Open Your Heart, Let in the Light of the Sun

This article by The Times of India shares the connection between the Love and the Sun, as taught in India’s greatest spiritual texts.  Connection are made in the teachings of Jesus, Tagore, and the Torah.

 

THE SPEAKING TREE – Open Your Heart, Let in the Light

27 Mar 2004, 0000 hrs IST, Soma Chakravarty

Love and light are the two most universal and fundamental realities. God’s first command (Genesis) was: “Let there be light”. And there was light. Buddha said that to love all beings is an expression of God. Jesus saw love as a manifestation of divine light. Vedanta points out that love is an image of God, the living essence of the divine nature. The Upanishads say that the Sun gives light to all beings, equally. 

Once man envisioned the infinite in the universal light, he offered worship to the Sun: Raso vai Sah. Infinity is love itself, the eternal spirit of joy. However, caught up in the daily grind of life and in the whirlpool of human emotions, the true spirit of love tends to get lost. What is love? Is it eternal bliss? Or an all consuming passion? 

Love is not limited to a bond between two individuals; neither is it limited to the family circle. Love is beyond desires and mere physical pleasure. Love is realisation of faith, it is the bond of harmony and happiness, a world of blessings and bliss. The only condition of love is that it has to be unconditional. When we stop taking and start giving we begin to enjoy the unfathomable depth and unifying force of love. 

Swami Surya Jowel says that the Sun is the best example of unconditional love as it lights up the world without prejudice. Love and light together can dispel darkness, whether external or internal. 

Through Suryayog one can rediscover the pathway of love. The nine steps practiced as an ode to the rising Sun help remove physical, emotional and mental blockades to make possible a joyous and healthy living. Love, like sunlight, is that energy flow whose warmth can be experienced in an all-illumined freedom. Suryayog can help open up inner consciousness to love with detachment, making us free of bondage. 

The Sun’s rays can turn the dormant spirit into an ever-sacrificial river, and Suryayog opens up the channel of communication towards eternal union with the Almighty. The Sun shines on weeds as well as on flowers. When love stops being selective it becomes an absolute, that never stops, never ends. In Judaism, love is the beginning and the end of the Torah. 

Love is the fundamental sustaining force of the universe and we are the embodiment of that energy flow. When we love, we find our soul in the highest sense in whom we love. When we let go of our ego and take love out of the narrow confines of social bondage, we move towards consciousness of self, which is the key to cosmic consciousness. Then, the love between the finite and infinite finds unity in the soul; we realise the dwelling of Paramatma in our self and our affinity with nature. Buddha taught that only through love, Nirvana is achieved. From the lover the world is born, by love it is sustained, towards love it moves and into love it enters. 

According to Vaishnava thought, God finds fulfilment in our love. God seeks love in us, as love can never be had by command. This finds expression in Rabindranath Tagore’s song: “Thus it is that thy joy in me is so full. Thus it is that thou hast come down to me. O thou Lord of all heavens, where would be thy love if I were not…” This relationship blossoms when love and light touches the Hridaykusum as then the supreme soul manifests as Sakha — the eternal friend, the enduring love and the endless light.

 

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-584311,prtpage-1.cms

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Tags: India, Jesus, Sun Gazing, surya, Suryaji Jowel, suryayog