Commercialized Christmas: A Gift Wrapped Emptiness
Gift giving during Christmas has become a worrisome experience for many people. Practically everyone is trying to figure out what should I give and what should I get? The attempt to satisfy people and make them happy during Christmas is actually the idea behind gift giving. We can only give the best gift if we recognize the real identity of that person. If you look even deeper into people’s identity and see that in reality, all these external identities that you might e thinking people are is not what they really are. We are spirit souls and not these temporary material identities like being a student, basketball, actor, father. We are eternal living beings within these temporary bodies. Our real identity is we are spirit souls who are children of the Supreme Being, God.
Unfortunately, most people perceive others based on their temporary material identities and therefore wrongly conclude that material things can make them happy. Especially in Christmas, material things are put in boxes and make them look very special.Gift wrapped emptiness means that actually the content of those nicely wrapped packages is emptiness. There’s nothing of real substance there, It was just a dead matter-material particles that come together which in due course of time will eventually fall apart. Those are materials, and we are not material in nature so it can not really satisfy us.
We can not be made truly happy by any material thing because we are not matter, we are not the body, we are not the mind, we are eternal spirit souls, we are the life force, Therefore the best thing that a person can give us has something to do with our spiritual nature.
The Greatest Gift– Love For God
“Seek the things th at are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, Mind the things that are above and not the things that are on earth” -Colossians 3: 1-2
Jesus is saying , don’t put your mind on earthly things, put your mind on God but many other people like merchants during Christmas time are telling us that we will be happy by putting our hearts, minds and our desires on material dimension. What they are teaching us is that you can prove your love to others by buying things for them. Christmas is supposed to be the celebration of Jesus’ appearance day who primarily taught love for God. So redirecting the focal point of the celebration like prioritizing buying these and that is such an offensive nature. Jesus wants us to be real happy and he is telling us exactly how to achieve perfect happiness. His first and foremost commandment “Love God with all your heart, all your mind and your entire being.”
The Search For Peace
People often lament that Christmas time is ideally a season of peace but in reality there is turmoil, conflict and wars. Many people realize the irony of the situation. Why is there no peace in the world? Because individuals themselves are not at peace. Persons are not at peace because they reject the teachings of Jesus Christ who taught Love for God. We may be labeled as Christians and says “I got to church” but our consciousness is materialistic and desiring to exploit and dominate over God’s property, be it His children or the world for our own selfish sense enjoyment and this applies from individual to international level. If we are all servants of our senses, we can be in so much conflict with each other. If we really want peace then we have to start being a lover of God. Recognizing that God is the Supreme Controller, Supreme Owner and Supreme Energy. We should not act like thieves who’s trying to lord over God’s property and acting like thieves will not make us truly happy. So instead of cultivating and increasing the materialistic consciousness and self-centered consciousness, we should try to cultivate our love for God. Awaken that natural love for God because a pure lover of God is peaceful, He has no enemy because loving God means automatically loving everyone, you have so much love that you extend it to others, even to animals, seeing them as also children of God.
Reality of Peace
We can not have peace by means of social re- arrangements, so-called peace arrangements, political or diplomatic maneuvers. Peace is not possible this way. People have to change their consciousness, change their hearts.
People have to change their attitude towards God and his children.. The way we deal with God and others-the very way we live. People can not remain the same materialistic consumerist people and have peace and harmony in the family, society or world, There can never be harmony if we live like animals.
We can not have the consciousness of animals and yet have peace of humans.
Let us be more reflective of how we relate to others and to God.
“For the world to be peaceful, we have to be peaceful within ourselves. ”
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