Episode Transcript
How many of you out there are scientifically oriented? Are you interested in some of the science of spirituality? Today we're gonna be talking about one aspect, zero consciousness today on the Spiritual American. We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Welcome back everyone. Today I am gonna go a little out there. There is a principle that I like to use in my own understanding of things because I'm more of a scientific kind of thinker. I would rather say, you know, I have some. Say in what happens, or I would rather understand something than just say, oh, well, God took care of it, or, I'm gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. And there's a time for that. Believe me, I have to, I have to learn how to do that more actually, because there's still some anxiety and stuff like that about what happens. Maybe there's a little bit of reaction to things that happen in the world still inside of me, and to be able to say, yes, it will be okay, and I'm protected, and things like that is helpful. But in terms of understanding how consciousness works, I would like to. Introduce this idea of zero consciousness. This is something that I've been working with and I have been working with this with some of the students that have come and they do intuitively understand it. So I'm gonna try to give a little mathematical background and then talk about how to use this idea in spirituality. So, zero. What is zero? Is zero a number? It's part of mathematics, right? If you look at the timeline, timeline, excuse me, the nu the line of numbers, right? The integers. You have zeros in the middle, and then you have positive integers and negative integers. So all these value-based symbols that we use in mathematics. And zero is in between the positive and the negative. You could say that zero is neutral. Zero also has some interesting properties and interesting ways of being used. So for instance, if you have a one and you add a zero after the one, all of a sudden the one becomes 10. Even though zero is still zero. So how does one become 10? Interesting. Add another zero, it becomes a hundred. So there's this sense of when you add zero, you're adding value. That's one idea. Another way of using zero is if you actually add zero to anything. So I said add it, like if you have a one and then you put a zero. If you put a zero after a one, it becomes 10. But if you add zero to one, so if I say one plus zero is what? One. So if you add zero to anything like addition. It maintains its property. So if I say 625 plus zero is 625. So zero doesn't really interfere. If you add zero in, it doesn't take away from what's already there. Interesting point, right? What's another aspect of zero if you multiply by zero? So if we add, so first of all, let's say this, what's more powerful? Adding or multiplying? What's a more intense action? I would say multiplication is probably more powerful than adding, right? Even if you say five plus six is 11, but if you say five times six, then you have 30. So if you multiply, you actually get more. So what happens when you multiply anything by zero? Very interesting. You get zero. I'm gonna make this make sense in a minute. So for those of you who are listening to this who aren't that scientific, you're probably like, what is she talking about? But I'm going to relate this to how spiritual effort works. Okay. So what have we, what have we said so far? So zero is in between positive and negative. If you put it after something, it makes it, we say 10, like 10 times more, right? And then if you add it to anything, it, the thing maintains its value. And if you multiply anything by zero, you get zero. So let's see how this works with spirituality. So let's say that when I meditate, when I say that I am a soul and my nature is peace, and I identify myself as a being that has nothing to do with the world, thoughts, feelings, nothing, the mind. I'm completely distinct from that. You could also say that I the soul am neither positive or negative or maybe just a, the fragrance of positivity. Peace has a fragrance of positivity, let's say. But you wouldn't say that a soul is good and another soul is bad. There's a sense of neutrality. There's a sense of equanimity in the soul, in thinking of myself as a soul. So you could, in this exploration, say that I'm zero, that the zero consciousness is me in relation to whatever I am perceiving. So another way of looking at this is sometimes people say, you know, I am the sky and the clouds. I'm watching the clouds. Like the thoughts and the feelings or the clouds going by. That's a metaphor, right? So another way of thinking about it scientifically is that I am zero. I am just pure consciousness, and I am, I'm aware of the other things, like zero is there and aware of the numbers, let's say, but it's not the numbers. So there's a neutrality there. I can be neutral. I'm distinct. Zero is distinct from everything else. There's no other number, like zero. So let's say I'm saying that I'm the soul, I am the living consciousness, and I am thinking something. So if I remember zero at that moment, and I can say, okay, I'm zero. And that thought is something, but I'm not it. I'm watching it. I'm zero. I'm neutral. And I can also take on the property of non interference, like, okay. If I look at it, it doesn't mean I have to interact with it. I don't have to interact with the thoughts or the feelings or whatever else is going on in my mind. I can actually remain zero. This is very helpful because this is the first part of spiritual effort, which is observation. I say sometimes merciful self-observation. Where we are learning how to be zero in relation to the mind and what's going on in the mind. And I'm observing. And in this case you bring, it's not totally neutral 'cause you have a positive feeling about yourself. You wanna feel good, you wanna feel happy with yourself and so forth. So there is a sense of, wellbeing in there. It's not like a totally dead zero feeling, but I have merciful self-observation. I'm zero in the sense that I'm separate. I'm distinct, but I have a good feeling. I'm watching with mercy. Now, what about the multiplication of zero? So I'm gonna relate that to the actual spiritual effort of moving away from or merging the, the personality traits, the thoughts, the emotions and things that we're looking to overcome. So most of us come into a spiritual practice because we are hurting on some level. There's some part of us that we're not happy with, or we're trying