True Meaning of Holi

In recent decades, Holi festival seems to have gained a huge worldwide popularity and momentum as celebration of Indian spring festival of colors, which Hindus have gladly accepted but ignored its characterization. In reality, this is far from the truth and the Hindus are pretty much responsible for allowing this reduction if not an outright smear.

Yes, colors, joy and dancing are all happy components of the celebration, but what is not appropriate is to celebrate Holi merely as an event of entertainment. The question is – what are we celebrating? One thing we hear repeatedly is that Holi represents “victory of good over evil”. That is true but every festival is created to spiritually uplift a person. So, how is that helping us as an individual?

Is colorful celebration really the only purpose of Holi? No, it has a very strong underlying spiritual / adhyatmic meaning. Any celebration without fully understanding its true meaning and significance will only provide a temporary happiness. It will be without instilling its core message and will be an exercise in futility. So, let’s break the superficial cover of colors and dive deeper into the true meaning of Holi. Below are the primary elements of the spiritual meaning of Holi beyond its history that most of us have heard several times.

Victory of good over evil – think about our bad practices and behaviors, burn it one by one and overcome with goodness in our hearts to enrich our lives.
Happiness – become optimistic, look forward to a better day with enthusiasm and positive attitude. Nothing will change what you are going to achieve.
Colors – acceptance of different colors from others means accepting others the way they are, forget the past grievances, forgive and embrace them with love and joy. Strengthen bonding within family and friends with love, unity, respect and helping others. Experience the joy of freedom from previous grievances. Use of colors came from Shree Radha and Krushna, how they colored each other on this day with joy and effort to give happiness to others.
Adhyatmic essence – The root of Holi is bhakti. Understand bhakt Prahlad by reading about Prahlad bhakti siddhant.

Bhagwan / God is everywhere and in everything- reminder that we all are an Ansh (part) of Bhagwan / Paramatma and Bhagwan resides in everything.
ईशा वास्यम् इदम् सर्वम्. Make progress in our Adhyatmic journey.

हरेर्नाम हरेर्नाम हरेर्नामैव केवल l कलौ नास्त्यैव नास्त्यैव नास्त्यैव गतिरन्यथा ||