This website highlights discoveries in modern physics and relates them to ancient nonduality. There will also be some ranting about Materialism. The purpose is to help with the prep work for the science-minded spiritual seeker.

I’m not a physicist—I worked as a research wildlife biologist for 30 years—but I’ve always enjoyed studying and pondering the concepts behind relativity and quantum mechanics. 

Rationality and discernment have always been my guides, but it was in meditation where I found the answers to the big questions. I don’t mean to sound all spiritual. It’s just, that’s what happened. Late in my career I started meditating, looked for a meditation teacher, and so, became the student of an authentic guru, who was a close disciple of a world famous guru, the lineage holder of a great saint of India, and I got a deep end initiation into that powerful nondual lineage. It was one of those “real deal” situations that never actually happens, but then it did.

Young Bhagawan Nityananda

From that I bring you quotes, mostly from Kashmir Shaivism, Tibetan Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Taoism, and even a few nondual-sounding Bible quotes. Also included is a balance of quotes from top physicists and philosophers, all pointing to the central idea that consciousness is fundamental. I am confident these quotes are all authentic. When a name is linked under a quote, it’s a citation link to Wikiquote. For the scriptural quotes I’m relying heavily on work of the translators Eknath Easwaran (The Upanishads, 1987; The Bhagavad Gita, 1985) and Bart Marshall (The Perennial Way: Expanded Edition, 2016).

You will also find my commentary, calling upon science, spirituality, and philosophy to support this nondual perspective I now have. I’m not much of a writer, but I feel nicely positioned to point to the ineffable in a way that would be helpful for a rational, science-minded seeker. I’m not adding new blogs so much as refining the same few posts. Be advised, this is not strictly nondual speak, since science is inherently dualistic. I’ll use whatever points to the nondual. I’m mostly just stating conclusions here, and providing links to back them up. I’m always trying to keep my science friends and collogues in mind, who think this guru thing is way too woo-woo. I’ve always felt that way myself, but now I’ve eaten my words and just want to share what I was given.

Lastly, you will find many links providing the background and arguments for my conclusions (since we have the internet at our fingertips). All are carefully selected, and the safest I could find that support my position—mostly YouTube and Wikipedia. I’ll occasionally resort to something like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or Scientific American. Embedded links appear as YouTube images, but some of the best are just highlighted words. Unless otherwise specified, you shouldn’t have to read much, or watch two minutes, to see what I’m referencing.

I use the terms, Awakening, Waking Up, Realization, Initiation, Born Again, Shaktipat, and Satori all to mean the same thing—that first glimpse into your true nature, which forever changes who you think you are (sound familiar?). Most people are looking for the word enlightenment, but awakening is the first big step toward that (third step in the Ten Ox-herding Pictures). It’s a temporary Enlightenment Experience that leaves you in-body, but with a transcendent world view.

Maybe you’re wondering what an Awakening specifically does for a person. What’s the big deal? Only that, this is how humans are meant to walk in the world—like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden—the connection, the intimacy, the love, every breath has an underlying joy. Knowing you are also the dreamer, you walk in the world knowing the rest of you is behind everything …so self-care takes on a whole new meaning. There is complete existential angst relief. You know that everything, from your greatest accomplishments, to your deepest regrets—your entire egoic self—will be shed with the body and not missed. You will still look like you, people will still treat you the same, and you will still be able to enjoy your egoic self, but you’ll still need to go to work, and there won’t be a lot of people you can share this with, so you will often feel like an impostor. 

The theme here is to boundary span between science and spirituality—quantum mechanics and Eastern mysticism. From what I’ve seen, many religions have long been describing the quantum realm. The Tattvas (layers of elements) of Kashmir Shaivism, for example, map out the emergence of space, time, and localized causality from a nonlocal middle realm. Similarly, the periodic table of elements describes the classical world of qualia, and the table of elementary particles describes middle layer elements—science has started its own list of tattvas. From my perspective, it seems science and spirituality are describing the same structure.

Why do I think the world only manifests for consciousness? Because I got to see behind the scenes once, and because three physicists won the Nobel Prize for it in 2022; for disproving Local Realism. They ran experiments for decades addressing all the counter arguments and confirming that particles, in fact, don’t have physical properties before they are observed! So, question: How could physical processes happen if particles don’t have physical properties before they are observed?

Quantum mechanics governs matter (and energy) at all scales. The physical world is how quantum wave states appear when observed at this scale. Furthermore, I think quantum-scale behaviors do scale up. Consider the Measurement Problem—how quantum states collapse into matter only when observed. Or the Quantum Eraser experiments—when conscious choices are made, matter’s back history only then forms, conforming to our choices. Or Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle—how particles never fully manifest, even when we are interacting with them. Plus, there’s also distinctly classical scale issues like Einstein’s relativity—how there’s no objective universe, only qualia of experience. Also consider that relativity says photons, since they are massless and moving at the speed of light, are everywhere at once, and time is not flowing. From a photon’s perspective it never travels in space or time. So, only in conscious experience does light ever go anywhere. Quantum Field Theory says it’s like that with everything in the universe; outside of perception, it’s just quantum fields. In fact, even in perception it’s just quantum fields.

Then I discovered Robert Lanza and Biocentrism. He makes many of the same physics-based arguments I do, which is reassuring because he’s not spiritual at all, he’s just being rational. For those who just want a summary of the science, I refer you to him.

Then I discovered Bernardo Kastrup, a modern-day Ontological Idealist; a philosopher who makes many of the same arguments I do, and reaches the same conclusion—that consciousness is fundamental. For those looking for the philosophical argument, see Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Berkeley, and Bernardo. Bernardo argues from just two solid premises. First, he would remind us of Descartes’ axiom, the only thing we can know for certain is our own consciousness; everything else is inference. Second, our conscious awareness is disassociated from even most of our own brain, so maybe the world is just a continuation of this disassociated consciousness. Science is a big fan of Occam’s razor, and this is the most parsimonious argument available—The physical universe is only qualia in conscious experience.

We think we’re just that little guy down in the universe, but we’re also the source of the universe.

Okay, here’s the thing. Humans have evolved just enough to sometimes “pop”. This is known by those who have done it, but most everyone else have written it off as just wishful thinking. If Realization is truly your goal, be advised that the experience can be quite destabilizing for some if the necessary prep work hasn’t been done. That’s why religions are always going on about purifying yourself (they’ll even give you a smoke bath of incense, or anoint you with scented oil). So before you go and Realize you are One with all other humans, let alone the universe, it’s important to develop a stance of love and compassion for all beings, because of how intimately close you actually are to everything. How close? How many is one?

So, it’s always a good time to improve your ability to walk in the world with a sense of gratitude, compassion, and love …at least for your fellow humans. As my guru liked to say (this Tibetan Buddhist quote), “Without love and compassion for all beings, enlightenment is impossible. But with love and compassion for all beings, enlightenment is inevitable.”

And, for the Westerner in particular, it’s important to get a rational grip on this whole Realization business, so when it does happen, you can keep your head on straight. I made this website in the hopes it helps you with that.     -Garth