We all experience various emotions due to good or bad times, benevolence or obstacles, hopes or disappointments, of meeting or separation, happiness or sorrow, enthusiasm or depression. A devotee too experiences these emotions of bliss of God's grace or the pain of pining in His absence. These varied emotions are the colours that signify Holi in the true sense.
To welcome the advent of Spring, there is a tradition of worshipping the god of Fire, and this was considered to be the Holika-dahan or burning Holi. There is the Pauranik (mythic) story of the devotee Prahlad and Holika. When the different plans to kill Prahlad failed, his father Harinyakashyapu ordered Holika to take Prahlad in her lap and sit on bonfire. Holika had the boon which made her impervious to fire. But she herself gets burned and dies and Prahlad comes out unscathed. so Holi is celebrated as a symbol of the protection of dedicated devotees. Also, there has been a tradition in ancient India of celebrating the advent of different seasons - be it spring or winter. The festival of Holi has a special place among festivals. There are many references to Holi festival in ancient Sanskrit literary texts.
In spring, the nature is in its full glory. The buds start to break and beautiful colourful flowers bloom everywhere. Their intoxicating fragrance fill the air making us ecstatic, birds sing on the blossoming mango trees, the hoots of cuckoos drives one mad, the yellow carpeted mustard fields adorn the fields, the lotus flowers bloom and the bumblebees hum sitting on them and the lukewarm winds full of fragrance have the strange mesmerising effect on human mind and the rest of creation.
People sing and play with dry and wet colours using water guns to celebrate Holi. They visit friends and relatives in groups. Mostly Vaishnavas (a sect based on the pastimes of Radha-Krishna) celebrate this festival to commemorate the sweet leela of Sri Radha, Krishna and Gopis some 5000 years ago in Braj. The Holi of Barsana (the birth place of Radha), therefore, holds special significance. It is called the Rangili Holi.
We will read Meerabai's poems on Holi in this section. Most of the poems that Meera wrote on Holi describe Radha-Krishna's Holi-leela. There are some poems on meeting one's beloved and some on pining away in his absence. The woman whose beloved is not present during Holi can hardly enjoy it and she remembers their past meetings and feels her beloved's absence with greater intensity.
Whatever goes on in the vast cosmos can also be called Holi. Like the Holi that people celebrate, this cosmic Holi is also imbued with the various dual emotions of happiness-sadness, virtue-vices, love-hatred etc. One has to overcome these dualities of mind with various practices to attain the blissful state where the individual soul and the Higher soul merge into One. This union of individual self and Supreme Self is called the play of Holi. Therefore, whatever a devotee does and experience to attain this goal of Union with the Divine, all those sentiments and sensibilities are Holi in a way. Keeping this in view, Meera exhorts people to utilize this extremely rare human birth and the transient youth and establish themselves in the love of God.
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1.
With who shall I play Holi?
My lover has forsaken me.
I rejected rubies and pearls
and wear a necklace of Tulsi beads.e.
Food and home do not make me happy,
without my beloved, I am going mad.
Why do I suffer this rejection?
Now you have bestowed your love on others.
Why di you love me first?
Many days have passed
and you have not returned.
I am getting increasingly restless.
Who can this deserted talk to?
Like vine without water
my soul remains thirsty without Shyam.
Reveal yourself, O my Lord!
I am your follower life after life.
I stand here
waiting for your sighting.
2.
O friend, I will play Holi with my Giridhar Nagar.
I colour my lover in the dye of love
I will colour Him with the hues of my mind
and will dance thus imbued.
I will cuddle Shyam covered in saffron colour.
I will play Holi with my lover
smearing the dust of His feet on my forhead
Servant Meera, Lover Giridhar,
He is mine for life.
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