The night of Amavasya

Regarded divine across cultures, The Moon is regarded as God or Goddess in different cultures. Most religions be it Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Wicca have strong connection with the Moon. By some, the Sun is considered the Yang or the masculine function, the creator of life whereas the Moon is the Yin or the feminine function, the nurturer of our soul, thereby maintaining celestial harmony through their alliance.

There are 13 full moons in a year and world over most religious festivals are centred around the Moon. Poornima is considered extremely auspicious and no auspicious work is ever done on Amavasya. Full Moon festivals in India are Holi, Janamashtami,Vat Purnima, Budh Purnima, Guru Purnima, Rakshabandhan whereas Deepawali, the festival of lights, is celebrated on the New Moon/Amasvasya for certain spiritual reasons as the scriptures explain.

To understand the inluence of the Moon one has to understand its phases and how they influence our energy, psyche and behaviour. It is believed that both Poornima and Amavasya have colossal effects on the nature of life and human psyche in general. It is believed that on the Amavasya it is the subconscious mind that is vulnerable and on the Full Moon it is the emotions and behaviour that are affected.

Diwali falls on the spiritually darkest Amavasya where both the Sun and Moon are weak and it’s assumed that dark forces or the shadow side would be stronger. So if you ask me why the festival is celebrated on that day, the reason is simple — Sun is the planet of light, Moon is the planet of wealth. On the day of Diwali, these two planets are weak and dark forces are very powerful. Since this is so, we pray, worship, and light candles/diyas to strengthen good forces.

Good forces require support in terms of all the lighting and worshipping efforts. In other words, praying, worshipping, lighting candles are mass-scale remedies to support good forces against dark forces. We remove tamas (dark) and bring jyoti (good forces) back by defeating the dark forces. Our sages were very intelligent; they knew when this world needs mass scale remedies and made the festival on that day.

Diwali also connotes the victory of truth over falsity, good over evil and light over darkness, may this Diwali bring more light to your lives.

The writer is a rune expert, a clinical hypnotherapist and HYL workshop leaderhypnotherapist and HYL workshop leader