Sun Salutations - Domagoj Orlic

The Sun Salute is the whole body prayer to Life, or the Sun as the Source of Life. It is a prayer in the sense of expressing gratitude for the gift of Life, to both our Father Sun and our Mother Earth. When the hot energy of the Sun unites with the wet energy of the Earth all Life is created, including the human being as a divine connector of the Life Energy (prana-shakti) between Heaven and Earth.


The Sun Salute is not just a warming-up or limbering-up exercise or one of the vinyasas, and it is not complete without its central component, the face-down prostration or danda samarpana, where the complete union of the male energy of the Sun and the female energy of the Earth is realized as infinite gratitude and total devotion. The healing warmth of the Sun is fully released into the Earth by putting the forehead onto the ground, and the refreshing moist of the Earth is received through the open Heart with the chest fully spread onto the ground. By intoning the Surya bija mantras (om hram hrim hrum hraim hraum hrah om hrah) silently or loudly and by visualizing the ascent of the Life Energy through the spine, and then the descent of it back into the Heart as the absolute point of union of all the opposites, this process of recognizing our supreme identity with the Universe is intensified and enhanced.


The point of the exercise is to feel the opposites merging in the Heart as the Whole of Life that we utterly are. The way to achieve this wholehearted participation in the Wonder of Life is to let the breath initiate and envelope all the movements, which should be slow and yet fluid, with a longer pause in the middle, in danda samarpana. The movements must be soft, which means that the whole body must be relaxed while inhaling from above and stable while exhaling from below. The chest spreads in all directions while inhaling and the base of the body contracts while exhaling. The San Salute begins and ends with the palms softly touching in anjali mudra, symbolizing the integrity of the Heart. Everything comes out of the Heart and everything goes back to the Heart. From silence we move and then back to silence we return, feeling with our whole body that we are One with the Cosmos.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Domagoj Orlic
• Mark Whitwell
• stretch
• legs
• cobra
• downward facing dog
• lunge
• warrior
• upward
• split
• relaxation
• recover
• yoga
• sun salutation
• flow