I was recently forwarded an article comparing the beliefs of my spiritual ancestor, Swami Vivekanada, with those of our scientific messiah, Albert Einstein. I found that they had very different beliefs but shared one: that someday science and religion will meet. I agree and believe that that day has finally arrived.
The swami was a Vedantin monk from India. He is credited with bringing Hinduism to the West in the 1890s. He came to San Francisco in 1899 to establish a Vedanta society here. Vedanta is the mystical end of the Vedas, the essence of Hinduism just as Kaballah is for Judaism, Mahayana is to Buddhism and Sufism is to Islam.
Einstein was a physicist who discovered that space and time were interdependent and that energy and matter were interrelated, different forms of the same thing, just as were water and ice.
While science has never been my strong suit, I learned to appreciate some of the basic laws of physics and saw their relationship to metaphysics, a subject that has interested me for almost 60 years.
One of the basic laws is that energy cannot be lost in the universe - the conservation of energy principle. Another is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Another is that everything finite is subject to disorganization - entropy. And a more recent finding in physics is the discovery of fractals - infinitely complex patterns that are self similar across different scales (with the emphasis on infinite). Every finite thing has an infinite number of fractals.
In metaphysics these laws are also expressed if somewhat differently.
The conservation of energy principle is called reincarnation in Mahayana, Vedanta and Kaballah. The soul or energy force of living beings cannot be lost and so is reborn into different forms. Reincarnation explains all our differences and provides motivation to live this life as though it weren’t our first or last. It explains how three year olds sit down at a piano and begin playing or how some are doing math or reading at that age. It also explains homosexuality and transgender inclinations. People who prefer partners of the same sex probably had some experience in a past life that made them so inclined. Transgenders probably had several successive past incarnations as one gender so when suddenly born as the other gender after so many past incarnations, the person feels to be the wrong gender and wants to change. Reincarnation also provides us with a basis for belief in ultimate justice.
The law of equal and opposite reaction is called karma in Vedantin and Buddhist metaphysics. The law of karma says that activities have consequences either now or later. If you are good to others, others will be good to you. If you do others harm, you will later suffer harm, though it might not happen right away or even in this lifetime. The law of karma gives reason to do the right thing because we never get away with anything. Tibetan Buddhism has a most complex understanding of karma relating both to the action and its motivation. So for Mahayana Buddhism karma is based not only on the act itself but also on the thought that goes with it. If you are generous in this lifetime, you will be rich in the next. But if you are generous because you want to be rich, you will be rich but will suffer in some other way.
Entropy might be the explanation of why there is suffering. While the Buddha thought that suffering was caused by attachment to the finite, the more basic cause could be entropy. Everything finite is subject to disorganization, whether it be a living being getting old, sick, crazy, dishonest, poor, or violent or whether it is a system or thing like marriage, finances, policy, diplomacy, weather conditions, appliances or geography becoming disorganized. Everything that has a beginning will have an end.
The discovery of the existence of fractals which are infinite within every finite being or thing is perhaps most profound. It reveals perhaps the ultimate and essential paradox - the finite is infinite and the infinite is finite. This idea is not new but its expression is. Hindu, Greek, Roman and even Christian mythology point to this paradox. Hindu, Greek and Roman gods were immortal - not finite - but took human forms which were finite. Christ was mortal. He was born, grew older and died. But he was also part of the trinity - the father, the son and the holy ghost - three aspects of G-d. So he was mortal and immortal - finite and infinite.
There is a story about a young man who travels to India to ask a great guru how to find G-d. The guru says “Tat twam asi” or “you are that.” The man is overwhelmed. He runs to the middle of the street and sees an elephant rushing toward him. He orders the beast to stop given his newfound infinite power, but the elephant keeps coming and the young man has to jump out of the way to avoid being crushed. He goes back to the guru and asks him why the elephant did not obey him given that he was G-d. “The elephant is also G-d,” the guru answers.
Some scientists now concede that everything - both matter and energy - is and has consciousness. Mystics have said that it is all consciousness. That’s why the Vedantins and Buddhists call the material world “Maya” - illusion - the product of consciousness. The Hebrew bible begins with G-d creating the universe saying “let there be.” The mystical belief is that G-d is constantly making the world - thinking it. A zen koan expresses this by asking what is the sound of a tree falling in the forest if there is no one to hear it. The answer is that absent consciousness, nothing can be said to exist. Consciousness precedes and creates existence. Consciousness is both infinite and finite.
