Sarvam Shunyam Shunyam

A boy came rushing to his mother and shouted, Mom, maths exam results are out.   The teacher said, my score has set a new benchmark in the school. It will be used to grade the relative performance of other students.
Mom said, Wow! How much have you scored? The boy answered… It’s Zero, Mom!

It’s a matter of highest honor that Zero was invented in India in the 5th Century by a Great Mathematician
Aryabhatta. It was a revolution that lead to faster algebraic calculations, algorithms, and computation.

Zero has found a special and unique place in mathematics, religion, philosophy, and science. The concept of zero is so significant that it won’t be an exaggeration to say that we are surrounded by zeroness. The recent scientific experiments and data prove that the Net total energy of the universe is zero. This happens due to expanding repulsive force counterbalanced by attracting gravitational force. 

The total electric charge in the universe is again zero as total positive charges exactly counterbalance the negative charges.  What about visible matter? Well, the scientific community is in search of anti-matter which is exactly opposite to visible matter. Let’s hope to see this stunning scientific revelation in our own time. 

The concept of Zero philosophically originates from the verse of Lord Buddha  “Sarvam Shunyam Shunyam” 2500 years before.

The Buddhist philosophy clearly sets the notion and points to emptiness, nothingness, or zeroness of life. The concept of nothingness from Buddha’s standpoint has profound implications on every aspect of life including routine work or a lifelong mission.  Analytically, it means that everything in the material world sums to zero over space and time. Everything has positive and negative, balancing and counterbalancing, pros and cons, benefits and costs.

Here is another short story to drive the point

A sports participant went to his coach with a gloomy face
He said, Sir, I miserable failed in this round.  I am now more worried about how everyone will think about it. Coach gave him a plain paper folded in two sections and said. I want you to write names of people who love and care about you in the first section. Now list others who don’t care about you in the second section. The sportsman finished the exercise in the next 2 min. Coach looked at the paper and said. See, the people in the first section care about you, so they will understand your conditions and support you happily. So it doesn’t matter to you really. Now the people in the other section, anyway don’t care and worry about you, so it shouldn’t matter either!

Look at life and its aspects closely.  You’ll find everything as a package miraculously balanced and centered at zero.

The famous dialogue in the Spiderman movie ” Great power comes with Great Responsibility” provides a sound basis.

The real problem is when we choose to look at things only from one side.  This incompleteness often leads to pain, breakdowns, losses, and restlessness.

When we are too comfortable in a situation or job we are most likely losing the opportunities passing by. When we acquire a unique, precious thing or even a relation, the next moment we develop anxiety for losing it. When we are rewarded for our out-of-the-way contributions, it may come at the cost of physical health, personal time, or mental burnout in the hindsight.

In many situations,  to our own dismay, we choose to look at only the negative side of the situation.

A black horse was chatting with a white horse in a stable just outside the royal palace. You know, the king’s men are feeding you and other horses twice a day. They feed me only once. I am insignificant, not loved, and not at all lucky like you guys are. The white horse jumped on his front foot and said, My friend, You are the luckiest one.  Trust me. They are not planning to take you to the war!

When we see ourselves as small, insignificant people, we by default get higher freedom in life to do a variety of things like a small child has.  When we are struggling with rough patches of life,  it is going to make us stronger forever. It’s quite evident when we look at the life and stories of great personalities across the world.

An iconic Indian Cinema Actor Abhitabh Bacchan had a lot of struggles in his early career. His 17 movies were a flop consecutively in order. What more? He was also rejected by All India Radio for his deeper voice. In one of his interviews, he quoted the following lines “Bad times either destroy you or make you stronger enough to be who you actually are”.  There are many examples in all the fields including Narayan Murthy, Ratan Tata, Walt Disney, Jim Carry, Steven Spielberg, Steve Jobs, Michael Jordon, and the list continues. Their stories vividly tell us that their own very struggles made them wiser, stronger, and invincible.

Knowing things from all angles and corners makes us complete with any given situation. It sets us free to choose and take powerful unbiased actions. There is completeness associated with nothingness. Imagine, We are just moving from one port of completeness to other in the ocean of nothingness. We must deliberately discover this zeroness and hence the completeness of every aspect as its innate nature.  When Bhagavan Buddha said “Sarvam Shunyam Shunyam”, it was not for sparking intellectual arguments but showing the reality as it is to the seekers.  The Buddhist path around the concept of emptiness have a promise for a high quality of contentment, peace, and freedom in all aspects of life.  Let’s learn to acknowledge and practice nothingness(Read more about the meaning of Om Mani Padme Hum). We must also thank and express our humble gratitude to Lord Buddha for Nothing!