The world is celebrating the passing of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. And though we live in the Eternal Now, where all past and present mix and mingle, still the annual journey around the Sun is worthy to celebrate, bringing with it the cultural opportunity to set new patterns in life, make plans never made before and visualize how another 365 days might look if the soul were in charge. And the external fireworks in the sky tonight can be a reminder of the internal light of the soul, Siva's Light, brighter than ten million Suns. We rejoice with all of you tonight and wish you a blessed 2011, full of spiritual progress, artistic and cultural peaks, strengthened relationships, lessons learned and hurts forgiven and forgotten, new realizations descending, new aspirations ascending. Siva within all. Infinite Goodness within all.

A work of art we commissioned for a Hinduism Today article later this year. Siva as Aghora. He is dissolving 2010, so 2011 can be born and new possibilities opened to our lives. Here is a quote from Gurudeva's Living with Siva on this New Year's Night: "This is a wonderful key for setting the tone for the coming yearof harmony and peace, which leads to abundance and happiness. We call this anahata yoga, cleansing the heart chakra, bringing up that true love for one another. It is the process of bringing up all those things that were not settled before going to sleep, to retrieve those seeds before they get ploughed under and produce another crop of sorrow in the coming years. It is bringing up little things that each one said or did that hurt the other and were not resolved. It is time to extend apologies, and make promises and New Year's resolutions to set the course of the future on the path of dharma, which is based on ahimsa." "Close your eyes and visualize a river flowing into the sea, and see yourself holding on to the bank of the river, and the river flowing on past you. Now let go of the bank of the river and flow down with the river and merge into the sea of life. Feel yourself, right at this instant, living in the here and now. Holding on to the river bank, we hold the consciousness of time and space. Holding on to the banks of the river of life is to recreate within you fear, worry, doubt, anxiety and nervousness. Detach yourself from the banks of the river and again be free. Love the banks as you pass, with a love born of understanding, and if you have no understanding of the bank, study your attachments until you do. Learn to concentrate the mind so that you can study not from books, but from observation, which is the first awakening of the soul. Learn to study by practice. Learn to study by application. Become a student of life and live life fully, and as you merge into the sea of actinic life, you will realize that you are not your mind, your body or your emotions. You will realize that you are the complete master of your mind, your body and your emotions."