All singing.
The candles. The flowers. The children. The darknight outside; still and silent. The song in the heart busting outinto the throats. Deeper than song, the silence in the heart. Deeperthan that silence, again a layer of song in the heart. All wrapped inthe light of love beaming out from eyes. The St. Nicholas Daycelebration in Germany. Just recently.
If St. Nicholas came to your room tonight, andoffered you the fulfillment of a single wish, what would you ask for?- someone inside me inquired. Someone inside me answered. I will askthis: May I be born simultaneously, all sparks of my soul scatteredto the million corners of the world, in all the tribes, all nationsand sub-nations, among all the million chosen peoples of the earth.Yes, I wish to be born in all of them at the same time. So that, sothat, so that, I could savour each one's song, let my tongue lick thelanguage of each, dance each one's seadance, sundance, moondance,stardance, crystal dance, immerse myself in the stream of sanctitythat flows through each one's sacred text of revelation - whetherwritten or spoken or silently remembered. Oh would that my mind andsoul could experience the richness and plenitude of each nation'sritual and festival and the manner in which they exchange gifts oflove. Oh, to know the mantras of the shaman and the priest and themystic and the visionary and the soothsayer of each of thesenations.
And after I have worshipped each one's sacredtree, the Oak, the ficus Indica, the holy basil, the Christmas tree,then to sit under one of these, like a Christmas gift under thelight-laden tree, with all seven candles burning, yes, and gathertogether in me the power of all these mantras and the grace from allthese acts of worship offerings, make it into a round crystal ball,and hold that within my mind. Then, when the light divine within hasfully illuminated the crystal, then to let it burst out of me, likethe Sermon on the Mount, like the light-pregnant words at Sarnath,like the Silence at Gaya at the banks of Niranjana. Burst out and letthe tiniest possible shards of crystal, a trillion, fly in alldirections and impregnate every mind in the universe with the mostprofound stillness. Oh, declare this to be the silent night of peaceon earth as it is in heaven.
This is my prayer, my wish, my gift of love foryou at this moment of transition of the season. May all your sensesbe stilled into such a night even for a nanomement and in thatnanomoment you be granted the grace of the clear vision of thelightladen tree that is the body of God as the universe.
I give you as the season's gift the crystal ofthis vision. And if you unexpectedly come round to look at yourlovely Christmas tree and see under it a recently enlightened newBuddha sitting in stillness, may your Christmas tree be thenceforthknown as the new Bodhi tree of the millennium from whose branches allnations plant a fresh tree each in their soil.
And may God plant into your Guru-sprinkled soulHerself as your eternal Light, as you the Being Light.
May you thenceforth live in a world that is a songof silence, a silence of song, silence and song of the sanctity ofstillness, all your own, all You alone. May in your internal universeecho the declaration: All One, All One, All One.
Happy Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Year, HappyMillennium, Happy next breath, Happy next creation. May stillness beyour joyful celebration.
Blessings,
Swami Veda Bharati