A Milestone Marked Zero
Zero is the symbol, the image, of the perfect. It is a geometrical image of the perfect. We carry this zero, this image of the perfect, within us. If you can come to understand God through the perfect, that is fine. And if you can’t understand through the perfect, then arrive through zero. It will make no difference to the final result.
Through our changing mental attitudes two paths have come into being, leading to the same destination. If your mind is positive and you feel you will not realize it through the zero, you should take the path of dancing, singing and being in ecstasy. And if you feel your mind is negative and doubting, then remain in silence, be quiet, be in zero, and get lost in zero. If you think your mind has a negative approach, then become united with zero. The final result will be the same.
That dancing, that ecstasy, will come through zero also, but it will come by being zero, and zero will come through dancing, by your becoming one with the dancing. One whose mental condition is for the perfect will dance, sing and chant prayers in the beginning and so disappear into the zero. When the dancing becomes fast and wild, then only his dancing remains, and when it becomes as frenzied as a cyclone, he begins to experience the zero within. He will feel someone is standing behind. The body will continue dancing and the zero, the atman, will stand, will be awakened within. The still point will begin to appear along with the revolving wheel.
Bear in mind that if the wheel is motionless, it will be difficult to know the still point because both will be still. It will be difficult to distinguish which is the axle and which is the wheel if the wheel is motionless. If the wheel is in motion, it will be easy to know the axle because it will not move when the wheel is moving. Immersed in ecstasy by becoming one with the perfect, some Chaitanya or some Meera is dancing. As the dancing goes on, the wheel spins faster and faster, and the centerpoint appears as separate in its stillness.
If you begin with the zero you begin to feel the void within. When everything within becomes void, the wheel outside begins to be seen revolving; thoughts are coming and going, sansara, the world, is going on.
The journey to the ultimate can begin from the axle or from the wheel. Both will bring us to the end of the journey. The highest spiritual element can be known either by becoming the perfect or by becoming the zero; but the sense organs cannot take us either to the perfect or to the zero – likewise neither can the mind take us.
The highest spiritual element
is moving and is also not moving.
It is far away and yet is near.
It is concealed in everything
and is outside of everything also.
The Heartbeat Of The Absolute CH: 4
