NEW YEAR'S 2013: WORLD GIVING
ENTHUSIASTIC WELCOME TO NEW YEAR
www.huffingtonpost.com
- In New York, as the world rang in 2013 with spectacular
fireworks displays and showers of confetti, the specter of economic
uncertainty and searing violence dimmed some festivities and weighed on
the minds of revelers hoping for a better year. Revelers with New Year's
hats and sunglasses boasting “2013” packed the streets in the 35-degree
cold to watch the crystal ball drop in Times Square. Security in Times
Square was tight, with a mass of uniformed police and plainclothes
officers assigned to blend into the crowd.
The
celebrations on the West Coast took place nearly 24 hours after lavish
fireworks displays lit up skylines in Sydney, Hong Kong and Shanghai. In
Myanmar, about 90,000 people gathered in a field to watch a countdown
for the first time, according to organizers. The reformist government
that took office in 2011 in the country, long under military rule, threw
its first public New Year's celebration in decades.
In
Russia, spectators filled Moscow's Red Square as fireworks exploded
near the Kremlin. In Rio de Janeiro, revelers dressed head-to-toe in
white as dictated by Brazilian tradition flooded onto Copacabana beach
for a concert. In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated with a vespers
service in St. Peter's Basilica to give thanks for 2012 and look ahead
to 2013. In the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, multicolored
fireworks danced up and down the world's tallest building, the Burj
Khalifa.
In London,
the chimes of the clock inside the Big Ben tower counted down the final
seconds of 2012 and fireworks dazzled the sky above Parliament Square.
Streamers shot out of the London Eye wheel and blazing rockets launched
from the banks of the River Thames. Festivities were canceled across New
Delhi, the Indian capital, amid days of mourning and reflection about
women's safety after a rape victim died on Saturday.

World
cities from Sydney and Hong Kong to Dubai and London rang in the New
Year with spectacular fireworks. The huge celebrations marked the start
of the New Year on Tuesday Jan. 1, 2013. Spectators watch a fireworks
display at the Singapore financial district, the New York's Times
Square, the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia, along Copacabana Beach
in Rio de Janeiro, near Malaysia's landmark Petronas Twin Towers, while
Japanese people released balloons to celebrate the New Year's during an
annual countdown ceremony produced by the Prince Park Tower Tokyo. As
the world enters a New Year, we also wish all of you that this "New
Year" brings us new strenght to change our old behaviours that take us
away from the realm of spirituality.
WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?
The Vedic wisdom explains that each one of us is a sentient, eternal
and blissful spiritual personality having inherently the nature of
befriending and loving God and all living beings. The Vedic scriptures
also wish us a genuinely felt “Happy New Year.” ... The Vedas agree with
the common understanding that to become happy something “new” has to be
done. But the understanding of new as given in the Vedic wisdom is
significantly different from the general understanding. ... Love of God
is our original and real nature, but due to prolonged and excessive
contact with matter, it has become completely obscured and is now
misdirected towards various material objects. All genuine spiritual
practices are meant to revive this love of God, which is presently
dormant in our hearts. And God being infinite is eternally new (nitya
navanavayamana) and so loving Him is an eternally new and happy
experience. Thus revival of our love of God is the ultimate fruition of
the wish “Happy New Year!”
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