Loving and Divine Soul,

Let the choicest blessings of God and the masters be upon all of you. I take this opportunity to pray for you as we celebrate Christmas, bidding farewell to the past year and making ourselves ready to welcome the New Year. Year after year time passes; nevertheless, we live with the hope that this year will be better.

Every day we waste our time and life as we wait for tomorrow to come. What foolishness! Has anyone seen tomorrow? Is there any guarantee of tomorrow? The masters teach us that we should be practical and active every moment, every day, and make determined progress here and now. But do we think like that? Are we ready to take a positive step at this very moment? If we can't do something now and here, we do it nowhere.

Delay does not respect God. Procrastination is a thief of time. But we tend to delay, to wait until tomorrow. We must be up and doing now.

Jesus came to us. How long did he stay? What example did he provide? He taught us to love all. He taught us not to sleep. Is it not so? Did he not teach that "The Spirit is willing, but the body is weak?"

We think great thoughts, and that is nice. But if we do not act in the right way, we are merely daydreamers.

How should we receive the New Year? First we should celebrate Christmas. But how? By being inspired by Jesus and preparing for the New Year.

Jesus said we should love our neighbors and forgive everyone. A "neighbor" is not the person whose home is next to ours, it is everyone who is present next to us, whether in the market or in the office. Let us look at the life of Jesus and become motivated to pursue spiritual life. He also advised us to love our enemies.

Let's analyze our past year and prepare a new vision for the next. Let us learn from our mistakes and failures. Failures reveal our mistakes and are better friends than our successes. Failure teaches us more. Let us grow. Christmas and New Year occur in winter to teach us how to live in winter so we can welcome the spring and summer.

Let us turn our lives in a new direction. Let us bring a new hope into our lives. Let us be always positive and practical. Let us cultivate discrimination by ignoring trivial things and harvesting positive and practical things. Let us love and serve all creation with humility. Let us not pollute our minds with negative thoughts.

In the Holy Bible (Proverbs, 10:12) it says, "Hatred stirs up conflicts and love covers up all wrongs." Let us cultivate love in our hearts more every day. Let this New Year be the year we celebrate love in our lives in thought, word, and action.

Again, on this special occasion, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I pray for all of us, and I pray for your all-round development.