Mother Earth/Sun &
Planet
"O Goddess Earth, the consort of
Visnu,
you whose garments are the oceans and
whose ornaments are the hills and mountain ranges;
please forgive me as I walk on you this day."
In the Artha-Veda,
composed five-thousand years ago by the Rshis, a hymn to the Earth.
May She, Queen of what has been and will be,
make a wide world for us.
Earth that bears plants of various healing powers,
may she spread wide for us and thrive.
O Earth - brown, black, red and multi-colored
the firm Earth protected by Indra,
on this Earth may I stand -
unvanquished, unhurt, unslain.
This earth, our mother, has nurtured consciousness from
the slime of the primeval ocean billions of years ago and has sustained the
human race for countless centuries. Will we repay our debts to our mother by
converting her into a burnt out cinder circling the sun into eternity?
Rock, soil, stone and dust with these
Earth is held together and bound firm.
My obeisance to gold-breasted Earth...
Rising or sitting, standing or walking,
May we, either with our right foot or our left,
Never totter o the earth.
- Atharva Veda 12.1.26,
28
Sun/Dawn/Fire/ Worship
"We meditate upon the supreme
effulgence of the Divine creative Sun, that he may give impulse to our
intelligence." Rig Veda III 62.10
The
Sun (Surya) is the visible presence, the vision of the Divine, the cosmic symbol
for the Supreme. He is the Divine light and presence that fills all the worlds.
The Sun of illumination follows in love affair the Dawn (Usha)
of awakening. Usha or dawn represents Human aspiration as the Spiritual dawn.
Surya is possibly the most Vedic God. In the RgVeda, he is worshipped as
Savitr. As the source of life, light and warmth. He
is also the source of inner enlightenment as the famous Gayatri mantra suggests.
At dawn, the householder and his wife rise, purify
themselves with a bath--usually in a temple pool or a river if one is
available--and then make an offering to the fire-god Agni
in their household fire. Agni represents the consciousness force, the Sacred
Fire. The man will then turn towards the rising sun and ask for blessing and
understanding.
The Gayatri mantra (chant),
which forms the core of the Hindu faith, is actually addressed to Surya:
"O
splendid and playful sun,
we offer this prayer to thee.
Enlighten this craving mind.
Be our protector.
May the radiance of the divine ruler guide our destiny.
Wise men salute your magnificence with oblations and words of praise."
Lord Rama was also taught, by sage Agastaya, the Adityahridayam,
a prayer addressed to the sun god.
"The Sun is the foremost physical manifestation of
divine creative power. In the glorious morning the faithful bend towards the
giver of life in one single gesture of adoration. "
In Surya Sahastranam
several syno-nyms of the Sun are actually Vishnu’s names and at one place He
is also called Jyotirlinga, representing Shiva. Mahakal is both the name of
Shiva and the Sun. Ganesha, the son of Shiva, is also represented in the Sun.
Image of the rising Sun in a water reservoir or pond appears like an
elephant’s trunk due to the ripples, resembling Ganesha. Gayatri and Savitri
are forms of the Sun. Aditya is derived from Aditi, which is the name of Durga.
The worship of the Sun God means the worship of all the five Puranic gods and
goddess. Hymns of the Rig Veda confirm that the Sun is the manifestation
of the whole universe. In the Chhandogya Upanishad the Sun has been called Omkar and Udgeet.
The
Rig
Veda says the Sun is the soul of the universe and it controls the animate as
well as the inanimate. The
Sun’s rays have the amazing power to heal. Sun worship helped Sambha, Krishna
’s grandson, get cured of leprosy. Solar treatment was a well-developed
science in ancient times. Its exponents could revive dead persons by
concentrating the Sun’s rays on the dead body. Till recently, Swami Viryananda,
Swami Dayananda’s preceptor, and Swami Vishuddhananda were experts of this
science and reportedly, could perform such miracles. Gopinath Kaviraj has
recorded that he himself saw Vishuddhananda reviving a dead bird thus. When Alan
Leo, the renowned astrologer, visited India, he was astounded to see the
longevity of rural women who ate very little nutritious food. Then he noticed
that they wore heavy silver ornaments and concluded that they got solar energy
through the silver which probably prolonged their lives.
(source:
Surya
the Sun God, Eternal Healer
- timesofindia.com).
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