It is not one hundred and eight, it is one, nought, eight or one, zero, eight. It is not one hundred and eight, but since it is written like that, we make it one hundred and eight.
One represents the ultimate, the one infinite reality, Brahman, the supreme spirit, atman. Eight represents the empirical nature, prakriti, the effect of which is creation, birth and death, all these beautiful things you see around you, the sun, the moon and the stars. The life coming up, springing up, the children being born, the animals, the birds, the flowers, seen or unseen, within and without, that is called prakriti. The earth element, the water element, the fire element, the air element, the ether element, the mind, the intellect and the ego are the eight items constituting the empirical body of nature. The bhumi, earth; apah, water; analah, fire; vayu, air; kham, akasha, space; manah, mind; buddhi, intellect; ahamkara, ego. These eight constitute the body of prakriti. Eight represents the lower prakriti which is responsible for creation, preservation and destruction, or integration, sustenance, and disintegration.
This eight represents prakriti. Prakriti in herself is incapable. Prakriti has all the possibilities of creation, but does not have the consciousness for creation. When prakriti coincides with or interacts with the one supreme spirit, that is called union between one and eight, and then you can see this great maya. Maya is appearance. The union, the coming together of prakriti and purusha, nature and consciousness, is responsible for appearance.
The combination of one and eight is nine. Multiply nine by one and two and three and four and five and six. The total will only be nine; it cannot change. Nine into one, nine into two is 18, nine into three is 27, nine into 4 is 36, join them, add the digits, nine. Nine is the number which represents the total creation, which will always remain the same. It will never be destroyed or disintegrate. One planet will die, another planet will come. One being will die, another being will come. One thousand suns will disintegrate; one thousand suns will be born. Nine will remain, no matter how long and how far it is multiplied.
There is the possibility of individual disintegration, and in order to prevent that, you must put a zero between one and eight, so they do not interact with each other. The prakriti and purusha combination must be avoided. That is what you are doing in yoga. How can you avoid the prakriti and purusha combination? Put a zero in between. What is that zero? That zero indicates, symbolizes, or stands for mindless- ness. Buddha used to speak of nothingness, shoonya, moksha, nirvana, samadhi, this particular state when the mind is no more. Time, space and objects do not exist, neither duality, nor non-duality, neither one nor many, neither experience, nor experiencer.
Nothing, or no thing, that is symbolized by shoonya. Interaction between purusha and prakriti must be obstructed by the development of a state of mind or spirit called shoonya. This is the meaning of one, nought, eight. Over the course of time, one nought eight became one hundred and eight and we started putting 108 beads in a mala. It does not matter, it is also nice, but we must understand one zero eight is the equation for tantric processes.
In physics they also do something like this when they separate two elements from matter in order to liberate energy. As it happens in the realm of matter, but at another level, the mind also has to be split; the mind is also matter. The mind is not ultimate, the mind is not purusha, it is not the ultimate truth. The ultimate truth may be enshrined or hidden within the mind, and that mind has to be split, just as you split matter.
The combination between purusha and prakriti is called creation or empirical experience. De-linking them from each other by the development of samadhi or nirvana is called spiritual or higher or yogic experience.
5 April 1982, London, UK