Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night when it was completely dark?
Did you grope around in the dark trying to find the light switch, arms flailing around for protection, inching along trying to find the light without bumping into anything? Afraid for your shins? Stubbing your toe? Running your hand all over the wall feeling for the switch, only to discover you are on the wrong wall?
When you finally do find the switch and the light comes on, it is like magic. Everything is as clear as day, there is no mystery anymore. You can just head off the the bathroom or where ever you were going.
The Sun is the light that lights up everyday of our lives.
It is the light that chases away the darkness of the night. The sun is the force that we can count on so much so, we rarely think about it, and we probably never worry whether it will come up tomorrow. That is how much we believe in the sun.
Have You Ever Worried that the Sun Won’t Rise? Probably not.
When we do the Sun Salutation, we honour the light of the sun and we also honour the light that is in us, our Consciousness. We train our minds to recognize that we can depend on Consciousness the same way we can depend on the sun rising every morning.
The Sun Salutation is great exercise, but it is also a mental discipline to train the mind to depend on the Consciousness. No matter how much it feels like we are stumbling around in the dark, we train ourselves to turn on the inner light switch that is always there to illuminate our true feelings. We make a habit to turn inward just like the earth turns towards the sun every morning.
Through yoga and meditation like this we orient our world, intentionally, toward the light, the light that is within us. Doing the Sun Salutation is like asking the sun to rise in our life.
