The Magic Of Zero - From Mathematics To Zen | Heart-Opening Sufi Breathing Session

A very warm welcome to all of you in this Monday evening meditation session with me,

Dhyan Se.

Today we have the ambient music as well,

So it's going to be a good session.

Today's session is inspired by Sufism,

And whenever something is said from Sufism,

It has to be heard not just from the mind,

But also from the heart,

Because the message of Sufism goes beyond the logic.

Your mind is only capturing the logic,

But your heart is required to understand,

To have the message,

What Sufism says.

There is a book in Sufism called the Book of the Books.

This book is hundreds of years old.

It has been preserved since hundreds of years,

Even until today,

And whenever there is a question,

Whenever there is something to know,

The Sufi mystic opens the book,

He reads through the book,

And finds his answer.

There has never been a case that the book is unable to answer.

The beauty of this book is all the pages of this book are empty.

Today let me read some of those empty pages for you in this session.

What does it mean by emptiness?

What does the empty pages tell you?

These pages say empty yourself,

Empty yourself completely,

Absolutely.

But what does it mean by emptying yourself?

Does it mean emptying your body?

Does it mean emptying your mind?

Does it mean not thinking anymore,

Not having feelings anymore?

What does it mean to be empty?

In simple words,

To be empty means that in your consciousness there are no contents.

Your mind is there,

Your body is there,

Thoughts are there,

Emotions are there,

But the contents in your consciousness are not there.

There is nobody inside of you who is interacting with the thoughts,

With the emotions,

With the body,

With anything that the senses or your thoughts,

Emotions bring to your consciousness.

In India,

It's in the part of our culture that the guests come uninvited.

In this part of the world you have to make appointments three months in advance to visit someone.

But in India the appointments are not made,

People just show up at your door and no matter what you're doing,

There's a doorbell you have to attend.

You go open the door,

The guests come in sometimes with their entire family and then you have to cook tea or some snacks for them,

Give them time,

One hour,

Two hours and then somehow once they're gone another doorbell rings and then another guest comes and it's impolite to say no to the guests.

You're always attending guests one after the other.

You cannot come out of it.

One of my uncles,

He was fed up with it,

He said,

Well,

I don't want these guests all the time.

So he tried all his tricks but none of his tricks failed to tell the guests to go away but since it's impolite so he had to always attend the guests.

One day he said to his servant that next time if there is a guest tell them that I'm not there and then maybe they'll go away.

Doorbell rang,

The servant opened the door,

The servant said,

Sir said that he's not here.

And of course my uncle had to come out to attend not to be impolite because he had to be there.

As long as there is somebody in the house,

The guests have to be attended.

What is the way out?

The only way out is that there is nobody in the house.

Only then the guests will come,

They'll ring the bell,

They'll stay there for a few minutes and then they'll go away.

The only way is that there is nobody in the house.

In meditation when you are sitting,

When the thoughts come,

When the emotions come,

When the senses bring you inputs from outside,

The only way is that there is nobody inside of you to attend.

Not that the thoughts are not there,

Not that the noises are not there,

Not that the emotions are not there,

But you are not there.

You are not there to attend what comes from outside.

In yoga this state of emptiness is known as shunyata.

How to attend to this,

Attain to this state where there is nobody inside?

Let's first of all be very clear what is the state where we call that inner emptiness,

That there is nobody inside.

That state as I said is not when the body is not active,

It's not that the mind is not active,

It's that in your consciousness,

In your awareness,

There is no reaction,

There is no content.

You are absolutely silent,

You are absolutely still.

How to achieve that state?

How to achieve this state of shunyata?

In this meditation we are going to try and attempt to be in this state,

To try and find out how to be in this state.

Shunyata in mathematics means zero.

Shunya means zero.

So the word shunyata comes from zero,

The state of zero.

Zero is a very magical and a powerful number.

What happens when anything comes close to zero?

What happens?

It also becomes zero.

When anything comes in contact with zero,

It becomes the zero.

Anything that is multiplied by zero becomes the zero.

Remember this throughout your meditation,

It will help you to reach to this state of emptiness when there is nobody inside of you,

When there is only pure consciousness,

No contents in your consciousness.

How to get there is to remember the magic of zero.

Anything that comes in contact with zero becomes zero.

So for today's session,

What we are going to do is,

In two steps we are going to go through this session.

The first step is you will create a zero inside yourself.

How to create a zero inside yourself?

With your breath.

When you are inhaling and exhaling,

There is a zero that is created inside of you.

The breath has a rhythm of its own.

The breath has a zero of its own.

That's why they all say that you bring your awareness and attention to your breath in meditation.

When you focus all your awareness,

All your attention to just the rhythm of your breath,

And observe this zero,

And let the zero become stronger and stronger and more vibrant,

So much so that there is nothing else left in your consciousness,

Only this zero of your breath,

Then whatever comes in contact with it,

It also becomes the zero.

In other words,

It disappears,

It melts in the zero.

And what is left is inner peace,

Inner silence,

Inner wisdom,

Bliss,

Whatever you want to call it.

So the first step of the meditation today would be that you will bring your attention and awareness to your breath.

You will breathe normally as you always do.

No need to breathe faster or slower.

Let your breath be naturally forming a rhythm,

And all you need to do is observe your breath,

Not miss any of the parts of the zero.

