Everything goes on, or happens, in circles. This is a pristine idiom - ageless and contemporary for all time to come. It's no less a symbol of universal wholeness, a sum of all the parts and also a part of the whole. Whole is holistic; it relates to the sacred and sharing a common source. What is embedded in this symbolic 'connect' is the medium and also the message - where the whole is inherently and externally larger than the multiplication of all the parts. It's apparent that our timeless mind and our timeless wisdom of holistic thought is represented by a circle. This is common to all civilisations and cultures. The power of the emblematic circle fascinates not only philosophers, but also mathematicians and spiritualists. Even the house, or flat, you live in celebrates this maxim - in your design and also your mind.

The vast recesses and depths of wholeness is not just an idea. It holds to us a mirror; the sparkle of our divine core that we all possess within our own being. Call it 'prana,' or 'chi.' It reflects what you have in your mirror. It's also present in the eye of the beholder, or any person you look in the eye. It denotes a beautifully balanced universe and the nature of all things - big and small. It opens our vision into the window of our soul that exists and functions deep within us. We are all compositely whole - complete in all our thoughts and actions. The way you hold the pen, or 'hit' your computer keyboard, or play a rasping shot in a cricket match, expresses this state. Call it internal peace, homeostasis, or a sense of balance, they are innate to our human condition as nature contemplated them to be.

Modern life is chaotic; it's made up of 'built-up' imbalance. Yet, there's hope. When we incorporate the spiritual aspects of our being, whatever our station in life, we will be able to create a 'fine' balance. As one 'Big Think' article puts it, 'As soon as we seem to have it figured out, our lives are upended, the world changes, and we have to restart the whole process. How can we not only discover but also preserve that sense of harmony we so desperately seek? The article articulates the wise words of Kenichiro 'Ken' Mogi, a senior researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, who believes that Japanese culture has incubated a philosophy of life to help us answer that question. It's called 'nagomi,' and through it, we can better realise that balance isn't about finding the one correct direction. It's about discovering how we can blend life's disparate elements in ways that work for us - a unifying act that, depending on the context, can take on subtle nuances.

A research team at Arizona State University has uncovered that the answers to questions that delve in our ability for life would be the Zen middle path - that is balancing between robustness and adaptability. The results of their study have been published in 'Physical Review Letters.' To perform their study, the team examined data from the Cell Collective Database. This rich resource signifies biological processes across life - capturing a wide-ranging array of biological progressions from humans to animals, plants, bacteria and viruses. The sum of components in such networks ranged from five to 321 nodes, incorporating 6,500 different biological interactions. Also, the nodes, in question, included many of life's key building blocks, viz., genes and proteins that act as master switches controlling cell division, growth and death, aside from communication. Using a wealth of molecular data, one can now study the interactions among the building blocks, with the definitive objective of understanding the fundamentals as to how life emerges.

The Arizona State University team found through rigorous testing of 67 networks that all of them shared a special property, no less. The team articulated that the networks existed in between two extremes, neither too stable nor unstable of that sensitivity, which is a measure of stability that resides near a special point that biologists call 'criticality,' while signifying that the networks, by nature, may be evolutionarily adapted to a peak adjustment between constancy and volatility.

Balance cannot, of course, function with mathematical precision, or by honing the ups and downs of life on a scale. It works in our mind. What holds the key to balance is how well you evaluate the many factors of your life, including their vast complexities and interconnectedness that represent our condition as human beings. The noted biologist Edward Wilson called this interrelated nature of things 'consilience.' When things reach a state of balance, new life experiences emerge, aside from life's many worries, especially when things are out of sync. After all, life has to flow with periods of stability, followed by short intervals of instability.

Whatever the nature of situations, good or bad, they will all have to change. This is the law of life, of nature and also divinity. Natural occurences balance themselves - this includes all the healing arts and the science of healing, too. As the 'Bard of Avon,' William Shakespeare, said, 'Sweet are the uses of adversity.' Without adversity, balance would have remained a chimera; a dictum without definition.

What this means is we all need a convergence of pressure ripples, because balance is not a human paradox. It's a necessity. There are no simple answers for balance, or imbalance. It connotes a movement, a job, or a career - that life goes on, no matter what is on your plate. It is everything for us, but not what really matters in terms of life's passions, or goals. When we ask ourselves not what our vocation is, but what our passion in life is, we'll come of age - and, attain balance.

Nidamboor is a wellness physician, independent researcher and author