Zero


Zero

 

    Time and space have defied all attempts to completely define them. They have stretched beyond all the measures man could conceive of. They were discoveries to his despair, for they reduced all human calculation to tentative knowledge. Absolute truth based on absolute knowledge lay beyond the human compass. How to measure the unfathomable universe or calculate the limitless time became the problem of problems, baffling all thinkers, philosophers and scientists. Which is to be taken as starting point for any measurement of the infinite stretch of Time and Space puzzled them as they stood, completely vanquished. 

    The ancient Hindu claimed to know the absolute truth, for he alone knew the secret of infinite. The laws that determine the finite do not govern the infinite. Human sense organs and his power of reasoning are fashioned for measuring and comprehending only the finite. The infinitude has its own laws, which are totally different and distinct from laws of finite, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The mass of matter becomes more or less by adding to it and subtracting from it. But infinite is such that even if the whole is taken out of it, the whole remains; it is inexhaustible by nature.

           

“Purnamadh Purnamidum Purnat Purnamudachyate

Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnameva Vashisyate”.    - Isopanisad

 

    To measure the endless and immeasurable, the ancient Hindu had discovered Shunya. The point in this universe could be the ZERO point to start with yet its distance from the ever expanding and limitless edges would remain the same, identically invariable. Any point could be the starting point to gauge the limitless time and yet its distance backward and forward would be no less, no more. By this strange law of infinity, could absolute knowledge be acquired and truth realized? 

    The Greek borrowed the idea of Shunya from India and termed it Cypher. It was later adopted as Zero by the Romans and passed on to the western world. To the western world, it meant, from the materialist standpoint, the negation of everything. But to the ancient sages of India, it represented a unique state which opened up the vista of the entire universe - the universe in another dimension. The ancient Hindu was firm in his conviction, based on his realization, that while God shuts one door, He opens another - meaning life never comes to an end but flows in an endless stream. To the ancient Hindu, the negation of matter was not the end of everything, not a baffling halt or stagnation, but the acquisition of other powers and potentialities, which opened a wider vision for comprehending the universe in its infinitude. It meant liberation of man from the bondage of flesh and of finite and awakening to a finer and vaster sensibility of the spiritual world. Spiritual realizations dawn on man only when his materialistic outlook, the grosser sense reaches Zero point. Hence, sanyasa was practiced not to shun all material acquisition but as a starting point for fresh venture. It is a point when man turns over a new leaf passing beyond the pleasure and pain of the worldly life (preya) to live in the serene sublimity of the blissful, the everlasting (shreya). What was void (shunya) from below became plentiful (purna) in the other dimension overflowing with the bounty of boundless. 

    Another law regarding the infinite which the ancient Hindu postulated with equal emphasis is that there is no absolute zero. The cosmic is an evolutionary product out of its earliest material, existence of Brahmananda. This primal nebulous carries itself in every particle. Each particle carries the consciousness of the primal conception and of the evolution it has gone through over time. The universe is alive in its whole in its every fragment. The infinitesimal part of the universe is not negation of the universe but its existence is in its entirety in a microcosm along with gross inconsistent matter. The individual ego is not divorced from the creator who is very much alive in it as the soul. So the ancient Hindu stoutly proclaims "Soham” - He and I co-exist. This concept of God in Man and Matters is an impelling force that stands in contrast with the metaphysical concepts of the western world about man as created, fallen and forsaken - an absolute zero who looks to God to lead him to deliverance.

    Nature abhors vacuum. Her ceaseless game in time is to constantly counterpoise opposites - darkness with light, life with death, man with woman, bacteria with antibodies and so on. These opposites living in pairs and standing in inverse ratio to each other readily and unfailingly fill up any void sought to be created by the others. It is an eternal quest and endless game (Lila) of hide-and-seek between the contending forces, each complementary to one another. It sustains the other while thoroughly exhausts itself like the two parts of the ancient time machine.

    “The strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh", says Mahatma Gandhi in "The Story of My Experiments with Truth.” “There is nothing to despair for the rivulet that lost itself in the desert sand," says Tagore, “for the stream is eternal.” Nothing is lost in the universe; what disappears in darkness can be discovered in light.

    Matter and spirit form an integer. This theory stands on the testimony of all the seers and sages, ancient and modern. It also stands to reason based on observation of the diverse manifestations of natural phenomena. Science confirms it.

    Absolute ZERO is a fancy, if not a fallacy. It corresponds to nothing in nature. It exists absolutely beyond time in the absolute.

 

 

(Published: “Souvenir”, Golden Jubilee Celebration, May, 1975)




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