Sungazing

I’ve seen a few topic on this forum that mentioned sungazing. In fact, ld4all is where I first heard of sungazing. It was claimed that staring at the sun can provide nourishment to your body, and I’m sitting here thinking, “How so?”

Common sense says it will damage your eyes. A deeper investigation says the eyes don’t have chlorophyll for photosynthesis. Also, solar radiation doesn’t contain any nutrients.

I’m posting here because I’m concerned about the people who think sungazing is really helping them. I say it’s just causing unnecessary eye damage. :frowning:

Well, not during midday!

The topic I read said during sunset/sunrise. And I think it was for a spiritual purpose.

How does the time of the day make any difference?

Well, you should start at those times because the sun is less bright, because the sun isn’t pointed directly at you.

And then when you get used to it look at it longer.

That’s what eyeli - er, Presence of Light said.

Even if I did sun gazing during sunset/sunrise, how does staring at the sun help?

[Sun-gazing)

Unfortunately, your post is nothing but a link to the topic that sparked my concern. If you know exactly how sungazing works, can you explain it to us?

One of the post websites say that sungazing is “the ancient practice of deriving nutritional energy directly the sun”. The problem is that there is no nutritions in sun light.

Well actually I don’t know. :tongue:

I just took information from that post. :grin:

Maybe its concerning spirituality and has nothing to do with anything scientific. Could be that what you call as sungazing transmits happy emotions, or similar things.

Its something far beyone your knowledge and you seem very closed minded already :smile:

That’s not a really nice thing to say, you know. Judging a person on the spot, especially since he didn’t do anything wrong. I hope you will be more understandable of others’ opinions in the future.

Besides, sun exposure in and on itself is a good thing, exposition to the skin helps bone develop and/or repair itself, it helps with regulating your circadian cycles, not getting insane from staying sun-deprived too much… :tongue: and lots of other things. And what the sun sends over to Earth is essentially energy, so it’s not entirely out of the question that it could be in some way assimilated from the body.

And to close my argument, sungazing is really a nice way to start a day, since it’s some minutes of complete silence and relaxation, somewhere peaceful, and sunlight helps with kickstarting the day :content:

Unfortunately, spirituality is a controversial topic. If someone wants to prove anything using spirituality, then the next thing they have to do is argue for the existence of spirits.

It’s beyond my knowledge because someone didn’t exactly how sungazing works.

I’m open to new ideas, but I also have to apply some skepticism. You say I’m closed minded, but the truth is that everybody is closed-minded to some degree. In my case, I want to stick with ideas that have been proven, and I take unproven ideas with a grain of salt.

I’m not sure what you’re arguing for, tosxyChor. It seems like your argument is less about sungazing and more about the benefits of sun exposure. It’s true that the sun sends out energy in the form of solar radiation, which has certain health benefits for the human body like the examples you’ve mentioned. :content:

On a personal note, I do like watching landscapes during sunrises, but I don’t have to stare directly into the sun to enjoy the morning.

Haha, I see you’ve noticed the sneakiness of my point :tongue:
I’ve yet to try seriously to sungaze on a schedule, so I’ve refrained from expressing personal opinions on the matter. Hopefully I’ll be able to say more after this summer :content:

Yea but being closed minded to things that might not have a scientific explanation can blind you like the sun would if you staired at it for to long haha.

Just like discarding the tool of science, can leave you floating lost in the clouds, paralysed and unable to reach any useful conclusion at all, much less further yourself or the species as a whole. Both modes of thought have their merit and value, let’s not forget that. :wink:

Accusations of close-mindedness seem to appear a lot when it comes to this sort of thing, and the irony is, it is as close-minded to reject out of hand the value of science or an attempt to apply it as it is to reject the value of spirituality, or to claim science as an ultimate outlook on the world.

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As for my view on sun-gazing, I can’t say I find it to be an attractive pass-time. I much prefer feeling the blustery wind from a powerful storm blasting me in the face and taking my breath away. Although watching the sun rise over the ocean with the waves lapping, is an image that stays with you, forever. The beauty of nature can really only be described as magnificent in my opinion.

I’m much less inclined to believe we absorb nutrients from the sun etc etc, than I am the peaceful serenity that the sight can invoke in our minds, has a profound effect on our mental well being, and therefore our physical well being too by way of proxy. Perhaps this doesn’t give you the exact answer you were looking for Sock Puppet, but maybe it helps? Incidentally I share your concern about staring at the sun, but I don’t feel its appropriate to tell others how to live. If you want to do this, then I’d advise the utmost caution, the sun can and will destroy your vision if you aren’t careful, regardless of how spiritual you find the experience. My personal feeling is the risk is too great to try it, so I find other means of invoking a peaceful mindset, there are an infinite number of them.

Oh no, I am a very open minded person, but people think that many things in life have something beyond them, and that is not always the case and thats something you have to accept, and I don’t believe that is being close minded.

And I just stated a possibility, I’m sure everybody on this forum would agree that staring at a sunset is a beautiful experience any day, And I’m sure too that we all agree that we get emotions from that, could be happy emotions, or sad emotions, in any case, emotions are part of what defines us as human beings. So this nourishment you mentioned could really indeed happen just by the emotions you create or recieve, when sungazing.

I know two methods. I will describe them for those who have never tried.
You can stare at the sun with fully open eyes at sunset or sunrise when it´s hidden at least by half behind horizon. Try to do it not blinking until tears start to run from your eyes. This is to improve eyesight but I think you have to practice regularly to get result.
Then Castaneda describes a method to gain energy from the Sun. Turn slowly your head with slightly opened eyes and just focus on sunrays that reflex on your eyelashes.
This is my first post ever. I´m so unsure of my English:-)

Well, Bates method (for sight improvement) includes looking in the sun or bright lamp… obviously there are different opinions on this and so on. I was extremely skeptical on this and thought that at best I’d kill my eyes ;] but this actually really helped with my sight, I’ve never seen so well before o_O. I don’t look into bright light with open eyes for long periods. Most of the time I actually point closed eyes at strong light source and just relax for a while. If I want to do this with open eyes I just glance quickly and look away. From what I understand after reading waaay too much on this is that you’ll probably hurt your eyes if they’re not used to so much light… so you need to make them used to it first. So first look at light parts of the sky (but not into the sun) and after that you can try pointing closed eyes at strong light (sun or artificial). I’m assuming that eventually I might be able to open my eyes during this, but I don’t think it’s the option yet.

Some of my fav resources:
seeing.org/techniques/sunning.html
central-fixation.com/library.php
iblindness.org/community/index.php

^ I hope I don’t look like spammer now -______-. I’m not associated with these sites, you know :meh:.

And no, I don’t have a clue about uses of sunning other than sight improvement… I’m curious :wink:.

Regarding the nutrients, could it be anything to do with the scientifically proven fact that the sun’s rays are rich in Vitamin D?
I, like others here, would never look into the sun directly, as it is well-known to damage your eyes - just like looking into a welding arc on a construction site…
Thanks,
David

Ok, have you ever accidentally looked into the sun or other really bright light? I did and I still see so I don’t think it’s good idea to get all paranoid over it… Just don’t stress your eyes too much (don’t just stand there and stare into the sun all day :meh:). If you look into the sun and then look away you’ll see color smudges for a while but they fade away, duh. It’s not like they stay and you can’t see anything behind them for rest of your life ;].