Tonight, across India, the lamps are lit. Clay diyas on every windowsill, along every wall, at every doorstep. It is easy to enjoy the beauty of it without asking the simplest question: why lamps? Why tonight?
The answer comes from one of the most loved homecomings in all of Indian tradition.
After Dussehra
On Vijayadashami, Rama defeated Ravana. That is the victory we celebrated a few weeks ago with the burning of effigies. But the story does not end on the battlefield. Fourteen years of exile were complete. Sita had been found and freed. And now Rama, Sita and Lakshmana had to make the long journey home to Ayodhya.
Back in Ayodhya, someone had been waiting that entire time. Bharata, Rama's younger brother, had refused to sit on the throne. He had placed Rama's sandals upon it and ruled in Rama's name, living simply outside the city, counting the days. When word came that Rama was returning, Hanuman went ahead to carry the news.
The darkest night of the month
According to the tradition observed across much of India, Rama entered Ayodhya on an Amavasya, the new moon night, when the sky has no moon at all. It was the darkest night of the lunar month.
The people of Ayodhya had waited fourteen years. They were not going to receive their king in darkness. They lit lamps along every street, on every rooftop, at every door. The whole city glowed.
The Sanskrit name tells the story. Deepa means lamp. Avali means a row. Deepavali is, quite literally, a row of lamps. The word we shorten to Diwali is the memory of that night.
When there is no moon, light your own
Think about the detail that the night was an Amavasya. There was no moonlight to rely on. There was nothing in the sky to help. And the people did not sit waiting for light to arrive. They made it.
There is a quiet teaching in that. Most of us wait for the right conditions before we feel at peace: a calmer season at work, an easier stretch of life, someone to change. But the tradition suggests another way. Where there is no light, you light a lamp. A very small one is enough. Many small ones, together, light a whole city.
Dussehra and Diwali are one story
In the Dussehra post earlier on this journal, we read the ten heads of Ravana as the ten faces of the ego: desire, anger, greed, pride, envy, and the rest. If that is Dussehra, then Diwali is what comes next.
The ego is not only defeated. Something returns. Rama returns to Ayodhya. In the yogic reading, awareness returns to its rightful place, the throne that Bharata kept empty and warm for all those years. Dussehra is the clearing. Diwali is the homecoming.
That is why the festival feels the way it does: not triumphant like a victory parade, but warm, like walking back into your own house after a very long journey.
Bharata, the keeper of the empty seat
It is also worth noticing the quiet hero of the story. Bharata did nothing dramatic. He kept faith. For fourteen years he held a place open for someone who was not there, without proof of when they would return.
Every sincere practitioner knows this stage. The days of showing up on the mat, sitting for meditation, doing the breathwork, with no fireworks, no visible progress, just a seat kept ready. The lamps of Ayodhya are what that patience looks like when the guest finally arrives.
A simple practice for tonight
- Light one lamp before the rest. Do it slowly. Let it be the first.
- Sit in front of it for five minutes. Watch the flame without straining. Let your breath settle.
- Ask yourself one question: what in me is ready to come home?
- Stay quiet for a minute after you have asked. You do not need an answer. Asking is enough.
Return
The festival is a reminder that exile ends. That the long stretch of being away from yourself, busy, tired and performing, is not permanent. The way back is not far. It is as close as a flame and a few quiet breaths.
Happy Deepavali to you and your family. May your home, and the one within it, be full of light.