Rediscovering Tulsi Vivah

Tulsi Vivah has been trending on X today.

And in all of those posts no one is addressing the symbolism of this festival.

Now don't get me wrong.

Tulsi Vivah is a beautiful festival.

But beauty is not in the ritual.

It is in the understanding of this festival.

Let's take the below example:

You are pointing a finger at the moon.

But if you start focusing on the finger you will lose the sight of the moon.

Similarly, if you keep staring at the moon, you will lose sight of the finger.

You will miss the vastness.

You will miss the boundless beauty of what it is pointing toward.

You will miss the finer details too.

This is the paradox of all religions.

They create rituals to remind you of the divine.

But the ritual becomes so important that the divine is forgotten.

In Tulsi Vivah, people are honoring the union of Tulsi and Vishnu.

They celebrate a symbolic marriage.

It is beautiful, yet ask yourself:

Can God, who is beyond form, beyond gender, be "married" to a plant?

Marriage is a human concept.

It is the binding of two individuals.

But existence is already one.

It is already united.

In love.

And in true love, there is no "other."

So what is the need to marry, when there is no 'separation'?

To honor Tulsi,

-- You Do Not Need Ceremonies

-- You Do Not Need Offerings

What you truly need is awareness.

To achieve this:

-- Just sit silently by the plant.

-- Feel its presence.

-- Sense the life that flows through it.

This is devotion.

This is communion with the divine.

In that silence, the boundaries between you and the plant will disappear.

There is no "you".

There is no "Tulsi".

There is only one energy.

And one life breathing together.

Tulsi Vivah is not a season to perform rituals and then return to your routines.

It is an invitation:

-- to awaken to the oneness of life.

-- to become aware that everything around you is divine.

You can worship Tulsi with flowers and prayers, but real worship is in

your awareness of life’s beauty and of its interconnectedness.

Do not be satisfied with the ritual alone.

Go deeper.

Use this festival as a doorway to awareness and to love without boundaries.

Be with the Tulsi, not as something separate from you.

Let it be the flowering of awareness within you.