This holiday as many things in India comes from many different standpoints, each state almost has their own interpretation, but within each state different areas celebrate different aspects of it.
In much of the north it's celebrated as the time when Rama came back from his exile in the forest so that he could move off to rescue Sita and destroy the asura Ravana. In some areas of the south Krishna is revered as this time he killed the demon Naraka, and yet in Bengal it's a time they revere Kali for having destroyed the many demons she is renowned for killing.
But the general idea is it's a festival of light, there are stories about why they put lights everywhere as well. All these things including the above stories you can google and find out easily enough. I talk about this type stuff all the time so if you're in my presence I'm sure you'll hear something of them from my interpretation as well, so I'm not going to get into the individual stories although you, if you read my blog regularly or follow my Facebook or Instagram account know which God I follow.
This is about the idea of the light overcoming the dark. I'm not such a big worrier about destroying the dark, without it how would we even know the light was there? It takes contrast to show us these things and without the shadows we would be able to see nothing anyway, so I'm more of the mind that we embrace the dark little corners of our being rather than push and shove to get the light into them, because as one moves the lamp the shadows move into different spots anyway. And often it changes it focus as well as it moves. Different issues tend to stick in different areas of the body and we highlight them when move our focus from one area to another!
The point is we all have darkness, if that is what we need to call it. Or the metaphor is we all have demons, so whether you're Krishna, or Vishnu in any form, Kali or any god or goddess who's killed one, the metaphor is working through ones own issues and coming out the other side with a new understanding. Those understandings can change and deepen as well, they're not guaranteed to stay gone, but usually to change form, so an embracing of them is much more apt to do the job than to try to rid yourself of them completely.
As long as we're in a body we're not likely to rid ourselves of our issues, but if we can learn to work with them or through them then maybe we can be a lighthouse, or lamp, to another as they are just learning that overcoming things is possible.
Happy Divali all! May your light, and your "darkness" be all bound up together! lol
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