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Diwali and New Years Celebrations

Diwali, also known as Deepawali is the festival of lights and is celebrated by the Hindus across the globe. Diwali marks the end of the Hindu calendar and also the last poonam of the year.

The festivities begin by cleaning the temples and homes, a wide variety of delicacies are made and the temples and homes are decorated with lights. The festive ambience commenced a week before Diwali at Maninagar Swaminarayan Gadi Sansthan, Shree Swaminarayan Siddhant Sajivan Mandal - Nairobi. Devotees gathered in the temple to clean every corner off of dirt and make a variety of sweets and snacks to offer Lord Swaminarayanbapa Swamibapa and for every devotee who comes to seek for His divine blessings on these auspicious days. The temple was adorned in colorful lightings that would capture one’s heart.

Supreme Lord Swaminarayan, Jeevanpran Shree Abjibapashree and Muktajeevan Swamibapa too were adorned in new wagha and ornaments. The annakut was exhibited exquisitively, it left everyone amazed. The Diwali festivities started off with meditation, followed by Jeevanpran Swamibapa’s divine blessings, Sandhya aarti and niyams were recited. Thereafter ‘’Chopda Poojan” was conducted. The significance of Chopda Poojan is to perform poojan on the accounting books of next financial year. Devotees conduct this poojan in order to seek blessings for their business and to achieve the goals set. The day was concluded with mahaprasad.

The next day; on the Hindu New year, devotees gathered to seek blessings from Lord Swaminarayanbapa Swamibapa and ask for forgiveness for any bad deeds done; knowingly or unknowingly; and prayed for better strength, better knowledge and better power and welcome Samvat 2072 in a better way than they previously did.

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