26, 52 and 108 Repetitions (and a plug for Solstice)

March 24, 2007

The distance between the earth and the sun is approximately

108 times the sun's diameter. The diameter of the sun is about 108

times the earth's diameter. And the distance between the earth and the

moon is 108 times the moon's diameter.

- http://www.lovearth.net/108.htm

also interesting, but not as much fun is

http://www.traditionalyogastudies.com/articles_scholarly_108.html

Guru Singh brings the "Mathematics of the Vedas" to life in his 2004

Summer Solstice Class

http://www.church-mouse.com/Guru-Singh/Solstice-2004.html

"God that can not be experienced,

and experience that cannot be explained,

are of no value to the human psyche"

Yoga At The Speed Of Light

And The Meaning Of 108

by Linda Johnsen

It is amazing how much Western science has taught us. Today, for

example, kids in grammar school learn that the sun is 93 million miles

from the earth and that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per hours.

Yoga may teach us about our Higher Self, but it can't supply this kind

of information about physics or astronomy.

Or can it?

Professor Subhash Kak of Louisiana State University recently called my

attention to a remarkable statement by Sayana, a fourteenth century

Indian scholar. In his commentary on a hymn in the Rig Veda, the oldest

and perhaps most mystical text ever composed in India, Sayana has this

to say: "With deep respect, I bow to the sun, who travels 2,202 yojanas

in half a nimesha."

A yojana is about nine American miles; a nimesha is 16/75 of a second.

Mathematically challenged readers, get out your calculators!

2,202 yojanas x 9 miles x 75 - 8 nimeshas = 185,794 m.p.s.

Basically, Sayana is saying that sunlight travels at 186,000 miles per

second! How could a Vedic scholar who died in 1387 A.D. have known the

correct figure for the speed of light? If this was just a wild guess

it's the most amazing coincidence in the history of science!

The yoga tradition is full of such coincidences. Take for instance the

mala many yoga students wear around their neck. Since these rosaries

are used to keep track of the number of mantras a person is repeating,

students often ask why they have 108 beads instead of 100. Part of the

reason is that the mala represent the ecliptic, the path of the sun and

moon across the sky. Yogis divide the ecliptic into 27 equal sections

called nakshatras, and each of these into four equal sectors called

padas, or "steps," marking the 108 steps that the sun and moon take

through heaven.

Each is associated with a particular blessing force, with which you

align yourself as you turn the beads.

Traditionally, yoga students stop at the 109th "guru bead," flip the

mala around in their hand, and continue reciting their mantra as they

move backward through the beads. The guru bead represents the summer

and winter solstices, when the sun appears to stop in its course and

reverse directions. In the yoga tradition we learn that we're deeply

interconnected with all of nature. Using a mala is a symbolic way of

connecting ourselves with the cosmic cycles governing our universe.

But Professor Kak points out other coincidences: The distance between

the earth and the sun is approximately 108 times the sun's diameter.

The diameter of the sun is about 108 times the earth's diameter. And

the distance between the earth and the moon is 108 times the moon's

diameter.

Could this be the reason the ancient sages considered 108 such a sacred

number? If the microcosm (us) mirrors the macrocosm (the solar system),

then maybe you could say there are 108 steps between our ordinary human

awareness and the divine light at the center of our being. Each time we

chant another mantra as our mala beads slip through our fingers, we are

taking another step toward our own inner sun.

As we read through ancient Indian texts, we find so much the sages of

antiquity could not possibly have known-but did. While our European and

Middle Eastern ancestors claimed that the universe was created about

6,000 years ago, the yogis have always maintained that our present

cosmos is billions of years old, and that it's just one of many such

universes which have arisen and dissolved in the vastness of eternity.

In fact the Puranas, encyclopedias of yogic lore thousands of years

old, describe the birth of our solar system out of a "milk ocean," the

Milky Way. Through the will of the Creator, they tell us, a vortex

shaped like a lotus arose from the navel of eternity. It was called

Hiranya Garbha, the shining womb. It gradually coalesced into our

world, but will perish some day billions of years hence when the sun

expands to many times it present size, swallowing all life on earth. In

the end, the Puranas say, the ashes of the earth will be blown into

space by the cosmic wind. Today we known this is a scientifically

accurate, if poetic, description of the fate of our planet.

The Surya Siddhanta is the oldest surviving astronomical text in the

Indian tradition. Some Western scholars date it to perhaps the fifth or

sixth centuries A.D., though the text itself claims to represent a

tradition much, much older. It explains that the earth is shaped like a

ball, and states that at the very opposite side of the planet from

India is a great city where the sun is rising at the same time it sets

in India. In this city, the Surya Siddhanta claims, lives a race of

siddhas, or advanced spiritual adepts. If you trace the globe of the

earth around to the exact opposite side of India, you'll find Mexico.

Is it possible that the ancient Indians were well aware of the great

sages/astronomers of Central America many centuries before Columbus

discovered America?

Knowing the unknowable

To us today it seems impossible that the speed of light or the fate of

our solar system could be determined without advanced astronomical

instruments. How could the writers of old Sanskrit texts have known the

unknowable? In searching for an explanation we first need to understand

that these ancient scientists were not just intellectuals, they were

practicing yogis. The very first lines of the Surya Siddhanta, for of

the Golden Age a great astronomer named Maya desired to learn the

secrets of the heavens, so he first performed rigorous yogic practices.

Then the answers to his questions appeared in his mind in an intuitive

flash.

Does this sound unlikely? Yoga Sutra 3:26-28 states that through,

samyama (concentration, meditation, and unbroken mental absorption) on

the sun, moon, and pole star, we can gain knowledge of the planets and

stars. Sutra 3:33 clarifies, saying: "Through keenly developed

intuition, everything can be known." Highly developed intuition is

called pratibha in yoga. It is accessible only to those who have

completely stilled their mind, focusing their attention on one object

with laser-like intensity. Those who have limited their mind are no

longer limited to the fragments of knowledge supplied by the five

senses. All knowledge becomes accessible to them.

"There are [those] who would say that consciousness, acting on itself,

can find universal knowledge," Professor Kak admits. "In fact this is

the traditional Indian view."

Perhaps the ancient sages didn't need advanced astronomical

instruments. After all, they had yoga.

Anne wrote:

Sat Nam Jis,

One of my new students asked the significance of 26 repetitions. As in spinal flex, for beginners.

What's the background on this? The 26, then 52, then 108? I know there are 108 elements in the human body.

I forget the basis for this numerical division.

Thanks much and Sat Nam,

Ananda Kaur

March 25, 2007

Sat Nam jis, In regard to 108, I decided to teach the Raga Sadhana to my Meditation class today after the morning KY class doing Surya Kriya. Either in Sadhana Guidelines where Surya is given or at the back of the book where the Raga Sadhana is given, I came across the notation that there are 108 elements in Earth, in the world. So added to Yogiji's comment that there are 108 elements in the human body, one or the other answers that question. Although I must say, the answers posited are very dramatic, intriguing, mysterious, elaborate and totally absorbing. It's always interested me because while twice times 26 is 52, twice times 52 isn't 108, but 104. Not that it's seemed earth shaking to me - and frankly, I figure it works anyway, so, . . . so what. You know. I like 26 vertebrae in the spine, Shakti. And whether the number 52 considers bones in the head added to that figure or not, (what to do with foot bones too? for 78 . . . I'll put that with the unknown miracles.. . .) I'll just tell students it's double the basic figure (of 26). Merci mille fois, Sat Nam and definitely, Wahe Guru, Ananda

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