I saw this on a building this morning… and I remembered.

I like to remember what I have been taught… 

Why 108?

That it’s more than “just cuz’” — that it has deep and lasting significance, purpose, history, eminence and impact.

HERE is the significance of 108:

We often see it in the number of beads on a mala — it is associated with the yogic tradition and many other spiritual paths… 

108 is the number that the Vedic (yogic wisdom) mathematicians most commonly associated with and experienced as fullness, purnam….silence, space, the ethers, the empty fullness from which all things come, in which all things exist, and to which all things return.

ONE:  1 as the THE One… the Unity… the most HIGH… THE One.

ZERO:  0 as the the circle :: the endless connection, and the hole through which divine breath flows

EIGHT:  8 the infinite the alpha, the omega, the beginning the middle the end, the continuity of all of life, of all existence… before  we came, while we are here, and after we return to the dust from which we arose… 

108 Upanishads (the sacred yogic treatises)

108 points on the Sri Yantra (yogic symbol representing the cosmos AND the human body)

108 Pitthis (sacred sites in India)

108 is symbolic of Allah in Islam

108 beads on the Turkish prayer circle

108 beads on my Catholic Rosary

108 Gods and demons :: 54 of each in Vedic (yogic) lore

108 names for each of the Gods 

Chinese Astrology is based upon 108 stars

In the domain of the cosmos, there are very few things that are absolute.  

Numbers are absolute….. and their relationship to each other is absolute. 

Because of this Numbers have mystical, undeniable, measurable powers :: 

In a universe that is filled with the unknown… 

In the magic square — used also in Vastu (yogic feng shui) — the  numbers have special character and represent aspects of the cosmos.

And if that wasn’t enough:

The distance from earth to sun divided by the diameter of the moon = 108

The distance from earth to moon: that distance, divided by the diameter of the sun = 108

Perhaps its time to pick that mala up (or get yourself one) and use it for what it was intended…