Surya, usha and chaaya🔗

Anything in the vedic tradition has deep symbolic meanings. This is true with reference to deities that are associated with the sun salutation. These deities are, Surya, Usha and Chaaya.

When practicing Surya Namaskar in front of these deities, one is able to contemplate on the energy and the qualities of the sun itself. The three deities represent certain qualities and following is a detailed description of what these qualities are.

The deity in the center wearing the white dress is Surya, the Sun God. Surya is holding a lotus flower in each hand. The significance of this is that the lotus expands itself just from the presence of the sun. From the very energy of the sun the lotus will bloom. Surya is supposed to radiate a special kind of energy through which the lotus blooms. By Surya holding the lotus flowers, it signifies that his energy will open us also. It is a blessing that is given by Surya that the practitioner will also blossom. Actually Surya is symbolic of our innate intelligence. As the quality of our awareness deepens and brightens our potentiality blossoms in all its glory and uniqueness, and flowers just as the lotus blooms in the first rays of the morning sun.

Standing on either side of Surya are his two consorts (erroneously understood to be his wives). One is Usha and the other is Chhaya. The feminine energy is expressed as the wife and the mother. Chhaya on his left represents the wife energy. Usha on his right represents the mother energy. It appears like there are two women however, it is not actually two women. It is the same woman, radiating two different energies.

Usha means light and Chhaya means shadow. Light and shadow are not two different things, rather it is the same energy represented by two forms. There is a deep secret, meaning and significance in this. If you live an intense and intimate life, a man can suddenly experience his wife as a mother. When a wife becomes a caretaker, a nurturer and a nourisher, she expresses the mother energy in her. A wife can potentially be giving such deep fulfillment, she has become a mother for him.

Feminine energy has two aspects to it. The wife energy gives the husband the physical pleasure and the mother energy gives the emotional comfort.

Chhaya means shadow. This feminine energy is representative of the physical pleasure. Physical pleasure is nothing but the shadow of the mother energy. Whether we know it or not, accept it or not, we all want to go back to the womb we came from. That is the physical relationship. That's the whole essence of physical relationship.

This is the significance of the Surya, Usha and Chhaya. Surya Namaskar creates a kind of energy in us through which will make us feel complete and whole. We will experience a fulfillment.