Reblogged from Journey to Wholeness:

Happy New Year 2014!

Shubh Shubh Naya Saal, the little one from Assam replied when I wished her a Happy New Year. Same meaning, different languages. ‘Actually, an even better meaning perhaps. Shubh is like auspicious. Happy New Year! said the doorman of the building, when I was expecting the usual Good Morning. And so it goes….

2014 years from a time that someone first decided to start a calendar to name the day – what was it? 1/1/1? Today, despite the many other calendars in existence, the Gregorian calendar takes precedence. Almost everyone we meet observes today as a New Year.

I found myself catching the drift of the feelings people have on the New Year. There is a wish to be with those we love, or those we feel really close and comfortable with. There’s the expectation that we should be somewhere where the tempo is high gear, of having many invitations to choose from, exclamation points, getting drunk, feeling something that we haven’t felt before, and then the downer when it isn’t quite what was expected, or smiles when it was.

It’s wise to enjoy what happens. It’s freeing to do just as you please.  That’s the true celebration. I loved the ceremony yesterday with my mother and some friends chanting in prayer, followed by ‘payt pooja’ [prayer to the stomach, a phrase in Hindi that means, eating].  I found myself deciding to let some things go and wondering if that was the right choice. The sense of relief and ‘no tightness in tummy’ told me that it was. How we tie ourselves down to our own expectations! Worse, to the expectations of others.

Today, at the New Year’s Day of New Moon, we’ll have a Taiji, meditation and eating session to balance and harmonize our energies with a group of wonderful people. In my heart will be the ones who are not physically with me.

They say that today’s New Moon is a special one, as the moon is closest to the earth. It is a time to let go of all that does not serve you.  Let’s see what else I let go of! The leap is freeing. I’ll land somewhere I enjoy or fly.

His presence is deeply personal, and I am amazed at the places where he appears- from a metaphysical store in India where they showed him in yogic meditation to meditative spaces where he has brought his guiding presence. His can be a presence as close as a touch on the hand that can help you to take a leap of faith or a filling that can help you to heal.

A being of light takes birth

One of the best gifts from the Middle East to the world is a presence of one who brought light into this world from the time he was born. The exact date of his birthday is debatable, but we celebrate it on December 25th, a day that has been sacred for many years before his birth. The presence of the holy family is so endearing, in ways that are indescribable, but the tug on heartstrings is unmistakable.

Many colours, one light

He took birth in the Middle East, but his presence has flowed all over the world. Many religions have been born of his presence, all under the banner of Christianity. This light is variously called יְהוֹשֻׁעַ,Yeshua, Jesus, pronounced as Hasoos in Spanish, Isa Masih in India, Sananda by lightworkers.  No doubt there are many more names, in the true spirit of One Light Many Windows.

He is equally celebrated by people of religion and healers, lightworkers and meditators for he can belong anywhere, and yet not dominate, for Jesus is the one great being whose main message is Love. This is what my mother told me when I was a child, and as he probably has to many, Jesus has been in my heart since I remember being aware.  It’s probably no surprise that the school I graduated from, is the Sacred Heart! My parents were married on Christmas Day, so it is even more special to me.

One face has launched a billion images

There are many depictions of Jesus before and after he was resurrected as Christ. He is so dear to people, whether or not they are Christian, that each artist has wanted to portray him as their own. The colour of his skin, the shape of face, his emotions all change; but he is easily recognizable. This makes him real, human, multi-faceted.

Simply wonderful

Whether he is looked at as God or Christ, or Messiah, or one of God’s Prophets . Jesus is an approachable being : one who lived a human life, while his Divine qualities shown through. In this, he is aspirational for those who know that we are spirit walking a human life.  He  walked the earth in simple ways, personal, real, approachable. He is depicted as one who was equally comfortable when alone in pensive mode, or surrounded by people, strangers or family,  eating, meditating or praying. He expressed emotions and inspirations, and so he is one who can as easily hold your hand as wash his followers’ feet or be held in love by his mother. His followers walked with him, sat around him, spoke simply and yet recognized the special quality of his being.

The qualities of his presence help to raise the vibration of this world: compassion, love, connection, forgiveness.

Really?

Was he real? Was he born on December 25th? Was it a Virgin birth? What did he really look like? What happened during his missing years? Was he married? Is he buried in India? Did he learn yoga? Did One as great and holy as he was, really suffer the manner of his passing? In a beautifully delicious way, there are many questions surrounding the life of Jesus. The best way I resolve them in my mind is, that if he was not as stories depict him, then in the words of the film I saw many years ago, the story of Jesus is the greatest story ever told. It is one that has touched the heart of many millions. With all due respect, he is bigger than the religions that have carried his name, for he is far more enduring than any thing made by man.

Beloved One of loving light, I greet you on this day, and smile with your smile.

I wrote on Facebook:

The Elders website

Not a relative, not in Friend’s network, never met, yet a sense of loss. We walked the earth at the same time for many years, and so I knew Nelson Mandela, and so I sense that loss.

Then it moved. I began to feel I am sensing the sadness of the world.  I sensed also that many are unaware of the passing of Nelson Mandela, but so many are aware, are feeling, expressing.

