In India, there is an act of Sun worshipping that is performed during the early hours of the morning where usually the Hindus wake up at the crack of dawn, rinse their bodies in cold water; and if in the vicinity a quick dip in a holy river is considered even better - and then without speaking a single word, perhaps silently muttering some chants under their breath they pour water towards the rising Sun facing East during the entire process. All this is done with utmost faith that the Source, the Provider, the Creator is the Sun. In fact he is fondly referred to as Sun God. Even though Indians know and welcome hundreds of Gods, Sun God is the one they choose to start their day with.
Rich or poor, young or old equally participate in this daily act. As a child, I have watched my uncles, aunts, cousins and even my rather old and ailing grandmother perform this during my summer holidays when I would visit the farming village deep in Bundelkhand in North India. Have no false illusions then that this must be the most peace loving place and a paradise on Earth. Far from it! More crimes happen here than anywhere else. There are also a large number of Lawyers in this part of India. More crimes means there is a bigger demand for Lawyers. At one point in time my dad even told me that the dreaded lady dacoit was from the village next to ours. I didn’t sleep many nights after that. That was a long time ago before she surrendered herself, so my fear was justified.
Rich or poor, young or old equally participate in this daily act. As a child, I have watched my uncles, aunts, cousins and even my rather old and ailing grandmother perform this during my summer holidays when I would visit the farming village deep in Bundelkhand in North India. Have no false illusions then that this must be the most peace loving place and a paradise on Earth. Far from it! More crimes happen here than anywhere else. There are also a large number of Lawyers in this part of India. More crimes means there is a bigger demand for Lawyers. At one point in time my dad even told me that the dreaded lady dacoit was from the village next to ours. I didn’t sleep many nights after that. That was a long time ago before she surrendered herself, so my fear was justified.
Despite all this external mayhem, I have found these folks to be very simple and internally happy. It made me wonder if this was what kept them beaming, but never enough to want to wake up early to participate in this early morning act. I am a late sleeper.
This morning activity is performed with clockwork precision, after all the Sun does not wait for the sleeping Joe: these folks know who calls the shots here and they never miss this morning tete-a-tete with the Sun God. Just as any Lawyer would love to have an opponent that would not talk back; this is one chance for them to say anything without any ‘objections’ beings raised!
This done, the next round of activity was the newspaper reading which the entire joint family would pore over and then discuss each piece of news loudly, perhaps believing rightly that the neighbours could not afford the newspaper and it would be wise to alert them of the floods in our neighbouring country.
The third thing on the daily list is the breakfast which is consumed with much delight. The Soul nourishment via Sun worshipping is not sufficient for the body that craves fried delicacies. This is when the second worshipping of the day starts to take place. It’s a mother-son thing now. There is no one more important for the house cook, namely mother; than the son. No matter what the age of the son, this relationship never matures. She is always a little concerned about how thin he is looking or how pale his skin has been for the past few weeks and the feeding begins. Not that he complaints. He either loves this attention or he has simply given up by now. Complaining to an average Indian mother would fall on deaf ears anyway.
The reason why I mention this is to give a basic understanding of the common thought process that prevailed here about 200 years ago as my grandmother narrated when I was younger; and then definitely about 20 years ago as I witnessed this exact scenario first hand with my cousins. I am a girl with no boys in my family so this kind of fuss was never directed towards me. I believe it still continues in my cousin’s lives who are playing the envious role of the precious Indian son.
The whole thing of Sun worshipping as the ‘Creator’ and the son worshipping as the ‘created’ – is perfectly okay until the day the son gets married and the new lady, namely the wife enters the scenario. This has been the cause of many a drama; literally – and many a T.V. soaps have been based on this plot. The son is now torn between the mother who has been doing son worshipping her entire life and the daughter-in-law is committed to pull them apart as she has been witnessing the unfair treatment given to her while her brothers were worshipped and now she wants to get even with the one man that she knows she has firmly under her belt, for obvious reasons. What she could not manage to make her mother understand, she will definitely teach the mother-in-law. The fact that these soaps enjoyed top ratings just goes to show much the audience resonated with the ‘spirit’ of these soaps.
