What is the nature of reality? Views from Science and Spirituality.
Advaita Vedanta, the highest spiritual teaching in Hinduism, expounds the central message that underlying all physical reality (or empirical reality), there is one Absolute reality, Brahman, with the quality of Existence, Consciousness and Wholeness (Sat Chit Ananda). What exactly does today’s science, with all its advances, say about the nature of reality? Is there any reconciliation between science and religion in general, and Advaita Vedanta in particular? To understand this, we need to consider two different areas of science, Quantum Physics and Neuroscience. Nobel Prize-winning German physicist and the father of quantum theory, Max Planck, once said, “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness”. What could be his reasoning for this astounding conclusion? Well, the subatomic quantum world does not really obey the laws of classical newtonian physics that we all learn in high school. Electrons, which are the fundamental building blo