#35 Empty World Meditation

0 Great Goddess, one should consider this entire universe to be a void. Then the mind will dissolve and one will be absorbed into the Void.

Verse 58

How to do this technique

• This is the first technique regarding void or emptiness. There are a few others, later in the text. It is unusual to have so many references to emptiness, in a Hindu text. This is a concept found more frequently in Buddhism.
• What does shunya, emptiness or void really mean? When the verse says one should consider the universe to be empty; empty of what, one could ask. Empty of a separate self, empty of a separate existence, that is what emptiness or void means.
• Emptiness is also applied to human beings and to all objects found in the universe. Everything is empty of a separate self, but full of God. That is the meaning of emptiness in this tradition. Because nothing has a separate existence, but is only full of God, everything is interconnected. Everything is One, everything is God. This is one of the foundations of the non-dualistic tradition of yoga and tantra. The universe and everything in it does not exist as separate entities. They exist only as a form of God. This particular verse can be practiced as a sitting meditation, or as a thought or belief one holds throughout the day. The meditation given in this verse, is a variation of the previous one.
• In the previous verse, one had to meditate that the universe was empty of a separate existence, and part of God. In this verse, one has to meditate that the universe is just empty. It does not exist as an entity. It is nothing. When this meditation is practiced as a belief, something one genuinely starts believing in, then it can be very powerful. This verse is stating a truth about the universe. It is not real, it is an illusion. It has no separate existence. When you start believing this, you change dramatically. When you know that what you are seeing is nothing, how can you prefer one thing to another? Nothing matters. You stop worrying about problems.
• You are no longer attached to results. Your desires are no longer addictive – that you must have something, or you must achieve something. You may still have goals and try and reach them, but you no longer mind if you don’t achieve them. If you don’t have money, it does not matter. If you have money, that does not matter, either. The stress and tension in life disappears. Verse 58 is not just changing our belief about the world, it is changing our perception of the world. It is changing the way we perceive or look at the world. There are other meditations in the text that also change our perception. Sometimes when you change your perception or the way you look at something, your understanding grows. For example, if you perceive the world by standing in it, you will think the world is flat. Now if you were able to go into outer space and look at the world from there, you will realize the world is round.
• By changing the angle or the way we look at something, we are able to understand more. Changing our perception is a very powerful way of stilling the mind. If it works for you, it can produce results very quickly. Sometimes, within a few minutes, the mind is stilled. When you perceive or know the world is nothing, then what is there to think about? It is all nothing. All our thoughts are about this world, or the events taking place in it, particularly in our lives.
• When you know that the entire world and everything happening in it is nothing, that none of it matters, then why would you think? You would not. Then your mind dissolves and you start living in the present. one will be absorbed into the Void. Void here means God. One will be absorbed into God.