Surya Kriya - All the Surya /Sun based Practices

When the practice is done, geometrically, in a hundred percent correct manner then we will initiate the Surya Kriya in a certain way and it will become a very powerful process towards physiological and psychological health as well as a tremendous spiritual possibility. It will take a certain amount of time and application and constant correction to come to that state of perfection.

Memory and Cycles

One major aspect of spiritual process is to keep your hand out of the memory bank. Why we speak so much about karma – karma is memory – to be out of it, is because the moment you dip your hand into it, your life will become cyclical. Once your life becomes cyclical, you are just going in circles which mean that you are going nowhere. The idea is to break the cycle. If the cycle has to break, your intelligence has to become free from the accumulated memory, otherwise cycles will not be broken; cycles will be created. The more deeply you dip into this memory the cycles will become shorter and shorter and slowly lead you towards insanity.

When we say Surya we are talking about the sun, the basic powerhouse for this planet. Everything on this planet is solar powered – all life on this planet is solar powered, including yourself. The solar cycles run in twelve and a quarter to twelve and a half years. To be able to ride these cycles is a part of your well-being. You can either ride these cycles or you can be crushed by them.

The sun, the planet and the moon have a significant role in making the human body. Surya Kriya is a way of using the sun's cycle so that you bring your physical body to a twelve and a quarter to twelve and a half years cycle. If you observe your life carefully you will see that at certain periods of time, from the beginning of puberty, for example, there is a certain sense of repetitiveness to the situations that you face. The psychological experiences that you have, the emotional situations that you experience are cyclical. Someone may be going through a twelve year cycle; another may go through a six year cycle or three years, eighteen months, nine months or a six months cycle. If it goes anywhere below a three months cycle then that means, psychologically one is in a state where one definitely needs medical treatment.

From absolute health and balance to complete deterioration one can notice depending upon the length of cycle that is happening within oneself. Women are a little more in sync with the moon. As a result, they may not notice the solar cycle as much because they are noticing the lunar cycle much more. On the surface, for a female, the lunar cycle is playing a much more important role than the solar system. But the fundamental nature of the human body is essentially in sync with the solar cycles. So, Surya Kriya enables you to move towards a space within yourself and around yourself where circumstances are not in any way intrusive or obstructing the process of life.

Sun – The source of all life on Earth

The sun is the source of life energy. The prana aspect of you is a physical form of energy. In the process of creation, the first physical form of energy that manifests in the human system is referred to as prana. There is another dimension to the human system which is non-physical in nature and non-pranic. Prana is still physical. All the pranic energy in this solar system is essentially generated by the sun. Without the sun, there is no prana. Without the sun, there is no warmth. Without warmth, there is no life. The very way we check whether you are alive or dead is by seeing whether you are warm or cold.

Raising the Samat Prana

We want to activate the sun element within you. If something is dried in the sun, it can burn. In a way, the object or substance absorbs the rays of the sun and then becomes capable of producing energy. If there was no absorption of the sun's energy, nothing could burn, nothing could give warmth or light. For the body to heal itself, we have to generate warmth. In this context, samat prana is an important aspect of creating health in the system.

The process of living is constantly taking a toll on every cell in the body. They say the average age of the cells in an adult human body is 7 to 10 years. Every day, old cells are dying and new cells are being created. The number of cells that die in any given day can be drastically brought down if your samat prana is high. Similarly, the number of new cells that are being created in a day can be drastically increased if your samat prana is high. The amount of samat prana you have essentially depends on the amount of the sun's energy within you. One way is to try to generate it within you. Another way is to make use of the sun outside to activate this process within you.

Stimulating the Internal Sun

Surya Kriya is to activate the internal sun, but you stimulate it by using the external sun. If you want to establish a connection with the external sun, or with anything for that matter, you need attention, emotion, and energy moving in that direction. Otherwise, you cannot make a connection to anything – whether it is a human being, a plant, an animal, or a substance. When your attention, emotion, and energy are not connected to anything around you, you are like a separate existence by yourself. And that's how most people live.

One aspect is to open up the Anahata, which is an important part of the human system. It is the meeting point between the lower three chakras and the upper three chakras. Its symbol is two equilateral triangles. An upward-facing triangle and a downward-facing triangle meet to form a complex pattern. On one level, creation begins from there – not the physical dimension, but another dimension of you that distinguishes you as a human being.

This is why it is called "Anahata," which means "unstruck" – an unstruck sound. Generally, it takes two things to strike a sound. But at the Anahata, there is an unstruck sound. To activate that, you have to bend your thumbs in such a way that the knuckles are pointed and you press them into the Anahata. That way, you create a certain emotion towards the sun.

Likewise, when you feel a pleasant emotion, you naturally place your hands on the Anahata, because that is where it begins. You want to activate your emotional dimension because without focusing your emotions on something, your mind cannot stick to anything. What you focus your emotions on, that is where your mind will be. Otherwise, it is difficult to keep your mind set on one thing.

