Exercise 2

A Meditation on the Sun

by The Editor

Contents List:

Preparation
Procedure
Benefits

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Preparation

The occasion of the autumnal equinox is a suitable point at which to introduce a simple exercise of fundamental importance for the student who sincerely desires to establish a secure sense of personal relationship to the Universe.

Find a convenient spot indoors or outdoors from which you may view the sunrise. Rise before daybreak and watch the world rotate from darkness into light.

Sit comfortably and watch the ever-changing kaleidoscope of the eastern sky until the sun has fully risen. On clear mornings, note the point at which the sun first becomes visible and how this point moves along your local horizon in the course of the year.

If your circumstances militate against dawn meditation, commence your practice shortly before sunset and contemplate the western sky, noting the point on your local horizon at which the sun disappears from view and continuing to watch until the first stars appear.

If you determine to perform this exercise, do not be discouraged on occasions when the sun is not shining. Clouds, rain, hail, snow, thunder and lightning all produce their own effects on the light entering your eyes. You should practise as often as possible for at least a full year, and there is no reason why you should stop then.

Procedure

Fix your gaze on the sky. Reflect that as the sun illumines the physical world, there is a still more fundamental Source of mystical Light that illumines the mental world. Remember that light has long been recognised as the first energy emanated by the Creator of the universe and is therefore the fundamental state of what we call matter.

Try to move with the growing or waning light until your mind embraces the whole planet. Picture a great globe growing ever larger within yourself as a purely mental but living being, a formless consciousness without physical body, until it assumes gigantic size. Now reverse the process and see the globe shrinking until it encloses only your own body. Realise as best you can that you are ultimately mind, not matter, and that this realisation is the key to comprehending the true relation between yourself and the life of the cosmos.

Close your meditation with a thought of thankfulness for this opportunity to attune with the Mind of God.

Benefits

Light rays thus absorbed when they are at their most gentle promote peace of mind, strengthen the nervous system, and help to heal physical disease.

These daily periods around sunrise and sunset are times when local nature adapts its operations to the transition from darkness to light and back again. On each occasion, there seems to be a natural pause in which mankind most readily becomes aware of the secret forces through which the universe is silently regulated. Other such times are new moon, full moon, and eclipse days.

With perseverance, the benefits of daily exercise will gradually become evident in your life.

The introduction of this Exercise need not inhibit the continued practice of Exercise 1.