◎The Jade Tablet - Apocrypha - 12-12
◎The 22 Paths to Enlightenment ⇒ Tarot Card - 12
◎Uniting with the Moon, Seeing the Midnight Sun
After the Moon comes the Sun. This Sun is not the Central Sun, but the sun that functions as a pair with the Moon. This is because in the Camoin Tarot illustration, a man and a woman are united in a bond.
In the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), the Moon is the Auspicious Spirit (瑞霊 - Zuirei) of Susanoo no Mikoto (Impetuous Male Deity), and the Sun is the August Spirit (厳霊 - Gonrei) of Amaterasu Omikami (Great Heavenly Shining Deity). The modern Western civilization that dominates this world is an Apollonian civilization, where darkness is bad and everything is about light, a civilization that overemphasizes the sun. Its backbone is Christianity, which reveres the (motherless) father God as primary, and this also overemphasizes the sun, treating the motherly moon as inferior. Black Madonna statues, for example, are treated like stepchildren.
In contrast, ancient Shinto, in the Kojiki, describes how Amaterasu Omikami, the sun, and Susanoo no Mikoto, the moon, made a pledge to each other at the Heavenly Riverbank of Tranquility (天の安の河原 - Ama-no-Yasu-no-Kawara), and from the union of this sun and moon, Izunome no Kami (威徳物部神), a perfectly complete and androgynous deity, was born. In this respect, ancient Shinto shows a good balance.
Next is the story of seeing the midnight sun.
Lucius, who had been turned into a donkey, was able to return to human form by seeing the midnight sun (The Golden Ass / Apuleius). Besides this anecdote, there is also a scene in the Chinese Taoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower.
"'At the third watch (midnight), the sun wheel emits a dazzling light' is the second step for the practitioner." Osho Bhagwan explains that if one concentrates on being in the middle way in the first step, one becomes able to see the physical body and the mind simultaneously, and becomes aware of oneself watching them. The watching self is the soul. If one dedicates oneself to watching with the watching self, suddenly, as if the sun rises and shines at midnight, both inside and outside are filled with light, and the whole existence burns.
Recently, many people who practice Hatha Yoga do sun salutations, but it might be one-sided if they don't also do moon salutations.
In China, there is also a World Tree, a Tree of Life, a Tree of Philosophy: the Jianmu (建木). The sun also appears in this. In the section on Mount Kunlun in the Huainanzi (Terrain Training), it says, "The Jianmu is in Duguang, the place where the many emperors ascend and descend. At midday, there is no shadow, and even if one shouts, there is no echo. It is indeed the center of heaven and earth." (The World Tree is in the center of the earth, and the gods ascend and descend here. Like the time when the sun culminates, it casts no shadow and makes no sound. This is the center of heaven and earth.)
This is the image of Jacob's Ladder seen in Christianity and Reikai Monogatari (Spiritual World Stories). It is the place one passes through in ascension. However, what is even more significant is that at midday there is no shadow, and even if one shouts, there is no echo. A world where the visible scenery does not move and there is no sound.
This is a world where time has stopped. Stopping time is an expression often used by Don Juan Matus of the Yaqui Indians. Stopping time means the cessation of thought. Only then does one become the center of the world. The currently popular "here and now" seems to originally refer to this level.
The World Tree is divided into roots and branches. If applied to humans, the roots are the head and the branches become the feet, an inversion of the standing posture of everyday consciousness. This is also the style of the Hanged Man in the Tarot. Also, this image of plunging one's head into the world of death also represents that the world of death is wider than the world of the living.
Furthermore, the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Overseas Eastern Classic) also has a description of Fusang (扶桑), another name for Jianmu. It says that Fusang is where ten suns bathe; nine suns are on the lower branches, and one sun is on the upper branch. The ten suns are the ten chakras. The sun on the upper branch corresponds to the Sahasrara chakra, indicating that it is special.
Patanjali's Yoga Sutra 3.32: "By performing Samyama on the light under the crown of the head, one gains contact with all perfect realities." 3.33: "Or, through illumination (Pratibha), everything can be known."
"All perfect realities" refers to the sixth body, Atman. "Samyama at Sahasrara = Atman" is like a coded expression.
Here too, Osho Bhagwan points out the connection between the sun and the moon. Regarding Pratibha, he first says,
"The sun is intellect, the moon is intuition. When you transcend both, pratibha comes." and
"Pratibha means when energy transcends the duality of intellect and intuition; it goes beyond both. Intuition is beyond intellect, but pratibha is beyond both. Now there is no logical connection; everything becomes eternally clear, one becomes omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. All past, present, and future become simultaneously clear." (Source: "Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega, Vol 8")
We often see parallel symbols of the sun and moon or conjoining figures of the sun man and moon woman in Western alchemy and Tibetan Tantra, but this is essentially Pratibha.
The Mandala, with both realms together, is Pratibha (Onisaburo Deguchi sees the Diamond Realm as male and the Womb Realm as female).
Regarding sun symbols other than duality, there are also the following, somewhat spiritualistic stories. These are unrelated to the Tarot, however...
Old Chinese Taoism often used the time of the sun's culmination. This time is called "Nichū" (日中 - midday).
People would take medicine (herbs) at solar noon, receive scriptures from divine spirits at this time, high-ranking spirits would descend, and the collection of medicinal substances, the creation of talismans and tools... For the selection of auspicious days, days of the horse (丙午, 庚午, etc.) were chosen, and for the time, just before or at solar noon was selected.
At this time, things on earth are most lively and actively moving, and energy overflows. Especially, the Prana in the atmosphere is probably most active during this time...
Furthermore, Zhao Weibao, a high-ranking spirit, appeared to Zhou Ziliang, a disciple of Tao Hongjing, on the summer solstice of 515 AD, at the hour just before solar noon. After this event, it is said that Zhou Ziliang secluded himself in his room and ate only one sho (about 1.8 liters) of honey rice every "Nichū" (noon).
Also, at noon on the first day of the first month of 239 AD, Ge Xuan was given the Qianzhen Kejie (Precepts for a Thousand Immortals) by Taishang Laojun (Lao Tzu), and at noon on August 15th of 244 AD, celestial music played, and as many immortals descended to the altar to greet him, he was summoned to the celestial realm as the Left Official Immortal of the Supreme Jade Capital Taiji.
At noon on the seventh day of the first month of 143 AD, Zhang Daoling, the founder of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice, was given the Twenty-Four Dioceses (the organization of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice) by Taishang Laojun (Lao Tzu).
(Reference: Studies in the History of Ancient Chinese Taoism / Research Institute for Humanistic Studies, Kyoto University / Edited by Tadao Yoshikawa)
