It is interesting to contemplate that we are spinning at about
1,000 mph around the earth, orbiting at about 67,000 mph around the sun,
journeying with the solar system at about 43,000 mph through the galaxy, and
drifting with the rest of the galaxy at about 483,000 mph through the great
wide open. Yet we feel like we're standing still. How can that be? Because constant, steady motion, inertial motion, is
not experienced as motion.
Is there a temporal equivalent to inertial motion – i.e.
inertial time? In physics, probably not,
unless it be the very speed of time itself as a photon would experience it if a
photon could experience. But I would like to suggest that inertial time is an
analog for a goal common to much spirituality – living a sense of timelessness
amidst the cascade of time.
Throw some acceleration and angular momentum into our smooth
motion, and then you experience the tilt-a-whirl of motion. The spiritual equivalent of acceleration and
de-acceleration is our desire directed toward future goals and our yearning and regret for the past – both make us acutely aware of the passage of
time. The spiritual equivalent of angular
momentum is the call to respond to the world, whether emotionally or
rationally, with approval or anger, with excitement or boredom. All of it stirs our temporality the way the
tilt-a-whirl stirs our sense of motion.
To experience timelessness amidst the stream of time one needs to be without desire and
attachment. The more desire and attachment,
the jerkier the ride. Some people like
the wild ride, the rickety roller coaster. This is as it should be.
Some of us like peace.