All About Sun Salutation

Here Comes the Sun by Richard Rosen is a delightful and enlightening article, chock full of information and instruction regarding the sun salutation. Richard Rosen is the author of THE book on yoga breath: The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama.

As the sun returns to us, this first week of spring seems an especially appropriate time to remind ourselves about the origin of this basic yoga sequence called Surya Namaskar. Surya – sun; namas – salute (same root as namaste which means literally “I salute you.”)

Here’s a sample –

The outer sun, they (ancient yogis) asserted, is in reality a token of our
own "inner sun," which corresponds to our subtle, or spiritual, heart. Here is
the seat of consciousness and higher wisdom (jnana) and, in some traditions, the
domicile of the embodied self (jivatman).

It might seem strange to us that the yogis place the seat of wisdom in
the heart, which we typically associate with our emotions, and not the brain.
But in yoga, the brain is actually symbolized by the moon, which reflects the
sun's light but generates none of its own. This kind of knowledge is worthwhile
for dealing with mundane affairs, and is even necessary to a certain extent for
the lower stages of spiritual practice. But in the end, the brain is inherently
limited in what it can know and is prone to what Patanjali calls misconception
(viparyaya) or false knowledge of the self.

To read the full article, click here.