Surya Namaskar

Surya Kriya is different from Surya Namaskar in that the original practice or the real practice is Surya Kriya. It is a way of aligning yourself with the sun and it is a much more refined process which needs enormous attention in terms of the geometry of the body. Surya Namaskar is a country cousin of Surya Kriya. There is also another process called Surya Shakti, which is a far-off relative. If you want to use this system as just a physical exercise to build muscle, to become physically strong, you do Surya Shakti. If you want to build muscle, be physically fit, you want to do aerobic exercise where your heart becomes strong and you also want to have a spiritual element in it, you do Surya Namaskar. If you want a strong spiritual process in the physical process that you are doing, then you do Surya Kriya.

Surya Namaskar is designed in such a way that it makes your energies radiate. Then you don't have to have good intentions; you don't have to have any intentions. If you simply sit here, your presence is beautiful and beneficial. Nobody needs to think we should make use of such a person's presence; anyway it is beneficial, whether others are aware of it or not. To what extent you radiate depends on whether you are willing to face the sun or whether you sit under a concrete block. So if you are radiating, what will happen? What does it mean?

Radiation means who you are is spreading in a subtle way. If I sit here like a cold block of meat, I'm just here. If I am radiating, in a subtle way, I'm all over the place. The more I am able to experience the existence, the more the existence is able to benefit from me – both ways it works; it's a transaction.So if I radiate, my being radiates in a big way. It is like a large umbrella that people can experience. And above all, I can experience the existence because who I am is not a piece of meat anymore, it's radiating.

If it radiates, prana will come in touch with AKASHA. You are doing Surya Namaskar because you want to become like the sun. Becoming like the sun does not mean you will burn up tomorrow morning. It simply means you will be in AKASHA. Right now you are just stuck to the planet, but if you become like the sun, you are in AKASHA; you are in the vast expanse of creation; you are not stuck to a limited space anymore. So, does the AKASHA have an influence upon us? First of all, it is always holding us in place. Your understanding may be that earth's gravity is holding you in place, but that's not how it is. The idea that the earth is like a magnet, holding all of us down, is a simplistic way of looking at things. What is holding the earth in place? To think that the sun's gravity is holding you is a very childish, infantile conclusion. The sun doesn't even have a solid substance. What is holding the whole solar system in place? Why is it not falling off? That's because of AKASHA. You want to be held in the embrace of AKASHA because that way, your experience of life becomes purely existential and universal in possibility; it is no more limited to the physical.

4008 Surya Namaskars

Maladihalli Swami, who first taught me yoga, used to do 4008 Surya Namaskars per day. Just like me he got into yoga for the wrong reasons. Right from his infancy, he had been a chronic asthmatic. He was just wheezing day and night. In those days, there was no proper medicine or treatment, and even if there had been, his parents would not have been able to afford it. They did whatever they could, but the boy was just wasting away.

When he was about 11 or 12 years of age, a yogi came by and the parents asked him to heal the boy. The yogi said, "Anyway this boy is not going to be of any use to you. If you keep him with you, he will die. Give him to me; I will take him with me" He didn't belong to the kind of people who are recruiting disciples. He wanted to walk alone; generally, he didn't take anybody. But he took compassion upon this boy because he had his mission. This yogi was Palani Swamy – that's my Guru too. So he took this young boy and trained him in the ways of yoga. The boy not only grew out of his ailment, he grew into a physically almost superhuman person – and he came and reminded me of yoga. [Laughs]

Wherever I am, I just do one, and I can do even without that. I can just sit and mentally do it – even then, it still works. This is because you do have a body and you are limited to the physical laws, if you are in touch with what is known as AKASHA, that which is holding the whole system up, will also hold you up.Life has left everything open for you; the existence has not blocked anything for you. If you are willing, you can access the whole universe.

Friction Less – Surya Kriya

This process of Surya Kriya is to enlarge the cycles of who you are; in such a way that your energy system's cycles should increase in a way that it becomes exactly the same as the solar cycles, which takes something like twelve years, three months and some few days to complete the cycle. Your system, your energy system should take exactly the same time. If you take the same time, if your cycles are absolutely in sync with the sun, then you will see your system will run without any kind of friction. Whatever kinds of little bit of aberrations that one may be born with, whatever types of aberrations that one might have acquired in the process of living, all these are smoothened out. To bring this state, there are various systems. Surya Kriya is a powerful process in that direction.

Surya Kriya is a phenomenal process in the direction to bring smoothness to the system. This smoothness to the system or this well-oiled feeling within yourself will not come unless you are in sync with the largest system, which is the solar system. The larger body of who you are is the solar system.

