Skip to main content

Christmas Meditation

Every festival be it Christmas, Janmashtami or Diwali should simultaneously be a day of celebration and a day of contemplation. Christmas is as much about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ as it is about remembering his life, his sacrifices and his teachings.



I thought of sharing a few teachings of Jesus Christ which when contemplated, practised and applied can truly make our lives meaningful.

What shall it profit a man, if he  gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his own soul?
  1. If God is all you have, you have all you need. 
  2. The kingdom of God is within your own hearts. 
  3. Knock and the door shall open, seek and you shall find.
  4. Don't build your treasures in this world - for it will be stolen by thieves, corroded by rust and rotten by time 
  5. If you have faith as much as a mustard seed and you tell a mountain to move - it will move.
  6. The meek and humble inherit the kingdom of God.
  7. Love God with all your heart and soul
  8. Love your neighbors as yourself.
  9. Those among you who is sinless can cast the first stone.
When Srila Prabhupada went to the West, one reporter asked him if he had come to America to convert Christians into Hindus. Prabhupada answered "No, I have come to make them better Christians". Whatever our religion may be, the true purpose of every religion is to help us develop our love for God.

So, on this joyous occasion of Christmas let us follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and try to mould our lives in such a way that we can deepen our connection with God, develop genuine integrity and be an instrument of God's compassion and love in this world.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas.

- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

POWER OF BELEIFS

One time Prabhupada asked the devotees "How can we say Krishna is God?". One devotee said, "Because you say so, Prabhupada". Prabhupada replied "I am an old man, how can you believe me". Someone said "Because it is mentioned in Scriptures". Prabhupada countered "But people will say that is simply blind faith". Prabhupada finally answered "Krishna is God because you can experience Him". Prabhupada was not minimising the importance of hearing from Guru and Scriptures, but the point he was making here was that we should be eager to experience God and genuine spiritual emotions in our lives. As devotees we know that Krishna is God, that we are spirit souls and that we can experience great bliss in the process of Krishna consciousness. The question is, shouldn't our lives be examples of someone who has genuine experience and realisations of all these aspects of spiritual life. And if the answer is 'Yes', then the ...

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE

Today morning one of our very senior devotee from our Goa congregation, H.G. Gopanand Prabhu left his body. His life has been a glorious one, fully dedicated to practicing the principles of Krishna consciousness. Sitting near his body and chanting the Holynames in this final journey of his, I was wondering about the mystery of life. His body was appearing as if deep in sleep but this is such a sleep that one doesn't wake up from. What kind of mysterious life has God made! The body appears living but in actuality has no life of it's own. We realise the truth of this statement only when the soul leaves the body. Participating in the departure ceremonies of so many devotees has left me a little wiser and sober in choosing the priorities of life. Life is such a mystery that we learn more about life from death than from life itself. Other than investing time and energy in Krishna consciousness, rest is just a vain. As they say, we need to learn to keep the main thing as the ma...

HAPPINESS WITHOUT REASONS

Everyday there is a different reason for not being happy. Someday, it is because someone hurt us and we keep thinking about it, someday our health is not good. Someday it's simply because we are not in a mood. Someday, it's because a plan of ours didn't work out....and the list goes on and on. Very rarely are we happy. All these reasons are valid and true. But the question is 'when will there be a day when the mind will offer no reasons to be happy?' Material world is a place of continuous drama and happenings, and the mind knows how to perfectly en-cash on it. Even if all our problems went away, will we be happy? A new set of problems will come or even if there are no further problems, the mind will make one. After all it's expert at it - creating problems where none exists.  Happiness, joy, peace or love are unconditional, which means that they are not dependent on any conditions. Waiting for the perfect condition to be happy or peaceful is a gre...