On the first day of the year 2014, when everyone is wishing the others a Happy New Year, it will be interesting for some of us to read what J. Krishnamurti said on one such occasion. Around this time of the year, he used to be at Chennai (then Madras) in India. In 1985, on 1st January, he happened to address a question and answer meeting at Chennai. He wished his audience a happy new year and then went on questioning it:

“I wonder what we mean by a new year. Is it a fresh year, a year that is totally afresh, something that has never happened before? When we say something new, though we know that there is nothing new under the sun, when we talk about a happy new year, is it really a new year for us? Or is it the same old pattern repeated over and over again? Same old rituals, same old traditions, same old habits, a continuity of what we have been doing, still are doing, and will be doing this year.

So, is there anything new? Is there anything that is really afresh, something that you have never seen before? This is rather an important question, if you will follow it – to turn all the days of our life into something, which you have never seen before. That means a brain that has freed itself from its conditioning, from its characteristics, from its idiosyncrasies and the opinions, and the judgements, and the convictions.

Can we put all that aside and really start a new year? It would be marvellous if we could do that. Because our lives are rather shallow, superficial, and have very little meaning. We are born, whether we like it or not we are born, educated – which may be a hindrance too. Can we change the whole direction of our lives? Is that possible? Or are we condemned forever to lead rather narrow, shoddy, meaningless lives. We fill our brains and our lives with something which thought has put together. This is not a sermon. Probably in all the churches of the world, New Year will be – and in all the temples and the rest of it – they will continue in the same old way, the same old rituals, pujas and so on and so on. Can we drop all that and start anew with a clean slate and see what comes out of that, with our hearts and minds?”