Max Planck (1858-1947) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physicist and the father of quantum theory. His work in the field of theoretical physics led the way to many advances throughout the 20th century. Today, Planck’s name is synonymous with the German science community, evidenced by his being the namesake of the country’s Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science.
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
Source: The Observer (25 January 1931) (via Wikiquote)
It is very much a traditional European and American idea to associate this celebratory time of year with winter and the seasonal “darkest time of year”. However, dark and light contrasted has a kind of fundamental meaning for all people, universally. Dark versus light; light versus dark–the idea of celebrating light rather than darkness is a way of universalizing a celebration at this time of year, when many traditions have a principal celebration otherwise.
Light means something holy, something Divine. The notion and the sense of the holiness (or, at any rate, the profoundity) of Light–and especially the Divine characteristic of Light–is a universal feeling-idea. It is part of all religions. It is part of secular life, too. Light is fundamental in human experience and aspiration and meaning. Because of this, it is suitable to be associated with a universal celebration every year.
Bhagavan Adi Da Samraj envisions the holiday season as a time when people of all faiths and places can celebrate the “Light-in-Everybody” —a season, as He explained, that is “essentially about Light, and about that Light in everybody. It is about acknowledging the characteristic of Light in everybody you know and meet, rather than darkness. It is about love rather than its opposite.”
The message of the book Prior Unity is that the impulse to peaceful, cooperative coexistence is humanity’s “true north.” The impulse comes from our root-intelligence as one single species, and, at the same time, reflects the inherent unity of all life.
“It is now time for humankind-as-a-whole—everybody-all-at-once—to assume integral responsibility for the human species on Earth. This is really the first time in all of human history that humankind has even been in the position to consider this. Simultaneously, humankind is in the position of having no choice but to deal with it.”
