The Symbolism Of The Circle

Everything we see and touch around us is made up of shapes, static like stones or buildings, or in motion, as is the case with people or animals.

This living geometry can be seen everywhere, in nature and in ourselves : straight lines and curves, polygons, spheres … Shapes and figures that are repeated at different sizes and at different levels.

But if we wanted to synthesize all that multiplicity in a primordial image that contained everything so to speak, we should stick with the circle, since it effectively sums up the dynamism of reality in its simplicity.

Let’s go back for a moment to our childhood, as we have all had the experience of throwing a stone into the still water of a pond. We were undoubtedly fascinated by the curious and inexplicable phenomenon of the concentric circles that formed the waves from the place where the stone produced the impact. Without knowing it, before our infantile eyes the mystery of creation was reproduced.

That is why simply contemplating the drawing of a circle, a nothing that seems a whole, leaves us silent and thoughtful. It is the magic of the symbol.

In the words of RW Emerson : “The eye is the first circle, the horizon it forms is the second, and this first figure is incessantly repeated throughout all of Nature.”

For there to be life, it must be precisely circular. If it stagnates or paralyzes, it becomes death. Blood circulates through the body, nourishing and cleaning each of the cells that make up our body. And circular comes from “circle”.

The universal meaning of the circle

The circle is the area contained in a circumference, this being its perimeter. But to draw a circumference (visible) we need a center (invisible). This brings us to the symbolism of the center and the circumference.

• The center represents the origin, the primordial unit from which everything arises through radiation. It is the immobile axis of the rotation of the cycle of becoming. It symbolizes the spirit and eternity.
• For its part, the circumference represents the manifestation, the plurality, the matter, the temporal.
• From another point of view, center-circle-circumference form a triad, since the number three signifies the manifestation and in turn the return of duality to unity. Thus, the center corresponds to the transcendent spirit, the circle itself would be the soul, and the circumference the corporal materiality.

This symbolism marked by the three is repeated in the most varied levels of existence.

• For example, the egg, emblem of life in many cultures, consists of yolk, white and shell , just as cells are made up of nucleus, protoplasm and membrane.
• There are three gestures necessary to draw a circle with a compass : first to nail one of its arms to have a center (spirit), then to mark a distance with the other arm (soul) and finally to make it rotate until it forms the circumference (body).
• And in grammar, there are three elements that make up a sentence : subject (spirit), verb (soul) and predicate (body).

Do not forget that the center is the most important thing, which gives balance, since it is at the same distance from all the points on the circumference. Without him there would be no manifestation, no circle, no circumference. In addition, the center is the origin and at the same time the final destination, the alpha and the omega.

The three-dimensional expression of the perfection of the circle is the sphere, a figure that symbolizes the harmony of the whole. Since the circumference of the circle appears to have no beginning or end and suggests mobility, another way of expressing change within that circular motion is the spiral.

In it, you go through the same place or time but in a different way. In the same way that each year brings us the same anniversary date, but the completed years keep changing.

the wheel of life

Everything is cyclical (from the Greek kiklos , circle) in nature : the movement of the heavenly bodies, the water that evaporates forming clouds that will become rain, the plants and animals that, when they die, return to the bosom of the earth.

The course of time and the seasons follows a cyclical movement by means of which everything is repeated and at the same time is renewed. Because, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus pointed out: “In the circle the beginning and the end are confused.”

For Buddhism, existence is symbolized by the image of “The wheel of samsa ra”, which is usually represented at the entrance of the temples. It is an image of the different kingdoms and their inhabitants, with their particular limitations and sufferings, in the form of a wheel that is turning due to the actions of those beings and their karmic consequences.

Another wheel, the Dharma wheel, expresses the path of liberation from such suffering through the practice of the Buddha’s teachings. For this reason, the Tibetans gave up using the wheel, a sacred image for them, in worldly tasks such as a car.

This may seem exaggerated to us, but it is a fact that our material development is based on the circular motion of the wheel. Not only because we move from one place to another in wheeled vehicles but because since the abandonment of animal traction at the beginning of the industrial revolution, energy has been obtained through circular movement: hydraulic turbines, electric dynamos …

And not by chance, when technological excesses and environmental pollution are suffocating us, it is necessary to use renewable energy and recycle waste. Again the circle.

Sky and earth

From another perspective, the circle represents Heaven or spirit. The Latin word caelum means sky, firmament and circular shape. The Earth, the material or static, is represented by the square.

