Why Jesus the Christ came in a lowly manger and not with millions of angels and power and pomp, is the story of the Sacred Initiations of HUmanity. He came in a humble manger to give HUmanity a chance, NOT OVERPOWER THEM.

It was the work of the Christ to show the meaning of the Cross, and to teach the great lesson of sacrifice which means that none shall seek Freedom till all are saved. He promised to remain with us always, renouncing His Nirvana until the end of the world, and dwelling with His beloved children - the publican and the sinner - in the mysterious inner places of consciousness. And those who follow Him must do likewise, and must enter into the state of the desire of birth each year with a yearly increase of the will to help the world. Thus the desire changes its character by degrees, and becomes selfless instead of selfish. The soul of man, and the soul of the world, the soul of Nature and of sub-Nature, all pass alike through the birth-throes. * The birth day of Jesus for instance was completely fluid for 200 years after the death of Jesus. It was not until 400 AD that one began seeing on Christian Calendars that Jesus was born on Dec 25th, which was a take over of the Pagan and other Sacred practices of Winter Solstice.  Many, many cultures the world over perform solstice ceremonies. At their root: an ancient fear that the failing light would never return unless humans intervened with anxious vigil or antic celebration. Mesopotamians were the first that we know of, who celebRAted a 12-Day festival of renewal, designed to help the god Marduk tame the monsters of chaos for one more year.

In December, the birth month, there are seven great and vital Ceremonies, filling the whole month with their observances. The first is the Desire of Birth, the commencement of the mystic story. It is so remote from human and material life that it is impossible to describe it in human language. It is witnessed consciously only by the spiritual being before its descent into matter. The disciple who seeks to take part in it while living in the body, must endeavor to recall to his psychic memory the litany which he heard chanted in the spiritual sphere from which he came when he sought the experience of human life. The Ceremony of the Desire of Birth lasts for four days and nights, beginning on 1st December. During this time it is necessary for the disciple to contemplate all that is implied in its litany. At each midnight, and at the hour of dawn, he should meditate upon the words of the litany, endeavoring to obtain understanding in respect to them. They are very difficult and obscure, so much so as to seem meaningless to the man in material life if he tests them by the light of intellect. But the disciple who belongs to one of the occult schools, and who desires to become a conscious part of the Divine whole, must enter into the psychic life of the world at this sacred season, and apprehend from year to year more and more of the mystery of the divine life in himself, and its union with the material.

Litany

I. I desire birth.
II. I am ready to be burned and consumed; for that is what birth is.
III. I am ready to be naked and unprotected; and to suffer from my nakedness, for that is what life is.
IV. I am ready to make the pilgrimage through matter in darkness and in fire, so that the circle of uncreated shall become with the circle of the create


The ordeal of fire which comes upon the soul immediately that the desire for birth is experienced, and continues while man remains man only, is the burning out and consuming of all alloy in the nature. When this is accomplished, the ego can effect the miracle of resurrection and rebirth into a higher state, and can begin to form a regenerated shape which shall be worthy of immortality.

The instinct of the animal nature is to avoid suffering and to seek protection from it. But the Spirit of Man has sought birth in matter with the object of obtaining purification, and desires, therefore, not only to enter the ordeal of fire but to enter it unprotected. Therefore does it utter these two stanzas of the litany which follow the expression of desire of birth. The mystic union is expressed in the last stanza; it is beyond the understanding of man. He can only dimly apprehend it by degrees as he follows the occult ceremonies, and obtains more and more illumination in respect to them. Autumn, winter, spring, and summer repeat themselves duly every year, because the Divine Spirit of Nature descends continually upon Nature, and passing through matter returns to itself. The drama is enacted afresh every year. The story of the pilgrimage of the spirit of man is contained within this yearly drama, and is the basis of the legends which form the groundwork of the great religions.

Desire, marriage, birth, these bring us hither: love, death, resurrection, these carry us hence; just as the green leaves come with every springtide, so does the inner meaning of the green leaves reveal itself to the disciple in perpetual recurrence.

