Sun worship: ancient spiritual practices centered around the Sun are seen worldwide. You’ve probably seen the meme or a variation of the one below, where the invading conquistador, in this case, Hernán Cortés, belittles the religion of the Aztecs in his “spiritual conquest” of Mexico.
“But without us, you would still worship the Sun,” says Cortés in the meme.
“At least the Sun is Real!” claps back Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II.
The caption is funny and says a lot with few words. It implies that the Catholic faith is a fantasy, but the Sun, at least, is a real object. Ancient cultures around the globe revered the Sun in spiritual beliefs thousands of years before Christianity and the Inquisition arrived.
Video by the Spanish Inquisition:
Not Literal Sun Worship
But to say it was as literal as Sun worship is an oversimplification. At least, that’s not the case for those initiated into the mystical meanings. For example, in Egypt, people didn’t literally worship cats but upheld them as theophanies of deities, as Egyptology author Tamara Siuda points out in the Complete Encyclopedia of Egyptian Deities.
Likewise, the Egyptians didn’t literally worship the Sun. Instead, the esoteric meaning is deeper, about the consciousness of the Creator operating through the Sun, sometimes called Ra. Similar to Hindu beliefs, God is not separate from nature but is nature itself. While it may be at odds with Western beliefs, Eastern philosophy tends to align with modern neuroscience, according to cognitive neuropsychologist Chris Neibauer.
In modern times, similar beliefs align with Panpsychism, Pantheism, and Panentheism. Some contemporary scientists are attempting to address the “hard problem” of consciousness with these philosophies, which are actually based on ancient concepts.
“Panpsychists address the first problem by postulating consciousness at the fundamental level of physical reality. Pantheists address the second problem by identifying God with the universe, whilst panentheists do this by holding that the universe is within God,” writes the John Templeton Foundation.
Sun Worship: What If the Sun is Conscious?
While surfing, I randomly came across this video about biologist and parapsychology author Rupert Sheldrake. In it, he discusses an idea that many materialist scientists would find “heretical”: that the Sun is conscious—not only the Sun, but also the stars, the galaxies, and the universe.
Instead of a metaphor, he’s talking about a hierarchy where each level “has its own kind of consciousness.” It might sound foreign, but we now live in a world where experts believe in “spiritual machines,” and AI might develop rudimentary consciousness. So, isn’t it possible that consciousness applies to much larger systems, too? Yes, it is!
Video posted by @soulscienceconnect
Here’s the full thought-provoking interview by Closer To Truth:
Hindu Sun Worship
As it turns out, Sheldrake, a former atheist, has first-hand knowledge of forms of “Sun worship” from his seven years living in India. There, he explored Hindu and Sufi traditions, including teachings related to the Sun, with Father Bede Griffiths, a British-born Benedictine monk who was part of the Christian Ashram Movement.
“Part of my practice in Father Bede’s ashram and when I was living in India was chanting the Gayatri Mantra,” Sheldrake related in an interview with Buddha at the Gas Pump.
The Sun As Portal for Divine Consciousness
Here, Sheldrake interestingly refers to the Sun as a portal.
“It’s a wonderful mantra. It’s asking the Divine splendor of the sun to illuminate our meditation. And so, you know, the sun is a portal for Divine light and Divine consciousness on this view, and so are the other stars. I think when we see that, our view of nature and our experience of nature is so much more immersive and enhanced compared with seeing the sun as nothing but a nuclear bomb, a hydrogen bomb, just a physical process.”
As he elaborates, the idea that the Sun is conscious is not new or novel but widespread and dating back thousands of years.
“All traditional societies have taken the view that the sun is conscious- it’s a god or a goddess in India, “Surya.” I’ve been doing for forty years every morning the Surya Namaskar, the sun salutation.”
Full video by Buddha At the Gas Pump
The Trinity Unites Beliefs
Sheldrake’s beliefs in spirituality are compatible with evolution and his theory of “morphic resonance” suggests each species has intuitive access to a sort of collective memory. That includes us, such as when we practice rituals in the same place as our ancestors.
Such ritual practices might help us connect to collective memories in a manner similar to the concept of the Akashic records. Could this help explain why ancient beings performed burial rituals over 300,000 years ago?
In the interview, Sheldrake related the fields that enable morphic resonance to the Holy Trinity concept, which is common to Hindu, Buddhist, Egyptian, and early Christian beliefs. The fields originate from a common ground of all being, (Unified field?) working both by habit and guided by a creative principle that he wonderfully relates to the spirit. In Egypt, this is the Goddess.
“In Sat-Chit-Ananda, it’s more the spirit principle, the Ananda principle, in the Christian Holy Trinity it’s Spirit, which is free, creative, and not bound by habit,” he states. See his full answer in the transcript from Buddha at the Gas Pump or in the video below.
Video by Rupert Sheldrake about morphic resonance:
Featured image: Nepalese – Mandala of Surya, the Sun God via Wikimedia Commons