Spirituality & festival: Life should be like Holi — vibrant and full of colors, not dull and boring

• Giving yourself fully to each role brings harmony and makes life colorful: Art of Living Founder
• Even the smallest things, like birds chirping, leaves rustling, or water flowing, are manifestations of the Divine: Spiritual leader
• Just as we see different colors in people, life is a celebration of colors and emotions

GURUDEV SRI SRI RAVI SHANKAR

Life should be like Holi—vibrant and full of colors, not dull and boring. Just like each color stands out distinctly, our different roles and emotions in life should be clearly defined. It is when we mix them up, that confusion and problems come up in our life.

When you’re a father, be a father; when you’re at the office, be focused on work. Mixing these roles causes mistakes to happen. Giving yourself fully to each role brings harmony and makes life colorful.

Just as all colors come from white and mixing them creates black, clarity in our hearts—through faith, silence, peace, and meditation—brings out the beauty of life’s different aspects. This purity gives us the strength to fulfill each role properly.

Play each role from a meditative consciousness. When you work from the space of this pure consciousness, then you will be successful. A poet will be a great poet, a doctor will be a great doctor; whatever you do will be absolutely correct. All you have to do is take a dip within again and again. This clarity leads to success and excellence in whatever you do.

Each and every role in life becomes so simple if you take some rest. But a great obstacle to rest is desire. It gives rise to stress, causes discomfort in your heart and mind. If the desire is about small things, it brings about stress. If it is about a big vision, then it does not create stress. When you meditate there is no stress. Desires bring some contraction within you. So what to do when the desire arises?

Just observing them helps and makes them lighter. When our awareness is focused on the desire (kama), then that state of consciousness is called ‘Kamakshi’. With awareness, desire loses its grip and surrender happens; nectar flows out from within. Goddess Kamakshi is shown as carrying a sugarcane stem in one hand and a flower in the other. You know what this stands for? The sugarcane stem is always hard and needs to be squeezed in order to obtain sweetness, while the flower is soft and collecting nectar from it is so easy. This truly represents life, which indeed has a little bit of both! It is far easier to obtain this bliss from the inside than it is to obtain pleasure from the outside world – which needs a lot more effort.

When we’re joyful, we often forget about the Divine. But we should feel the Divine everywhere, without any sense of separation. Do you ever feel like you’re part of the Earth, the air, or the ocean? Do you feel merged with everything around you? That’s divine love!

Don’t strain to see the Divine. Accept it as a given, like the air. You can’t see air, but you know it’s there. Similarly, the Divine is everywhere. Only the heart can feel its presence.

When you’re completely relaxed, you sense that the whole universe is filled with the Divine. Even the smallest things, like birds chirping, leaves rustling, or water flowing, are manifestations of the Divine.

Beyond what we can see, there’s a realm of Divinity. When you realize this, life becomes a spontaneous celebration, full of vibrant colors.

The festival of Holi is a reminder of the colorful nature of life. Just as we see different colors in people, life is a celebration of colors and emotions. Viewing life this way brings joy and richness to our experiences.