Om vandaniyaya namaha, Salutations to the Sun who is the object of prayer, adoration, worship and obeisance.
glossary
vandan Hin. m. vandanā Hin. f. vandana San. n. vandanā San. f. (from vand – to venerate, worship) praising, praise, adoration, reverence towards all life, prayer, homage, reverential greeting, salutations (including touching the feet) – one of the nine paths of devotion. ‘Worship any form, under any name, in any temple.’ (SSS) ‘Whatever I am offered in devotion with a pure heart – a leaf, a flower, fruit or water – I partake of that love-offering.’ (BG. IX.26)
vandana—worship Adi 1.82,
vandana—prayers Adi 1.33, Adi 16.29
vandana—obeisance Adi 1.103, Adi 1.104
vandana—praying Adi 2.116, Madhya 22.121
vandana—respectful obeisances. Adi 1.35
vandana—offering of prayers. Adi 1.83
vandana—worshiping. Adi 6.41
vandana—prayers. Adi 14.67
vandana—offering prayers. Madhya 24.337
vandana—offering obeisances Antya 8.8
Obeisance is bending the head or body or knee as a sign of reverence or submission or shame or greeting; it is also the act of obeying; dutiful or submissive behaviour with respect to another person. With the Sun, obeisance is recognition of its place in our lives; as the significator of the Self or the Soul, it is the giver of light. As the Divine is light from light, self-effulgent light, it is meet and fitting to have obeiseance before the Sun.
A person comes to their self-respect through knowledge, skill, insight, identity and balance. This only comes from giving of proper respect to others. The placement of the Sun in the birth chart is an indicator of the Ego personality of the native. An unrestrained ego is not an ego worthy of respect and admiration. Knowledge, skill, insight, identity and balance are obtained at a cost of self-control, self-sacrifice and delay of gratification. Modern psychology affirms, those who develop the skill of delaying immediate gratification achieve their goals in life.
The gunas are responsible for all differentiation and specialisation in nature (prakriti); everything in the manifested world is a combination or recombination of these three gunas. Rajoguna (Rajas) is the activating aspect of the manifestation that allows the other constituents to manifest their inherent qualities; it is expressed as desire, ambition, attachment, pride and envy. Tamoguna (tamas) is of the nature of inertia; it manifests as ignorance, darkness, lack of ambition and interest, restraint and concealement, while sattvoguna (Sattwa, sattvic) is the equilibrium of the two, the illuminating quality of light – love, faith, purity and goodness. Inertia (tamas) and restlessness (rajas) inhibit the expression of clarity and harmony (sattva).
The Sathwa guna will have as its unmistakable concomitants: splendour, wisdom, bliss, peace, brotherliness, sense of sameness, self-confidence, holiness, purity and similar qualities. Only he who is saturated in Sathwa guna can witness the image of the Atma within. It is when the Sathwa is mixed with the Thamasic and Rajasic, that it is rendered impure and becomes the cause of Ignorance and Illusion. This is the reason for the bondage of man. The Rajasic quality produces the illusion of something non-existent being existent! It broadens and deepens the contact of the senses with the external world. It creates affection and attachment and so, by means of the dual pulls of happiness and sorrow (the one to gain and the other, avoid) to it plunges man deeper and deeper into activity. These activities breed the evils of passion, fury, greed, conceit, hatred, pride, meanness and trickery. And the Tamasic quality? Well, it blinds the vision, and lowers the intellect, multiplying sloth, sleep and dullness, leading man along the wrong path, away from the goal. It will make even the seen, the ‘unseen’! One will fail to benefit even from one’s actual experience, if one is immersed in Tamas. It will mislead even big scholars, for scholarship does not necessarily confer moral stamina. Caught in these tentacles of Tamas, the pundits cannot arrive at correct conclusions.
One needs to observe the placement of the Sun in the birth chart, in order to determine which guna will be highlighted. Gunas are reflected by the Nakshatras, all of which have a prevailing guna. In order to fulfil the promise of the Sun in the birth chart, tamasic and rajasic gunas have to be managed as fruit of a lifetime discipline. The fruits of a well placed Sun are self-worth and self-respect. These come from self-discipline, self control and good self management.
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