to resolve issues in our life or so forth, and we're looking to meditation to maybe help me calm down, maybe help me relax, maybe some stress management. But meditation can also be used to strengthen your powers of discernment, strengthen your power of being able to decide or change something or see something properly or accurately. Meditation can also be used for that. So when I'm in meditation, the purpose is to gain some of that power, some of that power to discern some of that power to decide power to face all the powers that we talk about in the foundation course. If you look at the Raja Yoga Foundation course in the playlist here, all the lessons are there, and the fifth lesson, or the fourth lesson, excuse me, is for. The powers of the soul. So part of the reason to meditate is to gain those powers. So what is the aim of this? Why do we want to gain these powers? Because we want to be able to merge or finish or live a life not being influenced by those negative experiences. So how does this relate to zero? I would say this process of meditation, gaining the powers, learning spiritual knowledge, understanding karma, understanding all that is the equivalent of multiplying by zero. If we take in this knowledge and practice it. We're not just zero to one or zero to, we're not just interacting neutrally anymore. We're actually bringing in powers that can neutralize the other stuff. I'll give an example. So I've been meditating for 15 years, and not only meditating, but studying. So this is the multiplication piece. Okay. I'm not just watching my thoughts anymore, I'm actively trying to diminish some of the persistent negative thinking or not only negative, but uh, overly emotional or reactive parts of my internal world. So, for instance, the other day something happened and I spent 20 minutes reacting to the thing. Not reacting, like yelling at anybody, but reacting. Like I was feeling confused. I was feel, what am I gonna do? Maybe? And then of course, all the, the spiritual knowledge was coming in. Oh, maybe this is my karma. Maybe this is that. But the thing is that I was very emotional. I did not feel stable. I did not feel powerful. So what happened was, even though I had that 20 minutes or so where I was reacting and confused and trying not to talk because something new, I didn't wanna talk like I was trying to use, trying to multiply by zero and trying to make it disappear, but it didn't disappear. So I ended up talking about it, and then after that everything worked out like exactly the way I wanted it to. So then I look back and I say, did I really need to? React for 20 minutes. 'cause everything did work out. So for those of you out there listening to this, how many of you have had the experience where you react to something, you get upset about something, and then it works out 10 minutes later, or it works out 30 minutes later? Do you ever look back and say, why did I get so upset? But you can't seem to dissolve that habit of reacting. Even if we're aware of it, sometimes we're not able to dissolve it. So I am offering this idea here of multiplying by zero means that I'm actually now in meditation, going to take a look at that thing, take a look at that reaction, figure out where it's coming from. I already started to think where did I, you know, reminds me of this person in my past, reminds me of this situation or whatever, trying to get a handle on it, trying to see more of it, which would be multiplying. I'm bringing my zero, meaning my awareness. More into that thing multiplying. It's easy to say, oh, I'm never gonna do it again. But don't we say that and then it happens again. So this zero consciousness can be used as an addition. Like I can think about it all day long. I can observe my mind all day long. That would be like adding zero. The thing is there and I'm zero. I'm okay. I'm distinct. I'm not interfering with it, but I'm not reacting to it. That would be adding zero. But if I multiply by zero, now I'm using the zero and I'm looking at it and I'm saying, okay, I really wanna get a handle on this thing. Figure out what this thing is so it no longer manifests. And I'm gonna say that this actually works. Last point about this. Another way of saying what I'm saying is remember God, that God is zero. And then if I remember God, and I remember God while I am, you know, washing dishes while I am living my life, each situation that I'm actually bringing zero into my awareness. Now this works if I already think of myself as a soul, and then I understand that God is the Supreme Soul. So it's like zero and zero. It's like exponential multiplication of zero then. So it's like I'm zero. This thing that I see and everything that's going on is the, is the numbers, you know, the things. I'm zero. God is also zero, and I'm remembering God, so I'm like reinforcing my power. This is Raja Yoga, by the way. Considering yourself to be a soul and remembering God or remembering the Supreme Soul. Remembering the unlimited zero, let's say. And what is the ultimate benefit of this? Zero consciousness, I'm gonna say now. The, the unlimited benefit of this is that if you keep practicing this, if you are zero, nothing can ever change you. Like you literally can be stable. Nothing can ever beat you if you remain zero. There's so many gurus out there talking about this in different ways. In terms of watching the mind, in terms of reeling, realizing that maybe you are nothing, you're not, I mean, I don't like to say I'm nothing, but I know what they mean. I prefer to say zero consciousness, meaning that I, I exist, but I'm choosing to stay in this distinct, neutral, and powerful consciousness in relation to everything else. So I am gonna leave it there. For those of you who are scientific and less, let's say devotional or less religious. Hopefully this will give you something to think about in terms of how spiritual effort can actually work. Where it doesn't mean that you're dependent on anything. It's not a matter of dependency, it's a matter of understanding. It's a matter of determination. It's a matter of wanting it to wanna be free, to wanna be powerful, to want to be able to discover the deeper nature of myself. And I will say that as these things begin to merge and these things as I'm multiplying by zero and these things begin to go away, I begin to discover how beautiful and sweet and benevolent I actually am. We all are. This is our spiritual inheritance as human beings, so I will leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care. I.
