In the sixteenth century, most people believed in the ideas of the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, that all the planets, Moon, and Sun orbited around the Earth. Then in 1543, Copernicus proposed the idea that the planets and the Earth orbited around the Sun. Half a century later, Johannes Kepler sought to refine the Copernican system and truly understand how the planets move around the Sun. He studied observations of Mars recorded by his mentor, Tycho Brahe. Kepler used Tycho's observations to guide the creation of his theories. This was a radical departure from the thought processes of his era. In 1609, he published his Law of Ellipses and The Equal-Areas Law. He had succeeded in using a scientific method to create a simple, elegant, and accurate model to describe the motion of planets around the Sun.
Previous theories of the Solar System, including those of Ptolemy and Copernicus, believed that the orbits of the planets were perfect circles. Kepler was unable, however, to fit Tycho's observations with circular orbits. He rejected the ancient idea of circular orbits and discovered that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. An ellipse is a closed, curved shape that is defined by two foci. It is a like a flattened circle ; if both of the foci of an ellipse are at the same point, an ellipse becomes a circle! If you think about it, the relationship between an ellipse and a circle is like that between a rectangle and square.An ellipse has two axes. The long one is called the major axis, and the short one is called the minor axis. (Astronomers often use the term "semimajor axis" for this). That's just half the length of the major axis!
The shape of an ellipse is measured by its eccentricity, a mathematically determined property. The "flatter" the ellipse, the greater the eccentricity. A circle, for example, has an eccentricity of zero since both foci are at the center and the distance between them is equal to zero.
As the ellipse becomes flatter and flatter, the foci get farther from the center, the distance between them larger and the eccentricity will approach, but never equal, one.
In the picture alongside, the first (top) ellipse has an eccentricity of 0.7 and the second one has an eccentricity of 0.5Our individual life-paths may also be visualized as ellipses with the individual Ego at one focus and the divine soul at the other focus. Our aim in life should be to move towards the center and shorten the distance between the two foci, so that the eccentricity is reduced considerably and the Ego comes very near to and under the influence of the One who created and sustains all life.
(Pictures: from http://www.astro.illinois.edu/projects/data/KeplersLaws/ )
When the ellipse is considered as depicting our life-path, its two foci are: our Ego deriving its energy from the mind and the Lord who is ever-present as the Soul at the heart center. An ellipse can be drawn with two pins at the foci, a loop of string, and a pencil. The pins are fixed at the foci and a loose string is passed around them. A pencil is placed on the paper inside the string and the string is made taut. If the pencil is moved around so with the string kept taut, its tip draws the figure of an ellipse since the sum of the distances from the pencil to the pins remains constant, which is the property of the ellipse. The nearer the two pins are to each other, the greater the ellipse will be like a circle. When the two foci coincide, the ellipse becomes a circle.
Our philosophy states a similar truth. Due to agnyana (ignorance), not knowing our true connection with the supreme soul's constant presence within us, we depend wholly on knowledge derived from the Ego. We thus move farther away from our spiritual center wandering about wildly in an ever-widening orbit, increasing our eccentricity. Our life becomes erratic like that of a comet and we get burnt out.
With developing awareness of the true picture, we can move nearer to the other divine centre within us, avoid this fate and create a life-path that has progressively less eccentricity and approaches a perfect circle – a wholeness which the Upanishads proclaim as Poornam.
In this context, we may note that Gita Slokam Ch.18-61 speaks about the heart centre:
ईश्वरः सर्वभूतानां हृद्देशेऽर्जुन तिष्ठति।
भ्रामयन्सर्वभूतानि यन्त्रारूढानि मायया।।18.61।।
Ishvaraḥ sarvabhutaanaam hṛddeshe arjuna tiṣThati.
bhraamayan sarvabhhutaani yantraaruDhaani maayayaa..18.61..
61. The Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, causing all beings, by His illusive power, to revolve, as if mounted on a machine.
In his sanskrit commentary, Sri Ramanuja explains (English translation by Swami Adidevananda):
Lord Vasudeva, who is the ruler over all, lives in 'the heart of all beings,' i.e., in the region from which arises all knowledge which is at the root of all secular and spiritual activities. How and doing what does He exist? He exists enabling, by His Maya (power), 'all beings who are mounted, as it were, on the machine Prakrti' in the form of body and senses created by Himself, to act in accordance with their Gunas of Sattva and others. It was already expressed in 'And I am seated in the hearts of all. From Me are memory, knowledge and their removal also' (15.15) and in 'From Me proceed everything' (10.8). The Srutis also proclaim 'He who, dwelling in the self' (Br. U. Madh., 3.7.22).He now explains the way to get rid of the Maya
[in the next sloka: “Take refuge with all your heart, by every disposition of your body, senses and mind in Him - the ruler of all, who has become your charioteer out of compassion for dependents, and who orders you, 'Act thus' and so on.]
