And Yet It Moves!
A Prelude to the Blog Series,
‘In Pursuit of Nature’
“And yet it moves” is assumed to be Galileo’s popular (or last) words where “it” meant the Earth.
The moment he was set at liberty, he looked up to the sky and down to the ground, and,
stamping with his foot, in a contemplative mood, said, Eppur si muove, that is, still it moves,
meaning the Earth.
– From the book, ‘The Italian Library’ by Giuseppe Baretti
I vividly remember the paragraph in my high school physics textbook that read how Galileo was tortured and sentenced to house imprisonment because he believed that the Sun is at the centre of the universe and that Earth revolved around it.
This was perhaps the most impactful event in the history of physics for me as a school student. Of course, it was unfair. Beyond the ethics, however, what took me to amazement was Galileo’s conviction of what he had observed – about Nature – even when it had to break what his part of the world had believed for over a millennium.
As I complete a one-year course in Acupuncture Science this week, I recollect these words of Galileo – “And yet it moves!” Of all the wise lessons I learned in this course, the best that remains in me is to look for Nature in everything, for
Man, his science, his religion, and his doctrines are susceptible to falsification,
but not Nature!
It was not just Galileo’s time, but at several periods in the course of human history, human assumptions and beliefs have been challenged by people who observed Nature. Though such people may face opposition and their theories may eventually die, the truth in their words shall not.
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What I refer to as Nature is not something exclusive about the Sun, Earth, sky, mountains, rivers, and trees. The laws of Nature can pertain to any layer of human existence. What we strongly believe and follow religiously in our everyday lives today can be a violation of the laws of Nature. It might not be the fault of one person, one system, or one culture. It is the collective fault of mankind that we have been moving away from what is real, in our enthusiasm towards ‘advancements’.
You, me, and everyone existing in this given time period are responsible for establishing the nature of creation during our lifetimes. We may be of any age, religion, or culture; anywhere or nowhere in our beliefs, but each of us has the potential to see through the raw laws of Nature – if only we are open to its calling.
This series shall talk about it all, in the coming days.
I dedicate the series, the inspiration behind it, and the path to it to my masters,
P. M. Umar Farook Sir and
R. Thangamani Sir.
Gurus need not always come in orange robes and long beards talking complicated philosophies.
They can appear in formals, be clean-shaved, crack mind-boggling jokes, yet hand-hold the disciple from darkness to light in simple, subtle ways!