Wednesday, November 7, 2007

In Divine Mathematics, Zero = One = Infinity

The Vishnu Sahasranama contains the names of Vishnu that were evolved by seers over time. Three of the 1,000-plus names listed are: Shunya or Zero, Eka or One and Ananta or Infinity.
In mathematics, this would be expressed as 0 = 1 = infinity. Tulsidas says the name is always the thing. In ancient societies the name of a child was chosen with much deliberation. The names of the Lord in the Vishnu Sahasranama are not born of frivolous fancy: they are meant to mean what they mean.
The above equation therefore merits close scrutiny. It is relevant to note that among the names, there is no such thing as higher and lower. In fact, ranking names as ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ is counted among the 10 types of sins relating to names: nama-aparadha. Shunya, Eka and Ananta are therefore equal, which is what the above equation states.
But how can the numeral one be equal to infinity? Are they not on the opposite extremes of the number line? The integers are only notional nodes along the number line which is otherwise a continuum. There is no such thing as fractions. Each fraction represents a point on the number line that is as legitimate as the nodal points: 1/2 for instance is as much a point on the number line as, say, 1 or 7. In other words, each fraction is in reality an integer.
To understand this, take a sheet of paper. It is a whole; it is 1. Tear it in two halves. Each half is 1/2. This is only relative. Otherwise, each half is an independent whole, a one. How do you know that your original sheet of paper was not one half of something?
Likewise, if you tear the half sheets again into two, you get a total of four ones. This process can go on ad infinitum. In effect, you have created an infinite number of integers between 0 and 1. Your original sheet of paper — your original 1 — is now infinity. Eka is Ananta!
Likewise, zero can be understood as being one. How? 1 = 1/1 = 1/infinity = 0. Inversely, 1/0 = infinity. This validates the equation we began with, 0 = 1 = infinity. Vishnu is equally Shunya, Eka and Ananta. The difference between zero and one is the difference between the un-manifest and the manifest. This holds true for all numbers, because all numbers are products of One.
Everything is ultimately Vishnu, which name literally connotes ‘the allpervading’. In advaitic (nondual) terms, everything that we can see, the entire phenomenal (saguna) world, has a common substratum which is the attribute-less (nirguna) Brahmn, the Great Shunya, the all-creative Zero.
What does ‘equal to’ imply? In mathematics, it means that two given entities are perfectly comparable. In advaita, ‘equal to’ would imply not two distinct entities but two manifestations of the same reality. Two is an illusion, maya. Nothing is ‘equal to’ any other thing: each is the other thing.
If everything is zero or infinity, what happens to the number line? Maya is not only illusion, it is also the ‘truth of illusion’. Maya is not an aberration of creation; maya is functional to it: existence (srishti) would collapse without it, hence our number line with integers and fractions.

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