The Light of the Sun

Life on earth is possible only because of the Sun. For mankind that is caught up in a meaningless existence and going through an endless round of futile activities, the Sun God stands out as an exemplar of tireless and selfless service. He enjoys no respite from work. He is above praise and censure. He carries on his duties with absolute equanimity. Everything he does is only for the wellbeing of the world and not for causing any harm. 

Thus the Sun God teaches us the supreme example of humble devotion to duty, without any conceit. Everyone must learn how to do their duties with devotion and dedication, just like the Sun. Doing one's duty is the greatest Yoga (Spiritual path), as pointed out by Krishna in the Gita. Hence, let your actions and thoughts be good. You will then experience the bliss divine.

Baba

The first time I heard about the metaphor of the sun as the higher self or divinity, I saw it as light only. It is not difficult to see the sun as special, because what would we do without it? But to really see it as part of my own self, that is an all different matter. 

After I had met the higher self in my own dream it was much easier to relate it to the Sun and sunshine. 

It was in the dream as a bright white light and it was that beautiful there was only love and it felt amazing. In that sense it could be very well compared to the sun in our heart.

And it was that strong, nothing else mattered really, but there was a gap and the body was dark and sleeping and in that body was the 'I', and in the cap was a blue ribbon and in that ribbon was written self and it was funny to look at the 'I' in the body and to know that it didn't belong there.

The sun is very similar, it is what matters to us, because without the sunlight and the warmth of the sun we would not survive for long and there is a big gap between the earth and the sun. The world is dark and dependent on the life spending sunlight and the 'I' in that sense seen in the body is like living at the ancient times thinking that the earth is a disc only and it is possible to fall over the edge, that is the believe the we die. Being aware that the sun is the higher self and to be aware that it is not different from the universe is getting the whole picture and the reality that it is not possible to die, if we know we are that sun, because the sun never dies, what dies is the body only and we have to get to the realization that our body and mind is just limited and that we are 'not this and no that', we are not the body and not the mind.

After that insight it was somehow possible to understand that the sun is used in that analogy to make us aware of the importance of our own higher self and that there is that gap between the sun and the planet world, it is like in
the inner view, only the light is not seen outside, but inside and in that gap was a blue ribbon, the same color as our blue planet world and in that ribbon was written, self.

 
I was waiting I don't know for how long to get a glimpse of the higher self, and that was it, beyond every doubt, it was the light of the higher self.

It had been in my experience before during writing a diary and at that time I was about seventeen, and afterwards it seemed impossible to be found again, it was gone and I wanted to find the self itself, because I knew that is what I wanted or the reason why it was not there anymore.

After having been looking about all over for it and as it seemed all in vain, it was just nowhere to be found, I remembered that it had to be inside and that I should somehow look inside, but inside is no light and we cannot see, so I decided to watch and observe and to not change anything, to face whatever obstacle would be there, until I would see the inner self.

It had to be there, it was there before, the question was just how to get there. As it is our own self, it cannot be that far away. But I noticed after that experience, that it was not only the closest, but also the farest. It was not only smaller than the smallest, but it was also bigger than the biggest.

So I had to go beyond all obstacles on the mind level to get there. That is how I decided to not take a decision until it would be there, no matter what obstacles.

And it was not easy. Looking back it is a strange time, waiting for I don't know what and no matter what, just going on, not being able to talk about it and facing whatever that was, not even noticing that there were obstacles, just going on, hoping it would end well finally. I had the impression I didn't know at all what I was doing, and I really didn't. I read about it in a book of Yogananda Paramahansa, but he seemed at that time far away, he was in California. 

But after that self experience it made sense, it was no more about the self, that was sure, it was there, I had experienced it and it was more the surprise that nobody knew it and that we had no notion about it and there was that question coming up, why we had hardly any notion about it and where we would find it in our every day life?

If it was that important, why I had not met it in the church or in my believe? Why we were not used to see it that way, that this experience made sense, why it felt that far away from our culture and what we were used to? And I got aware of the reality of the age of ignorance. 

But if we see the sun as an example of our own higher self, we cannot get wrong. It is warm, it is love, it is light and it is beauty. On this earth we are in the body, the body is the world and whatever is around us is mixed, it is multiplicity and we have to find the sun and what is real in that reality which is that big that it expands to the universe.

It was kind of surprising to get aware that the inner light is only beauty and love and beauty and free in itself, even if it does its duty, as the sun, never involved directly, only indirectly, going on doing his duty and by that getting aware of the eternal value of life.

