The story behind the festival, Holi, starts with Holika, the sister of Hiranakashyap, the father of Prahalad. Hiranakashyap had declared himself as GOD and wanted his son Prahlaad to worship him and not Vishnu.
When Prahlaad refused to do the same, he was made to sit with Holika in an open fire. Holika had been granted a boon that she would not be burned even if she was on live fire. When she was made to sit with Prahalad on the live fire, the opposite happened. She lost her life and got burned but Prahalad came out alive from the fire.
The above story has a deep spiritual meaning. Hiranakashyap represents the "ego" which when takes control makes one forget about their own consciousness and makes one think of themselves as the supreme power.
The same symbolic representation is seen with Ravana in Ramayana and Kansa in Mahabharata.
Prahlaad symbolises a person with self-realisation or the son of God or one’s consciousness or one’s true self. The consciousness cannot be burned, cut, dried or made wet by anything. It is imperishable and everlasting. All those people who have acquired self-realisation utilising any of the pathway (Bhakti, Karma and Gnana) are in a state of GOD acquaintance and nothing can destroy them. The obstacles to the pathway of self-realisation are mentioned as "attachment, anger, desire, greed and ego".
When all these negative factors overpower any individual, it leads one away from self realisation or away from God. Holika represents the sum total of the negative forces in the body that can kill you if not controlled in time. Getting attached to any of the 5 senses can end in a vicious cycle and one can get burnt in this ‘chakravyuh’ of attachments.
If you are truthful, and have attained a state of one–point contemplation on a known truth, all the negative forces will stay away. All such negative forces if repressed within the body can burn you out over a period of time and that is one of the reasons why all negative emotions should never be suppressed or repressed.
The practice of burning Holi a day before the festival symbolises burning of all your negative thoughts or emotions embedded in the mind and neutralise all the poison arising due to the negative feelings. As soon as negativity is removed from the mind, spiritual vision or the knowledge of the consciousness is attained.
Once this is done, only positive thoughts remain, which is celebrated as sharing and loving each other, the next day. Sharing love is the biggest thing one can do in removing all the above mentioned 5 obstacles to self–realisation. Spreading love reduces anger as well as desires, detaches one from various attachments, reduces greed and brings humility in a person. By burning one’s ego and other negative qualities, we can also burn the ill feeling amongst each other and make everybody a friend. During Holi, the practice therefore, is to visit and meet not only your friends but also those people with whom you are not friendly.
The festival therefore, is an opportunity to spread brotherhood and happiness in the society. WHO defines health as not mere absence of disease but a state of physical, mental, spiritual, social and environmental well-being. Holi, therefore, is a classic example of a custom to create and enhance "social health" amongst the general society. The habit of throwing water on each other also has a deep spiritual meaning. It basically means removing dirt from each other. Dirt here does not means bodily dirt but mental dirt, which once removed leads to spiritual cleanliness.
The whole meaning is not to play Holi superficially or meet each other at a superficial level but to get rid of the negativity at the level of the mind as well. There is no point in celebrating Holi and meeting people unless you remove your negative thoughts about them from the mind.
When you lovingly smear ‘gulal’ (coloured powder) on others, they reciprocate with doubled love and affection. Similarly, always think of good things about people. Express your positive thoughts about these friends loudly – not only in front of them but also in their absence.
Don’t you think your heart will throb with pleasure when they reciprocate?
