Inspirational Sayings of the Great on Sandhya-Upasana
(III)
Dr Bhagavan Das
(Picked from The Science of Social
Organisation, Vol. 1 (1932), pp. 377-392)
In order to renew our exhausted forces and wasted tissues, we take fresh food and endeavour to secure fresh air. To vitalise our whole being anew, day after day, in its outer as well as inner constituents, our physical, astral and, even more, our mental bodies, we have to open it out to the overflowing and radiating love of the Sun. And we have to do this at the proper times; for there are times which are more suitable for the absorption of the supreme nourishment than other times, as there are for eating and drinking and other physiological functions. ...
The regular practice of the Sandhya is, indeed in one sense, the first steps, and the last steps also, of Yoga. The highest Gods and Rsis are enjoined to, and do observe the Sandhya, with the same regularity as the child beginning the alphabet. The Puranas illustrate it with a story: Once upon a time the Devarsi Narada, inveterate wanderer that he is, arrived very early at the palace of our lord the Sun of our system), and found him engaged in Sandhya. Astonished, he asked him: “Sir, the whole world makes Sandhya prayer to you. To whom you make it?” “To the Central Sun of the vast sidereal system, of which mine is an infinitesimal part.” was the reply. The story indicates the unity and endless continuity of the World-process in cycle within and without cycle in time, and system inside and outside system in space all ever-present here and now in the Eternal, Infinite, Impersonal Self. At its highest, Sandhya puts the consciousness of the aspirant in rapport with the Solar consciousness, which is omniscience ... therefore, is such great stress laid upon its regular performance.
Whether we look upon it as a utilitarian training in concentration of attention, development of will-power, mind control, and visualisation, the formation of clear mental pictures, or as a real means of drawing super-physical power; whether we take it as mere physical Sun-bathing, or as an elevation of the soul to high thoughts of reverence, gratitude, self-surrender, and prayer for the good of all, to the Author of our being; whether we take it as the highest and yet most easily and most generally available form of aesthetic enjoyment and education to see and hear and feel the fairy feels and fragrances, the glorious natural sights and sounds, of sunrise and sunset, over waters, woods and mountains, or whether we take it as mere time-marking, for commencing and closing the day’s work; whether we believe that the sounds, as such, of the mantra-words have any vibrant potency for good, pronounced externally and internally, or whether we regard them as mere devices for fixing and concentrating the mind and soothing it with rhythmic repetition; whether we regard them as helping to form a permanent ideal to which the mind comes back automatically, for rest, repose, recuperation by high aspiration and inspiration, in times of fatigue and distress, when it would otherwise fret and worry, or stray into undesirable thoughts and fancies, or whether we regard them as a means of gradually emphasizing the introspective conscious and inward gaze till it takes shapes as the active power and organ of internal autoscopy and external clairvoyance, by the process known as mantra-caitanya; whether we think that the words of the invocation have no other than the surface meaning, or whether we hold that they open up endless vistas of knowledge to the gaze of the introspective consciousness in every way there seems to be only good for the student in the regular practice of these devotions...
And he who does not do so, fails to secure, enfeebles or makes dormant, if not quite loses again if he did ever thus secure, the introspective consciousness which is the distinguishing characteristic of the twice-born.
As bath and food are to the physical body, purifying and strengthening it, day after day, so to the astral and mental bodies is prayer ...
The evening The evening Sandhya purifieth mind and body from the closing day’s strains, worries, thoughts of sin and evil. The morning Sandhya clears away the vices, astral and physical, of the night before, and gives new strength to meet with equanimity, the trials and troubles of the coming day. Where lights and waters meet at morn and eve, the ambrosial loveliness, beauty and glory of Immortal Brahma are most manifest. (Manu, 2.102)*
Without this daily mental bath in the purifying and vivifying spiritual sunlight, the mind goes on accumulating vices and distractions and depressions, day by day, till it sinks suddenly into the depths of confusion, misery and sin, even as the body that is never washed and cleaned and ever kept half-starved, day after day, finally sinks under the load of foulness and feebleness, into disease and death.
Such is the most important items of the religious education prescribed by Manu. The student, he says expressly, may or may not do anything else, in the nature of rites and ceremonies, this he must do ... The Sandhya is the practice of the very quintessence of Science, in its truest and fullest sense ... there were no beliefs without reasons.”
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*पूर्वां संध्यां जपन्तिष्ठन्नैशमेनो व्यपोहति ।
पश्चिमां तु समासीनो मलं हन्ति दिवाकृतम् ॥
