I was listening to a Dan Brown Book called "The Lost Symbol" and this statement was mentioned by one of the Masonic researchers in the book and thought to myself, "Yes. I like that statement."
There was a book that came out I believe called:
Amazon.com: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels ...
which illustrates how ancient mystics discovered many of the elements of physics through direct mystical research over thousands of years. If you are a physics major in High School or college it is a must read (if you are open minded).
I was always interested in Science all my life. My father was an Electrical Contractor and so I grew up reading Popular Science and Popular Mechanics every month as my father subscribed to both from about the time I was 5 years old. Nicola Tesla, (the father of Alternating current) was his hero as an Electrician and Electrical Contractor, and so I got interested in Math because of science and then Algebra because it related to Fortran(an early computer language) and later I taught my kids to program in the Basic language on my early 1978 TRS-80 (one of the very first home computers) 4k memory around 1980 and after.
note: This website has a picture of the TRS-80 that I bought just like mine in 1978 for $600
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80i.html
So, for me understanding the universe and mysticism has always been about scientific research for me. Since I was always intuitively gifted I always found the scientific method useful.
However, for me, I wasn't trying to prove my research to the whole world because that would be ridiculously hard(Look at Galileo for example and how he went to prison for his science). So, I was only trying to prove what I wanted to understand scientifically, and then if I was successful like I was in finding out about a lot of stuff then I would write about it after I retired or something like I'm doing now.
So, even now I'm not trying to be an ultimate scientist like Galileo, I'm only trying to share with you what worked for me and what didn't work for me in all aspects of life that I write about. What you do with all that is your business. I'm just witnessing my personal experiences of what worked and still works for me now in my life after 62 years.
I particularly like this specific review of "The Tao of Physics" and so I quote it here below. If you click on the Amazon button above it is also on the same page there.
62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Intriguing & Thought-Provoking Book, January 30, 2005
This review is from: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (25th Anniversary Edition) (Paperback)
In 1975, physicist Fritjof Capra wrote an unusual book about physics and Eastern mysticism entitled "The Tao Physics". Though some of Mr. Capra's colleagues were offended that any physicist would compare the science of modern physics with the religious practices of Eastern mystics (primarily the beliefs & practices of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism), the reality is that there are some very striking similarities with the intuitively Eastern mystical view of reality and the experimentally rational view of quantum theory. Part of the reason for this is that both physicists and Eastern mystics find it very difficult to explain their observations in language (including the language of mathematics) because each of their experiences is not encountered in our everyday, mechanistic macro world. Up until the time of Einstein, physicists were comfortable with explaining the world using Newton's mechanistic theories. However, Einstein realized that there was a fatal flaw with the Newtonian view that presumed that gravity is felt instantaneously regardless of distance. Also, Newton's law of gravity really didn't explain exactly what gravity is. With a stroke of insight, Einstein realized that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light, including gravity; and several years later was able to explain gravity as being the consequence of the curvature of four-dimensional space-time due to mass. These discoveries through the world of Newtonian physics upside-down, but as Einstein's theories demonstrated, the Newtonian view was still valid for objects whose speeds come nowhere near the speed of light. Hence, Newton's laws of motion and gravity were still valuable, but in actuality, are only good approximations that can be used to explain movement in our frame of reference. Einstein, however, could not accept the views being developed by his contemporaries in the field of subatomic particles because Einstein maintained that elegant simplicity and orderliness existed at all levels of the physical Universe. Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, on the other hand, discovered that the subatomic world was anything but simple and orderly. Instead, they, and the physicists who followed them, discovered that the subatomic world is not comprised of hard, independent and quantifiable particles; but of highly unpredictable and interconnected packets of energy that display characteristics both as particles with mass and waves of energy that can only be partially explained through the use of probabilities. It was the discovery of quantum theory that modern physics has come to some strikingly similar conclusions that Eastern mystics came to over 2500 years earlier: namely, that everything in the Universe is interconnected, there are no completely independent parts, and that human consciousness is not independent of the Universe either. By entering deeply meditative states of consciousness, Eastern mystics for centuries have experienced intuitively the interconnected wholeness of reality (referred to the Tao in Taoism, the Brahman in Hinduism and the Dharmakaya in Buddhism) once they are able to set aside all other conscious thought and language. To Eastern mystics, language, which attempts to distinguish between various things, creates the illusion of separateness and independence that is the hallmark of Western science and philosophy as culminating in Newtonian physics. The notion that objects could be broken down into independent and mutually exclusive, lifeless parts was the philosophy embraced by many early Greek philosophers, such as Leucippus, Democritus and Aristotle; in contrast to the Greek philosophers of Parmenides and Heraclitus who were hylozoists and Eastern mystics. The popular Western view of separateness is also part of the driving patriarchal, anthropocentric view of Christianity ("yang" in Taoists terms); as opposed to the intuitive, interconnected and interpenetrative view of Eastern mysticism ("yin" in Taoists terms) that is also part of quantum theory.
Some portions of "The Tao of Physics" may be quite difficult for someone with very little background in physics to fully understand, but Mr. Capra avoided use of complex mathematics in his very accurate explanations of observations made in subatomic physics. He also did a superb job of explaining the views of three different Eastern religions that many readers may be introduced to for the first time in this book. Though there was a time when physicists and Western philosophers believed the Universe and inorganic matter are static that could be easily explained with simple equations, modern physics has come to the same conclusion that Eastern mystics did 2500 years ago: the Universe is an extremely dynamic and ever-changing reality governed not by abstract fundamental laws, but by interactions of all matter and energy throughout and that matter itself is pure energy, impermanent, ever-changing and ever-transforming just as the Hindu's explained by the always-dancing Shiva. Further, modern science cannot explain everything; it can only provide approximate explanations for particular situations: the Universe in its totality could never be fully explained, just as the Tao cannot be fully explained. Overall, I rate "The Tao of Physics" with a resounding 5 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it.
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