GORVI: GLIMPSES OF RELIGIOUS VISIONS – 1

January 1

Like days and weeks and months, years also come and go, except that these make us aware we are growing in age. That is why it is traumatic for some to peel a page from the calendar or to replace a calendar with one with a larger number on top.

We may picture the passage of time in spatial terms: a room which holds the past within, and the space beyond as where the future lies, the entry door separating the two. In this metaphor, we fling open the door to another new year in our calendrical reckoning of years. As a door has two faces, one looking inside and the other outside, so too this new month has two faces, one looking back into the accumulated past-years, and the other facing the future yet to be born. That is the significance of Janus: the two-faced God of the Romans, who is invoked as January in this, the first month of the year. Indeed, Janus was the beginning of everything in the Roman world. He was the god of all exits and entrances. Hence all gates and doors were regarded as holy. In this, there is more than mythology: We see here a deep insight into the nature of Time, for between the has-been and the yet-to-come is the winking present that alone is perceived reality. The Hindu world pictures this as Shiva’s third eye which transforms all to naught, as does every fleeting instant in the incessant stream of time. Christ is sometimes described as pater futuri seculi: Father of Ages unborn.

In most traditions, as at one time among the ancient Romans too, the year began with the onset of spring. It was March, the month of sowing, which was the first of the months, making  – as their names still remind us –  the months from September  to December  seventh (septem: seven) to the tenth (decem: ten) months. Though this is the time of the year when the earth is at its perihelion (closest to the sun in its elliptical orbit), 1 January has no observed astronomical significance such as a solstice.

The little Temple for Janus that Claudius Duilus is said to have erected in 260 BCE in the Forum Olitorium is buried in antiquity, alive only in the obscure pages of history, but his name is here to stay on the calendars of many peoples.

Who can tell what is in store for humanity for the year 2002? As always, possibilities are immense and unpredictable, for good and for bad: The discovery of a new and limitless non-polluting energy source could bring about a golden age of prosperity for all of humanity. The rise to power of a mindless maniac with nuclear capabilities could unleash irrevocable devastation.  Education and science could free more humans from ignorance and superstition, but scarce resources could deepen the chasm between the haves and the have-nots. Religious and racial bigotry could fire simmering suspicions into horrendous conflagrations, or perhaps the emergence of an enlightened religious outlook could foster understanding and harmony among differing faiths and convictions. Or again, the long and checkered course of human history could be snuffed into a mere glitch in the planet’s saga by the rude intrusion of a stray asteroid lured by earth’s gravity.

Rarely has a year ended on such a dismal note as the last one (2022), and rarely has one begun with so much fear and such little promise of betterment. But we must not give up. The flame of hope must be kept alive, whether with prayer or with silent wishes, but above all with every individual effort we can muster to snub inclinations to feel bitter or belligerent, to extend hands and hearts of friendship to those who come our way, and  to right the wrongs the best we can.