Awakening the light within.
Yesterday we celebrated Diwali.
Every year, we (my family members and me) go to Kali Badi to celebrate Kali Puja. It usually falls on the same day as Diwali or a day early, depending on amavasya. My mum and dad fast and I usually eat a lot that day. The puja generally starts late at night, say about 10ish and is completed at about 1:30 or 2 a:m. The people who have been fasting for the whole day eat some prasad and then we all wait for the bhog which is served about at 4:30. It includes pulao, sabji, chatni, fish and a sweet.
I try to be here on each Kali Puja. My mom &/or my boyfriend join/s me. Although, I haven’t been completely alone ever, but I hope I will come every year no matter what. This whole idea of coming to the puja is significant to me. I go through a complete life-experience in one night. It starts with me putting on all the layers of clothes I have brought, then feeling warm, then after an hour or so, feeling cold, then having coffee, buying books, taking a walk on the lane near the mandir, eating chicken, sitting for couple of hours, feeling warm, feeling cold to the point where my nerves feel like they will start freezing and finally standing in the queue and getting my bhog. Eating the bhog after this experience makes it extra delicious.
After reaching home, we ate the bhog and slept for a while. This time since it was Diwali we got started preparing for it post noon. I felt like a certain cloud had left my head for these two days. It has continuously been a struggle to be and do for the last three months. I have been zoned out and felt lost more times than I would like to, but somehow everything came together for these two days. When I thought about this “good feeling” I could not decipher why I felt so light and nice. What changed within these two days?
Some thoughts are as follows:
· A project that I have been stuck at for last three months, has finally started taking shape. It is still a long way ahead but it definitely pepped my mood to see it happening.
· I had very few goals for the day. Take a bath, take out warm clothes for ma and me, get ready and get going. Eat bhog!
· I was trying to be okay with reality. While walking through the streets and being at the pandal, I could see a lot of things, which I mostly don’t feel okay with. I would normally crib about these things, and kinda unsettle myself. That night I took a different approach and said that I am going to be a witness and simply observe. It made be present with the moment.
· As a reflection: If Kali Puja and Diwali can go good without me fussing over, why can’t life? I have so many expectations out of each day that it feels burdensome to walk sometimes.
· One of the greater realizations was that energy attracts energy. I was excited and so I felt more energy in me. I was simply excited to be, without any huge expectations attached to the excitement. On normal days, I am not in a capre diem mood and that is okay, but sometimes if one has too many slow days over rhythmic ones, then pumping it up a bit doesn’t harm.
· Dressing up is a good mood lifter. When I feel shitty I dress shitty and so I look shitty, which is also okay for a couple of days only. Just the act of combing my hair, putting on some kajal and fitting into my sweaters (huraay!) made me feel good.
· One last realization, even if it seems impossible to chin up through the super gloomy dark, there is always something that I can think and do, to change the way my reality is making me feel. Nothing physically changed in the last two days, the world problems, my financial, physical, mental problems are all there as always. That which changed was my perspective. I feel the energy in me. Strong enough to write this blog and do some work and be.
That is what counts (for me).
