Louix’s Holiday Message 2008

Greetings, my beloveds!

It is with great joy that I offer this holiday message as we approach the end of 2008, The Year of Rebirth. And what a year this has been… for myself, as I know it has been for many of you, and, as we can all see, so it has been for the world. So many changes. So many beginnings and endings. So much ahead….

During these year-end holidays, for many it is an important time to celebrate and show our gratefulness for whatever we have in life, and the act of feasting is a way to acknowledge, nurture, and reward oneself for all the labors given over the months that have passed. However, watching all the madness, the suffering, the warring, the earth changes, and the economic collapse in this year alone—the latter of which has had devastating effects in many sectors of society and in our lives, many people are finding themselves torn about how they can, in good conscience, truly “celebrate” this holiday season (much less indulge), when so many are suffering like never before.

At the same time, what is happening in the world now has also created a need for showing even greater empathy and compassion for the plights of others. There is a more urgent need than ever to share, to serve, to help our sisters and brothers all over the world, in our own communities, and in our own families. This dynamic shall increase over time, and soon no longer be an “option” as it is now; it will be a mandate, one of the solutions to this world crisis. Increasing crises and collapse—and the interdependence they will, by Divine design, create amongst all nations and cultures—will be a major factor in ending the wars, drawing the human race together, and restoring it as one family.

Questions arise as to just how to find the right balance, how to celebrate the holidays when so many others are in pain. It is for this reason that I have written this letter. There is a way that each of us can celebrate this holiday season and be assisting those in need, and it will not cost anyone anything but a good dose of caring and a little of your time. While most people know how sharing what you have can help others, few know the true alchemy of what Sacrifice can do to serve, uplift, and transmute the circumstances and suffering of others.

The holiday program I have designed has two parts:  one is sacrifice; the other is service. What I am inviting everyone to do this Christmas—as your gift to this world, and even more so to yourself—is to sacrifice your usual holiday traditions as a great act of compassion and empathy for others:  the poor, the war-torn, the ailing, and of course the millions who have been suddenly and drastically affected by the rapid economic collapse that has happened this year. What this would entail would be to relinquish the usual feasting that most people enjoy during the holiday season. At the very least (if you must eat), have the simplest, most humble meal you could make on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day; at the very most, choose perhaps to enter a 24-hour fast (to whatever degree you know your body can safely handle this—be it water only, or juices only, or fruit only, etc.), in the knowing that this will alchemically transfer the food (you would have had) to others who are without food; in the knowing that it will also create food in places where there is/was none. Naturally, you must honor your bodies and feed your children, engaging in any type of fasting only in a way and to the degree that you can.

The other sacrifice I am inviting everyone to consider this year is that of gift giving and receiving. In much of the world, the gross consumerism that happens in December is (for most, though not all) not only spawned by a tragic blend of guilt, obligation, and sense gratification, but also creates more pollution and waste on this planet than in most of the prior 11 months—combined. Please consider sacrificing the whole “obligated” gift buying theme and routine this season. Instead, base whatever gifts you do buy or give on a person’s need, rather than on wants or desires—yours or theirs. Find people in need and give there. Maybe it won’t even be a relative (many of whom might be receiving gifts from other friends and relatives anyway), but a child in your neighborhood, a needy family from your child’s school, someone in a hospice or hospital, an elderly person whom you know is lonely and alone. For others, maybe your sacrifice could be to simply put fewer people on your gift-giving list.

For those who will still be giving gifts, perhaps you could practice a tradition I began years ago, one which is practiced every year in all my ashrams and centers:  gifting another with some special keepsake or item of your own, which you treasure. This form of “green” or “eco-friendly” gift giving not only reduces consumerism and waste, it also infuses your gift with a very big part of your own heart and soul. Sacrificing something that means a great deal to you creates love and healing in and for the recipient. It also creates abundance in the world and reduces poverty. The more you treasure the item you are gifting, the greater transmuting power that gift wields. Another wonderful tradition is to make a gift to the poor in the name of your intended recipient. For example:  As the present for your niece or nephew, you could purchase a goat or 10 chickens or a month’s supply of water for a family in a Third World country. Or you could sponsor a child—either with schooling, clothes, etc. One of the best websites I have found serving this purpose is www.worldvision.org. The inner fulfillment this brings, to giver and recipient—knowing that you personally saved several human lives by sacrificing something so simple as one Christmas present—will only be surpassed by the alchemical impact this offering will have on that family or village.

Of course I am in no way saying to stop giving gifts; quite the contrary. What I am doing is redefining what and how we give, expanding it in a way that brings untold blessings to giver and recipient… to, truly, the whole of humanity.

The second part of this year’s offering is to be in service as your way of celebrating the holidays. There are many organizations in the major cities which serve free meals to the poor on Christmas Day, some of them needing hundreds of volunteers to feed the multitudes who come from far and wide. Other forms of service this Christmas might be visiting with children in intensive care wards of hospitals, children who physically cannot spend the holidays at home; visiting with the elderly in nursing homes, some of whom have no families or whose families do not visit them over the holidays; or serving at an A.I.D.S. or other kind of hospice.

One of the greatest gifts you can ever give another person is a moment of your time.

I humbly ask that you consider sharing and spending this holiday season in this way. I promise that you will be glad you did. As for myself, I will be going far into California’s desert wilderness, away from all contact with civilization, on a three-day fast, spent almost entirely in prayer and meditation to source this program while it is being participated in by my beloveds worldwide. I shall hold you all in my prayers and in my heart. And I know that many of you will find yourselves, come January 1st, joyously telling others of all the miraculous and wondrous experiences you just had, the most auspicious of which will be the warmth and fulfillment you feel in your heart.

May your holiday season be filled with peace, love, and joy…

With my love and eternal blessing,

Louix Dor Dempriey