Hymn to the Sun Once I saw two suns in the sky and asked a passerby which is real. He shook his head "I don't know" and ever since I'm still wondering— O glorious Sun— you light up the world at sunrise sweeping away the darkness of night giving shape and form to all things. O bountiful Sun— you embrace all with warmth to kings and paupers alike giving us illumined freedom. O kind Father Sun— you impregnate Mother Earth with spermatic rays of light bringing life to everything. O creative Sun— building block of the elements air, fire, water, earth, aether, the tabernacle choir in you. No wonder they worship you as Ra in Egypt, Suriya in India, Apollo in Greece— O giver, sustainer and destroyer of life. But Rumi says the sun in our sky is a metaphor for the Real Sun— What? The sun Copernicus placed on the royal throne is not even real! Reality proclaimed the rishis does not change in time and is ever-present in waking, dream, and deep sleep— then it is real. Our sun will die in the future cooling and fading as a white dwarf— not existing when we dream and sleep, not being ever-present, it is unreal. O then, show me the Real Sun— that Apuleius saw shining at midnight, Dante praised as Sun of endless spring, and Philo called the Sun behind the sun. The Real Sun is the door to wisdom— the Grail vessel breathing life into the cosmos, the fiery chariot of the Soul. The Real Sun flashed out when Archimedes leaped out of his bathtub shouting "Eureka!" running down the street having found a way to assay real gold. The Real Sun lit up Edison's mind when he discovered carbon as the best filament for his incandescent light bulb. The Real Sun shined on Beethoven while composing his Ninth Symphony, on Klee when he said "I am a painter" and in the eyes of those deeply in love. The Real Sun is timeless, boundless, center & circumference, light & shadow— the philosopher's stone of alchemists to transform base metals to gold. The Real Sun is brighter than a thousand suns, outweighing ten thousand eyes— no wonder Socrates gazed at it all day & night. The Real Sun lights up the dream world when our eyes are closed, dims its glow while we rest in deep sleep, opens our mind at dawn when we wake. The Real Sun is seen when we make our eyes sunlike— then we see the First Beauty whose roots and fruits are everywhere.       — Peter Y. Chou            Mountain View, 2-22-2009