| Issue
#16 | 25 December 2004 |
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
Dear fellow Questors,
Happy Christmas! Happy Hanukah!
Happy Solstice! Happy Kwanzaa! This week, as we enjoy festivities
across the Northern Hemisphere, it is worth taking a moment
to look back into antiquity to rediscover that our ancestors
also celebrated this time with the birthdays of Osiris,
Sol Invictus, Apollo, Mithras and many other Solar deities
around the world. Essentially, we are celebrating the coming
rebirth of the Sun as it starts once again on its original
path through the heavens. This was always a time of spiritual
rebirth and cleansing in preparation for the purges of winter
and the blossoms of spring - the cycles of nature perennially
celebrated through our mythologies. The Sun becomes a symbol
of rebirth, of the twice born - first from the womb and
then into the spiritual life. The Sun also represents internal
and external illumination and our ancestors used to worship
it for both its power of giving life and light and also
as the awakener of spiritual consciousness. This is a time
to not only pay homage to the Sun and all the illuminators
of the past but also to act on that illumination by giving
generously and anonymously, by caring for the needy, by
seeing our spiritual potential in the eyes of children and
by seeing all human beings as part of an amazing universal
drama in which we all have a small but vital role. So, at
this time of festivities and illumination, I hope you will
find these meditations and stories we have put together
useful on your own personal quest.
Enjoy the Quest!
Raja
Choudhury
Founder
|
|
|
|
The myth of Santa Claus as we know it
today was actually created in New York in the 19th century
but had its origins in the life of an early Christian Saint.
In the 3rd Century, a child called Nicholas was born to
wealthy parents in the town of Patara in present-day Turkey.
His parents died while he was quite young and obeying Jesus'
words to "sell what you own and give the money to the poor,"
Nicholas used his entire inheritance to assist the needy,
the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving
God and was made Bishop of Myra. Bishop Nicholas became
known throughout the land for his generosity to those in
need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors
and ships. After his death on 6 December 343 AD, he was
sanctified for the many miracles he had performed during
his life and as a result of an amazing liquid that appeared
on his tomb that healed all who received it. From then on,
6 December became known as St.Nicholas' day. St.Nicholas
shares much with our modern idea of Santa Claus including
his famous Bishop's staff that we eat today as candy, the
secret delivery of golden presents in sacks, as a protector
of children and the friend and protector of all in need.
The first Europeans that came to America
brought St.Nicholas with them and there are legends told
that his spirit visited and blessed the early Dutch settlers
in New Amsterdam (New York.) Santa Claus entered popular
culture when the acclaimed American author Washington Irving
joined the New York Historical Society in 1809. The Society's
Patron Saint was St.Nicholas and Irving immortalized him
in his book "KnickerBocker's History of New York"
by describing him as a happy elf-like character called Saint
Nick who gave presents to children and made everyone happy.
This image received a big boost when the poet Clement Clark
Moore wrote the famous poem entitled "A Visit from
St. Nicholas" now better known as "The Night Before
Christmas" based on the character created by Irving.
The name Santa Claus was derived from the German name for
St.Nicholas, Sankt Niklaus and the Dutch Sinterklaas.
You can read the fascinating story
of Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus at The
St.Nicholas Center Site
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
In Christian calendars, this is Christmas,
birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, considered by his devotees
to be the Promised One, the Messiah, whom Christians revere
as the fully realized embodiment of divinity, the Christ.
In the words of Isaiah: " . . . unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon
his shoulders, and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor,
the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the prince of peace.
|
| |
In the Northern hemisphere, the most important festival
day of the year, marking the birth of the Solar Child, the
Savior, Renewer of the Light. This day has been celebrated
in the Northern world for more than 6,000 years as the birth
or feast day of many solar deities, resurrected kings and
queens, and saviors. When the mythic cycles of Sumeria,
Egypt, India and China were forming and on their way to
being vivid and complex, December 25 was the accepted date
of the winter solstice, before the ancient star priests
were able to reckon it precisely on December 21.
|
|
|
Today is the birthday of the Persian solar deity Mithras,
whose ritual slaying of the Bull enacts the ascendancy of
spirit over matter, and also the end of the Age of Taurus.
Mithras' day first entered the Roman Calendar as the holiday
sacred to Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun
|
 |
The festival of Kwanzaa, celebrated by African Americans
and other descendants of the African peoples, and also widely
respected by environmentally conscious people for its emphasis
on communal values that support sustainable, Earth-friendly
economies: teamwork, responsible stewardship, unity of faith
and purpose, and the honoring of creativity and beauty.
