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Sun in Astrology
"I know that great being who has the effulgence of the Sun
beyond darkness. Only knowing him can one go
beyond death. There is no other path for the
journey." Shukla Yajur Veda 31.18.
"The Sun has yellow eyes which dispense honey, his body is
square, he is pure, bilious (pitta) in
constitution, intelligent, masculine and tends
towards baldness." Parashari 3.23.
The ancient Vedic religion upon which Vedic astrology is
based, the religion of all the ancient world,
was the religion of the Sun. The worship of the
Sun was primary to all ancient cultures,
including the religions and mythologies of our
ancient Indo-European ancestors the Greeks,
Romans, Celts, Germans and Slavs. It is the
oldest and most natural form of human religion,
as religion is seeking the light. As such, it is
also the religion of the future as we once more
return to our spiritual roots in the coming ages
of light.
The Sun is a grand symbol with a great mythology, a profound
psychological and spiritual meaning. It is the
image, the face of Truth itself. The Sun is God,
the Divine incarnate in nature. The Sun is the
Deva, the deity. To the ancients the Sun was the
One God, which was the unity of truth, not an
exclusive and jealous deity. In our birth charts
the Sun shows our divinity (or lack of it), our
unity and point of focus, our center and central
purpose in life. It shows the light that we
possess and which we aspire to expand.
According to the solar religion of the Vedas, the Sun is the
Atma, the Self of all the universe. The Sun is
the Divine Being who dwells in the hearts of all
beings as the true Self. The Sun is the Divine
light and love which is the unity of all life.
The Sun is the visible form and presence of the
deity. In their worship of the Sun, the ancients
recognized the presence and place of God in
life. They were bringing the Divine light into
life and making of their life and perception a
thing of worship.
The Sun symbolizes the cosmic intelligence, pure
consciousness or the enlightened Mind. The
ancient solar religion was the religion of
Divine life and of enlightenment. In much of his
worship no images of the God were used. He was
lauded in the sunlight, the sunlit path of clear
awareness (images or forms, however, were used
more commonly in the worship of the Goddess who
was the Earth or the Moon). The winged disc of
the Sun was used throughout the ancient world to
symbolize the soul and its inherent perfection
and transcendence of time. The Sun was sometimes
worshipped in human representation as the cosmic
man, often made of gold, representing the true
Man who contains within himself all the Gods.
The saviour or sage worshipped in the ancient cultures was
the son of the Sun, the presence of the Sun on
Earth, the incarnation of the Divine light of
truth. This symbolism is found even in
Christianity where Christ is born on the winter
solstice, the day the Sun is born again, as the
days once more begin to get longer. It is found
in Buddhism, where the Buddha as the enlightened
or solar being turns the wheel of the law, the
Sun wheel.
The first man, the father of the human race, was often seen
as the son of the Sun (like the Hindu Manu). He
was not always a fallen Adam but an incarnate
Christ or enlightened master. The Sun is our
spiritual father, our origin and our final
resting place. At death the ancients prayed to
merge into the Sun, to follow the path of light
to the Gods and to the supreme light. That was
thought to be the only way beyond sorrow and
rebirth.
The human being is meant to manifest the Divine light on
Earth, to bring the light of truth into the
material realm. As such, we are all children of
the Sun, doing the cosmic labor of manifesting
the light. We are portions of the sunlight
projected to Earth to further the will of the
Divine Sun in its creative play. To be conscious
as souls we must awaken to this duty. To do this
we must awaken from the dream of illusion that
we are just creatures of this life and its
memories.
The Sun dwells within the hearts of all of us as our inner
Sun, our inner light and life. Without this
inner light, no perception could be possible.
Without this inner life, we could not even
breathe. Just as there is the movement of the
outer Sun through the constellations of the
zodiac, so there is the movement of the inner
Sun through the chakras of our subtle or astral
body (which reflects our birth chart). We will
explore these themes further in our section on
Yogic astrology.
Nor is the Sun merely the luminary of our local solar system.
The Sun is our local manifestation of the cosmic
or universal light. It brings to us the light,
the life, the love from all the stars, whose
children we are. It reflects the light from the
galactic center, the central Sun of our galaxy.
It connects us with the heart of all life and
all the forces of light, consciousness and
intelligence. It is connected with the Suns in
subtle realms as well as this physical world. It
is a doorway to all the domains and powers of
light.
Next >> Sun in Astrology PART 2 |
