The Dot
The dot is known as the Bindu and to the accomplished ones as the Mahabindu. This dot is the same, the central dot of the Sri Yantra and all the other Yantras and the dot of Samadhi. And in no smaller measure the dot of enlightenment and liberation.
The Bindu or the dot is the beginning of the great goddess Kundalini and the Mahabindu or the great dot, the marriage of the goddess with her mate Shiv or supreme consciousness. It is the stage that leads us to enlightenment.
The Gautam Buddha for many years wandered through forests along difficult paths. His body became frail and he lost his health. Finally he reached a point where he started eating properly and slowly regained his lost strength. As he started meditating his practices became stronger till he reached the stage where he sat under a Bodhi or a Peepal tree and achieved enlightenment. After all without reasonable body strength one cannot really meditate. The body and mind are both our tools and we its master. The body is the temple of the soul or the atman.
Later the Gautam Buddha always advocated the madhayam or the middle path meaning on one hand not to lead a royal life and on the other not to live a life like a beggar even without the basic necessities. Essentially the life he spoke of was the life of a monk -- frugal but not in total poverty to the point of hunger. He advocated looking after the body, to maintain this tool for our use but not to pamper it to the level of sensuality.
In one sense we could term the middle as the centre. The Buddhist concept of enlightenment is called achieving Shunyata or zeroness or in mathematical language we could say tending to zero. The theory of Shunyata is reportedly propounded much later by Nagarjun. In his madyamika karika Nagarjun describes zero as the form of Shiv. The same theory of shunyata has been separately propounded in the Vigyanbhairav of the Shaiv school.
This shunyata is not an empty void. Instead it is the subtlest state of existence which is all pervading, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, complete, effulgent, eternal, unlimited, perfect and dynamic. It is not a dead zero but an explosive zero that explodes into the unlimited sounds, shapes and forms of creation. In that sense this middle or this centre is Samadhi. Sam meaning equal and Adhi or adhin meaning based on hence the word Samadhi meaning to be established in our base nature in complete balance. From the perspective of Sankhya we could term the centre as the perfect balance of the three Gunas – Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, as the stage before the expression of the Gunas. Hence Samadhi is a mind completely balanced, in the middle, in the centre. Mathematically speaking, a line is an extension of dots. There are two opposites from the centre with each line forming a continuum. For example sadness and happiness are both two ends of the same spectrum. In the centre of both is calm, the perfect balance. Exactly in the same way between the two extremes of love and hate is the point of balance, the calm.
When we sit to meditate and as we observe our breath, the breathing becomes subtler and subtler to the point where it automatically stops for a short while. This natural silence, this void, this subtleness of the mind to the point of zero is again the dot, the bindu, the calm. And eventually it takes us to the Mahabindu or great dot of Samadhi- ‘The perfect calm’.
Just as a void or a vacuum always seeks to fill itself so too happens in our minds, for Shiv and Shakti are inseparable. As soon as the mind becomes empty it becomes filled with energy. The Power holder and the Power are one. If in nature there exists a vacuum or a lower pressure area it automatically attracts the higher pressure thereby causing a storm, so too in the mind. Once we empty the mind it becomes full of energy. With a strong power in the mind, a strong Iccha Shakti, we have a mind that can achieve anything.
The Vigyan Bhairav says
Vishvam etan mahadevi shunyabhutam vichintayet/
Tattraiv cha mano linam tatstallayabhajanam /58//
O divine mother, the yogi should concentrate on the universe as the void (zero), then the mind will dissolve in this void(zero) (that is in Shiv).
Yogah is finding that dot—The great void, the zero, the point of all creation and the point of dissolution.