Celebration is not Entertainment!

Health and Happiness - Dr Dwarakanath 

Krishna brings this Celebration into the life of Humans. He says, ‘let me be one with this cosmic celebration’. It should not be misunderstood that there will be no work, if we turn the life into a celebration. I once heard from one of my very wealthy client who has also learnt Gita, “I am a billionaire; it doesn’t mean I am the happiest. It just means I can choose to weep sitting in my limousine instead on an open ground”. I was shocked and also felt sad for him. I immediately knew that I must make him understand Krishna before he understands Gita.

In this world, Entertainment has taken the place of Celebration. Entertainment and celebration are never the same. In celebration we are a participant, which is active. In entertainment we watch others playing for us, it is passive. It is not even an apology for Celebration. Obsession with work has taken away the moments of celebration from our life, and we have been deprived of the excitement and thrill that comes with celebration. We all had to find a substitute for celebration and entertainment has become the substitute. Because we do need a few moments of relaxation, a brief spell of diversion, we go and watch the love in movie, play or books! But for God’s sake know love directly. Only then you will be satiated and happy. Real love and love for life alone can make life festive, a celebration, entertainment won’t. Krishna is all for celebration. He takes the life as a great play, a mighty drama. We must understand, ‘Krishna is not against entertainment, he is just against substituting it for Celebration’.

Once in Bali, I was staying in a hotel and as I love to dance (no formal dance of any style!), every evening, I used my ‘I-pod’ and ear phone, I dance on the terrace for an hour. After two weeks, at dinner time, my 70 year old neighbour gentle man from Russia joined me at my table. He said, “Dr. Dwarak, I know you dance every evening on the terrace all alone. I can hear the thumping sound from my room”. I apologized to him for the disturbance and promised him that I will change my location. He replied with a smile, “Dr. Dwarak, you don’t have to change the place but I knew that you have not been trained to dance, but after listening to you dance for few days I realized the rhythm reflects happiness, your soul”. Later I came to know he was a Bale dance teacher. Celebration is the rhythm of soul, which the entertainment can never be substituted for. Life as celebration is a different thing altogether; Life as work pales in insignificance before it.

It is true that Krishna’s lovers, true followers like Meera, Radha, gradually withdrew themselves from the world of outer activity, from the world of extroversion. They dived deep into the interiority of life and drank at the fountain of Bliss. They all were in realization- Moksha. Meera and Radha like people are in contact with life at its deeper level. They are a class by themselves, they are rare. Their being, their ecstasy comes from being, not doing. Their songs and dance, are not a piece of work, it is an expression of bliss. They are so blissful that they are bursting into song and dance.

We need bread, but bread is not everything. We need bread to live, but many people in our present world are stock piling bread and in the mean time, forget about eating and living. By the time they succeed in making a mountain of bread their appetite is gone and they are perplexed about what to do with the huge stock. Most of the trouble arises from our madness to do too much. With just the disappearance of overdoing, many things like tension, anxiety and diseases will disappear. It will be a sane world indeed. I am in complete accord with festive vision of life, which is the life of Krishna. So, let us understand Krishna, to understand Gita.

Wishing you all good health and happiness,

Dr. Dwarakanath, Director

Mitran foundation- the stress management people!