Holi Celebrations, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon, Delhi, India, 29 March 2002.

(translated from hindi)

Holi was started during the time of Shri Krishna. Before Him in the time of Shri Rama .... He was very austere. Because of that the society became very peaceful but people were devoid of all joy. So He thought that there should be a way by which people should be able to laugh freely and be joyful. And like it happens to all such ventures it happened in the case of Holi also that it produced an opposite effect. They started playing Holi in a very wrong way. It brought a very bad name to this festival. And it deteriorated to such an extent that I said, I will never play Holi now.

The story of how it started is like this. There was a demo ness called Holika. She was the sister of Prahlad and Prahlad’s father used to trouble him a lot. Holika had a boon that she would not be burnt by the fire. Prahlad’s father wanted to kill him and told Holika to take the child (Prahlad) and sit on the burning pyre thinking that she would not die. But it is surprising that she died and Prahlad was not hurt in the fire and came out of it unscathed. This is a very big happening which demonstrated that it is very wrong to be cruel and aggressive. She had the boon but still she got burnt. That’s why we have this custom on Holi.

In our country all such things have a lot of truthfulness. We have to understand that if we do wrong things, trouble others ... then these are demonic qualities. Right sided people develop these demonic qualities in them. We should not allow any such thoughts to come to our brain or give them any importance. We should love everyone. This is very important and we must understand it very well otherwise we will all become Holika, a demon. There is a very big lesson in this that although Prahlad was a small child yet he was not hurt at all. He was saved by the Almighty and this lady who had a boon that she would not be burnt, was burnt. She had obtained this boon after a lot of penance. She got burnt and he was saved.

We can draw a conclusion from this that all these characteristics that we develop are destructive and we should get rid of them. We should have a feeling of love and charity towards all. To fight with others, or shout at them are not good and these are demonic qualities. We should not have these demonic qualities because we are Sahaja Yogis. We are a special race of people who have taken birth to transform this world and we should pay our attention towards that. We are very highly placed, higher than all others and we have to save all others from such tendencies. These days it has spread a lot. That’s why all such hateful, cruel behaviour by which we dominate others, torture others is very, very bad and there is no need to do all that in Sahaja Yoga.

You are yourself very powerful. You have such powers within you that even if someone tries to torture you in any way, you will be saved like Prahlad. Nobody can destroy you. You are under protection. Nothing can destroy you. That’s why you should not have any feeling of hatred or dislike towards anybody. You should have a feeling of love and compassion towards others and try to transform them. If you become forgiving towards such persons, then he can be alright. There is a very big example before us of Prahlad who was a small child and he challenged his father who was a demon. But he was saved and the father was killed. It is not a question of dying but it destroys you. Whatever negative thoughts that we have bring about our destruction. So if we ever have a feeling of hatred or revenge towards anyone then we should take it out.

This is the message of Holi for all of you.