In particular, the times of sunrise and
sunset hold special significance which is why I offer the Mantra Yoga
Chanting practices at 6:30 on Thursday evenings. This time falls into
the category of Sandhi Prakash. In Sanskrit, Sandhi means “period
between day and night” and Prakash means “light” and indicated
the sunrise/sunset times of day. The hours of Sandi Prakash
are defined as 4:00 - 7:00 am and pm. However, IMO, following Nature
is the best way to go, chanting at actual sunrise/sunset.
Indeed, at the three ashrams I stayed at in the fall of 2012, Babaji in Haidakhan, Yogananda in Dakshineswar, and Sai Baba in Puttaparthi, we sang around the hours of sunrise and sunset. (See the link is the sidebar to my book Pilgrimage To India to learn more about the ashrams!)
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| Photo by Shellie Wood, Boise ID April 8 2014 |
In Classical Hindustani music, the
times of the day call for different tunes and notes to be played for
the physical, emotional, and spiritual harmony of the listeners.
(Hindustani Ragas by Vijay Banaz Razdan, 2009) In Mantra Yoga
Chanting, I play the prescribed musical notes for the sunset time of
day.
I was tickled to find the following
information on p 86-7 of The Turning Point by Gregg Braden (Hay House
Inc., 2014) which explains in detail why this time of day is
especially significant and powerful.
“In many indigenous traditions, it's
understood that the mysterious space between things holds the power
of new possibilities. In North American native traditions, for
example, it's the space between day and night that's believed to open
the door to all paths and new outcomes for our lives. …
“Two times each day, something
remarkable happens with respect to Earth's location in space and the
effect it has upon us. When the evening sun disappears from the sky
as it sets on the horizon, the doorway to a mysterious period of time
briefly appears. Although the sun is no longer visible, the sky is
still light. It's not really daytime any longer, yet it's not quite
night. It's this space between day and night that was called the
crack between the worlds. The
crack between the worlds appears again at dawn, when the sky is no
longer the darkness of the night, yet hasn't become the light of day.
“From
the description of ancient Egyptians and Peruvian shamans to those of
healers from America's Desert Southwest, the theme of these turning
points is the same. Twice each day, nature gives us a time when our
prayers may be offered with the greatest potential to shift our
lives.
“The
beauty of knowing that a turning point exists is that it holds the
opportunity for us to change before
we experience something that we don't want in our lives...”
