker firing! We have right to show our happiness in our own ways but do the people who have no means to use firecrackers have any rights of their own to save their own lungs and hearts? We shall have to think over it with a new vision and we have not much time left to do that, we are on the brink of breakdown of social and environmental system. We have done enough fake celebrations

we must act now to save our society and values of real Diwali

Diwali is festival of Laksmi pooja, celebrated for the sole purpose of making money in the year to come. We worship Goddess Lakshmi to bless us, to enable us earn more but should we forget the basics of honesty just to earn more money for ourselves and forget about others! Do we consider what people are eating today? That is total contaminated with items not meant for eating not impure or dirty but those are far beyond eating purpose. While we look at the ingredients people are mixing to make edibles for people to eat on festive times that should shock you to the core. They are out to make money by killing you. You eat items in the name of festival, which you will not touch from a ten feet distance. But you are not only eating these items but also gifting them to your family and friends. Goddess save you from evil and keep you alive, this is time to say no to all contaminated items.                   

We are getting richer and our lists of billionaires are getting longer, so are the lists of scams. Can we pray to Lakshmi to save us from these scammers! That should help us celebrate the festival in better way. If these scammers would leave some thing for us out of the budgets allocated perhaps, we shall get our quota of facilities in a better way. That would be our true festival, when the light would reach to us the poor people of this country. Please do not count the richness of this country with the list of Forbes but look at the people who have begging bowl in their hands, their list is getting longer. This is time to wakeup before this is too late. 

The basic message of Diwali ‘victory over evil’ has changed to ‘victory of money’ every one wants to show off as much as he can. Let us not forget the values of our great country where people preach ‘Asta Siddhi -Nav Nidhi’ meaning newly acquired wealth of different kinds with best of our efforts. Have a look at the list, which does not consist of diamonds, gold and other precious stones only. The list also does not consist of new buildings and vehicles but the hard-earned knowledge that enables us to differentiate between right and wrong values of life. The knowledge of right and wrong that is happenings in the society and the most important knowledge of choosing the best ways for our trouble free future life.  Let us celebrate this Diwali with no show business, no contaminated sweets and other fruit items, the real light that removes the darkness from society and provides happiness to family, friends and neighbors, the true spirit to live in complete harmony. We should celebrate this Diwali keeping the worldly profit and loss away and bringing the true gains by doing best of our efforts that brings Goddess in true sense to our house with all her willingness. I wish you all a very prosperous Diwali that bring you true happiness and wealth- Happy Diwali. May Goddess come to your doors with every joy of life.