In the Zoroastrian
calendar, this day marks the death of the saint and teacher
Zarathusthra, or Zoroaster, in 551 BC, celebrated in rites
that observe the universal myth pattern of the Double Holy
Seven--in this case seven male and seven female emanations
of the deity, whose efficacy in purifying the earth from
evil is praised in sacred fire rites. Other examples of
the Double Holy Seven: the fourteen body parts of Osiris,
the fourteen Stations of the Cross in Roman Catholic ritual,
and, in symbols common to Egyptian mystery schools and the
biblical Book of Revelations, the cycle of the Dove descending
into the crown of the head and down through the seven chakras,
then reascending the chakra column as the Eagle.
|
|
Thanks
to Dan Furst at the Universal
Festival Calendar |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
The Gayatri Mantra is one of the oldest
prayers of human history that is still in continuos use
today. Dating back to at least 1500 BCE, it is a part of
the Rig Veda, Hinduism's most ancient scripture, and every
morning, Hindus across the world recite this mantra at least
16 times facing the Sun as it rises in the East. This mantra
is not just a prayer to the Sun for life, knowledge and
spiritual illumination but also an oral instrument for tuning
one's own consciousness towards a more universal consciousness.
AUM is considered to be the sound symbol of Parmatman (Supreme
Reality), the first vibration as sound emanating at the
beginning of creation. From the three vowels of AUM came
out the three 'feet' of Gayatri - the mother of the Universe,
and from its three 'feet' came out the three Vedas (the
oldest books of Hinduism) and the three Vyaahrtis (plains)
Bhur-Bhuva-Svah representing the three realms of consciousness
- this perceived reality, the psychic reality and the ultimate
reality.
On the internal Yogic quest for spiritual
enlightenment, as described in the Kundalini Yoga system,
the Gayatri mantra can be used to help the upward movement
of spiritual consciousness from the ignorance of the physical
plain at the bottom of the spine to enlightenment in the
spiritual plain as experienced at the centers of consciousness
or chakras between the eyebrows (the third eye) and above
the crown of the head.
You can hear the Gayatri Mantra chanted
beautifully online by the mystic sage Sai
Baba.
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
Maria Montessori, the great 20th-century
educational pioneer, observed that children have an intuition
for religious life at an early age that is matched only
by their capacity to acquire language. During this holiday
season, the exceptional NPR radio program Speaking of Faith
explores the spiritual wisdom and intelligence of children
- including their ability to process the difficult realities
of life. One of the scientists whose work is used in this
exploration is Diane Comp, a retired Yale pediatric oncologist
and author of several books, including Window to Heaven:
When Children See Life in Death. "Children were giving
me a glimpse of something that I hadn't been able to see
for myself before." Comp's interviews with hundreds
of children dying of cancer taught her about their immense
spiritual depth. They seem to be more connected to universal
principles and the idea of God than adults who seem to lose
this intuition as they mature. This magic is not recaptured
until the person approaches death or develops a more spiritual
or mystical way of life.
You can listen to this excellent audio
documentary online at the Speaking
of Faith Website
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
When I was growing up, a Hindu boy in
a West African Church Missionary school in Freetown, Sierra
Leone, we would sing Episcopalian hymns every morning before
classes. At Christmas, all stops would be pulled out and
we would sing carols every morning for at least an hour.
This hymn was always my favorite and I remember not understanding
its deeper meaning until much later in life. Light of Light,
God as light, not abhoring the Virgin's womb, begotten but
not created...the word coming to us as flesh. These were
wonderful ideas, but not traditional to Christianity as
practiced across Northern Europe at the time of its composition.
The song was written originally by an eighteenth century
Jacobean, John Francis Wade (c.1711-86), a layman who copied
and sold plainchant and other music. The Jacobeans were
a radical bunch. Founded by Thomas Paine, they advocated
revolution, a return to mystical Catholicism in England,
and helped formulate the ideals for American Independence.
The Jacobeans set the foundation for European radicalism
in the nineteenth century. Many Jacobeans were also Masons
and understood the Gnostic ideals of early Christianity.
Encoded in this wonderful hymn are ideas which would have
been unheard of in Protestant circles, yet ensured that
this became the most popular Christmas hymn ever.
