Standing before the vast expanse of the ocean or looking up at the inky blackness of the star-studded skies above, I am often assailed by a sense of awe; of insignificance of human thought and action in a universe so vast, so unfathomable. I am sure every human being has experienced this at some time in his or her life and this experience is not unique to me. But, when I sit down and actually analyze the source of this feeling; the texture of this experience, I realize that I am comparing the physical vastness of the ocean/universe with the physical smallness of myself. It is an awareness of my body vis-a-vis the panorama that I am contemplating that creates the sense of insignificance.

But that is not the whole experience!

Deep within me, is a conviction that the ‘self’ (given its rightful freedom) can soar into the vastness with practiced ease and identify itself with the immensity. It is only the limitations of my body that creates dread-filled barriers that seem insurmountable. I have only to tap into the vast resources within me, to understand and identify with the immensity. I am forced by my body to differentiate it as independent of me. I am left wondering—“What is the technology available to me to explore this intuition; this understanding that I hold in the deep recesses of my mind? How can I release my-self from the identification with the body? Do the answers lie within me or without me?

Surely, I am not the first to think on these lines? The answers must be available somewhere in the vast repository of information that has been churned out by mankind.

"I turned to available knowledge bases—those that have been created by our Meta-physicists and Scientists, without bias towards one or the other. I began with the assumption that both of them have searched for the essence of reality in their own ways. I decided “I will not reinvent the wheel. I shall try to assimilate the knowledge that has already been acquired; internalize it and hope that I will find the answers quickly and efficiently!”

Before Science and metaphysics parted ways, both, philosophy and scientific thinking were the domain of the Philosopher. Vashista, Vishwamitra, Ashtavakra, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and countless others spent mental energy attempting to understand the nature of reality. They intuitively seemed to understand that what is perceived and what is real could be two different things. Therefore, both Eastern and Western thinkers emphasized that there is a need to distinguish between the “form” (reality, the universal) and the “manifestation of the form” (objects of the senses, the unreal). Both agreed that only one can be real and the other unreal. However, there the thought process diverged. The East went inward, exploring the observer deeply and the West went outward, exploring the observed world.

Indian philosophers termed the “forms” perceived through the senses as “Maya” or illusion and stressed that reality is “formless”. They urged the individual thinker/seeker to go beyond the “forms” to understand that it is “formlessness” that manifests as form. In other words, an awareness of the “forms” perceived by the senses would detract from an understanding of the “formless” and hence it should be eschewed. They denied the reality of the “observed’; ignored the process of observation and focused on getting the “observer” out of the trap of the senses and sensory perceptions. Since, the senses created the observation, they harnessed the senses to destroy the observed.

Western philosophers like Aristotle, on the other hand, stated that “form” (an abstract original), is the reality and it is “abstract original or the universal” that manifests as objects that can be perceived by the senses. In other words, forms that are perceived by the senses are but copies of the abstract original and inherit the properties of the original. Hence in attempting to understand the “particular” or the copy one can understand the “form” or the universal. They were not concerned with the observer or the process of observation. They focused completely on the manifestation of the observation.

Recent developments in Quantum Physics seem to be reversing the process of divergence. Western Scientists have suddenly found that the ‘Observer’ has the capacity to transform the ‘Observed’ in uncanny ways. Particles that behave like waves when they are not observed, behave like particles when observed. Particles divided by space and time seem to be able to communicate with each other and behave in unexpected ways. In other words, the observer seems to make a difference to the behaviour of the particle. Noble-prize-winning Scientists, concluded that the world cannot be locally real as the ‘Observer’ seems to have power over the ‘Observed’ and the latter seems to be in constant entanglement with its counterpart divided by time and space.

Pondering on the convergence in the approach of science and metaphysics, I wondered “perhaps both the meta-physicist and the Scientist have caught hold of one end of the elephant and are intent on describing the elephant in terms of the end that they have got hold of? Are they oblivious of the body of the elephant that lies between the trunk and the tail?” It is obvious that there is an elephant in the room and they both are only seeing parts of it!

The real question is, should one wait for the Scientist and Meta-physicist to resolve their differences before we even begin to think about it all? I am not sure I want to wait! Perhaps steaming ahead with my own thought experiments would be the way to go! What do you think?

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