The Gayatri Mantra invokes the Great Sun at the Galactic Center

 

The Gayatri mantra is one of the most popular and widely used mantra in India. It is derived from the Rig Veda (Mandala 3.62.10), with the words “Om bhur bhuva? svaha” appended at the start. 

The mantra invokes Savitar, the divine Sun, entreating him to inspire our intellect. The Gayatri mantra has been translated by many scholars, with minor variations in expression. Here is the transliteration of the mantra, along with one of the many translations:

Transliteration: Om bhur bhuva svaha tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayat
Translation by Monier Monier-Williams (1882): Om. Earth. Atmosphere. Heaven. Let us meditate on that excellent glory of the divine vivifying Sun, May he enlighten our understandings.

Even though I have been using the Gayatri mantra in my meditations for a long time, I assumed that Savitar was another name of the Sun god, Surya. Because, that’s the way Savitar has always been interpreted by Vedic scholars. 

A few weeks back, I received an email from a person named Shan Iyer, who is an author of fiction and non-fiction books. Shan had read my recent article on the activation of the Second Sun, titled, “The Return of the Second Sun and its Healing “Light of Wisdom””. He wrote that he found the article very interesting, and added, “It is mind boggling to think that the Gayatri Mantra is almost certainly referring to Sgr A*, the Great Sun.”

As soon as I read this, I went, “Of course, that’s right!” The Gayatri mantra is an invocation to the divine Sun, Savitar, entreating him to awaken our wisdom and guide our intellect. That’s exactly what the Great Central Sun does! Besides, the Rig Veda has many hymns for the Sun god Surya. Therefore, Savitar must be a different entity.

I decided to find out what the Rig Veda tells us about Savitar. I consulted the Wikipedia article on Savitar, which provided a nice initial overview. Then I identified the Rig Vedic hymns dedicated to Savitar, and looked up their meanings in the translations by Griffith and H.H. Wilson. The Rig Veda suktas (verse collections) that I consulted were: 1.22, 1.35, 1.113, 1.124, 4.53, 4.54, 5.81, 5.82, 6.71, 7.38, 7.45, 10.139 and 10.149. 

At the end of my research, I was left with no doubt that Savitar was indeed the Great Central Sun of our galaxy i.e. the galactic nucleus, which appeared to us as a Second Sun in the higher ages, when the galactic core, Sgr A*, was in the active phase of its AGN Cycle. 

Let me explain how I arrived at that conclusion. There are many hymns which extol the Sun-like qualities of Savitar. Savitar is “many-rayed” and “golden-handed”, and stretches out the radiant, golden, light that removes the darkness of the night and lights up the entire world. Savitar “awakens” and “animates” all living beings at dawn and “impels” the priests to holy sacrifice. His divine, golden light confers blessings, healing, bliss, wealth, fertility, shelter and protection.

Savitar’s light had a golden glow, perhaps like this sunset in Croatia. Credit: PJL, CC BY-SA 3.0

However, Savitar is much more than the Sun of our solar system. In many hymns, Savitar has been eulogized in the same terms as Brahma – the supreme, unformed, creative principle who gave birth to the cosmos. 

Savitar is called the “supporter of heaven” and the “upholder of the whole world”. He has also been called Prajapati – a term exclusively applied to Brahma in Vedic texts – meaning the creator of the world and the lord of all beings. All beings issue forth from Savitar, and the holy sages return to him after death. The hymns say, “Savitar has fixed the earth with fetters; Savitar has made the heaven firm.”

Sayana, an influential 14th century commentator on the Rig Veda, wrote that, “Savitar is the soul, as one with the soul of the world, Brahma; when we meditate on the light which is one with Brahma, his own light, which, from its consuming influences on ignorance and its consequences, is termed Bhargas…”

The hymns state that Savitar’s light is the “fairest” of all lights, which drives away evil, distress, and sickness and renders men sinless. Savitar extends his golden rays to regulate the world and protect the holy laws. No one, not even the gods, can resist his Supreme will and power. Savitar had granted “immortality” to the gods and ordained “successive existences” i.e. reincarnation to humans.

Since Savitar has a distinct Sun-like nature, and he is also one with our soul and Brahma - the supreme creative and organizing consciousness of the cosmos - then it can mean only one thing: Savitar must be the Great Sun of the ancient traditions. 

The Great Sun of Buddhist doctrines was known by many names. It was the Hypercosmic Sun of the Chaldeans, the Eternal Sun or Spiritual Sun of the Hermetists, the True Sun of the early Christians and the Second Sun of the Maya, Hindu and the Hopi. 

The Great Sun is said to be stationed at the center of the cosmos, beyond the stars of the zodiac, and our sun revolves around it. Its light was regarded as the “light of wisdom” that awakens our wisdom, dispels our ignorance and brings justice and healing. The enlightened sages and teachers emanate from the Great Sun and return there after their work is over. The descriptions of the Great Sun align perfectly with those of Savitar.

In my book Yuga Shift, and in the article, “The Return of the Second Sun and its Healing “Light of Wisdom””, I had proposed that the Great Sun is the central bulge or nucleus of the Milky Way galaxy, around which all the stars of our galaxy revolve, including our Sun.

