The Nature of Circle

In the Circle, all of the gifts of human being are yours. --Laura Day, The Circle

Our eyes bear the most sacred shape in nature: the Circle. It is not a polygon, unlike any other shapes, which have a number of corners. The Circle appears so organic and flowing, a perfect meeting of curved lines, closing at the same point of its origin. It is a metaphor of infinite space, where it embraces everything in its radius, and can expand into limitless boundaries. It is the most ubiquitous shape, possessed and manifested by many creatures and natural structures. The Circle is found from a tiniest disk of single cell to the gigantic celestial spheres in the universe. And whatever begins and ends at same point is a process of the Circle, where all evolve in the rhythmical cycle of Life. As the saying goes, "Life comes full circle."

If God has a shape, then it is Circle, since God is the alpha and omega, the every beginning and end of existence. In its tangent, all points of time are never-ending, and its fringes encompasses the past, present and future, all fused in timelessness. While within the radius of a Circle is the Oneness of all, wherein nothing is separated. Every being, creature, event and things is within the Circle's inclusive field. They are all within its grand universe, and nothing is unimportant or even deserted. And, in the center of the Circle, is the source of being, from where all possibility radiates and expands and flows into all levels of reality.

Circle is known in many forms, often consecrated as a symbol of the soul. Zen monks call it the Enso, and in their meditative brushstroke they conscientiously paint this Circle of enlightenment. Enso reminds them to see that the essence of Zen is within this shape of essence. While Tibetan monks painstakingly create a detailed sacred sand artwork known as the Mandala. This word literally bears the meaning of circle, and that of essence and completion. Carl Jung once called it the representation of the unconscious. The Labyrinth, on the other hand, is a symbolic circular design seen in medieval times as the path to God. Walking in the labyrinth is like a journey towards the center of the Self, a destination that is actually endless. In China, the moon gate is a common architectural element. It has rich spiritual meanings, yet depicts a symbol of passage. In ancient India, a Chakra (Sanskrit: wheel) is an ethereal passage into the Soul, or the turning wheel that carries our Soul in union with God. And, however mundane the wheels and gears are, they are the great Circles that propelled not just our entire material civilization, but our inner evolution.

Circle is the shape of the never-ending movement and possibility. It is an orbit of time and a cycle of existence. In Sanskrit, this is Samsara, the continuation of birth and death, where every life renews itself. Samsara is the Circle of suffering - and the understanding of suffering, when we realize that we have all enough of our repetitive cycles of our faults and blunders, where at a single point of awareness we stop, and transcend this rotation. When we do, we can see again our cycle in a different light, as Circle moves in the flow of time, where Life constantly creates and perishes, as we arrive in the conscious realization that nothing can escape change, the very nature of our existence.

In the bosoms of heaven we see Circle through the spheres of sun and moon and planets, all in harmony with each other, playing the Divine rhythm. The Light-bearers, sun and moon, shine like flat disks in the face of the sky. They ultimately display the interplay of opposites, the celestial Yin and Yang. They are Circles in the midst of our universe, and they bring the Light of Life in our realm.

This Hindu-Arabic numeral called zero, which literally means empty, carries the depth of emptiness. Within this kind of Circle is the Truth that everything is empty. Empty, not of essence, but of all definitions that constrains us to see Truth as it is. As you add those seemingly empty zeros after another number, that number increases manyfold. In the space of this Circle, we can see that zero is not a number of nothingness, but of infinity.

There, in the eye of the storm, lies the Circle of peace and calmness. Inside its trunk, a tree counts the Circle of ages. Each raindrop on the face of a calm water, Circles of ripples wave instantly, their movement reverberates across every other ripple. Wherever we look at, Circle draws our attention. We are reminded that each of us is a Circle that continues to bear the cycle of Life, the perfection of Oneness, the fullness of our Soul. Circle is the shape of our beings that shapes the consciousness of our collective inner peace, of our all-embracing wholeness, of our ancient yearning for Love.