The Same Boat, A Different Road: Why Science and Spirituality Are Both Studying the Same Thing

What if science and spirituality are not opposites at all-but simply two languages trying to describe the same silence?

As a seeker of truth, I believe we should be aware of two fundamental things.

The first is that the entire universe is made only of energy. The building block of the universe is energy. It is one undivided energy that manifests in different forms. Everything we see—the interactions, the way the energy presents itself—are appearances, reflections, maya if you will. There is just one existing component of the universe. No matter where you look, into which nook or corner, that one component is energy. That is the first thing we, as scientists, need to know.

The second thing is that science is the study of that energy. It is a study of that energy, represented in ways that are accurate. It is understanding all the forms, all the plays, and all the interactions of that energy field.

Now, as a scientist, I call this "science and energy." But there are a few people who call it "science and spirituality." When we hear the word spirituality, we often feel that they are missing the point. But here is the key thing: when we look at spirituality, or when some of us dismiss it as superstition, we need to understand that superstition is possible in both directions. There are spiritually superstitious people, and there are scientifically superstitious people as well.

Look at the different theories that are constantly emerging. One person says the Standard Model of the universe is perfect. Another insists it is the String Model. Someone else talks about quantum mechanics, arguing that the entire universe was already decided the moment the explosion, the Big Bang, or that initial event took place. There are those who believe in a deterministic model where everything is fixed. And then there are those who believe that quantum particles have a choice. They point to quantum entanglement, quantum choice, and quantum probability, suggesting that nothing is truly decided until it is observed.

Then, you have the debates about consciousness. Some believe it is a construct, unique to humans. Others look at those undecided quantum particles and wonder: if they can truly choose, if they can do this or that, does that point to the possibility that they possess a form of consciousness?

When you look at science itself, there is so much of what could be called superstition. And what is superstition? It is simply a science that has not yet been proven.

So, when I look at life as a scientist, I realize that I might be a scientist, but someone else could easily perceive me as spiritual. And when I look at another scientist—someone with degrees, with certifications to prove he is a scientist, with a lab where he works—he might consider himself very scientific. But when I look at him, with his dogmas, with his rigid beliefs where he is not flexible, I might see him as superstitious. I might see him as someone stuck in dogma and religion. And what would his religion be? It would be whatever he mistakenly believes is absolute science.

The Servants of the Same Truth

What if science and spirituality are not opposites at all, but simply two languages trying to describe the same reality?

In our previous discussion, we touched on old religions, God, and disciples. When you have a God, you have followers, you have disciples, you have those who want to serve God, who want to live for God, whom we can call God's das, God's servants. And that is what we all are. We are either directly calling ourselves followers of God—servants who follow, love, care for, and are ready to do anything for God—or we are scientists. We are again the servants of what? Of that energy. We are trying to find that energy, understand it, decode it, and we are actually serving a purpose. We are serving something. We are trying to unravel the mystery of the energy for the sake of the energy.

Because who are we? We ourselves are energy. We are built from the same energy field. So when you look at the pursuit, what we are engaged in is this: you are an energy field trying to decode itself. Trying to find meaning. Trying to find out the answer to that question: who am I?

And this question, who am I, does not begin only with the spiritual seeker. All of us are trying to figure out where we are. We are entangled so intricately that we need to come out of this entanglement. It is like a rope. When I was young, and there were these ropes in the storeroom, I used to take one out. It was always so difficult to untangle so many ropes together. And then I would realize it was just that one rope, entangled in such a way that it looked like multiple ropes all stuck together. And that is exactly the way we are.

We are the energy fields, entangled, entangled, entangled in such a way that today we are trying to unravel ourselves. But as I am trying to unravel myself, there are many other portions of that rope which are also trying to untangle themselves. And then we realize that the rope is one. It is actually the pursuit of energy to untangle itself.

So as scientists, when I try to demystify, when I try to come up with a theory of understanding what energy is, is it not the energy which is trying to find out what energy is? Because if everything is energy, and we as humans, as scientists, as people who are enlightened, are trying to find out what energy is, and we are made up of energy, then energy is trying to find out itself. Even the highest energy is trying to unravel itself to itself so that it understands what it is.

That is from the scientist's perspective. But what about from the devotee's perspective? Why does a devotee pray to God? God has said multiple times that this entire creation is mine. All of you are components of me. I have created this. And where could God create us from? When there is nothing but him, he had nothing else to create a universe from. There cannot be anything other than God. Look at any religion: look at Islam, look at Hinduism, or more accurately, Sanatana Dharma. Look at any of these traditions, and what do they say? They say God is the ultimate, the only thing that exists in this universe is God. And everything has emerged from him. And if it has emerged from him, it is of him. That is the key thing.

