“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, 

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” (TS Eliot)

That still point for me is Zorba, the still point personified, dramatized as a metaphor. Zorba is the Still Point. 

The Still point is also Zen where form is emptiness and emptiness is form. This is a dynamic point that is neither this or that. There is no division in the Still Point, nor does the still point as the center have any circumference. The still point, therefore, is everywhere, but it is a laser dot on the floor of time that we cannot catch. 

In the author’s hands, Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba is a Christ metaphor. Just look at the outstretched arms in his dance. You can imagine a cross supporting him, no he has left the cross, so the dance is the resurrection, but not after the death on the cross. 

The dance is the life in death, and the death in life. The dance is dynamic, not fixed states of either dancing or not dancing, either the crucifixion or not the crucifixion (resurrection). There is no time in the dance, in the Still Point. All existence is compressed into the still point of the dance, the joyous dance of liberation from death through death. As the Buddha taught, the liberation from suffering through suffering. 

“The only hope, or else despair

Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre—

To be redeemed from fire by fire.” (TS Eliot)