Movement...

I wanted to share with you some thoughts that were thrown up in my mind recently, on my train journey from Bikaner to Delhi. I managed to dash off again to the desert for just a day after a hectic round of traveling...!

The Delhi-Bikaner train runs on meter gauge, and is a smaller train. My guess is that it therefore shakes and vibrates that much more…While I was returning on that night, I couldn't sleep easily...too many thoughts were whirring around in my poor brain...

Suddenly, I realized how interesting it would be, if one could plot on paper, the motion of my body -- you would of course get a curve showing the general direction in which the train was moving. This curve would have many squiggles on either side of it, representing the sideways and up and down movement of the train. In three dimensional representation, perhaps, the motion of my body could also be represented...

Suddenly, I realized how much movement there was, generally...

While I was moving towards Delhi thus, the earth was rotating on its axis...and was hurtling through space, around the sun, at 18 miles per second...the sun was rotating on its axis, the planets were going around the sun in their prescribed paths, rotating and revolving, taking their own times...the sun itself was moving, revolving around the center of the Milky Way galaxy...it would take 250 million years for one revolution of the sun around the center of the galaxy...the Milky Way contains 1,00,000 million (!) suns, all moving in their own paths, rotating and revolving around the center...the galaxy itself was rotating, and hurtling though space at an incredible speed...and there are billions of such galaxies...the mind recoils from imagining such vastness and complexity...!!

The fundamental thing is that there is so much movement everywhere...within and without.

Lovers move, when they make love, in erotic, erratic and unpredictable ways...leaves and flags flutter in the breeze, butterflies move from flower to flower...trains, buses, planes, bullock carts, horses, donkeys, dogs, cats, snakes...all move of their own volition...water...blood moves and oozes out...and clots…

The fundamental thing is that there is so much movement everywhere...within and without.

We move in our sleep...and when we are awake...organs inside of us move...each cell is moving...it has a purpose...huge aggregates of molecules inside these cells move...cells die, humans die, are born again, and there is movement...

The fundamental thing is that there is so much movement everywhere...within and without.

Molecules move, and atoms move inside them...electrons move inside the atoms, rotating and revolving around the nucleus...the nucleus itself moves, rotates, vibrates...there are particles inside these sub-atomic particles, which move mysteriously, and of their own
volition...particles within particles within particles -- where is the end? Is it a particle or a wave...? There is a universe within, just as there is a universe without...again, my imagination recoils and I'm awestruck at this creation...where is the end...the beginning...what am I, who am I?

The fundamental thing is that there is so much movement everywhere...within and without.

Thought is movement...our feelings, passions, sensations...cannot happen without movement...good thoughts, good movement...? Bad thoughts, bad movement...? Evolution is movement...Insight...is movement...Love...is movement...lust...is movement...

The fundamental thing is that there is so much movement everywhere...within and without.

Is there anything that is completely still...without any movement? Can stillness exist with chaos?

The act of writing this is a movement...

Delhi
16th October 2001