convivium

Just as the 18th century defined itself as the Age of Enlightenment and Reason, the 21st century too struggles to find its own philosophical voice. Some might call it a Zeitgeist, a mantra, words to live by. “Einstein and Buddha is an inspired effort to meet the 21st-century challenge of developing a synthetic world view. McFarlane juxtaposes quotations from Eastern contemplatives and Western scientists with insight, clarity, and intellectual integrity,” says philosopher and UNLV professor Dr. Ron Leonard.

“Worldly conceptions of ordinary objects and everyday experience suddenly broke down when physicists began to explore the nature of the atom,” explains MsFarlane. “In Einstein’s world of relativity, the word ‘simultaneous’ has no meaning. Time has no absolute standard…Eastern mystics would hardly be surprised. Their explorations beyond ordinary experience have long revealed that human ideas of the world are merely imperfect tools for viewing subtle phenomena.”

In modern physics, the more scientists learn about reality, the more apparent it becomes that reality transcends theory, reason, and observation. Eastern mystics too attest that ultimate knowledge of reality eludes the thinking mind and its philosophical systems. The Buddha spoke of his teachings as a raft his disciples could use to cross a river, and once the river was crossed, the raft was to be left behind. So begins the search for parallel sayings.

In Einstein and Buddha, you’ll find quotations under such headings as “Paradox and Contradiction,” “Subject and Object,” “Manifestation and Causality,” and “Wholeness and Interdependence.” The section on “Unity and Plurality” encapsulates the theme of the book with profound beauty. In it, McFarlane writes how Newton’s law of gravitation “unified in one equation the motion of planets and the behavior of objects falling on earth.” So it seems as our understanding of physics deepens, its laws become more universal. “The holy grail of 21st century physics is to unify the laws governing all known forces of nature within a single ‘theory of everything,’” McFarlane explains. Similarly, the mystic’s “holy grail” is to find the unity behind all things. “The goal, however,” McFarlane writes, “is not a theory but transcendence of all things. The mystic’s unity embraces not only all phenomena of the world, but his or her own self as well. Like the physicist, the mystic seeks to discover the invariant within all variation, the One at the root of the Many.”

From Max Plank, the physicist who revolutionized thermodynamics, to Shankara, one of the most influential mystics of ancient Hinduism, McFarlane’s collection includes quotations that challenge us to unite knowledge with belief. This book perhaps is a signal that we’ve moved beyond thinking about things we can’t discover under a microscope as “alternative,” but rather as complementary to the wisdom we already have and seek to attain.