SunRise

Deva means divine, and aruna means early morning, dawn… the sun is just going to rise, just before sunrise. Mm? the East becomes red but the sun is not yet on the horizon – it is coming; it is very imminent, just within a second it will be there but it is not there yet. That is the most precious moment in twenty-four hours. The night is no more, it has gone, and the sun has not yet appeared. Between the two there is a different quality of light in existence. Darkness is not there, and because the sun is not there the light is not coming from the sun; it is a very diffused light, a very cool light. With the sun things will become hot; more energy, more heat will be there. So this cool light is very symbolic of the inner experience of light. Sooner or later you will understand the meaning of your name. It is light with no heat in it, it cannot burn. It can only enlighten; it cannot burn. It is almost like moonlight but still with a difference: the moonlight is a reflected light; it is not original. The moon has no light of its own: it simply reflects the sunrays. The sun has its own light, it is original. This inner light is also original: it is not a reflected light; it is not the reflected glory of anything else or anybody else. It is your own, authentically your own, but it needs no fuel. The sun needs fuel, so every day the sun is becoming exhausted and tired, every day its treasure is being spent. Sooner or later, one day – scientists say in somewhere around four thousand million years time – the sun will be spent and will become a dark hole. 

No more light will be coming: it will have given all its heat to the world and it will die. Stars are born and stars die. Whenever there is some source it cannot be infinite. This inner light has no source, hence it is infinite; it does not depend on any kind of fuel so it is inexhaustible. It has been there for eternity and it will remain there for eternity. We may look at it, we may not look at it, but it is always there. When one starts turning inwards one starts feeling it. 

Because of this inner experience, in the east the early dawn became of tremendous importance, the most auspicious moment… very symbolic of the inner. The night is no more and the sun has not come yet: it is an interval, a gap, where gears change, where day is born and night disappears.

Because of this gap, this moment is for prayer, for meditation. The same happens inside, a gap arises, and the outer gap can be of help for the inner gap, because outer and inner are not really two; they are joined together. So whenever it is possible, get up early in the morning and meditate on the early dawn. Once the sun has come up there is no need, but just before the sun is coming up look to the east and be filled by it, be possessed by it, dissolve into it. Drink it and become it….