Theos-Talk Archives (December 2006 Message tt00839)

THE CHRIST-BIRTH 

 

Christmas is generally known as the festival of the nativity of 
Christ. It is regarded as the Birthday of Jesus, the teacher 
recognized by Christendom. Though generally known as a Christian 
festival, it is not exclusively so; it was already observed by the 
entire pagan world long before the era of Jesus. It is quite clear 
from historical and documentary evidence that before the fifth 
century there was no agreement as to the actual date of Christ's 
birth, and till then the calendars do not speak of it.

In the religious history and the mythology of many peoples we become 
familiar with numerous Sun-Gods who are all born at the time of the 
winter solstice, round about the 21st of December. Thus the Romans 
were celebrating the Rite of Mithra which they had adopted from 
Persia, and the birth of Mithra, the Sun-God, was celebrated on the 
25th of December. Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 
says:

The Roman Christians, ignorant of the real date of Christ's birth, 
fixed the solemn festival on the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or 
Winter Solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the Birth of 
Sol. 
>From Central America where civilization flourished in far distant 
times we have the examples of Mexican, Aztec and Yucatan Gods, all 
born of Virgin mothers and all born round about the 25th of 
December. The Venerable Bede, who lived in the eighth century, says 
of ancient Britons:

The ancient people of the Angli began the year on the 25th December 
when we now celebrate the Birthday of the Lord; and the very night 
which is now so holy to us, they called in their 
tongue "modranecht," that is, the mother's night, by reason we 
suspect of the ceremonies which in that night-long vigil they 
performed. 
The Christmas festival is the drama, the representation of a divine 
and mysterious event—the Birth of Christos, the Avatara. It is a 
drama that the early Christians borrowed from the Pagans, and it is 
good that they so borrowed it; but unformately its real significance 
is not understood by the masses of Christendom today, nor is it 
explained to them. Jesus was not born on this day; the early 
Christians incorporated in their religion this festival, feeling the 
need for it in a moral and spiritual way.

Christmas is the festival of birth—the Birth of Divinity, of 
Christos, of Avalokiteshwara, of Krishna. In the process of human 
evolution, in accordance with the great Law of Cycles, cosmically, 
Divinity manifests through special Incarnations, and, 
psychologically, in special ways. The doctrine of Avataras or Divine 
Incarnations has two phases or aspects: one cosmical, the second 
psychological. There are appearances of great cosmic Avataras; they 
are macrocosmic phenomena. Secondly, in our own individual human 
unfoldment there are appearances, the afflatus of our own Divinity, 
our own spiritual Atma, and such are microcosmic phenomena. Nothing 
takes place in Nature that does not also occur in the human kingdom; 
and the appearance of Great Avataras has its counterpart in the life 
of men and women. The Great Birth, the Supreme Birth, is that very 
rare phenonemon in Nature when in a human individual, evolving 
onwards and upwards, the Great Purusha, Uttama-Purusha, enters and 
manifests Himself. Evolution in the human kingdom is a long process; 
yuga after yuga, man struggles; he sins and suffers and grows as he 
attempts to gain virtue and abandon vice; after many lives he frees 
himself from the enslavement of Nature, Prakriti; he becomes pure, 
Suddha, and then he develops higher spiritual powers or siddhis, and 
becomes fit to hold in the casket of his heart the living Image of 
Uttama-Purusha, the Supreme Man, call Him Krishna or call Him 
Christ, call Him Mithra or call Him Osiris, call him Odin or call 
Him Apollo. This is the Great Mystery, the advent of the Divine Man 
into the Living Temple of the Human Heart. It is to this secret and 
sacred Mystery that the Gita refers when it says that "among 
thousands of mortals a single one perhaps strives for perfection and 
among those so striving perhaps a single one knows me as I am." This 
rare Being is described in the same chapter as the "Mahatma 
difficult to find."

Coming to the psychological aspect: Each one of us has a dual 
nature; it is not merely the duality of lower and higher or evil and 
good; it is the duality of two distinct lines or pedigrees which mix 
and mingle in man. In part of our nature each one of us is a lunar 
being—a Chandra Vamshi; in another part of our being we are solar—
Surya Vamshi.

The Moon has one very striking characteristic: it changes in its 
phases every hour, every day. From crescent to half, from half to 
gibbous, from gibbous to full, then waning from full it becomes new 
and invisible for a day or so. This is a good representation of our 
personal nature—ever changing.

Look at the Sun: it is ever full, rises and sets every day in the 
glory of fullness. This is our higher nature—the spiritual 
Individuality.

When the lunar or personal nature comes under the control and 
guidance of the solar or spiritual, it becomes full of radiance and 
light. We must make an effort to be born as the full moon, to live 
as the full moon and to die as the full moon. That is the message of 
the Buddha Festival. It is said that He was born at full moon. He 
attained Nirvana at full moon, He passed away when the moon was full.

Our practical question now is how we shall increase, how we shall 
enhance the power of the Solar Pedigree in us so that here on earth 
we may shine like the moon when it is full. The Voice of the Silence 
says: "Destroy thy lunar body," that is, the kama-rupa, and "cleanse 
thy mind-body," that is, the manasa-rupa. These two forms of life 
have to be dealt with—the destruction of kama, passion; the 
cleansing of manas, mind. These two processes are simultaneous, must 
go together; mind cleansing produces the death of kama. The final 
death of the lower passions brings to birth the Higher Man. Living 
as desire entities, we are familiar with the phenomenon of death. We 
say we are born to die. Every child who is born is sure only of one 
thing—that it is going to die.

The festival of Christmas brings to human attention the miracle of 
Birth. Why not so live that life is a perpetual creation, a series 
of births? It is rightly said that death disappoints the Soul; then 
why not take precautions against the snare of death? We die 
perpetually, continuously, because of delusion, moha, born of 
ignorance, avidya. The Birth of the Soul if perpetually brought 
about by kriya-shakti, creative activity, would take human beings 
not from death to death, but from one birth or awakening to another 
birth and awakening. Let us attempt always to awaken to new 
realities. The process of ever being born takes place because Atma, 
the Superior Luminous Self, has begun to create within the purified 
heart. That Superior Self is Krishna or Christos, the Uttama-
Purusha, the Divine Man, and His Birth is the real celebration of 
Christmas.

[ "The Theosophical Movement",  Mumbai, India, December 2002 ]

 

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