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beyond our experience.
Understand this phenomenon properly. Whatever falls within our experience always comes from that which lies beyond our experience. Whatever is seen by us emerges from that which is invisible. What we know comes from the unknown; and whatever is familiar to us derives from that unfamiliar. If we plant a seed, a tree grows from it. If we break the seed and crush it into pieces, there will be no tree. There will be no trace of the flowers which should have blossomed. There will be no trace of those leaves which should have appeared. From where do they come?
They come from the invisible. They are created by the invisible. Every moment the invisible is being transformed into the visible, and the visible is being lost into the invisible. Every moment the limitless enters into the limited and returns every moment from it. It is just like our breathing process -- breathing in and breathing out. The whole of existence is continuously inhaling and exhaling. Those who know the secret of the breathing process of existence call it creation and annihilation. They say the creation takes place when existence inhales, and the annihilation when existence exhales, and between the two breaths we pass through endless lives. As existence breathes once in, then out, we go through endless births, times without number we come and go.
Two things this sutra says. First, that the whole comes out of the whole and what remains is whole. Second, that when the whole is absorbed into the whole, it is still whole. That whole remains always virgin, always untouched. Nothing affects its virginity. This is a very difficult matter to understand. It is like this: a child is born, but its mother remains a virgin. Such a story is told of Jesus and his mother, Mary. Having given birth to Jesus, Mary is called the blessed virgin. The story prevails through those who knew and understood Jesus and Mary, and it is exactly like the birth of existence; the whole comes out of the whole.
Christianity is unable to explain this event. Christians are baffled by the concept of the virgin birth. They are ignorant of that arithmetic which can leave the mother a virgin
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