Friends and I were recently discussing the annual craziness of the December festive season and New Year. We were questioning why we, as a society, endorse this annual madness, why we allow the seasonal push and stress and, behind that, what is orchestrating it all.
How strange that so many of us engage in the craziness of the festive season and yet few question either its origin or purpose other than to party hard and perhaps, articulate a couple of New Year resolutions, which are oftentimes broken within a few weeks of making them.
What are we avoiding by participating in this dysfunctional way of celebrating the passing of the old year and the bringing in of the new? What are we creating for ourselves?
As we shared our experiences, I was aware of an image constantly presenting itself for my consideration. The image was of a board game that I, and many others, played in childhood, often during the festive season: the game of Snakes and Ladders.
This is a competitive game of chance and ends when the first person reaches the finish, creating a strong desire to win and beat your opponents by climbing as many ladders as you can, while hoping that you can avoid the snakes.
When seen in this light, the game appears to be ethically rather questionable as a game for children. As a preparation for adulthood, it unfortunately brings a rather too accurate mirror of life of many segments of our society, and has a particular relevance to what happens at the start of each New Year.
The energy of competitive pushing, of winners and losers, of climbing ‘lucky’ ladders to beat opponents and avoiding ‘unlucky’ snakes for oneself, while hoping that opponents are caught by them instead, the adrenalin rush, the competitive edge – it’s all there! So exciting… so ugly.
Is this ugliness what we avoid being aware of as we claim to be letting go of the old and bringing in the new? That we have lived another year and we, in ourselves, have changed not a jot and that, in effect, we are ringing out the old and ringing in the… old, so it’s all… old?
Does our maladaptive end of year behaviour simply set us up for yet another annual game of Snakes and Ladders? Could our New Year greeting be more accurately articulated as “Happy Old Year?”
A common image of the turn of the year is often that of a seriously stooped over old man with a walking stick, giving way to a newborn baby, a symbol of hope. But by the end of the year, the baby always looks the same and has become the seriously stooped over old man again. Evidently, hope changes nothing.
Letting go of the old… and ringing in the new.
So what would make a lasting change?
What would make a change where we could honestly look ourselves in the eye and know for sure that we have evolved, that we are entering a new year cycle and that, in truth, not only as Einstein asserted “God does not play dice with the Universe”, we do not have to either.
The only true source for change and evolution I have found in the five decades of my life is that presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Universal Medicine presents that each year is an opportunity for us to acknowledge where we are as a marker, a reference point if you will, of our energetic development as a loving human being. It is a time to reflect on how we have deepened in our expression of love for ourselves and for others.
How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others? These are questions I choose to ask myself.
Moreover, Universal Medicine presents that each year has its own specific quality of energy to which we can align, if that is our choice.
The choice to align with this energy places one’s personal rhythms within a larger context, which encompasses us all.
I feel a strong sense of purpose with this. I feel in this a connection with my fellow human beings, all seven billion of us, a connection that is decidedly absent in competitive situations where there has to be a winner and many, many losers.
In the Universal Medicine paradigm, we are all offered the same choices in complete equality.
As I see it, the choices for me are quite simple:
- “Snakes and Ladders,” or a continued expansion of myself in love.
- A game of apparent chance, with snakes, or a life with purpose and connection with everyone.
- Celebrating a new inclusive, expansive cycle, while building upon the passing cycle, or “Happy Old Year.”
In a very literal sense, this is for me definitely a ‘no brainer.’
For me, the only way worthy of my consideration is the way set forth by Universal Medicine and its main presenter, Serge Benhayon.
So… Snakes and Ladders or Evolution? Happy New Year!
By Coleen
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Life can be like a Yo Yo, as Living will always have its ups and downs, but in the end we all end up in the Hand of God, and it is up to us all to understand the reality that life offers us through the trust of divinity and that we are always connected to the Hand-of-God, which deepens through The Way of The Livingness.
