Holi Unitarian Coastal Fellowship March 4, 2018 Rev. Sally B. White 1

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1 1 Holi. Holi is a Hindu spring festival that celebrates the victory of good over evil; the end of winter and the arrival of spring; and a day to play and laugh, forget and forgive, repair broken relationships, (and to spray each other with brightly colored powders!) How does such a holiday speak to the universal human need for release, renewal, and regeneration? How does it speak to you? Reading: In an editorial preface to a collection of Mohandas Gandhi s writings and statements on The Essence of Hinduism, V. B Kher wrote, Hinduism differs from other faiths like Christianity and Islam in two ways. First of all, it does not believe in any dogma and rejects the exclusive claim of any individual, however highly evolved, to the monopoly of Truth. It believes that the Supreme Being may be approached through several paths such as Knowledge (Dnyana), Devotion (Bhakti), Action (Karma), and Yoga (Psychical Control). In fact, in actual life, the path trodden by a seeker may be a combination of two or more of these disciplines, depending on the choice of the individual in consonance with [their] temperament aptitude and attitude. Hinduism is not founded by any individual; it has grown or evolved naturally, and, therefore, remains gloriously undefined. In fact, it cannot be defined precisely as any other religion can be. However, the following description thereof by a foreign thinker is nearer the mark than any other: Hinduism is hardly a dogma but a working hypothesis of human conduct adapted to different stages of spiritual development and different conditions of life. [ p. x]. Message:

2 2 One billion two hundred ninety-two million people live in India today. More than eighty percent of them more than one billion thirty-one million Indians practice the Hindu religion. By the numbers, Hinduism is the world s third-largest religious tradition, surpassed only by Christianity and Islam. More than three million Hindus live in the United States, most of them immigrants. Hinduism is distinctly a minority religion here and is not wellknown or understood. But Hinduism is a most ancient religion, with roots that can be traced back perhaps 4000 years [The World s Great Religions Time Incorporated. p. 11]; the oldest Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, are more than 3000 years old. In four millennia of history and human life, Hinduism has achieved a wisdom and an equanimity that sees the human condition diverse and divergent, colorful and chaotic embraces it and builds on it. If you read about Hinduism on Wikipedia (the infallible source of all knowledge), you will learn that Hinduism includes a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but has no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist. [ The Time-Life book The World s Great Religions says, In theory, Hinduism is the simplest of religions; it boasts no central authority, no hierarchy, no direct, divine revelation, no rigid, narrow moral code. In

3 3 practice it is so complex that on the street corners of the cities, on the bypaths of the villages all over India, countless gurus religious teachers sit for hours each day, surrounded by disciples and profoundly interested bystanders, endlessly dissecting its subtleties. A measure of its seeming contradictions: it has one God, it also has 330 million gods. [The World s Great Religions Time Incorporated. p. 11]. Sarvapelli Radhakrishnan, the philosopher who served as president of the Republic of India in the 1960s wrote, Hinduism requires every [person] to think steadily on life s mystery until [they reach] the highest revelation. Every [one] has the right to choose that form of belief and worship which most appeals to [them]. Hinduism is not a sect but a fellowship of all who accept the law of right and earnestly seek for the truth. [The World s Great Religions Time Incorporated. p. 11]. Hinduism makes room for every temperament, aptitude, and attitude; every different condition of life and stage of spiritual development. Hinduism lives in a diverse world. The late Huston Smith, writes in The World s Religions that Hinduism sees the various major religions as many paths to the same summit. It is possible to climb life s mountain from any side, but when the top is reached the trails converge. At base, in the foothills of theology, ritual, and organizational structure, the religions are distinct. Differences in culture, history, geography, and collective temperament all make for diverse starting points. But beyond these differences, the same goal beckons. [The World s Religions. pp ].

4 4 And Hinduism lives in a world of seasons and cycles, duties and expectations. A religion and a culture that have endured for 4000 years makes a place for the dying-back and the dormancy of winter and for the renewal of spring. On the day after the full moon in early spring, the festival of Holi invites people out of their homes and into the streets to dance, to shout, to play. The darkness of winter may have settled into depression; Holi shakes you out of that! The roots of Holi are no doubt in ancient agricultural festivals: marking the turn of the seasons with boisterous celebrations actually generated power to keep the cycle of the year turning. Like the Roman Saturnalia at the turn of winter, and the spring-time carnivals of Mardi Gras, these festivals of great abandon bring human beings into rhythm with the rhythm of life. But more, they cultivate a consciousness of the power of humans as an integral part of that rhythm: farmers and herders working on and with the land; mothers and fathers bringing new life into being year over year. Holi begins on the evening of the full moon, with an enormous public bonfire. The ancient symbolism of a bonfire is a place and a time of purification: the old or the unwanted is thrown on the fire and burned away, leaving people and places clean and pure and making way for the new and for renewal. For weeks before the bonfire, people (especially young boys) comb the neighborhood for waste or scrap wood (and whatever else they can make off with). The fire is lit at the rising of the moon; flames rise high into the air and neighbors gather to watch, sing, shout and fill the air with noise.

