15 July 2014 - QA 7

Can you please discuss the link between quantum physics and yoga?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Quantum physics has discovered that matter does not exist. What exists is just wave function.
The table, floor, ceiling, all appear to be there, but they are all just wave functions. If you take one piece of matter and go deep into it, you will see that it is only space. Everything is just space. So what you see does not exist.

You know, one great quantum physicist, when he met me, he said a wonderful thing. He said, 'You know Gurudev, for forty years I studied matter only to realize that it simply doesn’t exist. Now if I talk on quantum physics, people think I am talking on Buddhism'.

I told him that in Yoga they talk about the five elements. He jumped out of his seat. He was shocked. He said, 'Greeks only knew four elements, Fire, Water, Air and Earth'. I said, 'Yoga talks about the fifth element which is Space'.
If you read Yoga Vashishtha, you feel you are reading quantum physics. Yoga is all about realizing the oneness of consciousness and that’s exactly what physics talks about.
So, one is a materialistic approach and the other is an approach from the level of consciousness, and they meet at the same point.
Spirituality is only an extension of science, it is not anti-science.