We do not have a construct in the West, we do not have a basis, for a dialogue between physics and spirituality. Scientists can take a legitimate position while denying the apparent obvious, which is the way science works. For example: the sun is not moving east to west; we are spinning from west to east. Coming up with an illusion: the earth spinning is the fact. In looking for a reference frame in which you can explain things, you call one reference frame more real than the other. So science and religion are both fields which claim they are heading to truth. They are talking about how their truth is truth, or how to get to truth. Religion is very conservative. We are not able to know our experience, what is truth, if we follow the teachings of those who have been there. This means there is no boundary condition of knowing truth, or testing of truth and therefore claiming truth on some other basis. In religion you can just claim ‘truth’ — I have a father with a white beard, I have a son who was born into the world. In the West, you start with images of form and action; Greek gods, plants, spirits — all the dynamics we see in our sensory world. We try to give meaning to these. We do so in terms of a higher order of spirit, but have no way to prove meaning. In this way, dialogue becomes very tribal. My tribe knows truth better than your tribe. And truth and Christianity need to be supported by historical fact. So there had to be a Christ that died on the cross, there had to be a resurrection of Christ. If He didn’t rise from the dead after three days, we don’t have religion, folks. Our strength of knowing comes from our accepting the fact that Christ did arise three days after His death. In the East, the question becomes ‘Who Am I?’ In the West it is: ‘Who am I with respect to God?’ Every religion is born of experience, supported by experience. Whether charlatan experience, or mystic experience, both can go to church.
In 1904, Mystic of the East: energy and matter are the same thing. And maybe people will think I’m silly writing this but I predict that in 50 years from now, they will begin to talk about consciousness, matter and energy are all the same thing. That’s the beginning of looking at the most scientific forms of Eastern research into spirituality. I wrote three different papers on this subject.
OK I have a friend at Center for Theology and Natural Sciences, when I wrote this paper. Here at church hill on campus, and he went to very hard when I was a visiting scholar there. What I was saying didn’t make any sense to anybody. Because I was talking about consciousness and they were talking about god and Christianity.