Port Blair, Mar 20: Commemoration of anniversaries of historical events is a common practice, but the widest celebration across the world is the annual New Year festival in accordance with diverse beliefs and cultures in different countries. Most countries following the Christian calendar usher in their New Year on 1st January, a celebratory observance since over two millennia. New Year’s Day, observed as a public holiday in most countries, enables non-Christians also to participate in the joyous event. Other religionists, following their respective calendars, celebrate New Year on different days. But, dates apart, the commonality of these celebrations is the joyous meeting of people of different races, religions and ethnicity and the use of this annual event to renew friendships, exchange greetings and gifts, and start a new phase in life with fresh zeal and hope. Thus New Year celebrations have become a universal festival and a joyful medium of spreading goodwill.
The world of nature too celebrates New Year according to the solar calendar on 21st March, the anniversary of the spring or Vernal Equinox, the occasion with days and nights of equal duration. The Spring Equinox rings down the curtain on cold, sultry winter season, ushers in a new season of sunshine and warmth, and breathes a new life into nature. Trees are soon garbed with fresh green foliage; dormant plants spring forth and blossom into colorful and fragrant flowers. Hibernating creatures emerge from their burrows to forage for food, and bird’s chirp gleefully welcoming the sun. Warmth and vibrancy abound with people out on walks and children at play in parks. As nature ushers in a new season of sunshine and warmth on 21st March so do Baha’is celebrate the occasion as their Naw-Ruz, after a nineteen day period of fasting and meditation.
Similarities between the world of nature and humanity extend into the realm of spirituality. As man enjoys the benefits of the seasonal solar cycle, so also does the “solar” cycle rain bounties upon him from the spiritual realm. As spring renews life in nature, so does a divine springtime rejuvenate mankind? And as natural seasons follow in planned succession, so do spiritual seasons. Whenever man is mired in the darkness of materialism, a spiritual Sun rises in the garb of a Manifestation of God to generate a new spirit in man and guide him back to the path of spirituality.
History is replete with accounts of man’s darkest hours when a Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, Christ or Muhammad, appeared and led him out of his gloom and depravity, and re-instilled in him noble and sublime attributes. History also indicates that as long as man faithfully followed the guidance and implemented divine laws of successive Manifestations, he has progressed and his life has been fruitful. Those periods in history have been the summer seasons of unprecedented advancement, enrichment, and the establishment of glorious civilizations. And when man has veered from righteousness he has brought on the spiritual autumn and the cold lifelessness of wintery kalyug, with attendant woes and travails. The remedy for the crass materialism and Godlessness of the current age is dispelled by the rising of the spiritual sun of Baha’u’llah, the millennial Manifestation promised in all scriptures, with teachings to usher in a fresh age of flowering faith.
