Today is the summer solstice, when the sun sits apparently still, at its zenith for a few days, and we have the maximum exposure to its presence.
Venerated along with the moon in older cultures, who correctly perceived just how integral to our lives and all life on earth in fact, the existence of these two bodies are.
The solar and lunar cycles set our calender, seasons, months, weeks, planting,growing, harvesting schedules, work, leisure, significant life occurrences, and hence the pattern of our whole lives. Each year of our lives is measured by our annual oebit around the sun. It quite literally sits at the centre of our lives.
In just the same way that the physical sun sits at the centre of our solar system, Yoga recognises another sun, the inner symbolic sun of awareness that also radiates outwardly, from which we ourselves are conscious of our existence and all of the rest of life.
In Yoga, this perception of consciousness and form is central to the practice and our understanding of the nature of reality.
In just the same way that on a beautiful sunny day we might sit and marvel at the world around us, in the practice of Yoga this clear perception of consciousness and the manifest reality lead us to sit in wonder at life occuring in us, around us and as us. Like the physical sun, everything circulating and dancing around this radiant awareness.
On this summer solstice, I hope you can appreciate both the inner and outer sun, and all of the movement of life.
- Om hrim sum suryaya namaha!
