HINDUISM: Happy? New? Year?

“New” and “old” are relative concepts. They gain meaning with relation to time, place, person or thing. “New” for one man at a given time or place may not be new to another .This year was new on the 1st January 2019, but now it crowns January 2020 as new. New year in India is still the old year in the US Man created a time calendar using ‘our’ solar system as reference. Man decided hours minutes seconds. The very “first” unit of time is called a “second”, as no one knows the first. We say, “The First Second”. Laughable? Time is a flux. Astronomical figures humble us with their knowledge of light years and the trillions of stars, planets and solar systems, discovered and undiscovered. Past and future owe their existence to the mind alone, they do not exist.

The present also is an imaginary line that is continuously changing the future into the past. Therefore hinduism’s concept of “reality” is “anadi” and “anant” (beginningless and endless), basically timeless or beyond time. So how can there be a “new” or an “old” year? The new year will soon age to be termed “old 2019”! When we wish “happy” does it not imply ‘till now we were unhappy, and we wish to be “happier” in the “new year”? As Shelley put it: “We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught.” If already happy, then why wish? Do you visualise it’s destruction in the future?

Hinduism believes that all beings are the product of a Reality termed as “Sat, chit, anand”. We believe that you are Ananda (bliss) but your mind chooses to be miserable. You are ,were, and will be Ananda (happiness) alone. Realise your true self.
You are happiness.

Prarthna Saran, President Delhi Chinmaya Mission
Email: prarthnasaran@gmail.com