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Happy Persian New Year and
International Day of Happiness

Happy Persian Nowruz 

Eideh shoma mobarak!

“Eideh shoma mobarak ” is on everyone’s lips during the
12-day celebration, which is “Happy New Year” in Farsi.

On the Nowruz, Persians set a “haft sin ” table to gather around awaiting for the exact moment of arrival of Spring.  At that time gifts are exchanged with family and loved ones. All dress in gifts of new cloths to start the twelve-day celebration. 

Persian New Year celebration — Haft-Sin

The tradition is in harmony with the rebirth of nature, the Iranian New Year Celebration, or Nowruz, always begins on the first day of Spring.  Nowruz ceremonies are symbolic representations of two ancient concepts – the End and the Rebirth; or Good and Evil. A few weeks before the New Year, Iranians clean and rearrange their homes. 

Persians make new clothes, bake pastries and germinate seeds as sign of renewal. The ceremonial cloth is set up in each household.  Troubadours, referred to as Haji Firuz, disguise themselves with makeup and wear brightly colored outfits of satin. These Haji Firuz, singing and dancing, parade as a carnival through the streets with tambourines, kettle drums, and trumpets to spread good cheer and the news of the coming new year.        

During the Celebration there is a part of the ceremony called Chahar Shanbeh Suri where everyone jump over fire “light” for enlightenment and happiness for the upcoming year. 

Fire (Read more…)


Not-Two Is Peace

Not-Two Is Peace

Not-Two Is Peace  

By Adi Da

         Adi Da presents a uniquely comprehensive address to the global crisis. He points out that we not only face an unprecedented threat to the survival of life on this planet, but that our current methods for addressing global crises simply won’t work. The system is broken, and the endlessly recycled conventional “solutions” are obsolete.                                                               

            For example, our attempts at resolving global conflict, along with a host of inter-related environmental and resource issues, are hamstrung by an outmoded global structure of  “tribalism”, where all “solutions” lie in the hands of separate states and interest groups, which – when not actively engaged in creating these very same problems – come together primarily to advance their own agendas rather than work for the good of humanity as a whole.

             To take us beyond tribalism and the forces that feed it, Adi Da identifies a number of developments that need to occur, three of which, taken together, will enable and reinforce each other. By addressing the root source of our current problems, they constitute our best options for survival.

             The creation of a Global Cooperative Forum that, unlike the United Nations, consists of a body of representatives each of whom represents NOT a state, region, or faction but ONLY the interests of humanity as a whole. The Forum will build the practical communication structures and organizational mechanisms to give collective voice to the people of the world and would approach global matters as one living process, rather than as a multiplicity of competing issues. It will also engage in a wide array of humanitarian, educational, diplomatic, and organizational functions, often in collaboration with other organizations.

             The mobilization of Everybody-All-At-Once to insist that world leaders actually make the changes formulated by the Global Cooperative Forum for the benefit of humanity.   

Using our existing network of global communications, this mobilization will allow individuals worldwide to take a proactive role in addressing issues, rather than settling for the traditional politics of reactivity, where a parental government proposes and its citizens merely respond, either positively or negatively.

             A shift in consciousness that takes us beyond conventional notions of the oneness of humanity. This is in fact the central concept of Not-Two Is Peace – and perhaps the most challenging. It points to a unity that is non-material, but which is the “root-context of existence,” the structure of reality itself, as ancient seers have declared and modern physics has demonstrated. Adi Da calls it “prior” unity to indicate a unity that is, first of all, already the case. And, secondly, that it is realized in our actions only by presuming it to be already the case, rather than seeking for it. 

            Is it naïve to expect changes of such magnitude? Adi Da points out that it “is not naïve to suggest and expect a profound change in the conducting of global human affairs when those who could make the demand for change number in the billions. Nor is it folly to try to re-orient humankind when the only alternative is universal slavery and the culture of death.”

The complete book is available to be read at https://www.da-peace.org.

Copies can be ordered at https://www.dawnhorsepress.com.

 


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