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
In 2000, the United States and 188 other
countries signed the United Nations Millennium Declaration,
a manifesto to eradicate extreme poverty, hunger and disease
among the one billion people in the world who live in abject
poverty by 2015. The protocol established that the wealthiest
of nations like America, Britain and France would each give
0.7 percent of their national incomes as development aid
for poor countries. Now after 5 years on the plan, the latest
figures show that the percentage of US income going to poor
countries remains very low at 0.14 percent. Britain is at
0.34 percent, and France at 0.41 percent. Jeffrey Sachs,
a renowned macroeconomist and special adviser to Kofi Anan
on the Declaration suggests that the world needs to invest
only $150 billion a year to completely eradicate poverty
by 2015 - in comparison, America's annual military budget
is over $400 billion annually and less than $4 billion goes
towards aid - mostly given to Israel, Egypt, Pakistan and
other allies in the War against Terrorism. The New York
Times compares America's paltry contribution towards Global
Aid as equivalent to a billionaire giving away $50 to a
charity. Sachs and the New York Times both argue that it
is time for America to step forward. Like many analysts,
including the CIA, they suggest that the eradication of
global poverty is an issue of National Security for the
United States, as a stable world is a safer world. This
argument alone should motivate us all to act in our own
best self interest, let alone in the interest of the 140
million children that have never been to school or the millions
of people that go to seep hungry every night.
Visit the official UN
Millennium Declaration Site for more information
and read the New York Times Editorial on 23 December entitled
America,
the Indifferent.
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
A national survey of 1,100 physicians,
conducted by HCD Research and the Louis Finkelstein Institute
for Religious and Social Studies of The Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York City over the past weekend, found that
74% of doctors believe that miracles have occurred in the
past and 73% believe that can occur today. The poll also
indicated that American physicians are surprisingly religious,
with 72% indicating they believe that religion provides
a reliable and necessary guide to life. Those surveyed represent
physicians from Christian (Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox
Christian and other), Jewish (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform
and secular) Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions.
The findings indicate that 58% of those
surveyed attended worship services at least one time per
month, 46% believe that prayer is very important in their
own lives and 55% believe that medical practice should be
guided by religious teaching. Perhaps the most surprising
result of the survey is that a majority of doctors (55%)
said that they have seen treatment results in their patients
that they would consider miraculous (45% do not). Most physicians
pray for their patients as a group (51%). Even more, 59%
pray for individual patients. 67% encourage their patients
to pray. Of those physicians, 5% did so for God to answer
their prayers, 32% for psychological benefits and 63% for
both reasons. 33% did not encourage their patients to pray.
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
~ Keshab Chandra
Sen (1838 - 84)
I recently attended, for the first time,
a Unitarian Universalist congregation service at the Community
Church of New York and I was pleasantly surprised to hear
The Church Universal used in the opening affirmation. Keshab
Chandra Sen was one of the most liberal and progressive
spiritual thinkers of India in the latter part of the nineteenth
century and was partially responsible for the revival of
the universal themes of Vedanta in Hinduism and for encouraging
the emancipation of women in Hindu society. Born to a progressive
family in Calcutta (British India) in 1838, Sen was deeply
influenced by Unitarianism and American philosophers like
Emerson to start developing his own ideas about a Universal
Religion. In 1857 he was persuaded by Debandranath Tagore,
a leading Indian philosopher, to join the Brahma Samaj -
a progressive organization that was dedicated to reviving
monotheistic Vedantic Hinduism in India. He quickly became
a leader of the Samaj and developed quite a legend as a
social reformer, spiritual teacher and one of the greatest
Indian minds of his time. Later on in his life, the search
for a universal religion, once again, became his main preoccupation.
In 1881 he started a new religion called Nava Bidhan (New
Dispensation) based on the union of the best of East and
West. In this new religion he wanted to combine the 'pantheism'
and 'mysticism' of Asia with 'positivism and science' of
Europe. It proclaimed 'the harmony of all scriptures and
prophets and dispensations'. According to Sen, it was a
religion of catholicity that embraces all space and all
times. Today's Unitarian Universalism is a living, vibrant
example of a Universal Religion and it is only right that
Sen's epic call-to-action be used to start off its' services.
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Gothic cathedrals have always inspired
awe. We can only imagine the effect they would have had
on the local populace in Europe in the centuries when they
were built, starting in A.D. 1144. The Abbot Suger, entering
the first Gothic cathedral of Saint-Denis, built to his
own specifications, remarked that the building transformed
"that which is material to that which immaterial .
. .Then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it
were, in some strange region of the universe which neither
exists entirely in the slime of the earth more entirely
in the purity of Heaven; and that, by the grace of God,
I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world."
