Amongst the main festivals of Bharat, Holi-Dhuleti holds a significant place. It is a Hindu festival that has gained popularity in countries like the Republic of Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad, UK and Nepal. It is also known with different names such as Dolyatra, Rangotsav or Vasantotsav. In Andhra Pradesh, it is known as “Kaam Dahan”. In the evening of the full moon of Phalgun month, at the outskirts of the village or in the town, a large bonfire is ignited, made up of fire wood and dung cake. People, dancing and singing, gather there and walk around the bonfire in a circle.  Holy offerings like coconut are put in this fire. Although this festival is celebrated in many different ways across various states of Bharat, the main objective remains the same, that is to burn away the vices within and to respect the divine powers.

The next day after Holi is called Dhuleti. Starting in the morning, with great joy and enthusiasm, people start putting colour on each other. Dyes made from Kasuda flowers or dry colors like Abil, Gulaal are mainly used to colour each other. Later in the evenings people gather and enjoy a feast together. Most festivals are connected with historical stories that have a deep rooted spiritual significance to it. In the modern times, the spiritual significance is lost from these festivals. There are many stories attached to the festival of Holi, one of the well known is one about Prahlad.

Once upon a time a devilish king Hiranyakashipu had received a boon of being immortal, through blessings from Brahma. He started to think of himself as God, he forbided his citizens to praise God. But his own son Prahlad was a hard worshiper of Lord Vishnu and this made Hiranyakashipu very angry. He tortured Prahlad in many ways to make him give up the worship, yet failed in every attempt. Finally Hiranyakashipu ordered his sister Holika (who was blessed with a ‘Stole Or Shawl’ that would always protect her from fire) to sit on a pyre with Prahlad in her lap so that she would remain safe with the shawl causing Prahlad to burn to death. Prahlad obeyed the orders of his father and sat on the fire in remembrance of Lord Vishnu. When the fire was ignited, as a matter of shock, the shawl covering
Holika blew off and wrapped Prahlad, keeping him safe from the fire. Ultimately Holika got burnt to death and Prahlad stayed safe and sound. These stories are symbolic representations and bring us a
divine message. Prahlad symbolizes Joy, whereas Hiranyakashipu and Holika represent Ego, Revenge, which gets burnt at the end and love and joy prevails.

If we celebrate this festival with true understanding, then it will be beneficial to us and others.  If we take a look around, we can see that the current time is of similar darkness and extreme viciousness. There is sorrow, fear, violence, corruption and sin all over the world. In such a hard time, the Supreme
Soul Shiv (as promised in Geeta), himself arrives in the body of Brahma to re-establish the pure world.

In the current time, through Brahma, the Supreme God is teaching us to liberate ourselves from
the vices within, like Lust, Anger, Greed, Ego and Attachment. These teaching bring relevance and true importance to the festival of Holi. Holi represents fire and Holika represents the vices. If we now
incorporate the teachings imparted by the Supreme Soul Shiv and ignite the fire of Yog (connection with the Supreme) and Gyan (knowledge given by Supreme God Shiv) to burn away the vices and the karmic bondages to imbibe the divine virtues in our life then we can safely come out from the extreme challenges in our life, like Prahlad did.

In other words, let us burn out the negativity and corrupt thoughts from our mind and make our
soul and mind pure and gentle. The ritual of burning out the dry leaves, twigs and wood might have started with the intention of cleaning up the fallen foliage in autumn, but considering the present scenario of extreme deforestation, shortage of resources like wood and downgrading of the
environment, does it really make sense to burn away the wood, the utmost useful
commodity? Spiritually speaking Holi is not about the physical fire but the spiritual fire of knowledge ignited by God within us. It is an indication to ignite a fire of God’s remembrance within our mind
to burn away the negativity.

Dhuleti means a festival of colours, on this day we spray colours on each other to express joy and delight. In addition to the physical colours we must remember the spiritual secret behind it is, to get coloured
in the company of God and colour our lives with virtues and divinity would be a successful way of celebrating Holi. 
Currently in all our festivals we see an influence of viciousness. In the name of Dhuleti and colouring, there is perverse behavior expressed. There is also a rise in mental health issues in people. Usually due to fear of the society or social norms, people cannot completely express their vices, however they can be seen during such celebrations. Under the spirit of joke and fun, a person’s pervertness is satisfied. Due to such viciousness the purity of this auspicious festival is being infracted.

The Brahma kumaris Organisation has an interesting interpretation of Holi. The word holi in Hindi (meaning : “Holy” in English) refers to Purity which means to purify the mind, body, wealth and intellect through the remembrance of the ocean of purity, the Supreme Soul Shiv. Another interpretation is “Ho – Li”, which in Hindi means “it has happened”, this reminds us to put the past behind. The past is past, forget what happened and move on to a better future. Many of us live either with the ghosts of the past or the worries of the future. Let’s understand these spiritual interpretations to live in the present moment and make it successful.