Forty rules of love

“Listen to the reed, how it sings of separation”
I am reading “The forty rules of love” by Elif Shafak . For those unfamiliar with Elif’s work,
this should serve as a good introduction.
The book runs into two parallel narratives, one is the story of the budding friendship (romance?), between Ella, a 40 something housewife living her mundane straitjacketed existence and Aziz, a world wandering photographer.
The other, more interesting narrative, tells the story of the mystic Rumi and his spiritual soulmate, Shams of Tabriz. And this Shams is the wandering dervish who is perhaps the most interesting character in the story.
And the one who has set me thinking the most... About meaning, about purpose.
Every entity in the universe, makes itself manifest through its opposite. The yin has the yang, the bad has the good, the hot has the cold, angels have their demons...and so on and so forth.
God, you see, has no opposite. And that is why she does not manifest herself to us. There is one other concept which follows a similar part, a similar routine. “Sifr” or Zero. Zero has no opposite, no great cancelling factor – It itself cancels and is cancelled by everything. Anything divided by zero becomes undefined, loses its existence. And so does anything divided by god. God defines and is defined by our existence.
Zero, the way we represent it, is a circle. And circles, the author says in her talk above, are powerful and dangerous. Beware the circle, she says.
If you want to see anything wither away, if you want to see anything die of starvation – A thought, a word, a plant, a soul – Put it in a circle and watch it wither away. We surround ourselves with such circles. Circles of friends, family – Those that seek to protect us from our own baser natures.
On meaning, on purpose- These are questions I often wonder to myself. Why am I here? Why has god given me this life, this education, a chance to understand the world the way I do.
Maybe the answers lie within, maybe without – And maybe the journey to find the answers is the answer in itself.
What do you think?