And if everything has emerged from him and is of him, that means all of us are divine. All of us are components of that very God. And that is where the untangling becomes necessary. When I untangle myself, when I understand how I am divine, then that is one of the greatest contributions I can make to the divine as well. And that is why the divine reaches out to us. The divine reaches out to us not because we are great, but because in us there is a solution. In us, when we pursue trying to understand the divine, the divine realizes how beautiful this creation is. And that is why you see this dance between God and the devotee.

So who is God now? God is that energy. And who is the devotee? The devotee is a scientist. So surprisingly, when you look at it, this world has always been filled with energy and scientists, with God and disciples and devotees. And we have multiple gods and multiple devotees. But all these gods, when you look at them, have come from the same source. They are manifestations of the same source. You cannot look at this rope, see it entangled in different ways, see one long stretch of untangled rope, and say that stretch is God but this tangle is not. How accurate can you be? Or you cannot say that stretch is energy but this tangle is not. It is not true. The entire rope is energy. The entire rope is God. It can entangle, it can form, it can create different shapes and different sizes. But you need to understand the thread that runs through them, the rope that runs through them. And it is just one rope.

The String That Connects Us All

And that is why, when I look at string theory, one thing which I feel is right about it is this: there is just one string of energy. That string is entwined and twined in a way where it creates these multiple structures. It folds and enfolds not just the proteins in our body, but energy in all forms. When you look at light, when you look at sound, when you look at anything, it is energy dynamics. It is energy playing.

It is just like when you move a rope, you can see the waves in the rope. You see the waves, and you say energy is waves. And then, just like when you look at a rope and you can touch it and say it is something solid, you also say particles exist. The Standard Model says there are particles. The wave model says everything is a wave. And both are true. A rope can be a straight line. It can appear as multiple particles along a line. Or it can be a probability when it is moving. And that is the beauty.

When you look at it from a perspective of holism, where you are not biased, where you are not stuck in paradigms, then you realize that humanity as a whole has been pursuing the same thing under different names, studied from different paradigms. But when you realize that we are all on the same journey, we will start appreciating religions. We will start appreciating science. We will not look at each other as enemies. We will look at each other as co-travelers, co-finders, co-searchers, and again, the very embodiments of that energy, the different knots of that energy. And in that finding, we will be able to unravel ourselves and help others as well.

This brings us to the concepts of absolute science and absolute spirituality.

Absolute science is the quest, the pursuit of finding the truth about energy. It tries to represent, understand, decode, and essentially map all the dynamics and the different ways energy interacts. That is what perfect or absolute science is.

And what is absolute spirituality? Absolute spirituality is nothing but understanding that same energy from the perspective of consciousness. It is energy trying to understand itself from its own viewpoint, rather than trying to understand it as something materialistic, through its interactions.

To put it succinctly, let me offer an analogy. Imagine I am trying to understand my own mother as a human being. I look at her different parts: I look at her feet, I look at her hair, the lipstick she has put on, or the saree she has worn. I analyze why she does the things she does. As long as I am doing that, looking at my mother in that analytical way, that is science. I am trying to understand her. I am seeing her patterns and decoding them. All of this, while I am relating to my mother, is science, because I am trying to understand her from the perspective of her interactions and her actions.

So, what is spirituality then? Spirituality is trying to feel the way she feels. It is trying to understand the way she resonates. It goes a little deeper. It looks from her perspective.

If you see, science is from my perspective, and spirituality is from her perspective. And that is exactly what we need to understand when we talk about science and energy, or science and spirituality, or as some people would say, science and God.

When we talk about God, we need to understand that God is nothing but energy. Scientifically, that is accurate. Just because someone calls H2O "water," someone else calls it "neer," and another person calls it "uddak" as they say in Konkani, the nature of H2O does not change. To look down on someone who calls H2O "water" and call them unscientific is missing the point. It is not unscientific. It is simply the use of a different language. It is staying in a different paradigm while trying to figure out the same thing.

And that is the key approach we should be taking. So, the next time you hear someone talking about spirituality, understand that they are in the same boat. It is the same pursuit on a different road. Rather than looking at them and spending all your energy trying to prove them wrong, see how we can work together to get to the destination we both ultimately want to reach.