Deepa Majumdar
The great Indian mathematician, Ramanujan, once said, “An equation for me has no meaning, unless it represents a thought of God.” One could distill this statement further to state that numbers themselves are thoughts of God. Indeed, numbers feel like concentrated-consecrated thoughts – each a cogent nugget of intelligence. Every number is entirely what it is – self-sufficient, with no accretions. No number is flaccid. No number brooks flatulence. Numbers do not leak into each other. Numbers are austere. Yet, numbers can be strung into sentences and paragraphs – for when put together, they form the great succinct language of mathematics.
What we do with numbers depends on our inner maturity or lack thereof. To the traditional materialistic mind, which, as a result, becomes irrational and superstitious – numbers are “lucky” or “unlucky.” Modernity brings in its trail a new kind of materialistic mind – a mind too saturated in science to be literally superstitious. But this modern-materialistic mind also desecrates the power of numbers. Science dilutes this power by applying numbers literally and crassly. The field of mathematics becomes skeletal in its reasoning about numbers – its grammar minimized to match the austere succinctness of numbers. Modernity, one might say, prostitutes the innate power of numbers. All over the western world, especially America, one sees applications of the power of numbers – from zip codes to street numbers – to the labelling of highways.
Plotinus, said to be the father of western mysticism and Plato reborn, distinguishes between essential and quantitative numbers. So far, modernity has shown us the power of quantitative numbers which stand as mere shadows of essential numbers. Mathematics, one might say, is restricted to only quantitative numbers, which is why its power is limited. But the power of essential numbers is unlimited.
Wisdom teaches us that numbers are not only thoughts of God, but can also be holy. Indeed, some numbers stand out as especially holy. Thus “One” is understood universally to represent the Divine – not literally as the number “one,” but as the ever unfractured prior of the number series altogether – a fountainhead of everything, including all numbers – even zero and infinity. For the divine One is the maker of numbers. “Three” is another holy number, relevant not only to the all-holy Christian Trinity, but also to Hinduism and Neo-platonism. And the number “twelve” is holy – not only because Christ had twelve disciples – but also because the time-span of twelve years is uniquely meaningful.
The number three is of particular significance in religious thinking … Thus Plotinus, the father of Neo-platonism, has a vertical Trinity – the One that is God, then Intellect, which is lower, and then a universal soul which is still lower. Hinduism applies the Trinity not only in its cosmology, to Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva, but in recent times also to the Holy Trio – Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother, and Swami Vivekananda. Unlike Plotinus’ vertical Trinity, both Trios in Hinduism are horizontal, without descending to polytheism. For, as in Christianity, which, according to St. Augustine, treats Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the constituents of the Holy Trinity – as supremely, equally, unchangeably good – so that they become three equal expressions of the one Divinity – so also is the case with the Holy Trio in Hinduism. What Max Mueller described as “henotheism” – or the notion that God is one, but expressed in manifold ways – may be understood in this context as the one Light passing through a prism and breaking itself into multiple Rays. In the case of the Trinity, the One breaks itself into only three expressions – no more.
Although all three constituents of the holy Trinity in Christianity are equal – separated only to suit our limited human understanding -Christ stands out more than Father or the Holy Spirit. For until our eyes shed the scales of sin to become suffused with mysticism – they remain mortal. Capable of seeing only through sense-perception, they see only that which appears through human history. Scholars may quibble all they want about whether the historical Jesus was reality or myth, but the human soul needs to see in concrete flesh and blood, That which is innately invisible and hence more real – namely, the Divine. If there is a litmus test for the veracity and power of Christ, this proof lies not in the hands of Biblical scholars, nor in those of the Bible-thumpers of this world, but in the experiences of Christian saints – especially those who were once fallen. For, notwithstanding Its Omnipresence, the greatest proof of divine Presence and Mercy lies in the experience of conversion from the sinful state to that of the saint. No therapy can achieve this conversion – nor can any chemical substance, whether pills or drugs.
The power of Christ is most manifest in those who take His Name with the thirst of the fallen soul, and thereupon, begin to experience the magical thrust of true salvation. While Father and Son are identical, as is the Holy Spirit – it is the Son who comes to us most vividly – in the form of the Savior, born in a humble stable – a force of redemptive power far greater than the might of the worst despots and dictators of this world. Indeed, it is the gentle Nazarene who stands out as the meekest and hence greatest of all revolutionaries.
Modernity dilutes all religions, reducing them to commercial ideologies. The history of western Christianity is filled with bigotry and blood-letting – quite the reverse of the exemplary meekness of Christ. But the same western Christianity has also produced awe-inspiring saints – like St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Therese of Lisieux. It is my fervent hope that this Christmas will be what it was meant to be – an all-holy reminder of divine love so great that God Himself was born in a human form for the salvation of humankind. I hope it will be a time when we feel the presence of Christ through contemplation and meditation – such that we overcome the commercialization of Christmas. I hope it will be a time when this divine Presence will quell all the forces of evil in the world, reviving nature and refreshing our starving souls.