The Sun Within
by Usha Lakshmi, E-RYT 500, RCYT, YACEP
Three times, three continents, three roles! Yet to chase the sun for an eclipse – total or partial! But I have had the pleasure to see it as a little girl with the simple techniques of pinhole projections and cow-dung water that my grandfather used to show us the eclipse in Kottayam, Kerala. Then again as an independent young woman living and working in London, England. And finally today as a mother watching it with my husband and daughter from our backyard in PA! My awareness has not changed in all these years, in all these roles and in all these places. I vividly remember and cherish every one of these experiences. As I was watching the spectacular eclipse, partial but still phenomenal, I was contemplating on the magic of the unchanging witness that enabled me to experience three instances over a period of nearly five decades! Or as the yogis would call this unchanging witness as the sun within me which is also the same sun within all beings. There was so much gratitude welling within me for this unnoticed unacknowledged part of myself that is always there behind every experience. It is the light of lights and the magical essence underlying existence! My existence – without which there is no experience -much less a solar eclipse. Makes one wonder what the true miracle here is!
A reading I always like to share and work with in my meditation and yoga classes – it has a powerful message.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the ancients who brought us yoga, shares one of my favorite conversations between a yogi named Yajnavalkya and King Janaka. It is a conversation that has plenty to contemplate and meditate upon. It is on the knowledge of the Self. It goes along the lines of
“King Janaka asks “O revered sage, what is the light that illumines a person, the light that awakens and impels him to perform all that he does?”
Yajnavalkya gives a very straightforward answer by saying, “The sun, O king, for it is the sun alone that is the source of all light and it is for this light that man sits, moves about, does all his work and returns.”
“That’s right O venerable sage, but when the sun has set, what is it that helps man as light?”
“The moon; it is the moon that is the light of the man when the sun is not there”, was the reply of Yajnavalkya.
“All right, I agree, but when the sun is not there, the moon is also not there, then what is it that guides man as his light?” thus asked Janaka again.
Then Rishi Yajnavalkya replied, “When the sun has set and the moon is not there, fire is our light, for by that we sit, work, go out and come back.”
“I am all in agreement with you”, said Janaka and continued asking “but what then is the light when there is no sun, no moon and no fire?”
“Speech, indeed, is the light when all these are absent. Even though we cannot see our hand in the dark we can hear the voice and move towards the sound.”
Janaka was happy but had still one more question. He asked, “O revered sage, when sun sets, moon is not there, fire is absent and there is no speech, then what is the light?”
“The Self, indeed, is our light O king, for by that we sit, move, work, go out and come back.”
Janaka was deeply touched by this but wanted to know from Yajnavalkya more about the Self that he referred to as the light of all lights. Yajnavalkya continued to impart the knowledge of the Self to king Janaka. He kept unraveling the mystery after mystery of the Self and the whole teaching is given in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad at length, but the essence of all that Yajnavalkya spoke to king Janaka about the Self is like this:
“The Self is the pure awareness that shines as the light within the heart, surrounded by the senses. It is this Self that is one with the Sole Reality, the Brahman. This Self is free from desire, from evil and from fear. The man who is union with the Self sees without seeing, smells without smelling, tastes without tasting, speaking without speaking, hears without hearing, touches without touching, thinks without thinking, knows without knowing, for there is nothing separate from him. This state of not having another is the state of unity or yoga, one without a second and that is the world of Brahman. This is the supreme goal of life, the supreme treasure, the supreme joy.”
See below for more details on the Upanishads:
