Ancient sages and modern scientists both groping towards same truth
Re: “Impersonal essence that Einstein sensed was universal consciousness”, Have Your Say, May 13.
Thailand is fortunate to have Michael Setter available to set us lesser beings straight whenever we go astray on metaphysical issues. I did not paste a reference to the Upanishads on Einstein’s forehead. I merely pointed out a remarkable similarity in wording, never mind that Einstein may have been thinking in German and the author of the Upanishad was probably thinking in Sanskrit.
Michael dismisses Einstein as a mere theoretical physicist, “not by any measure a sage or spiritual realiser”. I never claimed that he was. But how would I – or Michael – know? Einstein might have been a modern rishi and we never realised it.
Some “spiritual seekers” have claimed that we may eventually get to a point where the discoveries of physics and the more numinous insights of religious aspirants will converge – an ultimate “aha!” moment in which they are both revealed to be pointing at the same truth, although expressed in different terminology. Fritjof Capra’s 1975 book “The Tao of Physics” (now both outdated and at least partly discredited) suggests as much. Unfortunately we’ve got a long way to go before we reach that point – if ever.
Ye Olde Theologian
