Time is a flow, like a river or a flame -- seamless like liquid space. There is no division in time. But identifying with the spin of the earth and its rotation round the sun, we divide time into seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, centuries, millenia, eons and so on and so forth.

This division of time is a creation of mind -- a product of thought. Thought is a response of memories to sensations. Thought creates the illusion of past and future, desire and hatred, guilt and fear, hope and frustration, pleasure and pain and thus the entire infrastructure of the ego. Ego is time. To experience time is to miss consciousness and the joy of aliveness. Time is living in boredom. Time creates the mirage of eternity. Eternity is the outcome of striving after goals and ideals that are yet to be realised. Striving is an ego project and it further fuels the flames of suffering.

The very celebration of the New Year is an egoistic extravaganza -- a futile pursuit to forget the unpleasant and nurse hope for the pleasant. Ironically the hope of the New Year is another idle illusion. And it goes on endlessly.

To break out of this monotonous cycle of boredom and meaningless chores is true celebration of the New Year. For this, one must shift attention from thought to consciousness, from movement to silence, from reaction to response. Thought movement and reaction are broods of hope. Ending hope is the dawn of thought-free, spontaneous joy.