5 5 The next morning, when the embers have cooled, some mix ashes with sandalwood paste and smear them on their foreheads for all the world like the Christian smudges of Ash Wednesday! Holi is certainly a fertility festival. The flowers and the colors of rising spring become colored powders that were originally made from flowers, herbs and roots with healing and health-giving powers. These colored powders are tossed by the handful or blown into crowds in great clouds, or mixed with water and sprayed from squirt guns or blow guns. Have you ever watched clouds of pine pollen blow in spring breezes in this part of North Carolina? The color-play of Holi is like those clouds multiplied a hundred-fold or more. By the end of the day, people are covered in colored powder. Did any of you turn on your computer on Friday and see the Google Doodle in honor of Holi stylized red and yellow and green and blue people dancing and drumming and tossing and spraying color all around? Based on videos I saw on the internet, that depiction of Holi wasn t much of an exaggeration! There is a third dimension to the play of Holi. Traditional Indian society is highly structured. Strong and principled objections have been raised to the hereditary caste system and the rigid role-expectations and inequalities that, still today, govern much of daily life and society in India. But during Holi, those norms are all overturned. Employees and employers, men and women, rich and poor, young and old gather around the bonfire, crowd into streets

6 6 and parks. The air rings with teasing and jokes and pranks. It is permissible to spray or smear or dust anyone and everyone with colored powder or water and follow it up with the disclaimer don t feel offended it s Holi!). Soon, the clothes of the wealthy look like the clothes of the poor; everybody s skin and hair are covered in color all outward signs of class and caste, of role and status disappear. In the evening after color-play, after cleaning up, sobering up and dressing up, people visit friends and relatives, ending the festival in a spirit of forgiveness and new starts. Grafted onto the ancient roots of Holi as a festival of purification, fertility, and rising spring are a number of Hindu legends and stories, featuring various of the gods, their families and their followers. The bonfire becomes the funeral pyre of Holika, who tried to punish her nephew for worshipping the god Vishnu rather than worshipping his father, an evil king. The fire, then, represents the triumph of good over evil, of pure faith over worldly ambition. The colored powder is read into a story about the love between Lord Krishna a blue-skinned incarnation of Vishnu and the pale-skinned Radha. The legends of the gods reflect all the challenges of human life and the dilemmas of human society. We can think of the 330 million Hindu gods and goddesses as embodying literally, giving bodies to the whole range of human experience: strengths and weaknesses, gifts and needs, fears and foibles. From jealousies to rivalries, from impulsiveness to timeless patience, from creation to

7 7 destruction, from overreaching ambition to deep humility there s a god for every temperament, aptitude, and attitude; every different condition of life and stage of spiritual development. And there s a legend or a story for every occasion. Those 330 million gods and goddesses, which are all manifestations of one universal divine energy that Hindus call Brahman, make Hinduism very personal, very relatable very embodied. And so, too, does Holi embody the springtime experience of release, renewal, and regeneration. This is no theoretical appreciation of the turning seasons. On Holi, you are drenched in the colors of the rising spring. You are dusted with the pollen of renewed life. You are drawn to the fire that burns away all the deadwood from your winter; that warms and purifies you for the new life to come. You are stripped of all your pretensions or of all that would hold you back in the ordinary course of things and you, yourself, are reborn at least for a time and offered the possibility of going forward differently, unfettered, re-born. Of course you can choose another course the deep contemplation of the heavens and of earth as they turn in their slow and inexorable cycles. Hinduism offers that path, too the path of reflection more than of action. But every different path in Hinduism embraces all the dimensions of being human: the body, the conscious mind, the individual subconscious and the deep and infinite dimension where we are inseparable and unseparated from all that is.

8 8 Much of Western religion much of what so many Americans know as religion sees body and mind as separate from and inferior to the holy. Hinduism sees them as inextricably linked. Holi is a day to touch the infinite through the richness and the real-ness of the body; through the fearful joy of release, renewal, and regeneration. And the Hindu poet Tagore asks, Is it beyond thee to be glad with the gladness of this rhythm? To be tossed and lost and broken in the whirl of this fearful joy? All things rush on, they stop not, they look not behind, no power can hold them back, they rush on. Keeping step with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away. Colors, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every moment. [STLT #612 Rabindranath Tagore] Begin here. Begin now. Take a moment, in silence, to reflect on all you have heard and seen and understood this morning, spoken and unspoken. The bell will lead us into silence, and music will lead us out. Bell Silence

9 9 Music Blessed be.