Picture yourself holding a ripe mango. How does it feel in your hands? Feel its weight, the texture of its skin, the shape of it in your fingers. Maybe you can already smell the juicy fruit that’s waiting for you inside. Now imagine cutting into the mango. See the brightness of the fruit’s flesh. Sun yellow. Is your mouth watering, yet?
So, what do mangoes have to do with yoga?
Sun Salutations! Or, Surya Namaskar, as they are called in Sanskrit.
The legend goes that Hanuman, the monkey god, upset Surya, the Sun god, by mistaking him for a mango and trying to eat him. Hanuman was young, and loved the sweet juicy fruit, and one day he looked up to the sky and thought that in it was the biggest mango he had ever seen. He took a huge stride from the Earth up to the Sun, stretching his legs far away from each other (‘hanumanasana’ is splits pose), and tried to fit his mouth around Surya who, obviously, was having none of it.
Surya and the other gods were furious with Hanuman for his mistake and one of them threw a lightening bolt at Hanuman breaking his jaw (“Hanuman” also translates to “one with a broken jaw”). Hanuman left feeling so sorry for himself and his mistake.
This is where the story can differ. In one version, Hanuman stays so deeply apologetic that he is constantly following Surya on his journey across the sky, bowing to him and asking for forgiveness. Whenever we practice our Surya Namaskars, we are stepping our feet to the back of the mat in reverence to the Sun.
But another story says, that Hanuman went back to the Sun many years later when we was wanting to learn the ancient text of the Vedas. Surya tells him he is too busy to stop and teach him. So, Hanuman promises to keep up with the Sun on his journey across the sky so that he doesn’t have to stop. Surya, sets off and Hanuman, and our Sun Salutations, follow them on their journey of teaching and learning.
I prefer this second version. If we think about our Sun Salutations, Suyra Namaskars, we start at the top of the mat in Tadasana (mountain pose) feet planted firmly, we then lift our arms to the sky bringing them back down as we fold forwards, we then step back either to a lunge or a plank. We move through a backbend, cobra or upward-facing dog, shining our own lights forward, before coming to downward-facing dog. We then step back up to the top of the mat and raise our arms to the Sun again. Repeating these movements in cycles round our mats.
What do we learn along our journeys? What do we open up to? Why do we get on our mats? How can we learn from our mistakes and what do we learn?
Yoga is a fantastic physical practice, but it is also about cultivating our relationship with ourselves and the world around us. We give thanks that the Sun has risen another day, and so have we. We can also choose to be like Hanuman: learning from the wisdom of our mistakes.
How can we express our gratitude for our lives today? 🥭☀️
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Category: Yoga, Yoga Philosophy