The New Year’s momentum begins even in December

It is holiday time around the world and many people are busy celebrating, traveling to see family, finishing up end-of-year projects, considering their yearly donations and giving, or just trying to stay warm—at least in the Northern hemisphere!

Many wait until January 1 to start their New Year’s resolutions. What about considering the power of December to structure powerful lasting change? In any kind of change, three factors are involved: first, dissolution of the old values, creation of a new possibility, and maintenance or momentum to sustain that idea in space and time.

3 Values in Nature

In the Vedic literature, these three qualities (the creative, maintaining, and dissolving forces) are known as the 3 Gunas: Sattwa (creative quality), Rajas (maintaining quality), and Tamas (destructive quality).

These three values are found together in varying proportions; identifying them specifically allows us to see how best to use them to our advantage. For example, in any changing situation, there is the current existing value, which must be dissolved before a new value can emerge. There is always a gap or transition point between the old, previous state and the new, emerging state. Knowing how to make use of the mechanics of that gap gives us much more success in implementing a desired quality of change.

Newton’s first law of motion states that an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. In other words, it describes the process of inertia, the maintaining quality of natural law. This law could similarly be used to describe our long-standing habits and associations, which become physiologically embedded and hard to change.

For example, if your New Year’s resolution is to go for a morning walk in the woods every day, there could be several steps to manifesting that change:

1. Dissolution of the previous inertia of sleeping in late every morning (via intervention, for example an alarm clock or going to bed earlier)

2. Creation of a new habit and all that is needed to support it (proper winter clothing, friend to walk with, easy access to nice walking trails)

3. Maintenance of the habit once it has been started (this may come from the benefits experienced due to more fresh air, more energy during the day, or reminders)

Natural Gaps

In the northern hemisphere, December 21 is the time of year known as the winter solstice. This is a natural and powerful gap, as the sunlight changes from decreasing daily to increasing daily. In essence, the momentum of the day’s length is shifted from one direction to another. Becoming aware of what we want to accomplish is easier in this or any other gap or junction point, when no specific direction has momentum.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Vedic Science, the science of consciousness, describes the junction point in a lecture on Science, Consciousness, and Aging:

The junction point in its ultimate sense is the point of connection between the unmanifest and the manifesting process, the point where the value of consciousness becomes transformed into matter and energy; where the immovable, non-changing starts to move and becomes converted into change. [1] (Science, Consciousness and Ageing, p. 19)

The gap is the state of non-localized wholeness where one state can move into another state with less friction. This concept is also seen concretely in dance, when one moves from one step to another through a central position. It is actually impossible to go from one localized state to another without passing through some sort of gap. So how can we make use of the mechanics of the gap to adjust our current habits? The gap can be compared to an open white canvas on which we can choose to create a new possibility.

Here are several ways to use the gap to support your New Year’s resolutions:

1. First, enliven the gap every day in your mind and awareness through the process of transcending. The experience of restful alertness in the state of transcendental consciousness, which enlivens total brain functioning, opens the mind to wholeness, the field of all possibilities, total brain functioning. Only this experience of abstract lively silence enlivens total holistic brain functioning.[2] When you come out of transcendental meditation, your options will have increased since the connections all over your brain have been enlivened (global versus only local brain functioning).

2. Second, decide what you want to accomplish (clarify your vision) and use every gap to steer more in that direction. Sometimes going in the direction we want to take first requires reversing our course from a current trajectory. We might at first think we’re going backwards, but East is backwards of West and North is backwards of South. If you are currently facing South and wish to go North, you had better go backwards or take the time to turn around!

3. Take advantage of natural gaps in your daily life to reset your priorities. There are many gaps present throughout the day, including each time we switch from one activity to another, and learning to see and optimize them gives us much more room to adjust the direction of our thoughts and actions in an effortless way. Taking advantage of the gap in time could mean taking a true vacation or digital detox day, honoring a seasonal gap like the winter solstice, or even becoming aware of the value of sleep every night, as a regular gap between two days.

Use the momentum and deep inward direction of December’s dimming outer light to focus on your inner thoughts and long-term desires. Then, as the sun springs back into growing days, your desires can manifest more easily. Honoring the change of season through winter solstice and holiday celebrations also serves to remind us of the powerful quality that each season brings.

As you make your New Year and New Decade resolutions, recognize that change takes time. Winter offers an ideal gap to set deep roots for the coming energy of Spring, because it is a time for rest and reflection, of inner structuring, on the basis of which the activity of spring will be well grounded.

One of the 16 principles of the Science of Creative Intelligence is “Rest and Activity are the Steps of Progress”. [3] For those seeking to create profound lasting change in this new decade of 2020, whether personally, professionally, or globally, take the time now in this last week of December to start well, through rest, relaxation, and clarifying your vision.

In light of new year possibilities, please enjoy 20 Recipes for Bliss in 2020.

References

1. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (1980). The principles of longevity and immortality. Proceedings of the international conference on science, consciousness, and ageing (January 19-20, 1980). Rheinweiler, Germany: Maharishi European Research University Press, p. 19.

2. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, widely regarded as one of the foremost scientists in the field of consciousness, describes that total brain functioning is only possible when inner abstract silence is directly experienced.

“Only in the state of Transcendental Consciousness, that holistic value of silence, only that makes the brain totally active. If that is not there, brain has no opportunity to function for its holistic value. ONLY the abstract experience of silence (TC- Transcendental Consciousness) will make total brain function. This total brain function supports each part of the brain with every other part of the brain. Human brain has a cosmic potential.” (Global Press Conference March 19, 2003)

3. The Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI) was created by Maharishi beginning in 1971 to describe the systematic qualities and orderliness found throughout nature, human awareness, and the universe as a whole. There are 16 principles of SCI.