Oiling various dimensions

You have a physical dimension, which is an accumulated dimension. You have a psychological dimension, which is also largely accumulated dimension. Physical dimension is purely accumulated from this life. Psychological dimension you have acquired or accumulated from many lifetimes. And there is a karmic dimension, which is a much larger accumulation and much more complex. And there is energy, which is grown from within, but given to us from the process of life, which happens within us. And there are dimensions, which are purely cosmic in nature, which are not physical.

If we want to make sure that this being or this mechanism, which is a combination of all these aspects, is not in friction; there are many levels on which we have to lubricate it. One thing is the basic friction, a very rudimentary friction that people are experiencing everywhere. They're talking about stress. Stress is a very rudimentary thing. It is like you are trying to run your engine without lubrication oil and you are complaining, 'my car is not going anywhere.' If you go to a mechanic with your car and you say, "I got a problem," and he sees that you are running it without lubrication, he will knock you on your head and say, "You fool! You are not fit for driving."

This is just like that. 'I am stressed out' means your mind is in a state of friction, psychological friction within yourself. This is the most fundamental level of friction, but there are other more complex levels of friction or deeper dimensions of friction within us. Your karmic body and your physical body, if it doesn't fit, there will be a different kind of friction. Why would this happen? It may so happen – you have a certain type of karmic body, but you did not find the right kind of womb – then your karmic body will be in a state of friction with your physical body. That is not a small thing to handle. That will take a lot of handling. That is a very complex friction.

Otherwise, your energy body may not fit into your physical body. There are certain types of people who are going through that. This may have something to do with culture. This may have something to do with the general atmosphere, maybe pollution levels, maybe the land itself, the kind of memory the land carries. There're various aspects to it.

There may be other kinds of frictions, which is your psychological structure and your physical structure are not going well together. Like this, every part of you, every dimension of who you are either can run smoothly or can run with a lot of friction. The idea of Hata Yoga is to knead the system – not just the physical body – to knead the whole system in such a way that all these frictions are smoothened out in such a way that after some time if you sit here, there is absolutely no sense of friction within you. You have only the outside to deal with. Nothing else. Only if it becomes like that, can you deal with the outside with a phenomenal ease and capability.

Body a possibilty

The idea of yoga is that your body becomes a possibility, not a barrier. If that has to happen, everything within your system should function with least amount of resistance, with least amount of friction. Even according to our understanding of mechanical sciences, we know that we will call a machine truly efficient, only if it has least amount of friction. The more friction it has, the more inefficient it becomes. If it has no friction, it will be the ultimate machine. If you minimize the friction itself, the wear and tear comes down phenomenally. So, if the wear and tear of this body has to come down phenomenally, the first thing is to see there is no friction between different dimensions of who we are.

Radiate like  the Sun?

So if you radiate substantially, AKASHA is not only something that your planet is held in, it is something that you also swim in on a daily basis. Then your life is very different. Somebody said, "Knock, and it shall be opened" You don't even have to knock because there is no door – it's open. You just have to walk through it, that's all. But because your instinct of self-preservation keeps on telling you, "Unless you build a wall, you're not safe," unconsciously, you go on building walls all the time. What you are struggling with is just the concrete walls that you have built. .

We are interested in what blocks you. We are not interested in talking about the Ultimate. If we talk about the Ultimate, you will go into fanciful imagination. We are only talking about what is blocking you because that is what needs to be attended to.

Geometry and Initiations

Initiation process for Surya Kriya is going to be very simple; it's a simple process because if you achieve a certain level of geometry in the system, then all it needs is just the new geometry that you have created. When I say the new geometry – one needs to understand, out of the one hundred and fourteen chakras which exist in the body, if you have twenty one of them active, you can live quite a complete life. Physically, psychologically, emotionally, you can live quite a complete life. The initiation is mainly to put energy into the system, which is opened up fresh. If you have twenty-one of them open fully, you can live a full life. Most people don't even have that many open. If twenty-one of them are fully flexed and active and vibrant, one will live a very active, dynamic, and a full-fledged life within himself or herself.

But, if more of them become open by aligning your system properly either through general Hata Yoga or particularly through Surya Kriya, they may have opened up, but they might not have energized themselves because how they open up may not be in a series. They may open up in different places and the rest of the system may not be able to course the energy through those points.

So, initiation is to just make sure that the new possibilities that you have created by a certain practice do not remain dormant for too long because if it remains dormant for too long, you may lose the necessary motivation for you to continue to do the process. If you can keep up without any results or expecting any results, though there will be results, but without any expectation, you continue the sadhana, you come to a certain level of openness, then we can energize those centers, which have been opened by your sadhana. That is the intention of initiation.

God doesn't need your attention. There is nothing to do about the Ultimate; that which binds you has to be broken, that's all, and that bondage is 100% your making. That is why we are only talking karma. You have no work with the Existence. You have work only with the existence that you have created. That is why the yogic system does not talk about God, the Ultimate Being, or the Creator – it only talks about karma – the limitations you have created.