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A planetary meditation for the Sun

a planetary meditation practice addressed to the Sun

What the tradition reads

The Western planetary tradition treats a meditation to the Sun as an appeal for vitality, clarity and rightful authority, worked in the Sun's own hour, the first hour after sunrise on Sunday, and dressed in gold or another bright colour with frankincense burning if it can be had, the colour and incense Agrippa's own chapters on the subject give the Sun, though the tradition itself insists that the timing and the intention matter far more than the furniture around them. The tradition frames the practice as an act of attention rather than of command: the planet is not asked to grant anything it does not already hold, and the practitioner is understood, in the tradition's own words, as the instrument rather than the planet as the servant. The Vedic remedial tradition reads the same working through Surya, the graha most associated with the soul's own vitality and, for whoever stands in a Sun dasha or whose lagna lord is the Sun, one of the most commonly prescribed practices in the whole remedial system: the name mantra recited on Sundays, charity of wheat, jaggery or copper given on the same day, and, where a jyotishi has examined the whole chart and prescribed it, a ruby worn on the ring finger for a trial period, removed if the trial does not go well. Both traditions agree that a Sun practice serves authority worn honestly, not power taken by force.

The story

The Orphic Hymns are a collection of some eighty short hymns to the gods, composed in Greek most likely for use in an actual mystery cult in the eastern Mediterranean world, probably in the early centuries of the common era, and only loosely and traditionally attributed to the mythical poet Orpheus rather than genuinely written by him. The seventh hymn in the standard sequence, to the Sun, addresses the god as a golden Titan whose single eye surveys the whole sky, drawn across the heavens each day in a chariot, a guardian of both justice and of light who sees everything done under him and judges accordingly; Thomas Taylor's English translation of the full collection, published at the end of the eighteenth century, remains the version most widely read and is the one hosted at sacred-texts.com. The Vedic tradition's own hymn to the same office, the verse to Surya in the Navagraha Stotram attributed to the sage Vyasa, addresses the Sun in an entirely separate poetic tradition, born centuries later in India and in Sanskrit rather than Greek, calling him red as the hibiscus flower, son of the sage Kashyapa, and enemy of darkness. That two traditions, unconnected in language or era, both chose to address the Sun as a single watchful eye overseeing a world it illuminates is a resemblance the honest telling notes without claiming either tradition borrowed from the other.

The practice

1. Do the blessing of the room first: clean the space, set out a bowl of water with a pinch of salt, and a lamp left unlit, and ask, addressed to the One who made the lights, that the place be clean, quiet and kept. 2. Sit down in the Sun's own hour, ideally the first hour after sunrise on a Sunday, wearing or setting out something gold or saffron coloured, and burning frankincense if it is available; none of this furniture is required, only the hour and the intention. 3. Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, out for four, hold for four, for twelve rounds, letting the mind settle. 4. Say the address aloud: in the name of the One who made the lights, turn to the light of the Sun, and to its angel or deva, for the quality wanted, vitality, clarity, or the courage to be seen, and ask that it be given in the light and harm no one. 5. Recite the Sun's name mantra, Om Suryaya Namah, one hundred and eight times on a mala if one is available, or read the Orphic hymn to the Sun slowly three times instead. 6. Sit in silence for five to twenty minutes, holding the quality asked for gently. 7. Give thanks, put the lamp out with the fingers or a cap, and eat something before returning to the day.

Written from

Corpus key practice:Sun.