The ancient Egyptians were the first to institute a sacred calendar, in which every day had its special religious ceremony. The Egyptian initiate, who gave fragments of the Birthday Litany and the Resurrection Litany from the ancient Ritual to the author of the Story of the Year, has now outlined the rites and vigils of the months between Christmas and Easter. But he has given nothing for the summer and autumn months, during which no existing religion has dates for ceremonies or feasts. Doubtless this is in accordance with the accepted belief of the ancients, that no great sacrifice can commence during the sun's southern progress. The south belongs to Yama, the God of the Dead. The sacred months are those in which the sun moves northwards.

The student of occultism is aware that man is a part of Nature, and that the mysteries are revealed to him when he enters into the secret and sacred life of the heavens and the earth. The difference of climate in the various parts of the earth does not affect the religions of the world in their universal acceptance of the month of January as the season of the return of the light of the world. All Nature begins life anew; and the month of December is devoted to the preparation for this fresh life. In an article in the Revue Egyptologique in January 1880, Brugsch Bey, basing his statement on an inscription, speaks of a Ceremony performed at Memphis by the Pharaoh himself, or one of the High Priests, on a certain day which owed its sanctity to the rite - the winter solstice, or 22nd December. He quotes Macrobe in respect to the sun being depicted at that period of the year as a little child. Man's spiritual being is indissolubly associated with this little child, this light-bringer, and as the disciple attains psychic consciousness he becomes aware of the mystic recurrence of that miracle which is described in the religions as birth, death, and resurrection. As he passes up the steps of consciousness he learns that the spiritual light-bearer must endure the martyrdom of crucifixion in time and space, and must descend into the tomb of matter. And as the Great Ones in their bright succession endure this, so must their followers.

Those who follow Him must do likewise, and must enter into the state of the desire of birth each year with a yearly increase of the will to help the world. Thus the desire changes its character by degrees, and becomes selfless instead of selfish. The soul of man, and the soul of the world, the soul of Nature and of sub-Nature, from DARKNESS to LIGHT. At first it appears dark and gloomy, until as a Disciple of Light, ye pass thru it, then thou seest thou was surrounded by LIGHT all the while, and made (thru the furnace and the potter's wheel, AN IMMORTAL LIGHT TO BLESS ALL!  Yes All True Followers pass alike through the birth-throes.

The yearly initiations begin with that desire of rebirth into matter which brings the human spirit into the condition of suffering under the rule of the pairs of opposites; heat and cold, pleasure and pain, love and hate, male and female - these opposing conditions assail him continually, and he cannot free himself  from them save by escaping from rebirth.

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The Ancients observed the Solstices

An utterly astounding array of ancient cultures built their greatest architectures -- tombs, temples, cairns and sacred observatories -- so that they aligned with the solstices and equinoxes. Many of us know that is a perfect marker of both solstices But not so many people are familiar with Newgrange, a beautiful megalithic site in Ireland. This huge circular stone structure is estimated to be 5,000 years old, older by centuries than Stonehenge, older than the Egyptian pyramids! It was built to receive a shaft of sunlight deep into its central chamber at dawn on winter solstice.

The light illuminates a stone basin below intricate carvings -- spirals, eye shapes, solar discs. Although not much is known about how Newgrange was used by its builders, marking the solstice was obviously of tremendous spiritual import to them.

Hundreds of other megalithic structures throughout Europe are oriented to the solstices and the equinoxes. The blossoming field of archaeoastronomy studies such sacred sites in the Americas, Asia, Indonesia, and the Middle East. Recent research into the medieval Great Zimbabwe in sub-Saharan Africa (also known as the "African tonehenge") indicates a similar purpose. In North America, one of the most famous such sites is the Sun Dagger of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, built a thousand years ago by the Chacoans, ancestors of the Pueblo people. Even cultures that followed a moon-based calendar seemed also to understand the importance of these sun-facing seasonal turning points.

Native Americans had winter solstice rites. The sun images at right are from rock paintings of the Chumash, who occupied coastal California for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived. Solstices were tremendously important to them, and the winter solstice celebration lasted several days. 



Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights that occurs around this time every year is an even older celebration of LIGHT for this season. The placement of Hanukkah is tied to both the lunar and solar calendars. It begins on the 25th of Kislev, three days before the new moon closest to the Winter Solstice.   Hanukkah commemorates an historic event — the Maccabees' victory over the Greeks and the rededication of the temple at Jerusalem. But the form of this celebration, a Festival of Lights (with candles at the heart of the ritual), makes Hanukkah wonderfully compatible with other celebrations at this time of year. As a symbolic celebration of growing light and as a commemoration of spiritual rebirth, it also seems closely related to other observances.

StarDoves have sacred codes deep within from the Inner Way of ancient Egypt (after Atlantis and Lemuria). We feel it holds the highest spiritual maturity yet reached on this planet. We also honor the way of the Hindu from India as the latest greatest Spiritual culture left on Earth to point the rest of the planet to "The Way, The Truth and The Light." Particularly the Wisdom as contained in "The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East." Here that message teaches us not to look to any saviour outside of ourselves, that we are not just sinners, but rather we are the MASTERS OF LIGHT.  In these books and tapes they also recall Jesus and proclaim Him as High a Master that has ever-lived, but not a GOd that we fall down and worship!  The jewel of its wisdom is contained here in this passage:

"When we stand one with the sum of all intelligence, and recognize ourselves as an actual part of that intelligence, and know conclusively that this is the great principle, God, we shall soon find ourselves conscious of the fact that all intelligence throughout the whole cosmic universe is working with us. We also realize quickly that the intelligence of all great genius, as well as the little mentality of the single cell of the body, is working with us in perfect harmony and accord. This is the One Great Intelligent Cosmic Mind that we are positively allied with. Indeed we are that very mind; we are the self-consciousness of the universe. The instant we feel this very thing nothing can keep us from our Godhead."


The profound fundamental connection between the ceremonies of the great world religions, and the facts of Nature, is shown by the manner in which they are grouped round the story of the year. On the material plane this story begins with the universally observed festival of the New Year, which is understood to celebrate the victory of light over darkness, and culminates at the beginning of June, when the Tibetans observe the anniversary of Buddha's Nirvana. The New Year Festival is preceded by the Feasts and Ceremonies of Birth, marking the season in which the sun - the light and life of the world - enters upon rebirth, and returns to conquer darkness and death. He comes back each year as a little child, waxing strong as the seasons advance. Macrobe says that the ancient Egyptians represented the sun, "au solstice d'hiver sous l'image d'un petit enfant". The student of occultism is aware that man is a part of Nature, and that the mysteries are revealed to him when he enters into the secret and sacred life of the heavens and the earth. For him the yearly season of material birth is preceded by the spiritual state of desire of birth. The difference of climate in the various parts of the earth does not affect the religions of the world in their universal acceptance of the month of January as the season of the return of the light of the world.

A linguistic puzzle.

Christmas was transplanted onto winter solstice some 1,600 years ago, centuries before the English language emerged from its Germanic roots. Is that why we came to express these two ideas in words that sound so similar?

HUmans fall from grace or manipulated DNA allows things like anger and sadness and forms of  not acting aright to take place in their experience, unless they KEEP A CONSTANT VIGIL!  ... Ah . . . that is another story we will save for the New Year Light Message:  THE VIGIL - where we will focus on:

Medieval History: The Vigil of Arms

A look at the Vigils, its origins and ceremony as it applied to Knighthood.  Information about traditions and historical significance.

In Medieval myth and legend, nothing has held more fascination or mystique than the tradition-shrouded ceremony which preceded a knighting ceremony. This initiation ceremony, known as the Vigil of Arms, has captured the fantasy of knighthood long after the actual practice became an anachronism. But what was this forgotten ceremony, and what made it an intrical part of Medieval society?

NOTE: Twas' my BELOVED MOIRA who first made me aware of the Occult Teachings of Theosophy in this lifetime and in particular at this time of the year Mabel Collins' " When the Sun Moves Northward" (of which I used as the main reference for this article.
For Theosophy, see: http://theosophical.org/  For Your Review:
 http://www.lightparty.com 
http://www.gnostictemplars.org/