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What effect does a total lunar eclipse have? It is not only for humans but for the entire planet, especially the part of the Earth where it is visible. It is harmful; there is no spiritual development during this time. It has a negative effect; it is not positive. For humans, it is customary to fast on that day until the moon completely purifies itself again. Astrologically, and according to Vedic belief, the moon carries the depth of karma. We humans are affected by this too. When the moon returns to its full light, you wash all your curtains, cloth, and everything. Because when there is no moonlight, everything becomes dark, and then many living creatures in the air die. Negative energy arrives. The moon is our life. God Kṛṣṇa said that through the moon, He enters the vegetation as nectar. Through the moon, again, the individual soul enters the physical planet. It is the moon through which the rain comes. And it is the moon which has a very significant emotional influence on our planet. Therefore, on this day—for example, today is the full moon, and today is Holī in India—we have two of the biggest festivals: one is Dīvalī and one is Holī. It comes from the long-ago Satya Yuga. It's a long, long story. This holy festival is where people throw colors on each other. People wear masks and different things. Now in Europe, it is the same thing: Carnival. And the Carnival is an imitation of the holy festival. The holy festival has a very significant spiritual story. There was a king who went to the forest to attain siddhi. He was praying, standing on one leg for years and years. A divine voice, an oracle, appeared and asked, "What do you want?" He said, "I want to be forever young and immortal physically." God said, "That is not possible." He insisted, "But I want this." God said, "Even I am God, I cannot give you this because it is against the law. But I can give you something. Tell me, what death? I can tell you that no death will kill you. No weapon will be the cause of your death. No illness will be the cause of your death. You will not die during the day. And also, you will not die at night. You will not die inside the house, and you will not die outside the house. Say, 'Thank you, Lord.'" Now he thought he was immortal. 'When I am inside the house, I will never die. Or if I am outside the house, I will never die. I will not die in the daytime, and I will not die at night time. No weapon can kill me. No animal can kill me. No death can kill me. No human can kill me. So I am immortal.' He began to tell the people, "There is no God. Only I am God. Whoever will not believe in me will be punished with the death sentence." All people were very afraid. No one should have satsaṅg. No one should pray. His name was Hiraṇyakaśipu. In his time, religion was suffering. When I first came to Hungary and people told me, "Don't talk about God, no religion, and no prayer," I said, "What? Is Hiraṇyakaśipu still living?" I couldn't believe that communism was like this, because in India we had a lot of advertising about communism: Soviet women, Soviet agriculture, Soviet machines, and so on. We all thought communism was very good. 'You cannot speak about God. It's really Hiraṇyakaśipu still alive.' But it was different. I could talk about God. I could make prayers. It was not like that. Well, the story is very long. I will try to make it short. At night, he used to go himself, village to village, riding on the back of a horse, to find out if some people were giving satsaṅg or talking about God. Suddenly he saw one elderly lady sitting and praying to God. In front of her, a fire was burning, so he stopped. He went and threatened her, "Now I will put you in this fire. You have to burn yourself in this fire. Why did you remember God? What do you want? I give you everything that you want. There is no God who can give you anything." When she saw him, she was praying to him. He said, "No, no, no. I was hearing you were calling another God. Where was the necessity?" She told him, "I am a potter by profession. I make pots out of clay. Now I want to fire them, and I had one cat. Day before yesterday, she had three kittens in one of the pots. Mistakenly, I put that pot inside the kiln, and I realized too late the cat's kittens were inside. So I am praying to God to forgive my sin." He said, "There is no God, but if your kittens are alive, then you will not get punishment. Otherwise, you will be burned in this fire. I will sit here." So she was praying more deeply. It took 36 hours for the fire to cool down. Then, he let his soldiers take the kiln apart, piece by piece. In the middle of the heap, there were two parts completely untouched by fire. The kitten babies were jumping from one part to the other. The king said, "Stupid, but you have good luck," and he left. He had