Demystifying Yoga part 5
How yoga links to modern physics
The quest of science, spirituality, and religion, all three, is to explain the world and understand creation.
While religion relies on mythology, spirituality uses self as a laboratory to understand the microcosm and uses that to reach the macrocosm. Science uses the external world as the laboratory to understand both the microcosm and macrocosm. Major eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism are basically spiritual philosophies that are rational and scientific provided we strip off the rituals that have got attached to them over the past so many years.
Vedanta/Yoga, the source of Hinduism, claims that everything and every event in the world is simply a different expression of the same Ultimate Reality, called ‘Brahman’. As per Vedanta, ‘Brahman’ is the all-encompassing universal power that energizes life. Since everything, including us, is a part of ‘Brahman’, our intellect cannot comprehend it; we can only experience it. Vedanta, unlike religion, does not personalize ‘Brahman’ or give it a human form. A detailed explanation of ‘Brahman’ is included in my previous article in the series, Demystifying Yoga — Part 4 — Meditation and God-realization.
In his book, Tao of Physics, physicist, Fritjof Capra says
“Science and religion are often considered entirely disparate concepts and a clear line is often drawn between Western rational thinking and more intuitive or spiritually oriented Eastern schools of thought, but when we compare some of the fundamental notions of the major Eastern religions — namely Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism — with modern science, especially modern physics, we see many similarities. Whether it’s the basic interconnectedness of all particles or the nature of Space and time in Einstein’s theory of relativity, it seems that Eastern religions have been presenting similar concepts for millennia. Much like physicists, Eastern mystics learn through observation. The only difference is that, while a physicist observes through scientific experimentation, mystics observe through introspection.”
Fritjof Capra has also alluded to a parallel between the ‘Brahman’ in yoga and Quantum Field in physics, in this book.
What is the Quantum field, and how is it similar in concept to ‘Bhraman’ postulated in Vedanta?
Modern physics is based on two core concepts — the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics (Standard Model of particle physics).
Theory of Special Relativity
The theory of Special Relativity by Einstein proves that time and space are relative — space is not a three-dimensional entity, independent of time, but rather inseparably joined with it in a concept called space-time. The timing of events depends on the motion in space, and therefore one cannot talk about the ‘time of an event’ purely in terms of some absolute time but must state this in terms of space-time. The implication is that space and time do not exist independently but only as a single continuum, which means that all events, past, present, and future, coexist in the universe though observers see them sequentially.
“To us convinced physicists, the distinctions between past, present, and future are illusory, however persistent.” Einstein
“Events do not happen: they are just there, and we come across them…. (as) the observer on his voyage of exploration.” Famous astronomer, Sir Arthur Eddington
Vedanta claims that time and space have no beginning or end; time stretches limitlessly both backward, and forward and so does space, extend on all sides without boundaries. The world, as we see, limited in time and space is illusionary, the reality is all-encompassing.
Theory of General Relativity
General Relativity brings together all matter and space as being subject to the same laws of the gravitational field. Before this, Space had been synonymous with emptiness, Einstein, however, stated that space is the gravitational field, and it is continuously affecting all matter.
As per yoga, all universe, including human beings, are made up of gross and subtle forces -matter and space (the body is gross, and mind/emotion-intellect is subtle). Gross effects subtle and vice versa. The upkeep of our physical body affects our emotional and mental health, and similarly, our emotions and thoughts affect our physical health.
Quantum Mechanics (Standard Theory of particle physics)
Quantum mechanics is our best explanation of what is going on at the microcosmic level of atoms and particles. Quantum particles can behave like particles, located in a single place, or they can act like waves, distributed all over space or in several places at once. How they appear seems to depend on how we choose to measure them, and before we measure, they seem to have no definite properties at all! This leads to a fundamental question about the nature of underlying reality (paradoxes such as Schrodinger’s cat, in which a cat is left dead and alive at the same time).
This confirms the fundamental essence of yoga that everything in the world is subjective and ever-changing. In other words, everyone perceives the world as per his/her reality. As you change your perception, you change your reality!
