Wheel of Dharna

 Wheel of Dharma

There is a Galactic centre around which our galaxy Milky Way is rotating is about 26000 light years away from the earth. It is called Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole with about 4 million solar masses and contains 10 million stars. However, it is only 0.25% of the mass of our galaxy. Like a hub and spokes, the galaxies are moving out from the centre to all the directions, looks like a Wheel of Dharma of Indian religions. 

How big is our Universe and how many Universes are there within this cosmos is beyond our imagination. One universe may have 100 billion galaxies. The pauranik sages imagined that all the universes are placed on a fur of the Almighty. Imagine how big is the creator. 

Our Milky Way galaxy makes a cluster and super cluster called Virgo and Laniakea respectively. Milkyway, Andromeda and Triangulum are the three major galaxies located near each other might be the Vishnu, Mahesh and Brahma of the imagination of the Pauranic sages. The pauranik stories of Lord Shiva-Sati-Daksha-Tandav-Moon-27 wives (constellations), etc, are more about the cosmic play. 

Earth takes a day, Sun takes 28 days and Milky Way takes 230 million years to complete rotation on its axis. Our Sun takes 230 million Earth years to orbit once around the centre of the Milky Way. It is called galactic year or cosmic year. Our Sun is that way only 60 cosmic year old. 

We are in a ‘Space Train’ which has a Central Station Sagittarius A*. We feel stationary on earth but the whole of our universe is in motion. Our coach Earth is revolving around the Sun with a speed of 30 km/s, the Sun and the Solar system is revolving around the centre of the Milky Way galaxy with a speed of 230 km/s. 

Imagine, how tiny a human being in this cosmic play, not even an electron. But he has ego, therefore, he can create and destroy his surroundings. His life is short but he wants to play a central role. Let Sagittarius A* remains a centre of our Universe, but human being a Brahman is centre of the whole Cosmos. 

Punamchand 

9 June 2022