one son, and his son was very devoted. His name was Bhakta Prahlāda. He was teaching all children Kīrtan. All children were chanting the name of God, and his father didn't like it. The father wanted indirectly to kill his son because he believed in God. He did many things but was not successful. He had one sister, and this sister had a boon that she could sit in the fire and the fire would not burn her. So he told his sister, "Reṇukā, take your nephew in your lap and sit in the fire. Please help me." So she did it. What happened? She was burned, and Prahlāda remained untouched because she didn't follow the principles. She acted against the principles of the law. Today is that day. Well, this evening they will burn the Holī. They take a tree from the forest, and this tree stands in the middle of the town for about one month. Beside it also stands the symbol of Prahlāda. That Prahlāda symbol will remain, and the Holī will be carried outside the village to the entrance and burned. It is great fun for the people. So, Carnival in Europe is an imitation of the holy time. And then you have the May tree. You know, in every village there is one long tree standing, and there is a boy who can climb it and get what is hanging around there—what you call a mālā—and can dance with the person whom he likes. This tree is the symbol of that Holī. So all your festivals are directly linked to the Vedic culture, and so we are all united. Human culture is crossing. Culture never remains in one place. Culture is moving. When one Hungarian goes to Australia, he brings Australian-Hungarian culture. Or when an Indian comes to Debrecen, he brings Indian culture. So, like this, it is there. Finally, to make the story short, Hiraṇyakaśipu decided to kill his son. He prepared a very big iron pillar and put coal inside and lit a fire. When the coal was burned, the whole pillar was red, very hot. You couldn't sit 20–30 meters near it. Hiraṇyakaśipu asked his son, "Either give up talking about God, otherwise I will chop off your head. Or, if you want to talk to God, then go and embrace this hot pillar." When he said this, Prahlāda said, "It is better to die in the fire than be killed by a sinner like you." Prahlāda went with open hands to embrace or to hug the pillar. When he was about 10 meters from the pillar, so strong was his faith, he couldn't feel the heat. He thought to himself, "Oh God, now I will die." In that minute, he saw ants walking on the pillar. He said, "When such small creatures are walking on this hot pillar, how will I die?" So he ran to hug the pillar. The pillar broke into pieces, and from inside the pillar came a very peculiar form, a creature. From the navel upwards, it was a lion. From the navel downwards, it was human. Prahlāda hugged that being. The being took him in his lap and said, "My child, don't worry. I am with you." That was called Narasiṁha. Nara means the human, and Siṁha means the lion. So Narasiṁha Avatāra—out of the twenty-four incarnations according to Hindu tradition, one of them was the Narasiṁha Avatāra. When Hiraṇyakaśipu saw this, he couldn't believe it. He felt fear and couldn't get up from his chair because he knew his death was here. He tried to run into his house. Narasiṁha ran behind the king, caught him at the threshold, pulled him down, and asked him questions. He asked him, "Where are you? Look, are you inside or outside of your house?" Neither, nor. "Look, is it day or night?" It was just sunset, half. Neither day nor night. "Look at me. Am I human or animal?" "I can't say if you are human or animal." "And my nails—is there any weapon?" So the divine promise was fulfilled. The end had come. He killed Hiraṇyakaśipu. This is how wearing a mask began the carnivals—hiding the real face. So this festival today is the victory of the Bhaktas and the loss of the devils. The darkness of the night is gone, and the light of the day comes again. So tomorrow people will be very happy, and they will throw colors and do many things, happy that Holī died—that is, the one who wanted to kill the Bhakta was defeated, and Prahlāda was victorious. But you know, humans are very crazy now. They will drink alcohol. Can you imagine? When humans get crazy, then God has to hide somewhere. God is even scared about humans' craziness. So this is the holy festival. This evening they will burn Holī. Last year we celebrated Holī in Slovakia. In the middle of Slovakia, in the mountains, there was snow one or two meters deep, and we made a castle out of the snow. We called it an igloo, and the walls were about two meters high, and we were all standing inside. We had a very nice, big fire. From kilometers away, you could see this beautiful white snow, the moonlight, and the fire flames. It was beautiful. But today we are happy that it is nice and warm, if not so warm. So, blessings to all of you for the Holī.