Dancing With The Universe

Dr. Deepak Chopra
(Excerpted from Power, Freedom & Grace)

The lunar rhythm is a twenty-eight-day cycle that occurs as a result of the movement of the Earth, the sun, and the moon in relationship to one another. This rhythm is evident in the waxing and waning of the moon. We see the full moon, the half moon, no moon, and then the cycle starts all over again. Human fertility and menstruation are good examples of lunar rhythms, and there are many other twenty-eight-day cycles. When I worked as a physician in an emergency room, we would frequently expect to see patients with certain types of problems depending on the time of day and the cycles of the moon.

As the Earth moves around the sun, we experience seasonal rhythms as distinct biochemical changes in the body-mind. So we are more likely to fall in love in spring or get depressed in winter. People with a condition known as seasonal affective disorder get depressed in winter but feel better when you expose them to sunlight. Seasonal changes affect not only the biochemistry of the human body; they affect the biochemistry of trees, flowers, butterflies, bacteria, and everything throughout nature.

The Earth tilts on its axis in the spring, and flowers bloom, groundhogs come out of the ground, birds migrate, fish return to their spawning grounds, and mating rituals begin. People are moved to write poetry, lovers sing songs, and young and old hearts fall in love. Seasonal rhythms affect us biologically, mentally, emotionally, and it all has to do with the relationship of the Earth to the sun. 

There are other cycles and rhythms that oscillate for just a few seconds, including electrocardiogram and brain waves, and there are rhythms that last anywhere from thirty minutes to twenty-eight hours called ultradian rhythms. There are cycles within cycles, and it gets very complicated, but it’s all one symphony. All of these rhythms create the symphony of the universe, and the body-mind is always trying to synchronize its rhythms with universal rhythms. 

To separate the body-mind from the rest of the cosmos is to misperceive things as they really are. The body-mind is part of a larger mind, it’s part of the cosmos, and cosmic rhythms result in profound changes in our physiology. The universe is truly a symphony of the stars. And when our body-mind is in synch with this symphony, everything is spontaneous and effortless, and the exuberance of the universe flows through us in joyful ecstasy.