The Standard Model of particle physics explains all the quantum particles and how these particles interact to make all the matter in the universe, including living beings. It comprises 12 fundamental particles that make matter (electrons, up-quarks, and down-quarks, etc.) and four particles called Bosons that are responsible for the three fundamental forces of nature — Electromagnetism (responsible for holding together the atoms), The Strong Force (responsible for the stability of the nucleus at the heart of the atom) and, The Weak Force (responsible for the radioactive decay of some atoms). Each of these three forces, just like the gravitational force, is a field — electromagnetic field, the strong force field, and the weak force field. Reality is fundamentally many different fields. Fields are continuous, not discrete. The concept of field applies to both massive objects like the sun and the subatomic world of particles (macrocosm and the microcosm).
However, the Standard Model of particle physics could not explain how particles gain mass almost until 1964!! Without mass, the universe would not exist!!
What then gives mass to matter and makes existence possible?
This was finally explained by Higgs Field (also called Quantum field) and the Higgs Boson particle (or the God Particle), hypothesized in 1964 and proven in 2012.
Higgs field is an energy field that permeates the entire universe. All particles are massless but gain mass when they interact with this energy field. The particle responsible for creating this field is called the Higgs Boson. Given that this particle is responsible for energizing or giving life to all Matter, it is also called God Particle! This energy field is the universal medium that gives particles (hence all matter in the universe) their mass and is also called the Quantum field.
How does it work?
Arvin Ash (http://arvinash.com/), while explaining this used an analogy of a fish in the water. Imagine If you were a fish, would you know that the entire world in which you existed was contained in a substance called water? You probably wouldn’t know it because you have always been in it. Water would just be there, enabling life without you even realizing it. Higgs field or the Quantum field is also such a field that permeates the entire universe we live in — without which we could not exist. It is theorized that different particles interact differently with the field. The particles that interact with it more intensely have greater mass than particles that don’t interact with it. E.g., a pointed nose fish would be able to flow very quickly through the water because of low resistance, a block fish would have higher resistance and would interact with the water to a greater degree. Subatomic particles similarly interact with the Higgs field. Just like this fish, which needs water to breathe, we need the Quantum field to exist.
This field is fundamental; the particles are not. All objects in the universe, including the sun, the planets, all objects, all living beings, everything is in this one continuous field. All creation happens in this field. This Quantum field is what yoga calls ‘Brahman.’
Stephen Hawking, in his book — Brief answers to the big questions, says, “Forces govern our universe — but a divine creator probably isn’t among them.”
Vedanta does not talk about a divine creator at all. Instead, it defines ‘Brahman’ as the Ultimate Reality, the fundamental truth which is all prevailing, where all creation happens and that which energizes/vitalizes the world, which is how Physicists define the Quantum field.
Let's look at religion. This description of the Quantum field or ‘Brahman’ does not fit the description of God as propagated by religion. Religion is used to thinking/teaching about God as a human-like, sentient being, one with which we can have a personal relationship. Hinduism (born out of Vedanta) has various Gods depicting various laws of nature (e.g., Shiva is the destroyer, Vishnu is the preserver and Brahma is the creator). Hinduism also depicts various qualities as Gods (e.g., Goddess Sarasvati embodies knowledge, Hanuman embodies devotion, Rama embodies a righteous personality, etc.). These are all tools to help people emulate and hence inculcate the right principles in life to start walking on the path of yoga. As per Vedanta, these tools can help take a person to a certain level of understanding but have to be ultimately transcended to reach the universal reality, which is the ‘Brahman’. Look at it as a means for explaining the laws of nature to the masses without taking them through the science which may need a highly developed intellect.
In the next article, I will explain the Law of Causation propagated by yoga (based on the understanding we now have of Quantum field) and how it can be leveraged to build a destiny you desire (or deserve!).
Sources:
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
Reality is not what it seems by Carlo Rovelli
A brief history of time by Stephen Hawking
Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra
Vedanta treatise — The eternities by A. Parthasarthy
The Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
https://www.britannica.com/science/unified-field-theory
https://www.britannica.com/science/quantum-field-theory
http://arvinash.com/is-loop-quantum-gravity-the-theory-of-everything/
