Eastern mysticism is based on direct insights into the nature of reality, and physics is based on the observation of natural phenomena in scientific experiments. In both fields, the observations are then interpreted and the interpretation is very often communicated by words. Since words are always an abstract, approximate map of reality, the verbal interpretations of a scientific experiment or of a mystical insight are necessarily inaccurate and incomplete. Modern physicists and Eastern mystics alike are well aware of this fact.
In physics, the interpretations of experiments are called models or theories and the realization that all models and theories are approximate is basic to modern scientific research. Thus the aphorism of Einstein, ‘As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.’ Physicists know that their methods of analysis and logical reasoning can never explain the whole realm of natural phenomena at once and so they single out a certain group of phenomena and try to build a model to describe this group. In doing so, they neglect other phenomena and the model will therefore not give a complete description of the real situation. The phenomena which are not taken into account may either have such a small effect that their inclusion would not alter the theory significantly, or they may be left out simply because they are not known at the time when the theory is built.
To illustrate these points, let us look at one of the best known models in physics, Newton’s ‘classical’ mechanics. The effects of air resistance or friction, for example, are generally not taken into account in this model, because they are usually very small. But apart from such omissions, Newtonian mechanics was for a long time considered to be the final theory for the description of all natural phenomena, until electric and magnetic phenomena, which had no place in Newton’s theory, were discovered. The discovery of these phenomena showed that the model was incomplete, that it could be applied only to a limited group of phenomena, essentially the motion of solid bodies.
Studying a limited group of phenomena can also mean studying their physical properties only over a limited range, which may be another reason for the theory to be approximate. This aspect of the approximation is quite subtle because we never know beforehand where the limitations of a theory lie. Only experience can tell. Thus the image of classical mechanics was further eroded when twentieth-century physics showed its essential limitations. Today we know that the Newtonian model is valid only for objects consisting of large numbers of atoms, and only for velocities which are small compared to the speed of light. When the first condition is not given, classical mechanics has to be replaced by quantum theory; when the second condition is not satisfied, relativity theory has to be applied. This does not mean that Newton’s model is ‘wrong’, or that quantum theory and relativity theory are ‘right’. All these models are approximations which are valid for a certain range of phenomena. Beyond this range, they no longer give a satisfactory description of nature and new models have to be found to replace the old ones—or, better, to extend them by improving the approximation.
To specify the limitations of a given model is often one of the most difficult, and yet one of the most important tasks in its construction. According to Geoffrey Chew, whose ‘bootstrap theory’ will be discussed at great length later on, it is essential that one should always ask, as soon as a certain model or theory is found to work: why does it work? what are the model’s limits? in what way, exactly, is it an approximation? These questions are seen by Chew as the first step towards further progress.
The Eastern mystics, too, are well aware of the fact that all verbal descriptions of reality are inaccurate and incomplete. The direct experience of reality transcends the realm of thought and language, and, since all mysticism is based on such a direct experience, everything that is said about it can only be partly true. In physics, the approximate nature of all statements is quantified and progress is made by improving the approximations in many successive steps. How, then, do the Eastern traditions deal with the problem of verbal communication?
First of all, mystics are mainly interested in the experience of reality and not in the description of this experience. They are therefore generally not interested in the analysis of such a description, and the concept of a well-defined approximation has thus never arisen in Eastern thought. If, on the other hand, Eastern mystics want to communicate their experience, they are confronted with the limitations of language. Several different ways have been developed in the East to deal with this problem.
Indian mysticism, and Hinduism in particular, clothes its statements in the form of myths, using metaphors and symbols, poetic images, similes and allegories. Mythical language is much less restricted by logic and common sense. It is full of magic and of paradoxical situations, rich in suggestive images and never precise, and can thus convey the way in which mystics experience reality much better than factual language. According to Ananda Coomaraswamy, ‘myth embodies the nearest approach to absolute truth that can be stated in words.’17
The rich Indian imagination has created a vast number of gods and goddesses whose incarnations and exploits are the subjects of fantastic tales, collected in epics of huge dimensions. The Hindu with deep insight knows that all these gods are creations of the mind, mythical images representing the many faces of reality. On the other hand, he or she also knows that they were not merely created to make the stories more attractive, but are essential vehicles to convey the doctrines of a philosophy rooted in mystical experience.
Chinese and Japanese mystics have found a different way of dealing with the language problem. Instead of making the paradoxical nature of reality palatable through the symbols and images of myth, they prefer very often to accentuate it by using factual language. Thus Taoists made frequent use of paradoxes in order to expose the inconsistencies arising from verbal communication and to show its limits. They have passed this technique on to Chinese and Japanese Buddhists who have developed it further. It has reached its extreme in Zen Buddhism with the so-called koans, those nonsensical riddles which are used by many Zen masters to transmit the teachings. These koans establish an important parallel to modern physics which will be taken up in the next chapter.
In Japan, there exists yet another mode of expressing philosophical views which should be mentioned. It is a special form of extremely concise poetry which is often used by Zen masters to point directly at the ‘suchness’ of reality. When a monk asked Fuketsu Ensho, When speech and silence are both inadmissible, how can one pass without error?’ the master replied:
I always remember Kiangsu in March—
The cry of the partridge, The mass of fragrant flowers.18
This form of spiritual poetry has reached its perfection in the haiku, a classical Japanese verse of just seventeen syllables, which was deeply influenced by Zen. The insight into the very nature of Life reached by these haiku poets comes across even in the English translation:
Leaves falling
Lie on one another; The rain beats the rain.19
Whenever the Eastern mystics express their knowledge in words—be it with the help of myths, symbols, poetic images or paradoxical statements—they are well aware of the limitations imposed by language and ‘linear’ thinking. Modern physics has come to take exactly the same attitude with regard to its verbal models and theories. They, too, are only approximate and necessarily inaccurate. They are the counterparts of the Eastern myths, symbols and poetic images, and it is at this level that I shall draw the parallels. The same idea about matter is conveyed, for example, to the Hindu by the cosmic dance of the god Shiva as to the physicist by certain aspects of quantum field theory. Both the dancing god and the physical theory are creations of the mind: models to describe their authors’ intuition of reality.
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