by Christos Zabounis

At a time when dermatologists and other colleagues from various specialties recommend avoiding excessive sun exposure, a trip to Egypt, along with an unpublished manuscript, literally opened my eyes. A few years before he emigrated, the internationally renowned artist Takis (ed.: An exhibition of his works was announced a few days ago at the “White Cube Gallery” in Paris, after a similar one in London), had suggested that I publish a study of his entitled “Solar Yoga & Cosmic Energy”. To tell the whole truth, although it was well-written and beautifully illustrated, I did not follow up, probably due to the financial crisis that was affecting the country and our publishing house. Today, after successive visits to Egyptian temples from Aswan to Cairo, I have regretted it. What did Takis, born Panagiotis Vasilakis, discover, and my humble beginnings? That for the ancient Egyptians, the Sun god offers man energy nourishment, Ra as they called him. Until the ascension of Pharaoh Akhenaten to the Throne, the secret recipe for collecting energy from beyond was held by the Priesthood. During his reign, the secret ceased to be a secret. Takis adopted, applied and wanted to share this ancient technique with his readers, arguing, at the same time, that the Western world was cut off, for political and religious reasons, from the above information. Solar yoga is very simple. “First, the practitioner looks in the direction of the sun or, if this is not possible, in the direction he suspects is the sun (…) As he looks at the sun, with short exhalations he exhales all the old air that is in the abdominal space. Then, with short inhalations and always in the direction of the sun, he inhales the energy that the sunlight sends (…) He then tries to hold this energy in the abdominal space, thinking that the sun has entered him like an energy sphere,” he states, among other things, in the Exercise manual. Voila!