A great question to ask ourselves not just about the Christmas and new year period but everything in life ‘what is orchestrating it all’ when we understand more and more that everything is energy and have more awareness with true truth of energy .. fire and prana or Soul and spirit or heaven and the astral plane then more and more of what we see makes sense in that we can take a step back and understand/be aware more of what is going on and of course with that then be able to make a choice from a different place within.
Competition has to come with a judgement that we are better than another and it can also become a war of words when we are sledging another to win the physiological battle.
Competition is ugly, ‘The energy of competitive pushing, of winners and losers, of climbing ‘lucky’ ladders to beat opponents and avoiding ‘unlucky’ snakes for oneself, while hoping that opponents are caught by them instead, the adrenalin rush, the competitive edge – it’s all there! So exciting… so ugly.’
When you leave your outcomes to chance you leave yourself open to the ups and downs in life. Snakes and Ladders is a great example of this up and down.
Absolutely Lucy, we can all chase chance around the corner and focus on the stairway to heaven, then through our dedication to True Love by being non-imposing and thus shutting the door on that type of roller coaster ride.
This reminds me of a recent situation where some family friends and I played a board game. The intensity of competition was so real we literally had to stop to get more food and scoff it down because of the angst that had built up. When in competition we feel like if we don’t win we are not good enough, that we are somewhat less, and when we feel that of course anxiety in our body is going to go through the roof! So what we do, we go for foods and drinks to numb that down instead of dealing with it and discarding it from our lives. We can go year after year after year, thinking we are starting something new – but if we don’t address the energy, every year we will look like the old guy – worn-out, with a hump on our back from all the bending over to please the world and prove we are something. We don’t need to do that, there is another way.
Yes, we don’t need to take on the burdens of the world and buying into the competition and numbing that go hand in hand as we feel inadequately prepared to deal with what is in front of us? The up and down of Snakes and Ladders should not be our normal.
You are right Lucy, it is not needed – all that happens is we get worn out but we are not changing anything. We can worry about our family problems, that our kids aren’t doing how we would like them to, or that our parents are not well, but that is just keeping us down, increasing our anxiety and wearing the body down.
I’m all for cycles and evolution, and the equality we all have, it’s much better than the stagnation of repeating the same things and the comparison, competition and win/lose scenario. Universal Medicine is offering something here that is common sense, and it feels amazing to live it.
What Serge Benhayon, and Universal Medicine present is common sense, which feels true.
“It is a time to reflect on how we have deepened in our expression of love for ourselves and for others.” A beautiful gift to offer ourselves and others as we all set off on another cycle around the Sun.
This is an opportunity to consider how we climb the ladders and how we address the snakes that present along the way. I see snakes as the moments of control that I go into in my life where I don’t trust there is divine order at play. We all have free will and even if I see yuk happening, taking a moment to consider how we got to that muck happening, is just as important as looking to see if I am the person who needs to be part of the correction to bring us out of that muck. If the muck does not run its course, in my experience it will come up again to complete, and we will stay in the game of snakes and ladders.
I am not so sure if it is letting go with the old and starting with the new, or should I say that it is becoming less of this. From my observation today with people and from what I am feeling after just having this period again and entering 2019, is that it seems it is a continuum from the last year. I think this is a healthy thing in us, being honest that nothing changes unless we make those consistently within ourselves, as well as the feeling that we have this same old routine every year, but where has it truly gotten us!
The last week of the year is a great spotlight on everything about how we have lived. I wonder with the focus being on shopping for Christmas, lots of eating and drinking, then sales post Christmas and then of course new year, whether this is the perfect diversion for the refection that is very much on offer.
The Christmas period is indeed a crazy period, ‘the annual craziness of the December festive season and New Year.’
I had what I considered was a really rough last week to the end of 2018. But as I sit here today and feel into what I sit with right now, this new cycle has an opportunity to be awesome regardless of mistakes, as with any cycle really. It doesn’t change if I choose to ignore my choices and their effects.
“How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others?” What a contrast from the usual ‘resolutions’ we come up with at the beginning of a New Year. This brings with it a sense of self responsibility that is hard to ignore as it makes it about everyone and not just ourselves.