Lighting the Path:
The Solar Yoga of Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov
by Georg Feuerstein
Om. Bhur bhuvar svar, tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi
dhiyo yo nah pracodayat.
"Om. Earth. Midspace. Heaven. May we contemplate that most
excellent splendor of God Savitri, so that He may inspire our visions."
For thousands of years, pious Hindus have recited this Vedic mantra
in praise of Savitri, the quickening aspect of the life-giving Sun. In
our own time, this ancient solar teaching has had a most ardent and convincing
spokesman in the person of Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov. For this Bulgarian-born
gnostic master made the life-bestowing solar being the focus of his whole
life and teaching.
When traveling in India, in 1959-60, A�vanhov was welcomed by several
renowned Hindu sages, including Swami Nityananda, as an accomplished master
from Europe. One adept hailed him as a "solar rishi."
Although that Hindu sage was not at all familiar with A�vanhov's teaching,
he could not have characterized him better.
The Vedic rishis were visionaries, spiritual seers. A�vanhov,
too, was such a seer. It was on the basis of his own spiritual realization
and of his reading of what he called the "Book of Nature," that
he, like the rishis before him, discovered in the Sun a great secret.
In one of his talks he observed:
As soon as the Sun gets up he pours forth his light, his warmth and
his life, and it is that light, warmth and life that encourage men and
women to get up, too, and go to work . . . The daily rhythm of human
life is patterned on the rhythm of the Sun's movement. And it is the
Sun, too, who is at the origin of all culture and civilisation.*1
A�vanhov reproached us moderns for taking the Sun's existence for granted,
ignoring the fact that without it, there would be no life on Earth. All
animate and inanimate things, A�vanhov noted, are nothing but condensed
sunlight.
The Sun is the origin of life. More than that, the Sun is the primordial
teacher. For, without the Sun there would be no human society, religion,
morality, arts, philosophy, and technology. In one of his earliest talks,
given in 1938, A�vanhov remarked:
Everything good comes from the Sun. It is God's highest manifestation
and through it, He sends His blessings.*2
Elsewhere A�vanhov observed:
Deprived of sunshine men could never have existed . . . Without his
light they could never have had the faculty of sight, and not only on
the physical level but also on the intellectual level: they could never
have had understanding, for understanding is a higher form of sight.*3
This view coincides with ancient Hindu teachings. Thus, in the Bhagavad-G�t�
(4.1), the God-man Krishna explains to his disciple Prince Arjuna that
he, Lord Krishna, proclaimed his "immutable Yoga" to Vivasvat
who then taught it to Manu, the progenitor of the human race. Vivasvat
("He Who Shines Brightly") is none other than the solar being,
more specifically the creator aspect of the Sun.
A�vanhov saw in light the first emanation of the Divine, retaining the
Divine's qualities more than any other manifestation. As he insisted:
Light is a living spirit which comes from the Sun and which establishes
a direct relationship with our own spirit.*4
A�vanhov further claimed that, as a supremely intelligent being, the
Sun is completely responsive to our spiritual intentions and aspirations.
He viewed the Sun as an "open door to Heaven."*5 This reminds
one of the famous line in the beautiful �sha-Upanishad, which
speaks of the lid that covers the Truth. A�vanhov also stated that the
Sun has been his principal teacher and that "the Sun's replies are
given in a flash, like an electronic machine."*6
A�vanhov gave the name Surya Yoga, "Solar Yoga," to the conscious
cultivation of that solar umbilical cord to the Divine. He explained:
By the practice of Surya Yoga you establish a link between yourself
and the power that governs and gives life to the whole Universe: the
Sun. That is why you must necessarily get results! . . . No book can
give you what the Sun gives you if you learn to have the proper relationship
with him . . . If you want to create a bond between you [and the Sun],
you have to look at him in all consciousness. If you do that there will
be a communication of vibrations between the Sun and you in which forms
and colours, a whole new world, will be born.*7
An important part of S�rya Yoga is to contact the Sun at dawn, which
requires proper mental preparation. In order to be able to approach the
rising Sun in a meditative disposition, the solar yogis should live a
balanced life, involving dieting, perhaps even fasting, adequate sleep,
and, above all, an uncluttered mind. Making peace in their own heart,
the solar yogis are able to gather their energies and project themselves
into the Sun.
