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Diwali motorcade attracts thousands

Oct 26, 2011 News

 

Thousands of curious Guyanese lined the East Coast Demerara seawall all the way to the village of La Bonne Intention (LBI), last evening, to get a glimpse of the always spectacular Diwali Motorcade.
The Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha which organizes the motorcade for the Festival of Lights – Diwali, has been tirelessly putting forward these colourful displays of various representations of the meaning of the event for ages.
When the event started decades ago, it was mainly one of vehicles with lights, but the motorcades have grown over the years to include artistic depictions of Hindu gods and goddesses, namely Mother Laxhmi, hailed as the goddess of light.
In  the motorcade there were children dressed as the God Vishnu and the Goddess Laxhmi.
The event also displayed the creativity of Hindu believers..
The motorcades commenced in 1974, after the Sabha’s president, Reepu Daman Persaud, thought that the festival of Diwali was too significant an occasion to just be restricted to the lighting of diyas on Diwali night.
Central to Hindu philosophy is the assertion that there is something beyond the physical body and mind which is pure, infinite, and eternal, called the Atman.
Just as one celebrates a birthday, Diwali, for Hindus, is the celebration of this inner light, in particular the knowing of which outshines all darkness (removes all obstacles and dispels all ignorance), awakening the individual to one’s true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality.
With the realisation of the Atman comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings Ananda (inner joy or peace).
Diwali celebrates this through lights, flowers, sharing of sweets, and worship.
In Hinduism, across Guyana, Diwali is the homecoming of Lord Rama after a 14-year exile in the forest and his victory over Ravana. In the legend, the people of Ayodhya (the capital of his kingdom) welcomed Rama by lighting rows of lamps.
While Diwali is popularly known as the “festival of lights”, the most significant spiritual meaning is “the awareness of the inner light”.

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