"This Week"
by the
Bahrain Meditation Centre

31st December, 2005

Newness is… in the eye of the beholder

The beginning of spring would be a more appropriate time to celebrate a new year since it is the season for sunshine, blossoms, new saplings to emerge and the onset of good weather. Yet there is something about the 1st of the 1st that impels us to implement that change we have been postponing all year.

As the old year draws to its end and the new one begins, many will be in the mood to make new beginnings, to close the past chapter and open a fresh page. For some it will be a time to build on earlier successes, for others there will be the effort to submerge the past. Whatever the intention, the fact remains, many of us will be looking forward to the new year with anticipation and the hope that it will be better than the year gone by.

What is it about ‘oldness’ that plagues the soul? It is true that a change is as good as a break, and examining old patterns and routines allows us to take off the blinkers for a while. If we never pause, we get stuck in a rut and lose the incentive to climb out of it.

Our impulse for newness is natural. The soul yearns to feel every moment as fresh, pure and unique and every thought and idea truly original. Newness is like fresh food for the soul, bringing energy, enthusiasm and inspiration. The old routines, in contrast, make us ‘sick’, ‘bored stiff’ with the job, and life stagnant. Having the courage to accept reality rather than living an illusion is one kind of newness.

Newness and ‘oldness’ are like day and night: a cycle, a circle. We create newness, sustain it until that energy runs out, and it is time to add new energy again. This is the natural course of life. We buy flowers, display them and then discard them. Knowing their time cycle to be limited, we enjoy their fragrance and beauty for however long they possess it. Once the scent has gone we dispose of them; it would be pointless to hold on to them any longer. So, too, with life and its events. Let go and move on – this is newness.

Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a ring is lucky because it symbolizes ‘coming full circle’, completing a year’s cycle. For that reason the Dutch believe that eating doughnuts on New Year’s Day will bring good fortune.

Newness arrives naturally in one form or another but why not create the newness of our choice? We can ‘renovate’ by choosing to see a difficult situation or person in a new way, so that, it instead of an obstacle, it becomes a means of inspiring and uplifting the self and others. And we can resolve not to hang on to the past. Newness is easily created when our vision is not coloured with an iota of the past, not a trace of anything old merged within it.

Let us begin the new year on 1st January 2006 with determination that it will be one filled with a new vision for the world, for humanity and for the self. Then we can say we have truly turned a new page.

Om Shanti
(I am a peaceful soul)

 Tel: +973-17-712 545, meditate@batelco.com.bh, www.bahrainmeditationcentre.org
Bahrain Meditation Centre is administered by B.K.W.S.U. (visit: www.bkwsu.org.uk)