Makara Sankranti 

In Sanskrit, Makara Sankranti means the time when the sun crosses the tropic of Capricorn. The day is of special significance to all those leading the spiritual life and mention has been made of this commencement of this new period in such scriptures as the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. The sun comes to the North, energising and invigorating all life wherever it is, and on whatever he sheds his light. In esoteric parlance, in mystic terminology, the sun is regarded as the presiding deity over the self of man, while the moon is the presiding deity over the mind of man. The self or the soul is different from the mind; the Atman and the Manas are differentiated by their metaphysical and psychological characteristics, respectively.

The self of man is presided over by the Sun or Surya. The Sun is designated as Atma-Karaka. "Surya Atma Jagatas Tasthushascha" says the Veda. The Rig-Veda proclaims the spiritual presiding principle in the Sun as the invigorator, energiser of the selves of all created beings. That is the meaning of the Vedic prayer mentioned above. Of all the things that move and do not move, of all that is organic or inorganic, of everything in creation, the solar principle is the self, as it were, the pivot round which all individual energies revolve. We live by the Sun and die if the Sun is not to be. Spiritually envisaged, esoterically conceived, the Sun is not merely a huge orb of atomic energy as the physicists would tell us, but a radiant mass of life-giving vitality to everyone. The sun is not merely a heating principle, like an electric heater or a fire-like burning mass, or a huge conflagration of fire, because these cannot give you that energy which the Sun supplies to you. I shall give you a small analogy to give you an idea as to what the Sun can contain and does contain.

Do you know what the earth contains? Can you imagine what energy, what vitality, what abundance, what resources are contained in the earth! You have got gold, you have got diamonds, you have got mineral resources under different parts and bowels of the earth, you have got gas and petrol and what not; and where do you get this energy from, for the sake of the living beings on earth? The trees vigorously rise from the earth, sucking energy from the bottom of the earth, and they seek energy from above from the rays of the Sun. When we geologically and physically look into the structure of this earth, and chemically examine its contents, biologically investigate into its resources, as a pure scientific mind, we will realise that the earth is not a dead matter. It is energy-embodiment, on whose bounties we are alive here. The food that we eat is not a dead stuff; otherwise it cannot give us energy.

From where do we get energy? From the food that we eat. From where do we get the food? From the earth. If energy is to come from food, naturally the source of it must be full of energy. The earth cannot be inanimate, as we generally dub it to be. It is not inorganic; there is something organic and living, meaningful and significant in it and the earth has been declared to be a part of the solar constitution, even many millions of years ago. As our wise men tell us, once upon a time a mighty gigantic star happened to rush by the side of the electro-magnetic field of the Sun, some light years away from the Sun, of course, not merely a few miles. The impact of this upon the orb of the Sun was such that it broke off a little piece of it.

That little piece, being a flaming, diverging, powerful energy-block, rushing from the Sun boiling with the flame of what the Sun is, is supposed to have come down after thousands of years, cooling down gradually from the flaming condition in which it was to a cooler condition and from the cooler condition to a still cooler condition, from that condition into the gaseous condition, from the gaseous to the liquid condition and from the liquid condition to the solid condition that we see today. So, all this wonderful earth is nothing but a part of the Sun and our greatness can be traced back to the greatness of the Sun which cannot be, by a logical deduction, a mere physical or inorganic form as uninformed science may tell us.

Something wonderful and mysterious is there in the Sun and there is some great significance in connecting the principle of the Sun with the self of man, as there is also equal significance in the connection of the moon with the mind of man. You know, during, the full-moon and the new-moon days the mind gets affected. Those who are weaklings and who are not mentally strong will feel this impact more than normal persons. Normal persons do not feel it, but those who are not normal in their minds will feel much.

The moon, the stars, the sun and all the stellar system exert a mutual influence amongst themselves. You know during the full-moon the ocean rises up, wells up as if to greet the rising moon and, naturally, the pull must be felt everywhere on earth, but you cannot see it. Such is the invisible impact of the higher forces of nature, whose father is the Sun, and when its influence is felt more and more, the self is supposed to also exert influence in its activity, operation. So, this particular day, we call Makara Sankranti, is holy.

The Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita tell us that those who die during these six months of the northern course of the Sun, rise from the earthly entanglements to the higher regions presided over by noble deities, finally piercing through the orb of the Sun, attain Salvation. Crossing the barrier of the Sun does the soul cross the still higher regions of resplendence and spiritual magnificence. The Upanishads and such scriptures describe that while the passage of the moon is the passage of return to the earth, the passage through the Sun is the passage to salvation, liberation of the spirit.

Those who cross the barrier of the Sun come not to this mortal world again. They go to higher regions until the soul reaches universal salvation, until the soul becomes everything, enters into everything everywhere, as the Mundaka Upanishad tells us. Seekers of Truth, aspirants on the path of Yoga, devotees of God, lovers of mankind, all these have to pay tribute to the supreme father of energy, vital, not dead, which is Surya. "Suryah pratyaksha devata" (The Sun is the visible God). If you have any visible God, it is the Sun before you.