Do you know that the first of January celebrated with great zeal as the beginning of the New Year is arbitrary? The concept of New Year keeps changing with new rulers and new times. The early Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and 304 days, with each New year beginning at the vernal equinox, when the Sun shines directly on the equator and the length of night and day are nearly equal. According to tradition, it was created by Romulus, the founder of Rome, in the eighth century B.C. A later king, Numa Pompilius, is credited with adding the months of Januarius and Februarius. There are a number of new years even in India according to the various cultures and systems.
Originally the intention behind celebrating the New Year was moving with the rhythm of nature. Celebrate every mood of nature whether it be the autumn or the spring or the rainy season, winter or summer. Each one is needed and each one has a beauty of its own. All these phases are important for existence to flourish. Essentially, to celebrate!
Follow these Osho tips to make celebration an essence of your life.
Existence is continuously renewing itself. How? It’s pulsating every moment with life and death. Breath can be a wonderful tool for experiencing this rhythm of life. Breathe out totally and feel that you are dying. And when you breathe in feel that you are born again. It’s not just a fantasy, it’s the truth of life. This is how life renews itself every moment. Feel the song that surrounds the whole existence and the dance that is happening in the trees, in the birds, in the animals, in the children.
Try to look at everything without bringing the thoughts in between. Look at the sunset without saying it is beautiful or comparing it with other sunsets you have seen before. Absorb it within your heart and drink in the beauty. Look at people as if for the first time. Don’t bring the past experiences to cloud your look. And you will be meeting everyone as if for the first time.
Drop knowledge for knowing. Knowledge is an accumulation of borrowed information, it makes the mind dull and stale. Knowing is learning every moment something new. Without knowing yourself, all knowledge is futile. The mind lives in the known; it moves within the known in circles. It is repetitive. It cannot enter into any communion with the new, with the unknown, with the unknowable.
Listen to the heart, because it is finally the heart that is going to decide the calibre of your being, the very growth of your consciousness. Anything else is simply mundane.
Courage means the courage to be free. Courage means freedom. If you reduce it to the essential core, it is, in fact, dying to the past. Old memories, old wounds you carry long past their time, old beliefs — drop them like a snake slipping out of its old skin. And every day will be a New Year for you. Don’t wait for tomorrow to celebrate. The “tomorrow” is not your property. Remember, there only one time: Now. And there is only one place: Here. So happy now: Here!
Amrit Sadhana is editor of Osho Times International. She facilitates meditation workshops based on Osho insights around the country and abroad.
