Collin Gow, C.N.C.

The Religion of the Sun

 

An interesting, behemoth of a book by Mark Atwood and Lara Atwood, The Ancient Path of the Sun, has a slightly different interpretation about whether some of the great teachers/"wisdom bringers"/saviors ever lived, compared to my astrotheology page on this site. According to the book, some of these teachers were real people who were later deified as gods, such as Osiris, Viracocha, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Maasaw, and Manu. The Atwoods say that there was a global civilization connected by a body of knowledge which they call the Religion of the Sun, and after a great worldwide catastrophe, these teachers set out to reseed and re-initiate civilization into this knowledge. The fact that stepped pyramids and mounds oriented to the solstices/equinoxes along with the same solar symbols, such as the swastika, are found all over the world, is evidence of a global civilization practicing a global Religion of the Sun. After reviewing some of the similarities between the lives of the teachers, the authors state: "Some have argued that the reason for these similarities is that none of these figures ever existed, but were all simply made-up to symbolize the sun and its annual journey, and that the mythology surrounding them was recycled across cultures in ancient times. However, this overlooks the overwhelming evidence that at least some of these teachers were real historical people. For example, the accounts of the Spanish historians and explorers who recorded the oral histories of the indigenous peoples of Central and South America (like the Inca, Maya, and Aztec), consistently state that these peoples had previously been visited by bearded men of Caucasian appearance in the distant past who had arrived by boat and taught them their solar religion and the arts of civilization. The accounts of these indigenous peoples are nearly identical despite many of them having had no contact with one another." Further evidence that the authors offer is that Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge and some classical Greek historians concluded that Osiris was a real person. Lastly, the reason for the similarities is that all these teachers share the spiritual son in common. Before I explain the Spiritual Son, let's back up a little bit.

 

The book points out that ancient spiritual people weren't just simple-minded pagans worshiping the physical sun, but that there was a higher spirituality known to the more advanced ancients who, while using the physical sun as a symbol, were really worshiping the spiritual side of the sun, aka the spiritual sun. Ancient, Religion of the Sun adepts understood that life and the universe is multidimensional. They understood the principle "as above, so below" or "as within, so without". "What is within us is also without. What is without is also within. He who sees difference between what is within and what is without goes evermore from death to death." —Katha Upanishad. So, while the physical sun exists in the physical world as a blazing fire that we see in the sky that gives life to all material things and all creation (and indeed science believes, after the Big Bang, elements formed stars, then stars created the rest of life including us, aka "we are all star stuff"), it also exists in the higher dimensions as a spiritual fire and spiritual source of creation. "From a scientific perspective, the elements that created our bodies, and all that exists materially, came from the stars. From a spiritual perspective, our consciousness—the spark of divinity within us—also originated in the stars, in higher dimensions". The physical sun merely reflects the light of the invisible spiritual sun. The physical sun is the effect, the spiritual sun is the cause. As the physical world was seen as the world of effects and the spiritual world was understood as the world of causation, the advanced societies venerating the spiritual sun were really venerating the true source of light, of life, of truth, of all creation. At the same time, they were venerating their pure, higher consciousness before its descent into matter, the Christ, the Spiritual Son, who, if apprehended and incarnated, was the illumination of their own psyche, their salvation, their liberation from Saṃsāra, suffering, the cycle of rebirth, the wheel of dharma, and their immortality. At this point they became the Spiritual Son or represented the Spiritual Son, the solar hero, a sun god, a "Son of the Sun". "I am the great One, the son of the great One. I am Fire, the son of Fire [...]. I have made myself whole and sound. I have become young once more. I am Osiris, the Lord of Eternity." —Osiris in The Book of the Dead. I know, this is all confusing to a Western-minded person. The book was a difficult one to piece together. It's all about to come together, bear with me.

 

Ancient Religion of the Sun texts/myths say that the union of a cosmic Father and Mother, who represent the masculine and feminine halves of the creator, produce a Son, a "Golden Child" (Rig Veda), a spiritual force, who is identified with the sun, and from whom creation arises. Following the principle again, "as above, so below", the spiritual son is both a cosmic and personal force. "[...] the Son at a personal level is an aspect of each person's higher Being produced from the union of each person's Spiritual Father and Mother in higher dimensions." "Like all things, our Being has its origins in the stars in higher dimensions—the source of all creation. When our consciousness was first created from the higher dimensional stars, it descended through the dimensions into matter, and as it did, left the higher parts of itself behind in higher dimensions. The Spiritual Son, also known as the Christ in the teachings of Jesus, is one part of this Being, which is of the same nature as the stars and sun—as a much higher frequency of spiritual energy and light—which is why the Spiritual Son is symbolized by the sun. Through their lives and teachings, those who had their own Spiritual Son within or who were representing it, showed how someone can incarnate this higher part of their Being themselves, calling this process liberation, salvation, immortality, etc. Those who incarnated this part of their Being were referred to as "Sons of the Sun" in ancient times". "The final destination of this journey was always described as the heavens, sky, sun, and stars, as it is ultimately about the return to the divine source of creation and to each person's own higher Being, which has its origin in the stars." So, the Spiritual Son on a personal level is pure, higher consciousness prior to its descent into physical matter. The physical sun is the physical symbol of the spiritual sun and the Spiritual Son. The sun, the Sun, the son, the Sun, are all one, are all aspects of the "One Fire". Everything is spiritual, everything is "God", everything is the Sun, everything is sacred, everything is divine, it is all related, all is one. This is the meaning of the Religion of the Sun as I see it and understand it—awakening to the realization that what is physical is a reflection of a higher or deeper spiritual reality and this awakening, which a psychologist might call making the subconscious conscious, spiritual alchemy, is the journey of transformation, the return to source, the return to the divine light, liberation, the path of the Religion of the Sun.

 

"The sun gives light and life to all who live,

East and west, north and south, above, below;

It is the prana of the universe.

The wise see the Lord of Love in the sun,

Rising in all its golden radiance

To give its warmth and light and life to all.

The wise see the Lord of Love in the year,

Which has two paths, the northern and the southern.

Those who observe outward forms of worship

And are content with personal pleasures

Travel after death by the southern path,

The path of the ancestors and of rayi,

To the lunar world, and are born again.

But those who seek the Self through meditation,

Self-discipline, wisdom, and faith in God

Travel after death by the northern path,

The path of prana, to the solar world,

Supreme refuge, beyond the reach of fear

And free from the cycle of birth and death."

—The Prashna Upanishad

 

One question I had about all of this is: where do black holes fit into this picture the authors are painting? Perhaps the authors missed that piece of the puzzle, but I didn't read the entire book, and the authors did recognize that some ancient cultures said that our souls come from the Milky Way, but they didn't say from the center of the milky way (the black hole at the center of our galaxy).