The Pilgrim came across a beautiful talk, a conversation between Sw. Nisargadatta & one of his disciples. This was later published in his set of teachings called the Nirupanas. It goes like this:
When I realize that I am Nothing, I become Knowledge. When I realize I am Everything, I become Love! Knowledge is Love & Love is Knowledge.
The Nirupana – Nisargadatta Maharaj.
A very popular saying among the many teachers is “Realization (or God) is like a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere.” Philosophers from Hermes Trismegistus in the Kybalion & Lao Tze in The Tao Te Ching from the ancient times to Jorge Borges in his 1951 essay “Pascal’s sphere”.
Plotinus explained this more objectively thus: “The soul is not a circle in the sense of the geometric figure but in that it at once contains the Primal Nature as center and is contained by it as circumference. We hold through our own center to the center of all the centers, just as the centers of the great circles of a sphere coincide with that of the sphere to which all belong. Thus we are secure.
Jorge Borges attempted to bridge the gap that exists between Mathematics & Philosophy by writing “sphere with center everywhere and circumference nowhere” alluding to the mathematical concept of inversion. Although inversion equations are limited in scope in a space-time dimension, this is one of the best examples of attempting to explain something so subjective as Realization with objective logic.
This example has been quoted & supported by numerous non-dual philosophers across the globe. For the Pilgrim this is a critical understanding. He has interpreted this in numerous ways, the two most prominent being that of Love & Knowledge.
In the path of Love defined as Bhakti Marga in the Hindu spiritual practices, you become all-inclusive, rising beyond the shape-form complex of the gross manifestations. One merges with the blissful and ever compassionate spirit that pervades everything by following the practice of iti-iti (this-this).
In the path of Knowledge defined by Gyana Marga in the Hindu spiritual practices, you transcend the boundaries of the subjective Ego into the universe of oneness. One becomes the universal observer who sees things being done without being affected by either the action or the fruits of the actions by following the practice of neti-neti (not this – not this).
Compared to Pascal’s sphere & in Nisargadatta Maharaj’s teaching, the Pilgrim can picture this as Knowledge being the center of the sphere, while Love is the circumference. When one reaches either, both Knowledge & Love merges into the infinite. Realization is the state with no qualities and unbound by space-time. Neither Knowledge nor Love can exist separately in this state. They both must be become one & the same.