Whatever we looked at on the world level as direct relationship, it is all mind and the sun is different from it and that is called Atman.

To get that picture was one thing, but to understand our personal relationships in that light, that was much more challenging.

Baba said that parents are God and that means they have the value of the sun in the relationship to our parents, or husband and guests are God.

The parents we cannot chose, the husband should be the sun value, otherwise, it will be with my ex, never husband.

I never have much guests and husband was no husband, so that was not easy to get aware of that value of the sun in my life, even if it was experienced as shining light and the higher self. But it lives in my parents and in my mother. It happened one day there was that joy in the air and it was in the air between me and my daughter and remembering it there it was, the same as I had felt when I was a child and listened to my mother's voice, it seemed very far away.

It was just a moment but with Baba's help that moment was enough to get aware of it that it is the same and that it is that principle of the sun we experience in our own life in the relationship to our parents.

It was great to get aware of it, because it took all problems away. That is the value of the sunlight in our life, if we get aware of it, whatever the problems, the sorrows or whatever has happened, it all belongs to the passing clouds on the earth and as we know the sun never is affected by the clouds. The sun is going on shining undisturbed. 

To see it as the principle of light and divinity and to make the experience of it in our own life, that was not the same.

It was in that joy, it was the joy I remembered I had felt listening to my mother, that was the past. It was in the joy I felt to my daughter, that was in the present and it means it will be the same joy in the children of my daughter. It is a principle of love.

Maybe there had been pain to have lost it, as I couldn't find it in my mother anymore, it felt like gone long ago and we couldn't find it anymore and it was that I was looking for all over, and all in vain, because in reality it is never changing and our inner self knows that, our heart knows it, but it was not there anymore.

The question was how it got lost and why. It is in reality the same joy as I felt listening to my mother's voice and again the same between my daughter me as her mother and that is how we got aware of that principle of love and joy and why Baba tells us that mother is God, it never changes, it is always the same, in the past, in the present and in the future and it is for all mothers the same. 

What Baba tells us here is about the light of the sun, but we have to make the experience. We see the sun as light, it is warm and not cold, it is light and not darkness, it is nourishing and not just taking advantage of it, the sun as example of selfless service. That is a different way to see the light, not only as sun, but also as selfless service.

I was always looking for it in our relationship, we got into it in the ashram in Baba's presence and it seemed perfect and I thought he would be a husband, but what worked on the level of the daughter, didn't work on the level of husband. He never was the sun.

As Baba said in the inner view, he took only advantage of it and therefore, he is not the principle of the sun, but something else, it feels like grown in the dark, like a night shade plant. It is just difficult to get the picture, because Tamas is difficult to understand.

I waited and waited and it got only worse and it ended with Baba telling in the dream, that he just took advantage of it.

That explains why he never felt like husband and what seems even worse, never like a father to his daughter. We went with him into a mud hole, there was no way out, because I had to do on no matter what obstacles are there, that is part of Tapas, Baba said, first discrimination, second seeing it in our own life and third going on no matter what obstacles are there. 

I couldn't get out of it, the mud hole was his arguing, he constant finding faults and taking no responsibility for what he had done, he was a problem on all level of life, nothing worked out for him and he was not able to solve them and expected others to take care for him, finally he went to his sister's place and she took care of him.

That is what he was looking for, he wanted to be taken care off by someone and he went to Sai Baba in the hope that he would take care of him and give him everything he wanted.

He had stupid attitude of approaching divinity, without any discrimination, only wish fulfilling thinking and using others for it.

Thus the Sun God teaches us the supreme example of humble devotion to duty, without any conceit. Everyone must learn how to do their duties with devotion and dedication, just like the Sun. Doing one's duty is the greatest Yoga (Spiritual path), as pointed out by Krishna in the Gita. Hence, let your actions and thoughts be good. You will then experience the bliss divine.

It is about discrimination first. The qualities of the sun is light and love and beauty and truth and we can see it in our own life, in our dream as insight and we can see it in the mother principle in getting aware that it is the same for all mothers, it is the joy that relates all mothers in this universe. 

It was great to get aware of it, because it takes the pain and the problem away we had with our own mothers and the fact that she had changed and why it could not be found anymore, he also answered it, in the inner view it was as avalanche present after her death, that is attachment. It was that attachment what made it impossible to find that joy and mother in her as it should have been and it is that reason, why it was not present anymore. In realizing the principle and that nothing is lost, but it was attachment, why it was not there anymore, that takes the problem away, whatever it was, just passing clouds and we have to see it in a new light.