When we were kids, our parents and teachers, would often tell us to be still.

As we grew up to face life and its challenges, we were told, that those who are centered, will do well.

If we see outside of ourselves, scientists tell us:
• Earth rotates on its axis in:                                  23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.09 seconds                    @ 1,037 miles an hour
• Earth revolves around the Sun in:                   1 year                                                                                     @ 66,600 miles an hour
• Sun revolves around the Milky Way in:        250 million years                                                            @ 514,500 miles an hour
• Milky Way moves through the Universe:                                                                                                       @ 1.3 million miles an hour

If we see inside ourselves, researchers tell us, an average person has:
• 6,200                              thoughts per day
• 4 to 6                               dreams per night
• 12 to 20                         breaths per minute
• 60 to 100                      heart beats per minute
• 3.8 million                     new body cells per second
• 18 to 640 trillion      signals in the brain per second

Not a second of stillness, even if one desires it.

Maybe the clue to this riddle lies in our understanding.

The driving force behind the Universe gives rise to all of creation and action. It is the only absolute truth. It cannot be defined, for defining it, would limit it.

It manifests as an infinite range of properties. Properties that are an expression of its potential. Properties that appear as the Universe, all of its elements and us. In perfect balance and continuous transformation.

When we fearlessly live as per our nature / properties and allow the force to guide us, we are our potential every moment. The player, the play and the playfield are one. All powered by the force. All forms of the same force. Harmony in motion. Stillness in action.

The one who forgets his or her true identity and walks the path of another will be restless. Such a person, who is not anchored in one’s own truth, blocks the very flow of nature and one’s own growth.

Stillness is being coherent inside – outside. Being in flow.

Children don’t need to be still.

They are still by being themselves.

It is the majority, who grow up, who need to rediscover their stillness.

To end …

• Only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest… Bruce Lee

• Stillness is not the absence or negation of energy, life, or movement. It is unconflicted movement, life in harmony with itself, skill in action… Erich Schiffmann

• śhreyān swa-dharmo viguṇaḥ para-dharmāt sv-anuṣhṭhitāt
swa-dharme nidhanaṁ śhreyaḥ para-dharmo bhayāvahaḥ

It is far better to perform one’s natural prescribed duty, though tinged with faults, than to perform another’s prescribed duty, though perfectly. In fact, it is preferable to die in the discharge of one’s duty, than to follow the path of another, which is fraught with danger.

karmany akarma yah pasyed
akarmani ca karma yah
sa buddhiman manusyesu
sa yuktah krtsna-karma-krt

One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position, although engaged in all sorts of activities.

Bhagavad Gita