Happy New Year – 2019

Today, all over the world people are celebrating the New Year. In New York, the New Year drops in the form of a ball on the Times Square Building. Everywhere people celebrate the starting of a new year in various ways.

From the Vedanta point of view, ‘Space and time are thoughts in the mind. The Self (Atman) is beyond the mind and therefore It is beyond time and space. We divide the infinite time into various parts according to our convenience. Thus, for the pure Vedantist, there is nothing new in the New Year. ’

But, for the devotees, it gives an excuse to celebrate a particular day with worship and spiritual practices. It is a day to reflect upon the past year’s activities and plan for the next year’s activities to make progress in the spiritual path. It is a day to do special prayers and receive blessings of God directly or indirectly through Saints and Holy Souls.

A question comes: Do we have to pray to God for His/Her blessings? Wouldn’t God give His/Her blessings without praying? I thought of the answer as follows. God always showers His/Her blessings to all, but we are not aware of these blessings. When we pray, we are tunning our minds to God and thus realize God’s blessings. Actually, our life itself is a blessing of God. But, because of our ignorance and selfishness, we think that our life is not a blessing, or it is a partly blessing and partly a curse, or a complete curse. Through spiritual practices when our ignorance dissipates, we find that our life is an opportunity to attain the highest knowledge – the realization of our true identity which is divine and it is Sat-Chit-Ananda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute). Then, all our fear and limitations of the little-self go away, we understand the meaning of our life and the meaning lying behind the universe, and we experience infinite bliss within which does not depend on any worldly object or a person.

When we pray we are trying to spiritualize our body and mind. On the other hand when we indulge in the pleasures of the body and mind, then we are materializing our spirit. When we materialize our spirit, then we lose the purpose of life.

Swami Vivekananda said, “My ideal can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life. The more our bliss is within, the more spiritual we are.  Let us not depend upon the world for pleasure.”

A thought on worship: On the New Year day, many temples, churches and other religious places have special worships of God. Those who believe in God with form offer various things like sandal paste, flowers, incense, lamp, sweets, and food. This is similar to when we receive and honor a holy person at our house or in an institution. Finally, we have to grow and worship the living God residing in all. At that time, we see God in all and when we serve a person we feel as if we are serving God. Then, we will be always living in the presence of God and never feel separated from God. This is really the highest state and it is not easy to realize it. But, we must strive to attain this state.

Swami Vivekananda asked us to worship the living God.  Someone has said, ‘If you cannot see God in the person living next to you, then there is no need to look further for God.’

Happy New Year! We wish that in the coming year, with our spiritual development, we all experience inner peace, bliss, and fulfillment.