Sun Conscious“ We are all persuns ”
Surya Green, born as Norma Linda Eisner in Manhattan, has lived for varying periods in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her personal journey integrates West-East, material-spiritual, and modern-ancient in a simple lifestyle based on oneness, naturalness, and greenness.
Surya's formal education includes an M.A. in Communication from California’s Stanford University where she was a National Honors Fellow. She holds a B.A. in American Studies from New York’s Barnard College, Columbia University (New York State Regents Scholar). Her education includes training at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in Manhattan and professional stage experience in the USA.
Surya makes her writing home in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is a member of the Dutch Association of Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, and the Society of Authors (UK). She is an alumna of the Salzburg Global Seminar (Austria). Her past memberships include: American Guild of Variety Artists, Actors’ Equity, and the Foreign Press Association of the Netherlands.
In 1972, Surya went to India as a guest of the Government of India, Ministry of Tourism, on assignment for a Dutch travel magazine. During an extended stay, unexpectedly she underwent a series of mystical experiences with a higher consciousness. To her shocked surprise, this Consciousness was the consciousness of our Sun. Identifying with Sun’s subtle energy, Norma Linda was reborn as “Surya,” Sanskrit for “the Sun, the Source.” Initiated into the subtle world of spiritual knowing, Surya emerged as a serious seeker of higher knowledge.
Surya Green came to birth as a “per-sun” in the last quarter of the twentieth century. At that time, mainstream society had little understanding or respect for the sustainable, natural lifestyle or spiritual transformation, not to mention Sun-consciousness. Although Surya’s solarized view of reality did not correspond with the generally accepted view, she continued to live her vision and Sun-inspired lifestyle with trust and dedication. Her relation with Sun’s spiritual identity grew stronger by the day, building Surya’s courage to express publicly what she terms the Sun-revelation: our Sun is a conscious and enlightened presence, able to inspire and guide human beings.
After her personal solarization, Surya dedicated her pen in service to humanity’s spiritual maturation process and the world’s solarization. She started writing articles on spiritual and transformational themes for publications internationally. She also published interviews with many remarkable persons, among them geodesic dome inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, Indian sage J. Krishnamurti, Holocaust justice seeker Simon Wiesenthal, sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, TM leader Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, American spiritual teacher Ram Dass, and many more memorable figures.
In the nineteen-eighties, during a six years’ residence in Asia as a spiritual pilgrim with journalistic shoulder bag, Surya underwent spiritual training that included: four months’ living in monasteries with Buddhist monks and nuns in Thailand, six and a half months’ meditating in full-time Vipassana silent retreat in a Buddhist monastery in Yangon, Myanmar, and five years’ practicing various streams of the bhakti yoga of devotion in India. Her training includes association with leading spiritual teachers of both East and West, among them senior monks of the Ramakrishna Order of India. She also gained knowledge of the spiritual heritage of the East, Eastern religions, philosophies, and consciousness-raising systems by visiting sacred sites and power spots, participating in holy celebrations of all kinds, and staying in diverse spiritual groups and communities. She considers her studies in the school of Life to be ever ongoing.
During the nineteen-nineties, Surya felt it was finally time to share her unique Sun-experiences and wrote The Call of the Sun: “A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of Wisdom.” The book narrates Surya’s close personal association with our Sun, describing how the Sun-experiences brought dramatic, positive changes to her life on all levels. The book, published in English, German, and Dutch editions, gives insight into personal as well as collective transformation, and the role of our Sun in the process.
Among journalistic reports on renewable energy that have come from Surya’s Sun-powered pen, she co-authored a 40,000-word reportage on sustainable energy for the Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment (NOVEM). She was invited to speak on Sun’s subtle energy at scientific congresses of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) and the World Renewable Energy Congress (WREN), but had to decline to participate.
After publication of Als de Zon spreekt, the Dutch edition of The Call of the Sun, Surya inspired the founding of the non-profit foundation Sun Conscious (2000) in teamwork with five Dutch readers. Based in Amsterdam, Sun Conscious is dedicated to raising awareness of solar energy, both physical and subtle.
Surya has experienced that authentic and lasting personal transformation takes place from within outwards. The same principle, she maintains, holds true on the collective level. Back in 1972, her Sun-experiences showed Surya the future as a Global Age of the Sun. She sees our Sun’s subtle energy of consciousness as a main driving force behind the transformational movement to facilitate sustainable development and the world’s solarization.
On invitation, Surya gives talks and workshops and guides spiritual gatherings. She consults also on healthy living, the spiritual growth process, and personal transformation as well as on research and writing projects. She has spoken on various aspects of personal transformation, Sun-power, and the spiritual heritage of India to spiritual, religious, and cultural organizations in the Netherlands, UK, India, and the USA. She has given seminars and retreats on the Sun’s subtle energy.
Surya’s second book, Once Upon a Yugoslavia: “When the American Way Met Tito’s Third Way,” is a prequel to The Call of the Sun.