As Far As Science Will Go, It Will Only Meet Sanatan Dharma’s Teachings

The Hindu religion or, Sanatan Dharma is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an innate, number of deaths and rebirths. [Carl Sagan, Astronomer]

Religion and science typically do not mix. Religious individuals have been disparaged by scientists, and vice versa. Although some people may not consider religion to be “logical,” Hinduism includes science at its core. Consequently, several scientists have been affected (positively) by Hinduism.

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

So said Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own.

However, here are some of the international figures in the world of science who have taken inspiration from Hindu Dharma, and their own quotes about their influences and Hindu Dharma:

6 Famous International Physicists who were influenced by Hindu Dharma

1. Erwin Schrödinger

You might have already known about Schrödinger’s cat. If not, then you should at least know that it’s a very famous experiment, and the inferences have great value in the world of science. That was one of the many scientific experiments Erwin Schrödinger is known for. The Austrian physicist also won Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.

The Bhagavad Gita… is the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”

But if you read his biography and some of the works he has published, then you will realize the influence of the Hindu religion in his works:

• “This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins [wise men or priests in the Vedic tradition] express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as “I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world.” [Schrödinger,’Meine Weltansicht’ (My View of the World), 1961]
• “The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the West.” [Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life?, p. 129, Cambridge University Press]
• “From the early great Upanishads, the recognition Atman = Brahman (the personal self-equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent, the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was, after having learned to pronounce with their lips, really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts.” [From an essay on determinism and free will]
• “Most of my ideas & theories are heavily influenced by Vedanta”
• “There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction… The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.” (Mein Leben, Meine Weltansicht [My Life, My World View] (1961), Chapter 4)

2. Werner Heisenberg

Known for his renowned uncertainty principle, Werner Heisenberg is a key figure in the world of quantum mechanics. You might have also heard about him in Breaking Bad. That kept aside, the German Nobel Prize winner for Physics is believed to have understood much of quantum mechanisms through his mystical experience in Hindu dharma.

Here are some proofs of it:

• In Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations With Remarkable People (1988), Frtjof Capra writes about the conversation between Rabindranath Tagore and Werner Heisenberg: “He began to see that the recognition of relativity, interconnectedness, and impermanence as fundamental aspects of physical reality, which had been so difficult for himself and his fellow physicists, was the very basis of Indian spiritual traditions.”
• In The Holographic Paradigm (pg. 217-218), there is a text that talks about Renee Weber’s interview with Fritjof Capra. Capra states that Schrödinger in speaking about Heisenberg has said:

“I had several discussions with Heisenberg. I lived in England then [circa 1972], and I visited him several times in Munich and showed him the whole manuscript chapter by chapter. He was very interested and very open, and he told me something that I think is not known publicly because he never published it. He said that he was well aware of these parallels. While he was working on quantum theory he went to India to lecture and was a guest of Tagore. He talked a lot with Tagore about Indian philosophy. Heisenberg told me that these talks had helped him a lot with his work in physics because they showed him that all these new ideas in quantum physics were in fact not all that crazy. He realized there was, in fact, a whole culture that subscribed to very similar ideas. Heisenberg said that this was a great help to him. Niels Bohr had a similar experience when he went to China.”

• He has also been quoted a couple of times saying; “After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made more sense.”
• “Quantum theory will not look ridiculous to people who have read Vedanta.”

3. Robert Oppenheimer

The Father of the atomic bomb, Julius Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist and was the head of the lab when the first atomic bomb was invented (Manhattan Project). Bhagwad Gita, Mahabharata and Indian historical facts have influenced Oppenheimer. He also studied Sanskrit and read Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit itself.

Here are his quotes:

• “Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.”
• The general notions about human understanding… which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of or new. Even in our own culture, they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find [in modern physics] is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom.
• The juxtaposition of Western civilization’s most terrifying scientific achievement with the most dazzling description of the mystical experience given to us by the Bhagavad Gita, India’s greatest literary monument. The Bhagavad Gita… is the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”

[“Sacred Jewels of Yoga: Wisdom from India’s Beloved Scriptures, Teachers, Masters, and Monks”]

• It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology.

4. Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr is another Nobel Peace Prize winner on the list. The Danish physicist is known for his tremendous contribution to atomic structure and quantum theory. In Stephen Prothero’s book God Is Not One (pg. 144), Niel Bohr has quoted:

“I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.”

5. Carl Sagan

American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist and philosopher, Carl Sagan’s contributions to cosmology and modern space science are unprecedented.

He was a devout Hindu and has been seen quoting:

• “The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an innate, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.”

[Carl Sagan, Cosmos]

• “The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed.”

[Carl Sagan, Cosmos, pg 213-214]

• “A millennium before Europeans were willing to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions.”

[Carl Sagan, Cosmos, pg 213-214]

6. Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla is perhaps the greatest scientist (debatable for sure) who ever lived and his inventions have given a great contribution to mankind; he was a pioneer in many fields. From Tesla Coil to Radio to Alternate Current to Telephone (yes, there is a great controversy between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla for this, but much of the evidence points out to Nikola Tesla as the true inventor), the Serbian-American physicist and engineer are highly respected in his field. But he has been seen quoting Vedantic concepts:

• “All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or aluminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in neverending cycles, all things and phenomena.”

[Man’s Greatest Achievement, John J. O’Neal., & Prodigal Genius, The Life of Nikola Tesla, 1944]

Read: As Far As Science Will Go, It Will Only Meet Sanatan Dharma’s Teachings

Influence of Hinduism on Famous Americans

• President John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson on Christmas Day, 1813 Joseph Priestly’s A Comparison of the Institutions of Moses with those of the Hindoos and other Ancient Nations:

“Pythagoras passed twenty years in his travels in India, in Egypt, in Chaldea, perhaps in Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon. He [Priestly] ought to have told us, that in India he conversed with the Brahmins, and read the Shasta [sic shastra], five thousand years old, written in the language of the sacred Sanscrit, with the elegance and sentiments of Plato. Where is theology more orthodox, or philosophy more profound, than in the introduction to the Shasta [sic Shatra]?”

“God is one, creator of all, universal sphere, without beginning, without end. God governs all the creation by a general providence, resulting from his eternal designs. Search not the essence and the nature of the Eternal, who is one; your research will be vain and presumptuous. It is enough, that, day by day and night by night, you adore his power, his wisdom, and his goodness, in his works. The Eternal willed, in the fulness of time, to communicate of his essence and of his splendour, to beings capable of perceiving it. They as yet existed not. The Eternal willed, and they were. He created Birma [sic Brahma], Vitsnow [sic Vishnu], and Sib [sic Shiva].” These doctrines, sublime, if ever there were any sublime, Pythagoras learned in India, and taught them to Zaleucus and his other disciples.”

Mark Twain, Author

“India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of men are treasured up in India only.”

Henry David Thoreau, Essayist

“Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climbs, and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I read it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night.”

“I would say to the readers of the Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagavad-Gita…It deserves to be read with reverence even by Yankees.”

“In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad-Gita, in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essayist

“In the great books of India, an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence, which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the questions that exercise us.”

William James, Psychologist and Philosopher

“From the Vedas, we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, and house building under which mechanized art is included. They are encyclopedias of every aspect of life, culture, religion, science, ethics, law, cosmology and meteorology.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Author

“India — The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas.”

Will Durant, Writer

“India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe’s languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.”

“India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.”

“It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to the west, such gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all numerals and the decimal system.”

Carl Sagan, Astronomer

“The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.”

Peter Johnstone, Mathematician

“Gravitation was known to the Hindus (Indians) before the birth of Newton. The system of blood circulation was discovered by them centuries before Harvey was heard of.”

