Science and Spirituality: New Physics Points To Cosmic Spirit

Science and Spirituality: New Physics Points To Cosmic Spirit

'God is dead' proclaimed a cover story in Time magazine in the 1960s, and held science responsible for it. Case closed? Far from it. By the 1990s, people were talking about things like 'can spirituality promote health?' The pendulum is now swinging in the other direction. Ironically enough, it is the same science that once killed off the notion of God that is now strengthening humankind's belief in a 'supreme power'. Latest revelations in cosmology and quantum physics are fostering this paradigm shift.

Transcending theologies and denominations, there is a conviction in a creator divinity which, having spawned the universe, is present throughout it, upholding and administering the universe. People have always accepted that God will never be revealed to us empirically. Yet for eons we have deemed this entity worthy of adoration and have directed ardent prayers to it, making it the vessel of our hope.

Now, for the first time in human history, we have objective knowledge of an entity that fills space and time throughout the universe, representing the primary elements of reality. This entity's existence, comprising unmanifest quantum fields and possessing the elemental blueprint of everything physical, rests on a solid scientific foundation. Physicists and cosmologists are also close to proving that all these fields arise from a common source that was present in an infinitesimal nugget at the inception of the universe. The source sequentially unfolded to create the universe and everything in it. We already have semi-quantitative proof, even in the absence of a complete mathematical theory. The elegance of the symmetries and incredible precision of the blueprint possessed by the source predisposes us to believe that it mirrors the intelligence of a higher power and amounts to a veritable experience of the deity.

Just as the religious God did not create the world and leave it, the source is still active through the universe. This is so because physics at extremely high temperatures that existed at the onset of the universe is equivalent to physics at fundamentally small distances. Therefore, the manifest condition at the onset of the universe is presumed to be the same in an unmanifest, quantum physical way at or near the fabric of space. The existence of the common source at the fabric of space would be no less real than the elusive denizens of empty space known to scientists as virtual screening charges.

Persuasive evidence points to a source, which, having spawned the universe, is now present in all space and time. This entity is uncannily reminiscent of the Brahman of Vedanta and immanence in Christian theology. What is missing is credible evidence of awareness in this entity. The necessity for embracing a simultaneous existence of complementary properties to explain the quantum world paves the way for contemporary scientists to find an essential link between the seemingly irreconcilable mind and matter. From this viewpoint, the irreducible primary realities of field and consciousness are inseparable aspects of the same elementary process of our universe united through mutual participation; the biological nervous system just provides a material struture for unfolding consciousness in each individual.

So, plausible arguments can be made to suggest that the common source has an inherent quality of awareness, thereby giving credence to the existence of a cosmic spirit. This spirit is present in every element of space. Like fish in water, we are immersed in it. Tuning in to that awareness, realising we are part of it, will help us cope with whatever crises await us in our increasingly complex, polluted, overpopulated, overheated, over-armed, violent world. Indeed, if we become part of nature's inherently spiritual direction, we should flourish and bring meaning and purpose to our terrestrial journey.