Surya Namaskar 10 Yoga

The postures of Surya Namaskar, the Sun Salutation- a deeper insight.

7. Bhujang asana: Cobra posture.

The Posture: From ashtanga namaskar, lower your belly, bring the abdomen and pelvis down to the floor, stretch the feet and point your toes out. Slowly raise your head as a cobra would its hood. Arch your spine and neck while simultaneously looking up. The legs should be kept together, with elbows slightly bent besides the body. Keep the shoulders down.

• The Breath: Inhalation.
• The attitude: A sense of opening up; radiating , feeling the exhilaration of a new birth!
• The focus: Swadishtana chakra- the Spleen Center- Where your Self is established.
• The understanding: The dawn of a new birth…actualising your innate potential energy…realising your Inner Sun, the true source of energy.
• The chant: om (hram) hiranyagarbhaya namaha – ‘hram’ being the beeja or seed syllable that is purely vibrational in nature.
• The mantra meaning: Salutations to the Golden Cosmic Womb/Self

Benefits at the –

• Physical Level: Strengthens the back muscles and the spinal nerves, makes the spine flexible. Opens the chest and massages the abdominal organs.
• Mental Level: Gives an understanding of deep inner strength,
• Energetic Level: Releases the kundalini shakti, the untapped energy residing at the Mooladhara, the Root Center.
• Spiritual Level: Helps realise one’s true nature…experience the ‘ Inner Awakening’.

The Surya Namaskar is so beautifully structured that till the 6th posture, the whole process is one of receiving and preparing for the surrender to happen at the deepest level. The 7th posture is the realising of the Inner Sun. From there on, the whole sequence of getting back to the starting point is an expression of radiating gratitude and celebration, which is the default experience of awakened consciousness…

Even though the rest of the postures from the 8th till the 12th are the same as the 1st till the 5th, the movements of the limbs are back to front and down to up. So too with the mantras: even though the beeja mantras are repeated once more from the 7th to the 12th postures, the salutation mantras are very different.

We will be completing the mantras, their deeper meanings and corresponding postures in more details in subsequent postings.

Till then:

On this auspicious day of the Summer Solstice, June 21st, may the inner and outer sun merge to radiate the magnificence of who you truly are…gods and goddesses in the embryo, waiting to be born