The Meaning of Christmas

[jbseth]

Hi All,

Recently I became curious about what I'd find on the internet if I did a search for the "meaning" of Christmas. In looking into this, I've found several different answers on the internet, many, not surprisingly, having something to do with the birth of Jesus.

Then I looked on the Seth Search Engine and found the following quote from Seth.

"Now, what do you suppose Christmas means? The birth of the inner self. Each of you must be reborn, not once, but endless times even in this existence, in this existence as you know it. You break out of yourselves. When you are joyful you break out of yourselves."

This is a quote from Seth from The ESP Class Sessions, Book 2, December 22, 1970.


Personally, I believe that there is more than one "correct" answer to the question, What is the meaning of Christmas? Furthermore, I also believe that there is a correct answer for each one of us and this answer probablychanges over time.

For me, for right now, I think the correct answer is this.


When I think of Christmas, I think of the birth narrative story in the Gospel of Matthew. In this story, we hear about wise men following a "star" which led them to Jesus.  I personally don't believe that this star story was an actual event. Star's don't operate like that; this could have been a supernatural event, but I'm not sure that was the authors intent. Instead, I believe that the star in this star story was intended to symbolically represent the concept of the coming of a significant source of enlightenment into the world, Jesus.

For me, on a spring day in 1978, I walked into a bookstore in Salem, Oregon and discovered, "Seth Speaks" by Jane Roberts. This was the first Seth book I had ever seen, and when I started to read it, I was totally blown away. For me, this event represented the coming of a significant source of enlightenment into my world. 

And so for me, right now, when I think of meaning of Christmas, I think of the coming of the Seth literature, into my world because it has been a significant source of enlightenment to me.

I guess what I'm trying to demonstrate here is that it's possible to interpret a Christian concept in other than a Christian way.

What does Christmas mean to you?

-jbseth

[LarryH]

Many years ago, I was in a Seth group in California. The host had access to what were then unpublished transcripts of class sessions, and I ended up with a small collection. Using the Seth search engine, I could not find evidence that a "Special Xmas Message" has been published. It is a beautiful quote, and I would like to transcribe it here, but I would like to ask Deb if she thinks sharing an unpublished Seth quote would violate any ethical or legal rules. It is about 2 paragraphs from 12/19/72.

[Deb]

Christmas and Seth Christmas quotes are sprinkled around on this forum, just go to the home page and type Christmas into the search box. That being said, I LOVE unpublished Seth materials and even have a topic set up, "Unpublished Material." That board is mostly only available to members that have logged on. I did that to avoid any issues with copyrights or anything related. So @LarryH what if you post the paragraphs in that topic and then put the link here? I think I have something I can add too, just need to find it again. Guests that are not logged on can see the link, but won't be able to go to it.

@jbseth another great topic, thanks for starting this! I'll be responding later, I've been thinking about my feelings about Christmas (holidays in general) and how they've changed over the years. I need to examine my feelings a bit more, it's a nice way to get to know myself better. I really like Seth's description of what Christmas means.

[LarryH]

Okay, I put the quote in the Unpublished Material. People can use Deb's link above.

[Deb]

Thanks Larry! I decided it deserved a new topic of its own so it doesn't get lost. I put it here: https://speakingofseth.com/index.php?topic=1595.msg12108#msg12108

[jbseth]

Hi Larry,

Hey, I just read your post at the link above and that's a beautiful message. I really like it.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

jbseth

[Deb]

Personally, I believe that there is more than one "correct" answer to the question, What is the meaning of Christmas? Furthermore, I also believe that there is a correct answer for each one of us and this answer probably changes over time.

I totally agree that each person would have their own perspective on Christmas, even just based on religious upbringing or childhood experiences from the holidays such as family disfunction, disappointments and family members that tend to choose to die right before Christmas.

My perspective. This probably won't be pretty, lol.

Growing up in a Catholic family, I knew the biblical story behind the Christmas celebration. Birth of Jesus. The entire nativity scene, three wise guys, etc. As a child, the lure of Christmas lights, a decorated tree Santa and PRESENTS were more important to me. However, I also looked forward to setting up the nativity scene, thought the baby jesus was quite fun and took the whole story seriously.

As I grew out of those stages and then later started doing some investigating into religion (2001), I realized that a few of the Christian holidays were actually usurped from pagans and that some theologians speculate Jesus was born in March. That became my "Christmas is for children" phase, when my son was growing up. Unfortunately when my son was 3, the neighbor BAC kids told him Santa was a lie. 

Older yet, I grew disillusioned with the Christian holidays in general. The commercialism around Christmas: getting Christmas cards from people you never have any other contact with plus a letter detailing their past year, buying and giving presents more as a matter of obligation than impulse and affection, people fighting over merchandise in stores, consumerism, materialism, candy, cookies, candy... needless to say I have not done much for Christmas for several years.

But then, in the unpublished quote Larry shared and the one above about rebirth, Seth brings back some meaning to Christmas that I can accept and work with. And this year I bought a rosemary plant trimmed into a Christmas tree shape, which has tiny lights and is sitting on the mantle.

I bid you all then a Merry Christmas!