Deepavali Tattvam

There are a total of twenty-seven separate verses of upadesa (spiritual teaching) that Sri Ramana composed, which are not included in the Upadesa Nunmalai section of ஸ்ரீ ரமண நூற்றிரட்டு (Sri Ramana Nultirattu), the Tamil ‘Collected Works of Sri Ramana’, but which could appropriately be included there.

Sri Sadhu Om gathered these twenty-seven verses together and arranged them in a suitable order to form a work entitled உபதேசத் தனிப்பாக்கள், the ‘Solitary Verses of Spiritual Teaching’, and he included this work at the end of his Tamil commentary on Upadesa Nunmalai, which is a book called ஸ்ரீ ரமணோபதேச நூன்மாலை – விளக்கவுரை (Sri Ramanopadesa Nunmalai – Vilakkavurai).

In verses 2 and 3 (which are also verses B4 and B5 of Guru Vachaka Kovai) Sri Ramana explains the tattvam or truth signified by Deepavali (the ‘array [or series] of lights’), an important festival that celebrates the destruction of the demon Narakasura, who symbolises the ego.

In verse 2 he summarises the meaning of verses 181 and 182 of Guru Vachaka Kovai, saying that a person who slays Narakan (the demon who embodies our ego) with the jnana-chakra (the discus of self-knowledge) by investigating ‘where is Narakan, who rules the world of hell (naraka) as “[this] hell-body is I”?’ is Narayana (Lord Vishnu), and that that day (on which Narakasura is thus slain) is the auspicious day of Naraka Chaturdasi (the day of the fourteenth waning moon, on which people commence the Deepavali festival by taking a ritual bath to celebrate his destruction).

In verse 3 he rephrases verse 183 of Guru Vachaka Kovai, saying that Deepavali (the ‘array of lights’) is our shining as self, having scrutinised and thereby destroyed the great sinner, the evil Narakasura, who degenerated by imagining the illusory (or miserable) body abode, which is the form of hell (naraka), to be ‘I’.

That is, Narakasura is our mind or ego, which has fallen from our natural state of pure non-dual self-consciousness by imagining itself to be a body, and he can be killed only by our scrutinising him to know who he really is. When we thus investigate ‘who (or what) is this evil ego?’ and thereby destroy it, we will remain as the victorious Narayana (God), the slayer of Narakasura. This slaying of Narakasura is the significance of Naraka Chaturdasi, and our subsequent shining as Narayana, who is our own real self, is what is symbolised by Deepavali, the festival of the ‘array of lights’.



Courtesy: http://happinessofbeing.blogspot.in/2009/06/upadesa-tanippakkal-explanatory.html