This statement accurately describes
the wonderment felt by all who witness these sacred buildings.
The Romanesque movement of architecture was beautiful in
its way, but the buildings were massive and overpowering.
Suddenly, with the introduction of flying buttresses and
stained glass windows, the great cathedrals expressed a
crystal-like quality of lightness and aspiration to heaven
missing in all previous architecture. The development of
more innovative building techniques allowed the designers
and builder-masons to have huge areas available for light
to flow into their central spaces, bringing a new quality
and magic to Christianity. While a majority of these great
buildings are in France, they were also built in England,
Germany, Italy and Spain over a period of about less than
two hundred years. The reason why they suddenly appeared
over a period of about fifty years is based in the rise
of the language of symbolism. Painton Cowen identifies the
great leap in imagination from a building occupying space
to a Church signifying power in time. The cathedrals were
oriented around the Incarnation and Crucifixion of Jesus
Christ at the altar in the New Testament, on the North side
representing the Old Testament and on the South side representing
the Last Judgment and the New Jerusalem. They formed a Latin
cross, the ship or ark of Noah which saved all life on earth
during the Great Flood. The nave reflects the sacred vessel
which carries humanity through time, and the rose windows
guide that course. The symbolism of the cathedral with rose
windows carries profound meaning at many levels.
At Chartres Cathedral number and
proportion were used in a way which transcended the building
itself. It is as though a new language emerged which was
able to express a higher aspect of the human spirit. The
prime representation of this was in the geometric relationship
between the rose windows and the maze inscribed on the floor
of the nave. The geometry of the rose windows brings ancient
principles together with Christian ideas in a complete and
compelling whole.
The rose itself is a powerful symbol
which evokes soul, eternity, wheel, sun, cosmos, universe,
alchemy and love. It is the supreme western symbol of enlightenment
and the redemption of humanity, similar to the lotus in
the eastern religions, and in both cases the enfoldment
of the flower is a symbol of the development and attainment
of higher spiritual understanding. The rose was sacred to
Isis, Aphrodite and Venus as a symbol of human love transcending
passion, and signified the Virgin Mary in Christianity,
as well as being the central image of the Rosicrucians.
The use of the rosary as a circular prayer wheel is derived
from the rose symbol as well. The composition of the rose
windows in Chartres is extremely important. The three major
windows in the cathedral are the North Rose, with the Virgin
and Child in the centre, the South Rose, dedicated to the
New Testament and the martyrs who spread the Word, and the
West Rose, which features the wounded Christ at the centre
of the Last Judgment. Each window uses the same vocabulary
of color, form, geometry and symbol, but with a flavor which
uniquely expresses its own spiritual intention.
The light coming from each direction
affected the color of glass used in the windows. North light
is quite cold, and therefore in the North Rose the colors
red and blue predominate with gold and white support. In
the South Rose, where the color of the light is warmer due
to its exposure, the gold and white are more in evidence
and provide a lighter and more dramatic effect.
|
| |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
The American Film Institute has selected
two films as "Moments of Significance" in 2004.
Not surprisingly, the two films chosen were Fahrenheit 9/11
by Michael Moore and The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson.
In citing the two respective films, the AFI said: "Both
filmmakers tossed Hollywood convention out the window, attracting
masses to the movies that would normally not purchase a
ticket to an ultra-violent subtitled film or a documentary.
Ultimately, both films shone a bright light on the political
and religious polarization in the United States in 2004."
While many will disagree with the substance of both films,
their significance to popular consciousness at both ends
of the political and cultural landscape in America cannot
be denied. Time magazine had also short-listed both directors
for the Time "Person of the Year" cover issue
but chose to give that privilege to President George W Bush
instead.
Gibson's portrayal of Jesus' final experiences
before his crucifixion is a literal retelling of the Passion
in the Gospel of John and while it fails to celebrate the
teachings of Christ on compassion, personal spiritual rebirth
and surrender to the divine laws of the universe, it does
show the willing sacrifice he made for the sake of mankind
in an artistic and creative way. The characters in the story
are historically inaccurate (particularly Pilate who is
known to have been a ruthless despot) and the Jews of Jerusalem
and Roman soldiers are portrayed as rabid, blood-thirsty
masses. A divisive film that inspires increased faith in
believers and much lament on the part of progressive universalists.
As for Fahrenheit 9/11, this film has to be seen to be believed
- a must for all progressives.
Both films are now available on DVD and
can be purchased at Amazon.com - Choose either Fahrenhirit
9/11 or The
Passion of the Christ to buy them.
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
