Salutations of the sun

[Guest guest]

Surya namaskaras

 

Hiranmayena patrena satyasyapi hitam mukham

Tatwam pushan apavrunu satya dharmaya drishtaye

[He, Sun!,…………]

 

[Once I happened to visit the saint Pujya Raghavendra Swamiji of

Malladihalli in Karnataka. He showed me round the ashram, and finally

we reached an underground or the cellar place and he explained that

it is a place of his Sadhana and every day he will go there at three

in the morning ... I wondered who will call three as morning! And he

said he will do his Sadhana until eight and then he will come out. I

questioned him can we know about what Sadhana he does. He replied

that he does Sunryanamaskars. I asked him how many he will do. He

replied, `now a days, doctors told him that I have grown old. So I do

only two hundred otherwise I would do lot more'. He was at that time

ninety five! At ninety five one could do two hundred salutations how

effortlessly he must be doing them! Normally in our classes when we

ask people to do six they are already exhausted and need Shavasana!

He lived for more than hundred years and his life mission was to

spread yoga in rural Karnataka and he also runs an orphanage called

Anathashrama]

 

Welcome you all to participate in the sun prayer yagna, where we

would like to collectively emotionally involve in the practice of sun

salutations in various parts of the world in a disciplined way until

at least the fourteenth of January which is the day sun changes his

position from winter half [ solstice ] to summer half [ solstice ] .

In this series I would like to express some of the thoughts about the

sun salutations. In the first place sun salutation is a combination

of the following practices.

1. It is a combination of several physical postures starting

from standing to go to the `posture of salutation' called `sastanga

namaskarasana' [sa=together, asta= eight, anga= limb, namaskar=

salutation], and coming back retracing the steps back to the standing

position.

2. The number of postures involved can be flexible. Different

schools adapted different styles and the number can be any thing like

ten or twelve or eighteen or thirty six.

3. Before doing the series of postures most of the schools chant

a sloka [verse] from the sun prayers or from any of the scriptures

like Upanishad which offers prayers to the sun. The sloka given above

is taken from the foremost of the Upanishads called `ISAVASAYAM'.

4. After the sloka we chant a mantra or a series of mantras

associated with the sun god. There are several names of the sun god

which are associated with several aspects of him. Out of them twelve

mantras are more popularly chanted.

5. The mantra will be followed by the actual positions stiti,

the starting position being the namaskara mudra.

6. In every step breathing is associated and the sequence is so

designed that it flows freely as we practice.

7. Generally the practices of Suryanamaskara can be done by

normal healthy persons. Only those who have hypertension or heat

problems have to consult doctor or any expert yoga master before

undertaking these practices.

Before we proceed further in discussing about

Suryanamaskara let us see why sun god has to be prayed. Some

developed this idea that the offering of our prayers to the natural

elements such as sun wind etc as god was started those primitive days

when science was not developed and he would be facing several natural

calamities. Since he does not know the reason for the vagaries of the

nature the only thing he could do was call these natural forces as

gods and thinking that god is unhappy with people for some reasons he

alone knows, he was afraid of god and therefore in order to please

god they would offer the prayers. Thus the sun-prayers must have

started! To day we know that sun is a star and is not a human-form-

divine. Thus people go to god out of fear! This may have been true in

some cases but in offering sun salutations it is not the fear which

has driven man for sun salutations!

Earlier in villages when ever they used to have terrific

thunders in the night and one could see the bolts from the blue next

morning the head of the village would assemble all the people and

tell them, `last night god has been displeased with some people in

this village so he has sent bolts from the blues. So who so ever has

done what so ever mistake, please come forward voluntarily, and

confess and seek punishment! With that people would come and disclose

all the mistakes they have done with that one benefit are that the

villages used to have fewer crimes!

But in this part of the world people were not offering sun

salutations because of fear of god especially sun god! There are

references about the details of the sun as a mass of energy in the

space as a sphere and as the center of the solar system. Even there

are indications about the approximate distance of the sun from earth.

Based on all these details they have invented a very sophisticated

calendar system. So there is less possibility that they have offered

prayers to sun out of fear. If they have practiced sun salutations it

is because of the respect born out of love and recognition. In fear

when we go to god, god is not important but when we go to god out of

love god becomes important and self is dissolved! Therefore sun

salutations have a very deep meaning.

Though the practice primarily has the surrender out of love

which is enriching emotional experience it still has benefit at all

personality levels namely physical, mental, intellectual, emotional

and finally at spiritual level. Let us look into various aspects

considering one by one.

For the benefit of those who do not know about the five level

personality let me briefly give some explanation. It is a way of

understanding human being as given in the Taittariya Upanishad. When

we look at a man from outside we only see the outer of physical

personality and its functioning which may be considered as life

force. One can also feel the existence of mind and intellectual

activity appears as if it the part of the mental faculty and further

they do not have any idea about the subtler levels. In the Upanishad

there is systematic discussion is about the existence at five levels

of subtleties.

At the grossest level we are the physical personality which

is obviously visible. Immediately at the next level it is called the

Prana personality or pranamaya kosa. It is the Prana which is

responsible for the functioning aspect of the physical body. Eyes

see, ears hear and all activities happen because of Prana only.

Therefore pranamaya kosa is more fundamental. Deeper than that is

Manomaya kosa or mental personality. When the mind is not there eyes

do not see or ears do not hear. So we are basically mental

personality which takes the support of body and Prana for giving

manifestation to its activity. I think of doing first and then I

employ the energy called Prana and the body as instruments. But on

close observation we see we are the intellect and we identify with

intellect much more than any thing and it is the intellect which also

makes the mind to think and thereby function. So it is a general

impression that the most important aspect of us is the intellect but

intellect also sub-serves another important aspect which is our

actual nature which is bliss or happiness. We do all activities for

the sake of happiness and if there is no happiness we do not do. But

only doubt one can have is that the happiness or bliss appear to be

coming from the object and how we can say it is our nature. For that

Upanishad recommends us to look at the sleep state. In sleep we

experience happiness without any exception and without any object

support. In fact an object coming from out side in sleep which

may be your choicest, we do not want that, because it also disturbs

the joy of sleep. So we can infer that in deep sleep state we are

touching our own nature which is coming from within which is `bliss'.

So deep inside we are bliss personality and only all in all other

outer layers we have intellect, mind, Prana and body.

Yoga has its approach to help us at all these personality

levels namely physical, Prana, mental, intellectual, and spiritual or

bliss personalities. I shall deal with all these levels

systematically but before proceeding further let me give some hints

for the practice.

Do it in the empty stomach

People with complaints of hypertension can do this only after

fifteen days of practice of various simple breathing and loosening

exercises so that the body can take the strain.

Persons with back pain should avoid front bending pose.

Instead they should go to next posture.

Persons with ear problems or tinnitus or seizers should avoid

back bending and those with seizers should not take deep breathing.

 

 

Love,

NV Raghuramji

International Coordinator of VYASA / Vivekananda Yoga University

vkyogas

www.nvraghuram.org

www.vyasa.org