From celebration to transformation

As we enter yet another New Year, there is a lot of anticipation and buzz about what it holds in store for us. People celebrate this annual change with great fanfare, as if everything in the world is going to change for the better from the very next day. Interestingly, New Year’s resolutions commonly include treating people better, making new friends, eating healthy food, exercising regularly, spending time with family, and paying off debts. This has been the case throughout history.

Over the years, New Year celebrations have become more extravagant, unruly, and louder. People spend large sums of money to participate in singing, dancing, wining, and dining on New Year’s Eve, and often end up drunk and sick on the very first day of the New Year. Many miss work on the first day of the year because of the late-night parties they attend. Often, these parties lead misguided youth to indulge in misbehaviour, dangerous driving, and even criminal activities.

The media and markets create enormous hype and glamour around the New Year. There is a frenzy of buying and selling cards, gifts, and entertainment tickets, and now, of course, the online shopping craze. News channels churn out yearly reviews and flashbacks, while soothsayers and fortune-tellers enjoy doling out predictions to anticipatory minds that place great faith in their stars. All in all, the New Year means memories, dreams, and business for different people across the world.

Now, if we think about it deeply, does the New Year really bring any newness into our lives? We are all well aware that the world we live in has become old, dilapidated, and vicious, with countless big and small problems that seem to have no lasting solutions despite all human efforts to create better comforts and improve living conditions. With so much violence occurring around the world, do we truly have any reason to celebrate the onset of another year?

Practically speaking, only when we give up our old habits, attitudes, and behaviours and adopt a new outlook of compassion, cooperation, harmony, and respect can we expect a new era to begin. Before that truly happens, how can anything be celebrated as new in this old world? Does it really make sense? Not really. It is like selling old wine in a new bottle, because nothing in this old world can be truly new, as human souls and the elements of nature have become old, impure, weak, and destructive.

On the contrary, everything in the forthcoming New World or Golden Age will be brand new. Not only will the samskaras, or traits, of human souls be renewed, but nature and all its elements will be rejuvenated to their original pristine quality. There will be nothing of this old world in the new age. Even human bodies will be pure and pristine, free from any defect or disease.

Remember, the world becomes new only when human souls become completely pure in the present by eliminating vices and sin within themselves. So, in the coming New Year, let us all take a determined step forward to change our negative attitudes and share only the positive energy of peace, joy, and love. Let each one of us make a promise to reflect our best in thoughts, words, and actions—because when we change, the world will change.

(The writer is a spiritual educator and popular columnist for publications across India, Nepal & UK. Till Date 9000+ Published Columns have been written by Him.)