The festival of Christmas is a sacred one. It is the day when the son of God, Jesus Christ, was born, and on whose teachings Christianity is based. There are a lot of people in this world who follow his teachings and celebrate this special annual occasion with their friends and families. This is a festival of happiness when people present gifts to each other, especially to children who are given plenty of gifts on this occasion. The tradition of presenting gifts to children is associated with Jesus’ birth when after his birth, three wise men came from the East and presented plenty of gifts to the infant Jesus.
When a child is born into this world, he is pure. He doesn’t make comparisons. When you see a child, you are filled with the emotion of love and you feel the desire to embrace the child. No one gets angry; neither the child nor you or onlookers. In fact, the child’s presence creates the state of peace in all.
it is we who distract the child into worldly things. Otherwise, the child is experiencing Supreme Consciousness. A child isn’t worried about money or other material acquisitions. He is happy with whatever his mother gives him. When we live in a state where we have full faith in God, when we know He is taking care of us and when we have complete faith in Him, then we will soon reach our destination, which is the state of absolute bliss, our destination or goal.
It is said of Jesus that when some over-enthusiastic and excited disciples stopped children from coming close to Jesus, he resisted and replied: “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” -- Mark 10:15.
If we wish to celebrate Christmas in the true sense of the occasion, we will have to become like the Christmas child who is present in every one of us and we would imbibe those virtues that could enable us to reach the state of bliss as that of a small child, without any bitterness, free of hatred, and filled with universal love and innocence. Just like the state of the child.
Whenever we celebrate birthdays of great masters, we must try to follow their teachings and follow the essence of those teachings. What did they teach us? What did they explain to us? On Christmas, when a lot of people throughout the world celebrate Jesus Christ’s birthday, and there is a lot of exchange of presents, it is important to present a gift to our own selves -- the gift to practise Jesus’ teachings. His teachings were teachings of love. His teachings taught us that we can be one with God. It is important that we must not stop only at outer rituals. We must focus on the foundation, which some perceive as the esoteric side of religion. We need to feed the soul so that it blooms within and rises above body consciousness to be one with God.
On the occasion of Christmas, we need to present ourselves with this important gift that we bring into our lives – universal love, ethical practices and brotherhood, so that we may become like the innocent child as symbolised by Baby Christ. If we make our lives in a manner that there are no outer disturbances so that life is filled with virtues, and we are connected with God from within, we will find that we could speedily reach our destination. This is the true sense of Christmas celebrations.
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