Read: Let’s Understand Sanatan Dharma or, Hinduism Beyond Political Filter

CERN:

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Geneva, on the France–Switzerland border.

More interestingly, CERN’s primary function is the oversight of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is one of the biggest and greatest scientific research centres in the world and interestingly it has a statue of Shiva Nataraja.

The statue was gifted to CERN by the Government of India to celebrate the research centre’s long association with India. The statue was unveiled on June 18, 2004, which is 2 meters tall and was made in India. The statue is on permanent display in the square between buildings 39 and 40, a short distance from the Main Building. They said that since India was one of the institute’s observer states, it represented CERN’s multiculturalism with scientists from across the globe.

The question is, apart from the fact that it is a gift from India, what is its relevance?

To understand this, the basic ideology one must understand is that Shiva today may be limited to only Hindus but the Hinduism/Sanatan Dharma’s ideology has never been limited to just its adherents, it was universal, that is why they had no one particular community name, unlike the Abrahamic religions. So, whether you’re a theist or agnostic or atheist, Shiva is still for you.

Lord Shiva is one of the most important deities in the Hindu religion. He is known by many names such as Mahadeva, Neelakantha, Rudra, and ShambhuNatarajaa — and the creation and destruction start with him in an infinite cycle. Shiva’s form of Nataraja symbolizes the cosmic dance of creation and destruction.

The Symbolism of the Statue of Nataraja

Lord Shiva is one of the three primary deities of the Hindu trinity and is worshipped as the destroyer and transformer of the world. Furthermore, the symbolism of Shiva Nataraja is a unique yet profound merge of religion, art, and science as one. In God’s endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction, and paired graces are hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Nataraja’s dance is not just a symbol, it is a phenomenon taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, at this very moment.

The Agamas proclaim, "The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul’s obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance."

Tandava, a dance believed to be the source of the cycle of creation, preservation, and destruction is the dance portrayed in the statue of Lord Shiva. This Tandava dance of Shiva is best described in Shiva Tandava Stotram. The dance exists in five forms which shows the cosmic cycle from creation to destruction. It is believed that Lord Shiva danced the Universe into existence, motivates it, and will eventually extinguish it.

Scientific Overview of The Symbolism

Physicist Fritjof explains the significance of the statue at the CERN on a plaque next to the statue.

The quote by Fritjof Capra, explains; "Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art, and modern physics."

Moreover, in The Tao of Physics which was first published in 1975 and still in print in over 40 editions around the world, the Physicist explained; "The Dance of Shiva symbolizes the basis of all existence. At the same time, Shiva reminds us that the manifold forms in the world are not fundamental, but illusory and ever-changing. Modern physics has shown that the rhythm of creation and destruction is not only manifest in the turn of the seasons and in the birth and death of all living creatures but is also the very essence of inorganic matter."

"According to quantum field theory, the dance of creation and destruction is the basis of the very existence of matter. Modern physics has thus revealed that every subatomic particle not only performs an energy dance but also is an energy dance; a pulsating process of creation and destruction. For the modern physicists then, Shiva's dance is the dance of subatomic matter, the basis of all existence and of all natural phenomena."

Furthermore, a post-doc student working at CERN, Aidan Randle-Conde, wrote: "So in the light of day, when CERN is teeming with life, Shiva seems playful, reminding us that the universe is constantly shaking things up, remaking itself and is never static. But by night, when we have more time to contemplate the deeper questions Shiva literally casts a long shadow over our work, a bit like the shadows on Plato’s cave. Shiva reminds me that we still don’t know the answer to one of the biggest questions presented by the universe and that every time we collide the beams we must take the cosmic balance sheet into account."

Initially, the one who introduced this idea in the West was Popular scientist Carl Sagan through his show Cosmos. He had said:

"Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the cosmos itself undergoes an immense and infinite number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, no doubt, by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half of the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still."

Read: Oppenheimer & The Bhagavad Gita: The Beginning of All Possibilities