Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Center

Voltaire said, "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere."

What does that mean to you (if anything)?

10 comments:

isaiah said...

Trev,

It means to me that I am the center of God...and not only that, so are you, and so is Amy, and Cathy, Kalli & Tommy.

Each of us is the center of God, everything, everywhere...our center of being.

anonymous julie said...

Reminds me of a verse from a song from church growing up:

Where can I run from Your love? / If I climb to the heavens You are there / If I fly to the sunrise or sail beyond the sea / Still I'd find You there

Andrew said...

It means:

Good luck trying to fit God into a box.

jbmoore said...

It means Voltaire "knew" God. A great Zen koan.

Jon said...

I'm surprised that was Voltaire! I would've thought the Dalai Lama said that!

No circumference. Just center. Everywhere.

Frimmin'!

peacefield said...

two things:

1] voltaire was a pot-smoking mathematical genius.

2] this idea i told you a few weeks ago i was working on is somewhat along these lines....the basics - all things are not merely circular, but spherical. since all things are possible, then all things must go in all directions as well as come back to themselves; thus, the "all" is a solid sphere, filled to the brim with nothing and placed at the center of nothing, which then becomes everything, where the all that is within the all is comprised of infinite spheres brimming with nothingness as well. this continues to unending degrees in all directions, both to the smallest and largest extents; however, size truly is of no consequence to the all, but moreso to the all's creation. in order for creation to view itself, it must see, even if only partially, and by seeing will realize size, dimension, limits.

okay, this goes on, but the idea's there - the sphere. thing is, the all is not spherical, but unmeasurable, and this is only for the creation's mind to chew on.

so if we are to be like the all, then we must fill ourselves with emptiness [or empty ourselves of fullness], through which by doing so we find we are eternally filled, even if we call it emptiness, and thus we realize the infinite nature of the all and continue to another unchartable point on the sphere.

there is also something about waves in this, but it can stand alone and doesn't need to be here - the basic idea behind it being that the all moves in waves around all spheres, and even the earth is a sphere, moving within spheres in a wave path, and if one were to "unfold the earth", he/she would find a sphere turns into a wave. maybe i'll draw it out sometime to show you what i mean.

at any rate, hope i pieced it together enough to give you a good taste and not a headache.

Amy Harden said...

Hahahaha! I tagged you.

kisses.

anonymous julie said...

spheres and waves... the emptiness that is ever-flowing...

mysticism meets quantum physics? anyway, trev, i like it, and I've been awake for over twenty hours now, so it can't give me a headache... brain is refusing to process!

Trev Diesel said...

Julie - that was KEV that wrote that, -NOT- Trev. :)

But, Kev, I agree w/ Julie - sounds very cool. Would love to talk w/ you in person about it sometime.

Call me!

peacefield said...

found this yesterday while reading merton's "new seeds of contemplation" while on the toilet. how appropriate. at any rate, somewhere around page 81, merton wrote, "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere." maybe a little voltaire influence in merton?

by the way, i think the chapter with that quote is a pretty groovy (re-)read, trev. for some reason, you popped into my head when i read it.