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This is the perfect time of year to do a little of what I will call "Spiritual Archeology," digging down below the unexamined assumptions about this holiday season to discover powerful meanings that are "hidden in plain sight."
This year, Chanukah and Christmas both fall on the same date. This doesn't happen very often, since the regular date of the Jewish holiday of Chanukah is based on a date in the Jewish lunar calendar which rarely coincides with December 25th in the Gregorian calendar.
So here is the question that begins our investigation into what is "hidden in plain sight": Do you know why Christmas Eve is on December 24th and Christmas Day is on December 25th?
The answer is NOT, "that's when the baby Jesus was born." No one knows the real date of the birth of Jesus, and two thousand years ago there was no December 25th since the Gregorian calendar did not exist.
To begin our adventure in spiritual archeology requires us to take two steps. The first step is to be willing to dig beneath all the present day symbols that have been added to the holiday in the past couple of centuries such as Christmas Trees, Santa Clause, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, and, yes, power shopping, and recover the vocabulary of powerful symbols and meanings that has been lost to the modern world.
The second step requires us to let go for the moment of the historical or literal interpretations of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, and to read them in the way in which they were understood by mystics of the time, as metaphors and parables that shine a light on our inner state and show us the way back to our true nature as expressions of I AM THAT I AM. Only then can we discover the deeper meanings in the date assigned to Christmas.
One of the most controversial statements in the Christian Bible concerns the virgin conception and subsequent birth of Jesus, a conception in which God, not man, had a part. If you read this from a scientific, physiological perspective, you will have trouble, and are apt to miss the powerful meanings of the story. But what if you read this story as a message of the soul that must be interpreted psychologically and ontologically if we are to discover its true symbology?
If you've studied mythology, you're aware that there were many stories of virgin births that existed before the time of Jesus, where a particular god (Zeus, etc.), always in some form other than human (a cloud, a light, etc.) impregnates a virgin who then gives birth to a son that is part human and part god. What we call myths was the religious scripture of its time. In the modern western world, where we are conditioned to read, understand, and argue about our own religous scriptures as if they are historical prose instead of parables and symbols for the inner journey, we have lost the symbolic vocabulary to fully understand the messages these stories are giving us.
As a guide on our journey to illuminate the meaning of the date assigned to Christmas, I offer you the following excerpt from the book, "Your Faith is Your Fortune," by the late 20th century mystic, Neville, in a chapter titled, "Christmas."
The outstanding dramatic dates assigned to the life of Jesus, namely birth, death and resurrection, were timed and dated to coincide with certain astronomical phenomena. The mystics who recorded this story noticed that at certain seasons of the year beneficial changes on earth coincided with astronomical changes above.
In writing this psychological drama, they have personified the story of the soul as the biography of man. Using these cosmic changes, they have marked the birth and resurrection of Jesus to convey that the same beneficial changes [can] take place psychologically in the consciousness of man�[the assigned date of Christmas] When unfolded in the light of its mystic symbology, ...is revealed as the true birth of every manifestation in the world.
This virgin birth is recorded as having taken place on December 25th, or, as certain �societies celebrate it, on Christmas Eve, at midnight of December 24th. Mystics established this date to mark the birth of Jesus because it was in keeping with the great earthly benefits this astronomical change signifies.
The astronomical observations which prompted the authors of this drama to use these dates were all made in the northern hemisphere; so from an astronomical point of view the reverse would be true if seen from the southern latitudes... Man very early discovered that the sun played a most important part in his life, that without the sun physical life as he knew it could not be. So these most important dates in the story of Jesus are based upon the position of the sun as seen from the earth in the northern latitudes.
After the sun reaches its highest point in the heavens in June, it gradually falls southward, taking with it the life of the plant world so that by December almost all of nature has been stilled. Should the sun continue to fall southward, all nature would be stilled unto death. However, on December 25th, the sun begins its great move northward, bringing with it the promise of salvation and life anew for the world. Each day, as the sun rises higher in the heavens, man gains confidence in being saved from death by cold and starvation, for he knows that as it moves northward and crosses the equator, all nature will rise again, will be resurrected from its long winter sleep.
Our day is measured from midnight to midnight, and, since the visible day begins in the east and ends in the west, the ancients said the day was born of that constellation which occupied the eastern horizon at midnight. On Christmas Eve, or midnight of December 24th, the constellation Virgo is rising on the eastern horizon. So it is recorded that this son and savior of the world was born of a virgin. It is also recorded that this virgin mother was traveling through the night, that she stopped at an inn, and was given the only available room among the animals and there in a manger, where the animals fed, the shepherds found the Holy Child.
The animals with which the Holy Virgin was lodged are the holy animals of the zodiac. There in that constantly moving circle of astronomical animals stands the Holy Mother, Virgo, and there you will see her every midnight of December 24th, standing on the eastern horizon as the sun and savior of the world starts his journey northward.
Psychologically, this birth takes place in man on that day when man discovers his consciousness to be the sun and savior of his world ["the Kingdom of Heaven is within you"]. When man knows the significance of this mystical statement, "I am the light of the world," he will realize that his I AM, or consciousness, is the sun of his life, which sun radiates images upon the screen of space. These images are in the likeness of that which he, as man, is conscious of being. Thus qualities and attributes which appear to move upon the screen of his world are really projections of this light from within himself ["as above, so below"]�
�When man discovers his consciousness or I AM to be God, the savior of his world, he will be as the sun in its northern passage. All hidden urges and ambitions will then be warmed and stimulated into birth by this knowledge of his true self. He will claim that he is that which heretofore he hoped to be. Without the aid of any man, he will define himself as that which he desires to express. He will discover that his I AM is the virgin conceiving without the aid of man, that all conceptions of himself, when felt, and fixed in consciousness, will be embodied easily as living realities in his world.
Man will one day realize that this whole drama takes place in his consciousness, that his unconditioned consciousness or I AM is the Virgin Mary desiring to express� through this [universal law of creation] ... He will then understand; why Christmas is fixed on December 25th, while Easter is a movable date; why upon the virgin conception the whole of Christendom rests; that his consciousness is the virgin womb or bride of the Lord receiving impressions as self-impregnations and then without assistance embodying these impressions as the expressions of his life.
If you live in the northern hemisphere and the skies are clear on December 24th, I invite you to look up into the heavens around midnight at the constellation Virgo surrounded by the animals of the zodiac, and enjoy the earliest symbolic and most cosmic light display of Christmas as it was seen by the authors who assigned this date its meaning so many centuries ago.
Whether you celebrate Christmas or Chanukah, it is all about honoring and being filled with the Light that gives Life!
Peace on Earth begins with Peace Within.
May you have a wondrous holiday season, and may your New Year be filled with love, joy, creativity, inner peace and fulfillment!
With Love and Blessings,
-- Hal Isen
From Core Wisdom On-Line Number 59 - December 15, 2005 541-488-7687 |