This projection is made possible by the fact that, on subtler planes
of existence, we are already fully in touch with the solar being. A�vanhov
put this fact more succinctly when he said that the human being already
dwells in the Sun.
This statement has its striking counterpart in the sacred literature
of Hinduism. But A�vanhov's teaching sprang from his own inner experience
rather than any study of the Hindu scriptures. He discovered for himself
that, esoterically, the human being is modeled after the Sun. We participate
in the Sun's splendor, though we are habitually unaware of this fact.
A�vanhov's unique contribution is that he has made age-old esoteric knowledge
accessible to modern students.
A�vanhov affirmed many times that by focusing on the Sun, and by attuning
ourselves to the solar "wavelengths," we are made whole. He
spoke of "eating" and "drinking" light, the primordial
food of the universe. As he put it:
We go to the sunrise in order to nourish ourselves with light . . .
Man needs to feed on light in order to nourish his brain . . . Light
awakens those faculties that enable man to penetrate the spiritual world.*8
A�vanhov, who was a very practical man, recommended this exercise:
In your thought, with your imagination, try to draw some of these divine
particles [of the Sun] into yourself. In this way, little by little,
you will completely regenerate all the materials of your being. Thanks
to the Sun you will think and act as a child of God.*9
A�vanhov further stated:
There is no more worthy, more glorious or more potent work than this
work with light.*10
A�vanhov's S�rya Yoga furnishes us with a vision of our solar system
and human existence that is truly magnificent. It replaces our egocentric
view, which sees everything revolving around the human individual. Simultaneously
it relieves us of the burden of having to play God, and instead facilitates
our native ability to transcend the ego and to find the bliss of the Divine
in our life. The ego is the ultimate black hole. It sucks in light but
emits none.
The Sun is the exact opposite of the ego. It ceaselessly bestows life
upon the world. Its life is a true sacrifice. This secret message was
clearly understood by the ancient rishis.
A�vanhov reminded us of the fact that we inhabit a far more wondrous
universe than science would have us believe—a universe that is patiently
waiting for our conscious, mature collaboration.
About Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov
Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov was born in 1900 in the small Macedonian village
of Serbtzy. He was a precocious child and early on became fascinated with
spiritual matters. At the age of sixteen, he was plunged into a state
of ecstasy in which he experienced everything bathed in, and suffused
with, light—an experience that left a lasting mark on his understanding
of the nature of existence.
A year later he found his teacher in the saintly Peter Deunov (Beinsa
Deuno), a gnostic master, who had a following of tens of thousands. At
his teacher's behest, Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov emigrated to France in 1937
to spread the teaching of light outside his homeland. He lived and tirelessly
taught in France for nearly half a century until his death in December
of 1986.
The title Omraam, bestowed on him by Neemkaroli Baba, when visiting
that Indian sage, is the French spelling of the two sacred syllables om
and ram.
Master A�vanhov never wrote anything, but his countless talks were recorded
and collected by his disciples. Today many of these impromptu talks are
available in various languages. Thus, over forty volumes of talks are
in print in the English language, with hundreds more being planned for
publication over the coming years. His life and teachings are presented
in Georg Feuerstein's The Mystery of
Light, which was newly released in Spring 1998.
Notes
1. Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov, Toward a Solar Civilisation (Frejus,
France: Prosveta, 1982), p. 11.
2. Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov, The Second Birth (Frejus, France:
Prosveta, 1976), p, 72.
3. Toward a Solar Civilisation, p. 19.
4. Omraam Mikha�l A�vanhov, Light is a Living Spirit (Frejus,
France: Prosveta, 1987), p. 27.
5. Toward a Solar Civilisation, p. 28.
6. Ibid., p. 35.
7. Ibid., p. 30.
8. Light is a Living Spirit, p. 75.
9. Ibid., p. 72.
10. Ibid., p. 64.
|
