VCA 2: Vedic Physics the Nature of Space, Time, and Matter

Our ideas of the nature of space, time, and matter are essential ingredients in our understanding of the cosmos. When we look into the heavens, our direct sensory data consist of patterns of light. These patterns say nothing, in and of themselves, about the nature of the sources of this light. In order to say something about the cosmic manifestations that have produced the light, it is necessary to assume that the universe is made of some kind of stuff, or matter, that has certain characteristics and obeys certain laws. Given such assumptions, we can then ask ourselves what arrangement of this matter, acting in accordance with the laws, would produce the observed light patterns. If we are successful in putting together a consistent explanation of the observed data based on the assumed laws and properties, then we tend to suppose that we have correctly understood the structure of the universe. In our mind's eye, our theoretical models take on an air of concrete reality, and it almost seems as though we were holding the universe in the palm of our hand.

Throughout most of modern human history, people have been limited to the surface of the earth, and they have based their ideas of the nature of matter on observations that we can perform in this limited domain using our ordinary senses. Over the last two or three hundred years, Western scientists have used experimental observation and the analysis of experimental results to build up an extensive body of knowledge-the science of modern physics-which gives a detailed picture of the properties of matter and the laws governing its behavior. The modern Western understanding of the nature and structure of the universe as a whole is based on interpreting observed celestial phenomena within the framework of modern physics.

The thesis of this book is that the framework of modern physics is too limited to accommodate many phenomena that occur within this universe. In particular, this framework cannot accommodate many features of the universe that are described in the Vedic literature, and thus the Vedic accounts often seem absurd or mythological when viewed from the perspective of modern science. At the present time, certain assumptions of modern physics have been adopted by people in general as the very foundation of their world view. These assumptions are incompatible with the underlying assumptions of the Vedic world view, and thus they tend to block people from having free access to the Vedic literature. In this section we will try to alleviate this difficulty by discussing the nature of the material energy as described in the Vedic literature. Since this is a very deep and complex subject, we will be able to touch on only a few points that are relevant to the understanding of Vedic cosmology.