Let this zero be complete in its entirety,

And you will experience this yourself.

As the zero becomes more and more significant,

Everything else disappears.

That would be the first part.

What is the second part?

For that,

Another short story,

Where a student went to a meditation master.

He said,

Look,

You've always told me to be empty,

And now I've become empty.

What should I do now?

The master hit him with a stick and said,

Now throw this what you have become.

Throw this as well what you have become.

When you reach to this emptiness,

When you feel that you have become the zero,

You have to let go of the zero as well.

You have to throw this zero away as well.

You have to remain absolutely empty without any action,

Any activity,

Any concentration.

Anything that you are doing should go away.

In the beginning,

For the first 10 minutes,

15 minutes,

It's good to actively do this process to keep your awareness on the rhythm of your breath that allows everything else to disappear and only your breath to remain,

The zero to remain.

After that,

You have to let go of the zero as well.

What is left is pure consciousness.

Without any contents,

Don't disturb it.

Just let it be.

Don't try to modify it or feel grateful,

Happy that you have achieved or not that you have not.

And you're still thinking there are still noises from outside.

Just let your awareness be in this state of emptiness without any contents.

In this meditation,

For the first 10 to 15 minutes,

You will practice this on your own.

You will allow your body mind to settle while you are observing your breath and making this zero inside.

Let it become more and more brighter in your awareness and then I will tell you to leave that zero away as well.

And then you will just sit in silence,

Sit in pure awareness for the rest of the minutes.

Any questions?

Alright,

Then let's give it a try,

Whether we can form a zero in us or not.

Close your eyes.

Find yourself a comfortable posture where your back is straight,

Your shoulders are resting,

Your hands are resting in your lap or on your thighs.

Take a nice deep breath,

Inhale from the nose and also exhale from the nose.

And turn your awareness inwards towards your breath.

And exhale.

And observe your breath as it comes in and goes out,

The full circle.

And exhale.

Observe the breath making a zero.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

Give yourself time for your awareness to settle on your breath.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And observe your breath making a zero again and again and again.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

Follow the breath in creating zero.

Zero.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And the power of zero becomes stronger with every breath.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

Follow the zero.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

All your awareness on the zero.

And exhale.

Let everything melt in the zero of your breath.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

Allow everything to settle in all your awareness on the zero.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

And exhale.

As your awareness has settled on the zero,

Let go of the zero and remain aware and silent.

And exhale.

Empty inside.

Only silence and awareness.

No inner movement.

Empty yourself.

Empty yourself.

Empty yourself.

Empty yourself.

Silent and aware.

Silent and aware.

No one inside of you to attend to any thought,

Any sensations,

Complete emptiness,

Silence and awareness.

Silence.

Stay like this.

Silence.

Remain like an empty house.

Nothing inside.

Nothing outside.

Only silence and awareness.

Silence.

Let go in the silence.

Silence.

Slowly bring your awareness back to your breath.

And feel the gentle sensation of your breath flowing in and out in a perfect zero.

Silence.

Maintaining that zero,

Very gently you may open your eyes or keep them closed for another couple of minutes.

You may relax your body.

Take the next minutes just for yourself to absorb the experience,

To notice how you feel,

To remember how you felt when you entered the room,

To be with this taste of inner silence,

To give it means to you.

Gently open your eyes if you haven't already.

Silence.

For all those who find it difficult to sit in a cross-legged posture,

I invite you every time to find yourself a posture that is comfortable for you,

Be it sitting next to the wall,

Be it putting five pillows or five cushions under your thighs.

Make sure that when you are investing so much time into the meditation that your body is comfortable.

And also practice to sit still,

To sit straight.

It will eventually become very easy,

Very natural,

But you have to practice.

So that's the sitting part is easy.

It looks the most difficult,

But it is the easiest to sit still.

What you have to do afterwards,

What you have to do in the meditation might be a challenge,

Might be something to learn which will take more than just a few days to practice.

I hope while you were sitting silent,

Most of you were able to somewhat bring your awareness and stabilize it on the breath.

It's one of the easiest points of attention where once your awareness settles,

It maintains itself.

And sometimes when it gets distracted away by noises or by thoughts,

All you need to do is bring it back and maintain the flow of your awareness together with your breath.

With that,

I would like to open the session for your questions,

Your feedback,

How you felt,

Anything that was not clear,

That was something that you would like to clarify before you leave the session today.

Anyone?

Was it a good session for you?

Who found it the most difficult?

It was very difficult for you because I was hearing somebody almost crying.

No one?

Okay,

That's good to know.

If you have anything which makes it harder for you,

Because meditation is something that is very simple,

As long as you understand what we are doing,

As long as you get the knack of it.

So if you find something which is unclear,

Please feel free to also reach out to me via emails or any other way.

Ask me after the session if you don't feel like asking during the session.

I do these sessions so that you can take back something as a piece,

As a learning from what we are doing here since the last one and a half years.

In every session we try a new door,

A new way to enter the state of meditation.

It has,

As we all know,

Immense implications on the way we live our life.

So please I invite you to take this opportunity and make the best use of it.

Still any more questions?

Anyone?

If not,

Then I would like to thank all of you to give it a try to be here with me in silence,

In meditation,

With all your heart,

Mind,

Patience and everything that you have brought into the session.

Namaste.