In our own body, the head is considered the most noble part and it is not by chance that it is round. In turn, the eyes – which make the most refined sense, vision, possible – are also circular. If you imagine both things squarely, it would take us away from the inherent spirituality of the human being, giving us the appearance of mechanical robots.

For this reason, many temples are made up of a square or rectangular plan surmounted by a dome that symbolizes the celestial vault, often decorated with birds or angelic creatures, as is the case in Christianity. Likewise, in most religions the figures of saints or divinities are represented with a round, luminous halo around the head.

Megalithic circles are a way of marking the celestial order on the earth through the concentric alignment of large stones driven into the ground. The dwelling of many nomadic peoples is circular in shape, such as the teepees of the North American Indians or the yurts of the Mongols.

Sacred architecture, especially Egyptian pyramids, Hindu temples and medieval cathedrals, is the union of the celestial and terrestrial. Also an expression of the invisible center. That is why when we visit them we appreciate their ability to capture and transmit, due to their shape and location, certain subtle energies.

Popular dances usually form circles. Often with the performers holding hands and looking at the center. At other times turning on themselves alone or surrounding themselves as a couple ( union of the masculine and the feminine ).

The Flemish not only presents these twists or rotations about the body axis but turn the high hands are drawing small circles, while the feet hit the ground do not know whether to pick up the energy of the earth.

Rumi, the great Sufi teacher, established the Sama dance as a spiritual practice , in which the dervishes go around the center symbolized by the immobile teacher and at the same time ecstatically on themselves.

Return to origin

Saint Augustine, picking up an older wisdom, has perhaps left us the best definition of the universal Spirit in a geometric key: ” God is a sphere whose center is everywhere and its circumference is nowhere. ” The religious phenomenon basically consists of orienting oneself towards that spiritual center that is the origin of everything and at the same time its maintainer and ultimate destination.

Likewise, it should be considered that in ourselves, in our consciousness, there is a center and a periphery. And just as it happens when a record spins, which does so at a higher linear speed as we move away from the center, if we stay too long in our mental (mental and emotional) periphery, everything seems more chaotic and unpredictable.

Another image of the center in its vertical projection is that of the top of a mountain. As you go up, the air becomes cleaner and when you reach the top, the vision expands – sometimes it covers up to 360 degrees – while we have a greater sense of peace and freedom. In the same way, if we approach our own center we find calm and joy, moving away from the external agitation.

All spiritual practice supposes a recollection, a passing from the outer circumference to the inner center. Periodically, without the need to renounce the material, but without abandoning that necessary connection.

Each human being has his own particular path towards himself. But the center is transpersonal (it is beyond the ego) and universal (it is the same for everyone).

As in a circle there are innumerable possible radii that join the center with the circumference, each person has their own particular path towards themselves. Keeping in mind that invisible but real center makes us more human. It helps us to glimpse flashes of light in the apparent darkness of certain moments in life, to find a bit of eternity in the midst of the evanescence of time.

Figures and objects to meditate

On the other hand, Zen painting is limited at times to drawing a simple circle, which evokes the enigmatic words of the Buddha: “Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.”

Approaching the center

Mandala is a Sanskrit word that means “circle”.

Mandalas are geometric diagrams that are used in Hinduism and Buddhism as a support for meditation. They are the visual expression (the mantras would be their sound version) of certain qualities or spiritual influences.

It has been proven that drawing or coloring mandalas – figures with a center that expands and in turn returns to the origin, delimited by a protective circle – favors the integration of consciousness and mental relaxation.

That is why the practice of mandalas is being recommended in certain psychiatric patients and in a playful way in children and the elderly.

Seek guidance

From the most remote antiquity the circle has served to understand and measure time.

So did the Babylonians who divided it into 360º. His name, Shar, designated the universe or cosmos.

The watches have a sphere through which the hands turn so that we know the cyclical moment of the day we are in. To orient yourself in space, another circular tool is used, the compass. Both objects have a practical utility and at the same time contain a deep symbolism.

Adorn yourself with circles

Human beings have used jewelry since time immemorial, not only for decoration, but also as a form of protection and with symbolic meaning. Many are circular in shape: necklaces, bracelets, rings.

Even today, putting a ring on your finger implies certain qualities: rank, power, commitment, loyalty. For its part, a ball-shaped bead necklace, in addition to beauty, has a mystery: it is a circle formed by small spheres joined together by an invisible thread, just as the different worlds are contained in a great universal circle. and they owe their existence to the invisible spirit that sustains them.