Makara Sankranti (2)

You cannot see God in His pristine excellence, but you can see God through the operation of his powers in nature. In the Purusha Sukta, the Sun is again compared to the eyes of the Virat Purusha, the cosmic person. These are only true comparisons and symbols which give us an idea as to the magnitude and the importance of the Sun in the life of ours. People pray for their death during the six months period of the northern movement of the Sun.

In the Mahabharata we are told that Bhishma waited for his departure until the Sun moved to the north. So there is not merely an astronomical or physical significance to our lives in the movement of the Sun towards the north, but there is also a biological, vital and psychological as well as spiritual meaning in this northern sojourn of the Sun. Devotees and seekers of Yoga have, therefore, to bring to their minds this internal world, and its significance which is beyond and farther than the physical world. The inner world is deeper than the outer.

In some of the scriptures we are told that there are 12 Suns. Where are the twelve Suns? We see only one Sun in the sky. We can regard these twelve Suns as the principle inherent within the physical Sun, one behind the other. Just as we have the vital body behind the physical body, the mental body behind the vital body, the intellectual body behind the mental body and the spiritual principle in us behind the intellectual body, so also, there are energies behind energies, powers within powers, and one transcending the other, until the twelfth Sun is reached.

It is identified with Maha-Vishnu or the supreme benefactor of creation, the Ruler of the Cosmos. The twelfth Sun is Vishnu Himself. He cannot be seen with the physical eyes because these esoteric Suns are internal to the physical Sun. You cannot see the vital body or the mental body, intellectual body or the spiritual principle in you. You cannot see anything inside the body. In as much as we live in the physical body and see a physical world, we see also a physical Sun.

When we enter the vital body, we will enter the vital world and see a vital Sun, so on and so forth, and when we reach the ultimate principle within us by the practice of Yoga, we will see the hidden essence behind the world. It is not a country; it is not a realm, a village or a city, or any locality populated by people. A marvellous ocean of light and energy will be presided over by the twelfth Sun, says the Scripture. So there is much behind these great observances such as the Makara Sankranti and many others of a similar nature, in the spiritual destiny of man. We live a material life, not knowing what we really are, what the world is.

We seem to be so ignorant of the values that are inherent and within us that we are dashed hither and thither by the winds of fate, controlling the physical world and the physical body of people. The more you move inward into yourself, the more also you will see the inner mystery of the world. When you go to the vital body within you, you can see the vital body of other people seated here. Because you are now in the physical body, you see the physical body of others. When you enter your mental body, you can see the minds of other people, and when you enter your intellectual body you can see the intellects of other people seated here. And when you enter your spiritual principle within, you can see the spirituality in the world and the spiritual principle in the whole cosmos.

So the twelve Suns described in the Srimad Bhagavata and other scriptures are not twelve physical Suns hanging in the sky, but twelve layers of principle one behind the other, culminating in the spiritual Reality as the Sun, wherein the individual, the world and God become one. In the physical realm you are different, the world is different and God is different. There is no connection apparently between one another. When you go deeper, the three principles come nearer and nearer to one another. The world is absolutely isolated now; you have no control over it, it threatens you every moment; you are afraid of the world. Why?

Because it is physically isolated from your physical body. And so also is God, a transcendent something of which you have no concept today. But when you go inwardly by a power of concentration and meditation, you also simultaneously, as a parallel movement, enter into the subtler realms of the world outside, so much so the outsideness of the world becomes less in proportion to the internal experience that you have in your own self. The more you are physically conscious, the more also is the world external to you.

The more you are inwardly conscious, the nearer is the world to you. The inimical world, the so-called unfriendly world, becomes a friendly one when you enter into the subtler and subtler realms of your own being. And when you reach the divine principle within you, the world does not merely remain as a friend but becomes an inseparable experience of your own. The world ceases to be an outer phenomenon.

There will be no world as such. The thing called the world ceases to be the moment you enter into the spiritual principle within you which is the same as the spiritual principle within the world, which is also the same as the spiritual principle of the universe. It is only here that God, world and the soul become united. This is the liberation that we are ultimately seeking.

So there is much of a message in this religious observance of Makara Sankranti and we shall all, as humble seekers of Truth, do well to contemplate this inner divinity presiding over the solar symbol in our creation and endeavour to be more and more spiritual in our life, which is not to change to a different order or kind of life from the one in which we are, but to enter into a new meaning of life in this very life. To be spiritual, to enter the realm spiritual, is not to enter into an order of life as people mistakenly imagine. It is not shifting from place to place, moving from one corner of the earth to another corner of the earth, or changing the mode of living in this world.