Excerpt from Surya Namaskar-Yoga Publications Trust
The Solar Tradition
Sun Worship in the Vedic tradition
In
ancient India the great avatar Rama became the king of the solar race in the
epic Ramayana. The roots of the present
Hindu culture lie in the ancient Vedic scriptures, which contain numerous slokas
referring to the sun. The Rig Veda
itself has many such references, a few of which are given here:
Aloft this all-wise shining God,
His beams of light are bearing now
That everyone the Sun may see.
Thou goest across the sky's broad place
Meeting
the days with rays, O Sun,
And watching generations pass.
The
steeds are seven that at thy carriage
Bear up the God whose hair is flame,
O shining God , O Sun far seen.
Excerpt 2
We meditate in the adorable glory
of the radiant sun.
May he inspire our intelligence.
The suryoupanishad (scripture pertaining to the sun) states that people who worship the sun as
Brahman (pure consciousness) become powerful, active, intelligent and acquire
long life. The sun is personified as
brilliant like gold, having four arms, seated on a red lotus and riding in a chariot
drawn by four horses. He sets in motion the wheels of time, and from him emerge
the five physical elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether, as well as the
five senses.
Modern Observations
The sun's surface
periodically erupts into huge flares which extend thousands of miles into space
and, to us on the earth, appear as 'spots' on its surface. These sunspots have been observed to undergo
various cycles of increasing and decreasing activity, the main cycle of which
is approximately eleven years.
Correlations have shown that periods of increased sunspot activity
correspond with terrestrial phenomena.
There is evidence that wars, revolutions, and migrations often correspond
to periods of intense sunspot activity.
American
Foundation for the Study of Cycles has found over 1,300 phenomena related to
sunspot cycles. These include the
increase frequency of auroras, comets, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, meteor
showers, changes in germ cell maturation, electrical potential of trees,
fashion, voting trends, fluctuations in stock market prices, increase in the
incidence of high blood pressure and diabetes, and many other seemingly
unrelated events. This is not surprising
when we visualize the immense power of the sun and its radiations, or realize
that the earth is constantly being baked in a solar wind. The sun is an integral part of life on
earth.
Surya
namaskar takes on a new dimension when we become aware of the effects of the
sun on our lives and we can then understand how important it was to our
ancestors. At the same time, by
awakening our own inherent solar forces though this integrated practice, we can
attune ourselves to the cosmic nature and revitalize our lives.
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