Editorial

We are approaching an important landmark in time with the close of this year and the beginning of the next. The 1st decade of the 2nd millennium would draw to a close soon, in two years’ time, before the blink of an eye. However, before that, one more full year has to be lived and lived well. As 2009 stands poised at our door steps with all her bounties, 2008 cries for a review and a valediction. As all years, this too has been a unique year, in its own right. As usual, many wars were fought, both up front and from the back door. Many casualties in terms of deaths and injuries added up, as usual, to mere numbers on some politician’s desk, or in the print of a journalists’ well meaning article; scientific discoveries were made, paving the path for miraculous cures some years down the road, as patents are sought and the drugs subject to a series of tests, both on animals and on humans alongside battles against human and animal rights activists; natural catastrophes were faced, with some countries gravely unprepared and some, a little more prepared through lessons of the past; environmental issues appeared to be getting into the limelight in many more countries with significant changes in physical structures of the earthly terrain and climate; a brave new attempt at recreating a replay of the Big Bang was launched; a historic nuclear pact was signed and the first ever Olympic Games of its kind was hosted in an Asian country with unprecedented pomp and grandeur. These are some in the many events that dotted the world scene in 2008. In many ways, these events served to portray humanness at its greatness as well as its baser levels, with whatever lens we choose to examine each event. There will always be many sided opinions on each of these issues that confront us. But the final say on an issue comes back to us after a 360 degrees turn.

Did one have a part to play in any of these events? In what direct or indirect way has one been responsible in shaping world events and the responses to them? Did all these contribute to an eventual growth, and a sense of self-fulfillment within one or did any of these events that meant much to us leave a strangely obnoxious after-taste?

This is perhaps that time of the year to stringently, mercilessly and honestly cross-examine oneself, in relation to one’s individual self and others around us and make resolutions along the lines of progression. The rule for the measure of ‘progress’ need only be, perhaps, a tiny little voice within which would tell us whether we have been worthy of ourselves or not. The next task that would naturally fall in place here would be a resolution to right the imbalance that we perceive in the way we conduct our lives, if there was one.

An aspiration is said to be the beginning of all great things. If peace and harmony are what the world at large is in need of now, then that peace and harmony need to be cultivated in each of us. It is in place here and now to begin with the highest aspiration, and reach out for that high, luminous and mighty state of life on earth as echoed in these prophetic lines:

Life’s tops shall flame with the Immortal’s thoughts,
Light shall invade the darkness of its base.
Then in the process of evolving Time
All shall be drawn into a single plan,
A divine harmony shall be earth’s law,
Beauty and Joy remould her way to live:
Even the body shall remember God,
Nature shall draw back from mortality
And Spirit’s fires shall guide the earth’s blind force;
Knowledge shall bring into the aspirant Thought
A high proximity to Truth and God.

Here then, are prayers for a year of discoveries of all that lies within us and without; to new make these in beauty’s form and truth’s substance, a joyous expression and a living in light and love. Happy New Year to all and wishes for A Glorious New Birth and Beginning.