We can finally assure the spirit of our good swami and that of our greatest scientific theorist, that science and religion have been joined - physics meets metaphysics.
The swami was a Vedantin monk from India. He is credited with bringing Hinduism to the West in the 1890s. He came to San Francisco in 1899 to establish a Vedanta society here. Vedanta is the mystical end of the Vedas, the essence of Hinduism just as Kaballah is for Judaism, Mahayana is to Buddhism and Sufism is to Islam.
Einstein was a physicist who discovered that space and time were interdependent and that energy and matter were interrelated, different forms of the same thing, just as were water and ice.
While science has never been my strong suit, I learned to appreciate some of the basic laws of physics and saw their relationship to metaphysics, a subject that has interested me for almost 60 years.
One of the basic laws is that energy cannot be lost in the universe - the conservation of energy principle. Another is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Another is that everything finite is subject to disorganization - entropy. And a more recent finding in physics is the discovery of fractals - infinitely complex patterns that are self similar across different scales (with the emphasis on infinite). Every finite thing has an infinite number of fractals.
In metaphysics these laws are also expressed if somewhat differently.
The conservation of energy principle is called reincarnation in Mahayana, Vedanta and Kaballah. The soul or energy force of living beings cannot be lost and so is reborn into different forms. Reincarnation explains all our differences and provides motivation to live this life as though it weren’t our first or last. It explains how three year olds sit down at a piano and begin playing or how some are doing math or reading at that age. It also explains homosexuality and transgender inclinations. People who prefer partners of the same sex probably had some experience in a past life that made them so inclined. Transgenders probably had several successive past incarnations as one gender so when suddenly born as the other gender after so many past incarnations, the person feels to be the wrong gender and wants to change. Reincarnation also provides us with a basis for belief in ultimate justice.
The law of equal and opposite reaction is called karma in Vedantin and Buddhist metaphysics. The law of karma says that activities have consequences either now or later. If you are good to others, others will be good to you. If you do others harm, you will later suffer harm, though it might not happen right away or even in this lifetime. The law of karma gives reason to do the right thing because we never get away with anything. Tibetan Buddhism has a most complex understanding of karma relating both to the action and its motivation. So for Mahayana Buddhism karma is based not only on the act itself but also on the thought that goes with it. If you are generous in this lifetime, you will be rich in the next. But if you are generous because you want to be rich, you will be rich but will suffer in some other way.
Entropy might be the explanation of why there is suffering. While the Buddha thought that suffering was caused by attachment to the finite, the more basic cause could be entropy. Everything finite is subject to disorganization, whether it be a living being getting old, sick, crazy, dishonest, poor, or violent or whether it is a system or thing like marriage, finances, policy, diplomacy, weather conditions, appliances or geography becoming disorganized. Everything that has a beginning will have an end.
The discovery of the existence of fractals which are infinite within every finite being or thing is perhaps most profound. It reveals perhaps the ultimate and essential paradox - the finite is infinite and the infinite is finite. This idea is not new but its expression is. Hindu, Greek, Roman and even Christian mythology point to this paradox. Hindu, Greek and Roman gods were immortal - not finite - but took human forms which were finite. Christ was mortal. He was born, grew older and died. But he was also part of the trinity - the father, the son and the holy ghost - three aspects of G-d. So he was mortal and immortal - finite and infinite.
There is a story about a young man who travels to India to ask a great guru how to find G-d. The guru says “Tat twam asi” or “you are that.” The man is overwhelmed. He runs to the middle of the street and sees an elephant rushing toward him. He orders the beast to stop given his newfound infinite power, but the elephant keeps coming and the young man has to jump out of the way to avoid being crushed. He goes back to the guru and asks him why the elephant did not obey him given that he was G-d. “The elephant is also G-d,” the guru answers.
Some scientists now concede that everything - both matter and energy - is and has consciousness. Mystics have said that it is all consciousness. That’s why the Vedantins and Buddhists call the material world “Maya” - illusion - the product of consciousness. The Hebrew bible begins with G-d creating the universe saying “let there be.” The mystical belief is that G-d is constantly making the world - thinking it. A zen koan expresses this by asking what is the sound of a tree falling in the forest if there is no one to hear it. The answer is that absent consciousness, nothing can be said to exist. Consciousness precedes and creates existence. Consciousness is both infinite and finite.
We can finally assure the spirit of our good swami and that of our greatest scientific theorist, that science and religion have been joined - physics meets metaphysics.
