पुरुषोत्तम (puruṣottama) –
पुरुष (puruṣa) – person, soul, human, man
उत्तम (uttama) – highest, pinnacle, top
The pinnacle of a person
Purushottam is an epithet often given to the God Vishnu. With this name, Vishnu is understood to be the supreme being, the most excellent of men. Vishnu, especially in his form as Ram, is seen to be an ideal person for people to emulate, because he is the pinnacle of a man who lived within the bounds of propriety of society (Maryada Purushottam). This is also the function that the Sun plays.
The soul of a human is trapped within the flesh, and so, is constantly impacted by the needs, desires, and brains of the flesh that it is born with. Who you are can easily be overrun by your material body, and it can be hard to understand what the “soul” of a human is. The Sun is not a self that one can identify with immediately.
Rather, the self in the Sun can be seen in what one chooses to admire, what one chooses to emulate, and what one respects. When you think of the perfect person, or your personal role model, the image that comes to mind is the Sun.
The soul is born on earth with a desire that it seeks to fulfil, the need to learn something, and to channel that desire into material reality. The house and the sign of the sun defines what purpose you have come on Earth for. If you think about the people who you think are the most admirable in the world, the people you respect most, those people will reflect the sun, and will show you your own purpose in life.
The Sun can often seem insurmountable, even impossible for one to achieve, because the soul seems to be so influenced by the material world and its boundaries. But, this isn’t really the case. The Sun is the god of your chart, and so, it has a heavy impact on every part of your chart, and when care is taken to strengthen it, it can dramatically show up in your life.
The Sun isn’t just the soul, though, but the life force that keeps the body alive. It represents digestion, and will power, and so, it rules over what food is absorbed by the body, and how the body acts. It is what gives power to the Moon, the flesh. The Moon naturally follows the Sun, and behaves in a way that is ruled by the Sun.
Strengthening Sun, then, is not a matter of working against your body, but rather, just understanding your purpose for being alive. Study the people you admire, study the commonalities that those people have, and actively keep making choices that reflect what the people you admire do. Turn yourself into the person you admire the most. When you do that, the emotions, the body, everything will start reflecting your ideal self, and you will feel better. That is what being yourself means.
Leave a Reply