The Higher Path

“Uttarayana” is the time when the sun starts its northward journey, and it is a very auspicious time of the year. 

The word Uttarayana has a physical as well as spiritual meaning. For you, now, the spiritual sense is more significant. Uttarayana means literally the northern journey, the northern path, the road to the Himalayas, the road to Kailasha, the mount on which Shiva resides, the path that takes you to the holy area of tapas [penance] in the lonely silent valleys of snowcapped peaks. But the deeper meaning is that you have to clothe your hearts with the cool snow of prema [love], the pure unblemished snow of satwic [pure] qualities and make your body itself the area of tapas and renunciation—the residence of Shiva.

It is believed that those who breathe their last during the six months of Uttarayana achieve heaven and those who die during the rest of the year do not. That, however, is not correct. The status of the person after death is not determined by the season during which he departs. The six months of Uttarayana have not got that sanctity. Uttamaguna [good qualities] is the thing that decides one’s future, not Uttarayana! Whenever a person who has developed the highest gunas [qualities] dies, that moment is Uttarayana; it leads him along the Uttamamarga, the higher path.

Do not postpone your sadhana [spiritual practice], just because the time is Dakshinayana [when the sun starts its southern journey] and so you feel it is not propitious to start it. Begin it now, whatever the ayana; continue it unabated. Then, every moment becomes a holy moment and you will have Uttarayana all the 12 months!

The northern path is the path that “leads you from asat [unreal] to sat [real], from tamas [darkness] to jyoti [light], from mritu [death] to amrita [immortality]” as the Vedic injunction asks you to pray. Man must undertake that journey; it is the Brahmamarga [god-ward path], parallel with the dharmamarga [righteous path], keeping before him the vision of the reality, which is his own basic essence.

Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Feb. 1962