Did Vedantic thoughts influence Twentieth Century Physics? A perspective on Swami Vivekananda – The Times of India Blog

Swami Vivekanandas insemination of Vedantic thoughts may have influenced the development of quantum physics and modern-day cosmology. I hope to prove that to my readers by the end of this blog. While many civilizations and their achievements have influenced science, but few are as dramatic as that of Vedanta. This was the first record of intermingling of a ten thousand old philosophy with modern science. Science does not always progress through reductionism by getting things proved in the laboratory! Einsteins concepts of relativity and bending of light waves were established decades after he enunciated the theory. Tesla dreamt of an alternate current that is probably the number one ingredient that runs present civilization on this planet. He did not work in a laboratory to develop it.

The biggest names in science during Swami Vivekanandas time listened to and respected him, including Lord Kelvin and Tesla. On 1st Feb 1896, Swamiji wrote about his interaction with Nicholas Tesla Mr. Tesla was charmed to hear about the Vedantic Prana, Akasha & the Kalpas, which according to him, are the only theories modern science can entertain. He further stated, what we call matter does not exist at all; it is only a certain state of force It took science another decade to accept the fact that only energy exists. The matter is only a form of energy. Prana (Energy) is the only existence. Vivekananda as explained in his book Raja Yoga clearly states that it is vibration that started in the initial dormant form of energy that led to the creation of our visible universe. Almost seventy years later Carl Sagan the famous astronomer conceded that the whole concept of big bang and periodically expanding and contracting universe came from the Vedantic concept of Kalpas.

Just like a modern-day scientist awakening from deep meditation below an old peepul tree beside a stream near Almora (Uttarakhand, India), he jotted down his vision as to how the universe is created. He wrote, the scheme of the universe of both micro-world and macro-world are built on the same plan. Of course, as we all know that the macroworld of giant stars, planets, galaxies, and black holes is totally different from the microworld of quantum fuzziness, but modern-day physics is working on how these two can be connected. Einstein died having failed to create a Theory of Everything-that will bring together many such discordant realities. The string theory which is yet to be proved answers some of these. This theory hypothesizes the presence of small strings at the end point of creation. All matter is created by vibration of such strings. When confronted with the realities of quantum mechanics, even Einstein protested that the universe behaves in this weird way saying, God does not play dice. In other words, if you are sitting in Alpha Centauri our neighboring triple star system and I need to communicate with you based on Einsteinian concepts since light is the fastest medium it will take four and half year to send you any message! However, we know that an entangled electron can know the position of its entangled pair in the other end of the universe. As Einstein suggested, if it did communicate using light, that would take millions of light years for that communication to reach. But this is instantaneous. Experiment has shown this phenomenon even at a macro level in entangled entities.

The truth is that as Swami Vivekananda factually demonstrated to one of his favorite disciples that the universe is a limitless form of energy vibrating. Therefore, all we see as matter is only vibrations that our brain deciphers as reality: chairs, tables, etc. Today a group of neuroscientists calls that controlled hallucination. Yes, our brain converts the reality that is the timeless foam of vibration into the matter we comprehend in our daily lives. Imagine this was what Swami Ji mentioned almost a century back when modern science was still obsessed with the matter being made of an indivisible unit called atoms where electrons rotated around the nucleus as planets revolve around the sun.

It is indeed astounding that some of the current thoughts in modern physics and cosmology are in consonance to what he said a century back Absolute is manifesting itself as many through the veil of Time, space and causation. Time is entirely a dependent existence; it changes with every change of our mind. ..So with space. it cannot exist separate from anything else. So, with causation. John Archibald Wheeler the American physicist put it is more scientific terms, Nothing exists until observed. Thus, as Vedanta contends reality is created by us the observer.

From Einstein to David Bohm, everyone was influenced by such Vedantic thoughts that we know from their own writing. Thus, while we do not want to trivialize the achievements of great minds in the twentieth century that gave us a proper understanding of the universe, we live in. It is true that using meditation and powerful yogic practices, giants like Buddha and Swami Vivekananda had a peek into the truth of creation way before even science thought in those lines.

The question is, how? Richard Davidson, a professor ofpsychologyandpsychiatryat theUniversity of WisconsinMadison,has studied the brains of hundreds of meditators. People with hundreds of hours of meditation can completely change their brains. Everything is possible, from decreasing aging to growing your brain to keeping you healthy. As Swami Vivekananda himself explains, Yet, just as by the telescope and the microscope we can increase the scope of our vision; similarly, we can by Yoga bring ourselves to the state of the vibration of another plane, and thus enable ourselves to see what is going on there.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Did Vedantic thoughts influence Twentieth Century Physics? A perspective on Swami Vivekananda - The Times of India Blog