Diwali meditation 6 – Naraka Chaturdashi – Call the Lord to free us from our hell
Hare Krishna Diwali is one of the most well known and widely celebrated festivals in the Indian calendar let's look at some of the incidents that make Diwali so significant we have the festival of Narak Chaturdashi in Narak Chaturdashi broadly speaking there are historical and philosophical significance to it the scriptures depict an ancient battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil and periodically the forces of evil become much stronger and then the divine descends and intervenes and sets right the disruption of the universal order that has happened because of the predominance of the forces of evil so there was a demonic being Narakasur who had captured various powerful kings and had taken away their princesses and he had abducted them all and imprisoned them in a formidable fortress that was impenetrable this was known as Pravjyotisha, the kingdom where even light could not penetrate without the will of the predominating king when this demon penetrated into the kingdom of the gods and stole away the ornaments of the mother of the gods Aditi at that time his offenses became intolerable for the demons and Krishna entered into the demons abode penetrating through all the obstacles that he had created so the kingdom of Pravjyotisha it had several protective mechanisms and each of these protective mechanisms represents the one level of covering on each of our souls we, the Bhakti texts describe, are souls who are imprisoned within material existence and Pravjyotisha is like that material existence and he had a powerful wall then he had a strong moat then he had a wall which touched fire which as soon as it would touch would give out fire then he had stormy wind which would blow through another moat and then he had elements like this multiple obstacles so these represent the earth, water, fire, air, ether all of which cover the soul and then he had a formidable demon commander who represents the mind and Krishna effortlessly penetrated through all of them and delivered all those who had been imprisoned by Narakasura so Narakasura represents the freedom from the hellish condition the Naraka that Narakasura had put his captives in and this victory of Krishna signifies the victorious entry of Krishna into our hearts, the soul is covered by various layers of ignorance but if we desire the Lord's presence in our heart then he will surely manifest just as he broke through this fortress to come to rescue those who had been victimized similarly he comes to each one of us and just as he freed the captives from the hellish conditions he also can free us from the hellish conditions or whatever they may be in our life and thus this day is an occasion to commemorate the victorious entry of the Lord into our heart and to pray that that entry happened not just on this day but on every day of our life thank you Hare Krishna.