Now, I never did any Sun worshipping up until two years ago. My dad was far away from his roots after he chose the life of an Army Officer. Waking up in a jungle in the morning surrounded by a large snake may have kept him from doing his Sun worshipping I guess. His lifestyle kept him and his family away from the religious rites and rituals most of the year; as the Army lot were very cosmopolitan in their ways and no-one made a big deal of religion and everyone was a ‘fellow-being’ rather than of any particular sect or religion. Rituals were not given too much importance and everyone celebrated events together for FUN more than anything else. So Christmas was for everyone in the regiment, as much as Eid and Diwali. And this is how I interacted with my friends when I was younger and because of this exposure to the Army life.
My mother had been brought up to Sun worship since childhood, woke up early and performed this daily ritual; however never did she enforce it on me as she perhaps understood that the awakening has to happen on its own. Or I guess she just wanted her own quiet time in the mornings and the later I stayed in bed the more peace it meant for her.
About two years ago when I faced huge challenges in life and started with the Sun worshipping act every morning on the suggestion of someone, I did not expect what I got in return. I started by taking a hot shower at the early a.m.’s. Cold water and lakes and rivers are not for me. Even on a hot day. I learnt the chants. At first it was a tough act to follow. But the magic happened soon enough when I realized just how wonderful it felt to do this every day – day after day watching the most beautiful thing that there is – witnessing the Sun rise. Without fail. Always there. This act of witnessing the sunrise started giving me a sense of knowing all is well. Faith. I had begun to enjoy my one-sided case presentations to the Sun God too, just like my uncles. All He did was smile back and shine even brighter on me, and having done that I felt good. He allowed me to win every time!
I also enjoyed the chanting. Try it! Just mouthing the Sanskrit words over and over again; meant to be repeated 108 times for maximum efficacy – and seeing how tranced out I became doing that. It’s like a self-hypnosis exercise. A great high. And the breakfast tastes really good after this morning exercise.
It’s two years since then, I am deep into spirituality and my journey I feel has just begun. I enjoy my morning Sun-time. When I first see HIM peeking out of the darkness and slowly rising up, I get the thrill that it is only He and me in this entire Universe. Sometime around this brief moment of oneness in time, the birds announce that they have their share in His sunshine too. I allow them in and we create Paradise in those brief seconds before the softness in His glow becomes a glare.
Just recently, with all the talk about Ascension and the Shift, and people asking me how to meditate and connect – I mentioned to someone to start doing this morning ritual of Sun worshipping. I cannot describe their expression! They could not figure the connection with all this and with what I was proposing. So I had to sit them down for another thirty minutes even though their session with me was over for that day; and shared some things that came to my awareness simply because I became a Sun worshipper.
There is a Creator that created this wonderful Universe I said. They nodded. He’s pure energy. They agreed. He lives behind the Sun I said. They opened their eyes wide in disbelief. Technically the act of Sun worshipping is the closest one can get to talking to God, I said. They kind of agreed as my expression was so ‘awed’ and ‘enlightened’ they could not really disbelieve -the eyes that said it all.
I suggested to them to start doing the Sun worshipping for just a week and see how they felt from within. They reluctantly agreed. Ten days later they called to say they would like to cancel the next session which was a fortnight from their last session as they had resolved their drama of life. They stopped coming to me for therapy totally! Husband and wife were one again. Such are the benefits of Sun worshipping.
How does it benefit me to send away my clients to heal themselves directly with the Sun? Well the Sun and I we had a little chat (note: chanting and chatting are just one alphabet away!), and He is my friend and he likes the fact that I show people to find HIS LIGHT within themselves; and as a bonus he sends me more and more Souls – and I send them right back to Him. This was part of my one sided presentation to Him. He agrees to all my proposals, because he knows they are for the larger good.
I haven’t started on the second kind of son worshipping yet. He’s fifteen, my son. I’ll let his partner be my friend and his too; and just for her sake I choose not to worship him. He’s making breakfast for me right now, as I wrap up my Sun worshipping and presentation for today!
Didn’t I say the breakfast tastes really good after this morning exercise? More so when the son made it!
How’s that for a modern Indian mother-son relationship? My frail grandmother would have surely fainted!
Lots of Love and Light!
S(F)unnily yours,
Latika.
(c) 2010 Latika Tripathi
(c) 2010 Latika Tripathi
