In plain words
This same scene is in the Bhārata: she sits Sañjaya down with her and grieves, telling him of her anguish over her son. ‘Sañjaya! Of our Kauravas, only these three are left: Aśvatthāmā, Kṛpācārya and Kṛpaṇa. Of the Pāṇḍavas, the five, Kṛṣṇa and His friend, only seven are left. Only seven on their side and three on ours are left. This seven and three come to ten. Leaving ten standing, this war has swallowed up so many thousands, so many lakhs, has it not?’ she laments. Sañjaya means one who has conquered the senses. ‘Mother! To make known to the world the truth of these ten, the Paramātma is playing such līlās. 10 means a zero beside a one. That is, the zero has always been showing itself to us as the model of the earth. The reflection of the earth itself is one meaning of the zero. But we call it a zero. Beside this zero there stands a hero. 10 has come about only by setting the zero called this world beside the one called God. Without that hero called God, this zero becomes nothing but a zero. So this whole world, all of it, is something transient, impermanent, Asatya. Only because God, who is Satya, joins this world that is Asatya does it too gain a value. When we want to experience a true life, we must form a close bond with the Lord of all. That itself is the supreme goal of our life,’ Sañjaya taught. The earth has the form of a zero; the sun has the shape of a zero; the moon has the shape of a zero. Whatever other forms that bear us up we may point to, every one of them has the shape of a zero. The earth we live on is a zero. The sun that gives light is a zero; the moon that gives coolness is a zero. When all of these are zeros, what else can our life be but a zero? So by taking our life as a zero and setting divinity beside it, our life too attains even a place that is eternal, sacred and precious. The tree is in the seed. The seed is in the tree. This seed and this tree are without beginning. They are things that have always been.