Once I wrote, the words are gone, and I move to the next.

And yet, here he is, resplendent, light, having shed his pain body, his material self, here he is. Look! In that vast mirrored lake within your heart, the stars in the Milky Way, in the minds of so many more than on the day before he transitioned. Today his essence is even brighter

Skimming through news channels, I noticed them talking about his life. We keep dying as we are living, yet that death keeps the living alive. That child, that activist, that revolutionary, the prisoner, the one in pain, the husband who divorced, the politician that Nelson Mandela had been passed to become the President, the Elder, the patient. A life largely lived in public and yet there was much that he kept private. All of it has passed – not gone away but transmuted into history, books, words, memories. Light.

The wonderful thing about him is : he lived. He dreamed. He followed his passion. He took actions. He won. He failed.He kept living until he was alive. He was inspired. He inspired.

It’s interesting – he once used words that Marianne Williamson had written, and since he was better known, they are usually attributed to him. This connection is beautiful and the message of the words now passes onto timelessness, into our collective memory.

For a while, we hold on – to our bodies, our lives, possessions, memories, words. Then, they all pass. But they are never gone for ever. The universe is a wonderful recycler!

So let’s see what comes forth, if I recycle the word death:

When Nelson Mandela died

Dying  Encouraged Affection Towards Him

Hmm… that’ll do for now.

These phrases are becoming inter-twined with some thoughts that come whenever I read posts about how bad we humans are, or have been, for this planet:
Don’t waste energy in blame, even if it’s self-blame. It just ties up energy from doing something that we can use in improving what we feel we’ve done wrong. Not ‘someone else’ but ‘I’. What do ‘I’ do, that is good or not-good for the world, for the planet? How  can ‘I’ change what I feel is not right? What shall I do about what I cannot change?

Then I wonder: at what point did humans begin to bring harm to this planet that is our home? What if we went back there? Can we change? Was it for instance, when we built houses? Then, can we, city-dwellers, town-dwellers, village dwellers, live as tribals do, ‘in the wild’?

I love Nature, I lived as much in my garden as in our childhood homes; but what I love about nature, are the beautiful flowers, the trees, the vistas. Back up there. Those vistas of rainforests could nurse blood-sucking mosquitoes, poisonous snakes and terrain difficult to walk through. So – yes of course I love nature, but bodies require rest as well as exercise, some comfort as well as challenge. That is where our ancestors, battling the difficulties of living in the wild, began to build houses which became increasingly separated from nature.

I am fortunate in that I live amidst greenery. I have lived in the past that I felt would never end, suspended on the 18th floor of a building, and the separation from trees made me ill. I know now that trees are not just physically grounding, but energetically and emotionally grounding as well. They help to ground or deeply root, center, expand both from roots and branches. So, I live amidst greenery. But can I live in the yard? Sleep on the rough grass, enjoy the mosquitoes, the strong noon-day sun, the thunderstorm, if it were not for the retreat offered by the structure of the house? No. I could not.

This is the challenge, isn’t it? If I dream of a world in which I am comfortable, I may be able to live in a world without doors, a garden of eden, perhaps, or heaven on earth,  but in this world, the climate is always salubrious, the  animals friendly, the  people harmonious.   Some time back, I began to encourage people to visualize their dream, to take time off and daydream, without guilt about wasting time or being unrealistic, to air out their dreams – perhaps long-forgotten memories, perhaps alternate realities – to their own awareness, until they find their happiness and bring it out to the everyday world.  From my generation on, people have become far too pragmatic, daydreaming and idealism have been replaced by practicality, and it is no wonder that depression has become so common, even among teenagers.

I meet many people who don’t seem at ease in the world. At times, perhaps, we all feel that way. A stranger in a strange land. It is this disconnect, as if we are from another planet, another world, or just visitors on this one, that leads us to act irresponsibly. I have another theory as well – we as a ‘human race’ have lived as children and teenagers on the planet, and are now growing up, waking to our responsibility.

A mother does not blame or weep for her children’s child-likeness, and I doubt that Mother Earth, herself growing as we are, would be weeping either. If she does weep, it is for the disconnect a mother laments when she sees her child pulling away or mindless about the love between mother and child. What is really necessary to feel at ease on earth, is to deeply connect to her, to ground into her depths, feel our roots deep into the earth, spread all around her surface,  and just a little under her varied surfaces. To feel our branches spread high into our amazing atmosphere and the stars beyond. If they were once our home, this is our home now, this universal being that twinkles as a star for other worlds.

Grounding and expanding, and then walking the waters, mud, grass, pebbbles of this earth, sharing with people, with animals, reveling in connection and service – these are the activities and feelings that help me feel at ease with the world. For we are all her children, and as we come to really realize that, in the sacred silences of a Gaia Minute, in daily hugs to our brothers, sisters, tree friends, animal friends and others, that sense of responsibility begins to extend not only to the earth, to all living and nonliving beings, but also, ultimately, to ourselves.

My dreams now are of this world that we are co-creating together, as we wake to the joyful awareness of our shared experience in this world.