Celebrations of Holi have, over the centuries, evoked both the sacred and the profane in riotous, and often scandalous, combinations. The vibrant play of colours, the almost-mandatory intoxication, the chase and the douse, the music and the poetry associated with the festival have provided material as much for spiritual inspiration as for sensual pleasure.
The act of being doused with colour, for instance, could be a beautifully nuanced metaphor for inner transformation. When the ego-self, one’s psychological skin so to speak, absorbs the effulgence of the divine, it can no longer remain as it was. Just as the repeated application of abeer-gulal gradually obliterates one’s physical identity, so much so that characterising differences disappear and one human being becomes indistinguishable from another, the spiritually transformed self becomes coloured with the divine and the markers of its previous identity are no longer visible. One’s limited individuality is lost and, in effect, merged with the divine.
The grinding of tesu flowers to make colour and cannabis leaves to make bhang is the grinding the spiritual aspirant’s ego-self must undergo during the process of inner transformation. For, on the spiritual path, one must grind down cherished and long-held beliefs and habit-patterns that form the basis of one’s selfhood. To find one’s true self, one must first lose one’s self. To achieve fanaa, annihilation of the limited ego-self, the form of the tesu flower must be destroyed and only its essence retained. This annihilation is difficult and painful, only because one clings to false notions of self. If the flower knew that its true being lay in its essence, would it begrudge the process of distilling it?
Who would be the perfect companion to play this Holi of self-annihilation with? One who has achieved that state and is a willing participant, or guide, in the spiritual journeys of others. The 17th century mystic poet of Punjab, Bulleh Shah, conjures up the image of a spiritual Holi in this oft-quoted kaafi:
Hori khelungi, keh Bismillah
Naam Nabi ki rattan chadi,
boond padi Allah Allah
Rang rangeeli ohi khilave,
Jis seekhi ho fanaa fi Allah
(I will play Holi in Allah’s name
The Prophet’s name is effulgent
Only he can help us
play Holi in its true form
Who has annihilated
his self in Allah)
The casting of Holi as a festival of self-annihilation is not necessarily at variance with the spirit of hedonism usually attached to it. For isn’t it all about forgetting oneself, stepping out of the bounds of everyday life, and dropping mundane ways of perception, even if it is for just a day and with the aid of external intoxicants? The spiritual seeker perhaps aspires to a similar state of dropping the everydayness of being, but it is induced by inner transformation and closeness to the divine. What is a momentary dissolution during Holi for the rest of us is a moment-to-moment occurrence for one who is God-intoxicated.
