22/10/2025
Diwali, the Festival of Light, marks a sacred portal where darkness gives way to illumination, a time when the veils between the seen and unseen thin, inviting renewal, clarity, and the awakening of divine consciousness within.
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While we often celebrate Diwali outwardly with lamps, sweets, and gatherings with loved ones, its deeper invitation is inward. It asks us to confront our own inner shadows, the doubts, fears, and attachments that dim our light, and to rekindle the flame of awareness within.
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In preparation for Diwali, I personally took a full day out to sit in spiritual silence. Detached completely from the outer world, to give love to my inner world, a world that, despite the work I do in this field, I often neglect within myself.
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On this full and complete day of worldly withdrawal I took abstinence from speaking, reading and writing, and followed a simple vegetarian satvik diet. What one might imagine to be a blissful day of inner peace was quite the opposite. Instead, I found myself experiencing many moments of total despair: sobbing, crying, desperate to connect with the outside world, to reach for the metaphorical âdrugâ of endorphins or oxytocin.
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Ordinarily I might have messaged a friend, connected with a love interest, numbed by aimlessly scrolling social media, indulged in sugary foods, or gone to the gym for an adrenaline hit. When I took those things away, there was nothing left but the raw truth of my Self.
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Sitting with her was profoundly difficult. Why? Because I had ignored her for so long that it felt uncomfortable to return. She felt almost stranger-like. But through returning to her, I came home to myself and re-found my connection to the Greater Being, or God if you will. And to be clear, God is not a man sitting in the sky judging. God in my spiritual framework is myself facing myself. It is myself knocking on the door to my own heart. And what I saw is me waiting patiently for me to answer the door of my own calling. And in that space of silence, and in the sacred honouring of Diwali, I answered my own call.
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(Continued in comments)
