20th December was also Pagan New Year in Britain.
Chaim's emphasis on the spiritual aspect was really beautiful this week and so very accurate. I particularly like the explanation that we do not see the spiritual world because God wants us to have free will.
In my religion, we all exist in the spiritual world, eternally, and wem, the souls, come into the physical world, into physical bodies, to clear our accounts. There is no end to existence, no way to escape the the cycle of births and deaths, but it is quite certain, that when we leave this body, we will go home, to the Soul World, before taking another body according to the account.
You could finish the karma of a particular body by committing suicide, but you cannot clear your account by this method, you would just enter another body with the same habits and the same account. To clear the account you must have a personal connection with God and allow him to serve through you thereby changing your habits.
Chaim's analysis of the Hellenists was a little upsetting for me. I certainly feel that Jewish people should be strict with the Jewish neo-Hellenists in their midst, but I prefer a society where nudity and physical beauty are acceptable, but where brazeness and loose morality are rejected.
Well, that is what I thought at first, but my opinion has changed a little bit.
In order to construct an safe and secure imperium, there have to be laws and restrictions, and if not moral laws then tenacious adherence to social boundaries and restrictions.
A European solution would be to model the European Imperium on Hindutva/Vedanta, Natural Law according to the vedas. I think that there is humilty in this. One recognises oneself as part of a larger society and the cosmos, with free will, but with responsibilities towards the nation and the imperium. Caste organisation allow for specialization and for the construction of a more efficient and orderly society, where the needs, if not the rights of the individual are more easily met, and the natural hierarchy is a spiritual hierarchy.
Yet, the whole flavour of this is so very different from Jewish monotheism and all of those laws. Is it a mistake to want to construct a society which works with the laws of nature? Am I missing the point? Am I a Hellenist?
I am a not a Hellenist who wants to destroy dignity. I am not a liberal fascist who seeks to degrade others and harbours a hatred for propriety, but I cannot accept Christianity as the ideal model. There is too much knowledge in the vedas for me to discount them, even if there is ample mysticism within the Jewish and Christian traditions, they just do not have the appreciation for natural law.