The nucleus of the Milky Way is the Great Central Sun.

At the center of the galactic nucleus is the galactic core, Sgr A*, which emits very powerful radio waves. Many astronomers believe that Sgr A* may be a black hole. But observations indicate that Sgr A* behaves nothing like a black hole. Instead, it is likely to be the central, creative and organizing consciousness of our galaxy, as I have posited in the article, “Supermassive Black Hole or Galactic Consciousness”.

This is the dark, unmanifested, creative potential that the Vedic sages called "Brahma", who divides himself into packets of consciousness called souls, and enters all living beings. The Native Americans venerated it as the "Great Spirit", who breathes life into all beings. The Christian mystics knew it as the "Christ Consciousness", which activates the heart, while the Greek poet Xenophanes lauded it as the "One God", who regulates all things by the power of His mind, without moving here and there. 

Astronomers have noticed that, in many galaxies like the Milky Way, the electromagnetic radiation from the galactic core is not constant but fluctuates in a sinusoidal manner. This is called the AGN Cycle. 

When the galactic core enters the “active phase” of its AGN cycle, it emits profuse quantities of radiation across the entire spectrum. That’s when the nucleus becomes extraordinarily brilliant and is called an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). 

The light of the AGN cuts through the dense interstellar dust clouds and photoionizes the entire galaxy. This means that an AGN is visible from every corner of the host galaxy!

A luminous AGN at the heart of Z 229-15, a Seyfert galaxy. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Barth, R. Mushotzky, Public Domain Image.

This is what may have happened in the ascending Yuga Cycle. The Milky Way’s galactic core, Sgr A*, was in the active phase of its AGN cycle, and the nucleus had turned into an AGN. At that point, it was visible from the earth as a Second Sun. 

Evidently, the widespread belief in a Second Sun are the lingering memories of the previous Satya Yuga or Golden Age, when the Milky Way’s AGN was visible in the sky! 

Since the Vedic hymns describe Savitar “moving across the sky”, it tells us that, these hymns were composed during the previous ascending Yuga Cycle, more than 13,000 years ago! That was the time that the AGN of the Milky Way was last seen as a Second Sun.

When the ascending Yuga Cycle ended at around 10,900 BCE, galactic core, Sgr A*, switched off and the Second Sun disappeared from our view. The light that had already been emitted echoed in the outer galaxy for a few thousand years until it completely faded away sometime around 4000 BCE. That's when we entered the Age of complete spiritual darkness - the Kali Yuga.

There is another important reason that confirms that Savitar is indeed the Great Sun. The Vedic hymns state that, Savitar appears before sunrise, and again after sunset. The light of Savitar “drives away the darkness of the night” and brings about the “far-reaching brightness of the dawn”. In the evening, “Savitar rises to meet the twilight”, and the fading away of his light brings about nightfall. 

The oblations to Savitar were meant to be performed at dawn, before sunrise and again in the evening, after sunset. Savitar was said to “precede both night and day”, or to “pass between the night on either side”. He is the “most gracious God, who brings to life and lulls to rest”. Savitar brings all two-footed and four-footed beings to rest and awakens them.

Quite amazingly, the Great Sun or Second Sun also appeared to us during the dawn and twilight hours in the ascending Yuga Cycle, as I had proposed in in the article, “The Return of the Second Sun and its Healing “Light of Wisdom””. 

If the Milky Way’s AGN were to become visible to us as a Second Sun, it will appear as big as the Sun or the Moon. But it won’t be as bright as our Sun due to the interstellar dust clouds, and, hence, it would not be seen at daytime. 

The Milky Way band, with the bright central bulge, seen from the Atacama desert. Credit: ESO / S.Brunier, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

From November to February in the Northern Hemisphere, the central bulge lies above the horizon only during daytime, and therefore the Second Sun will not be seen.

From March to October, the Second Sun will appear right after sunset during the twilight hours, and again before sunrise in the predawn hours. Over the course of the summer months, it will appear for longer and longer periods of time each night, until in June and July it will be visible for the entire night. 

That’s why the Lacandon Maya have a story about a Second Sun that used to appear after sunset, and there is a Roman-era story about a Midnight Sun!

From every perspective we look at it, Savitar is the Great Central Sun of the Milky Way which was visible to us in the ascending Yuga Cycle. It is yet another confirmation that the stories about the Second Sun or Great Sun are based on the real, documented, experiences of people who lived in the higher ages.

Since the galactic core became active in the Infrared spectrum in 2024, and the Kali Yuga ended in 2025, it is an indication that we are headed towards an era when Savitar, or the Great Central Sun, will become visible to us and awaken our innate wisdom, dispel our ignorance, drive away evil, negativity, sickness and distress, shower us with healing, bliss and abundance, and uphold the cosmic laws of truth and balance. 

The Gayatri mantra is a powerful mantra that can be used at this time of shift to align us with the radiant, blissful, energies of the Great Sun and restore our consciousness to a state of unity and harmony with all of creation.