Guru Sahib: The Scientist

Akaali · February 19, 2005

raag aasaa mehalaa 1 ||

Raag Aasaa, First Mehl:

shhia ghar shhia gur shhia oupadhaes ||

There are six schools of philosophy, six teachers, and six sets of teachings.

gur gur eaeko vaes anaek ||1||

But the Teacher of teachers is the One, who appears in so many forms. ||1||

baabaa jai ghar karathae keerath hoe ||

O Baba: that system in which the Praises of the Creator are sung

so ghar raakh vaddaaee thoe ||1|| rehaao ||

-follow that system; in it rests true greatness. ||1||Pause||

visueae chasiaa gharreeaa peharaa thhithee vaaree maahu hoaa ||

The seconds, minutes and hours, days, weeks and months,

sooraj eaeko ruth anaek ||

and the various seasons originate from the one sun;

naanak karathae kae kaethae vaes ||2||2||

O Nanak, in just the same way, the many forms originate from the Creator. ||2||2||

The Sun and the Seasons

The seasons are governed by the tilt of the Earth’s axis in space as it journeys around the Sun in a year. When the South Pole of the Earth is tilted towards the Sun, this is our Summer. Six months later, when the South Pole is tilted away from the Sun, it's our Winter. In between these we have Autumn and Spring.

The Four Seasons

Temperatures on our planet are not determined by the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Rather it is the angle of the Sun’s rays striking the Earth. In Summer, the Sun is high in the Sky and the rays hit the Earth at a steep angle. In winter, the Sun is low in the Sky and the rays strike the Earth at a shallow angle.

The seasons don’t begin on one day and finish on another. That's because our orbit around the Sun is continuous. It actually takes quite some time for the Earth to heat up or cool down, and that’s why the seasons change gradually.

So when do we actually start the seasons?

In some parts of the world, such as Australia, seasons begin on the first day of a particular calendar month - in March for Autumn, June for Winter, September for Spring and December for Summer. In other countries such as Britain, it’s accepted that the seasons begin on the dates that the Earth passes four special points in its orbit about the Sun.