World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 257

rated mind and matter, Albert Einstein, who had a deep exposure to Indian spiritual traditions, came out with his Theory of Relativity and the E=MC2 equation, where the speed of light is the unchanging constant. However, mass and energy-and if we take his entire Theory of Relativity into account, space and time also being attributes of Nature, are changing. Everything in Nature is changing and relative (though never absolute) except light. It is true that the velocity of light changes when it is approaching a black hole, but not the speed. Light, constituted of photons, has zero mass. The speed of light is not affected by the gravitational force exerted by a black hole--only the direction is affected. Apparently the unchanging nature of the speed of light is associated with Purusha, and the changing nature of light direction is associated with Prakriti.
What about other physical constants like the Alpha? Nobel laureate physicist extraordinaire Richard Feynman called Alpha a "magic number" and its value "one of the greatest mysteries of physics." A dimensionless number which goes by the symbol alpha must remain constant for our existence. If not, then stars, including sun, would not be able to sustain nuclear reactions that synthesize carbon and oxygen atoms and therefore the carbon based life would not exist. A new research in astrophysics, reviewed in Economist magazine dated September 4, 2010, has discovered that the Alpha may not be constant after all, but changing from place to place within the universe. If their results hold up to scrutiny, they will have profound implications-for they suggest that the universe stretches far beyond what human telescopes can observe, and that the laws of physics, discovered by human beings, vary within it. Our material existence, if true in matters of the size of the universe, has become even more insignificant. The new research, however, does not change our connectedness with light. The speed of light remains unchanging at least in our part of the universe, and probably elsewhere.
Light therefore remains the conduit to the Divine and connects it with Nature. All living souls in Nature, bounded within the space time continuum, are also connected with the gale of the sun, as described by Anand Coomaraswamy. The significance here is that we need to learn to live "Now" not in the past and not in the future. That would help us to transcend to higher states of mind. Recall "Now" is the common apex of both, past and future cones, in space-time continuum bounded within the confines of the speed of light. "Now" literally is at the threshold to escape the domain of Nature. Apparently our existence at the apex "Now" may be a step away from the ultimate state of Sat-chit-Ananda.
The goal of a transcending philosopher is to acquire the highest mental state of being, the spiritual self. The insight here is to becoming selfless, egoless-that is, mass-less and light like, approaching the attribute known as unchanging. Here we need to focus on only the mind disassociating from
208