Bhagavad Gita Chapters 7 and 8, The Mundaka Upanishad and CERN

For this months Mrityunjaya session I am suggesting we consider chapters 7 and 8 of the Bhagavad Gita.

Each chapter is very short, consisting of 30 and 28 verses respectively.

The reason they have piqued my interest this month is that they relate very much to what is going on at CERN with the Large Hadron Collider. Not so much it's immediate goal of finding the Higgs Boson, but what it represents in terms of the human races' quest for what science used to call the 'Grand Unified Theory', and now calls the 'Theory of Everything'.

What science is striving for is a single theory, or model, or piece of knowledge that on it's own and by itself describes how the Universe came into existence, and how the Universe operates. In other words, what they want to know, is, what is that one thing, which when known, gives the knowledge of all things.

Which is interesting, because here is verse 3 of the First Khanda of the Mundaka Upanishad:

3. Saunaka, the great householder, approached Angiras respectfully and asked: 'Sir, what is that through which, if it is known, everything else becomes known?'.

Sound like a familiar question?

Now, I hate pseudo science, and have no time for it at all. But taking the most open-minded outlook I am capable of, that sounds to me like Saunaka was asking for a Theory of Everything.

Of course, the 'everything' is understood differently. Modern scientists are looking to fill some embarrassing and troublesome gaps in a couple of amazingly accurate theories that between them come tantalisingly close to covering everything. They are looking for particles missing from the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics, and also trying to do away with some meddlesome 'free variables'. The existence of mass is one such 'free variable'. The Standard Model takes mass for granted, and doesn't explain it. Professor Higgs extended the model to remove this omission with some truly groovy mathematics and not a little imagination. The idea of the LHC is to see if the prof is correct. If so, that's a step towards a complete 'Theory of Everything'. Another thing that needs closing off in science is the chasm between two astoundingly successful models of the universe, one for small things (atoms) and one for big things (bigger than a few atoms). Sadly, these theories cannot both be right on a deeper level. They both work amazingly well in their own right, but in a very dep way, they contradict each other. At least one of them is wrong at a fundamental level, possibly (I'd say probably) both.

So that's all really technical stuff, and highly mathematical. It seems unlikely that either Saunaka or Angiras had a grip on modern physics.

But they and modern physics are, still, nevertheless, both asking precisely the same question: What really is the Universe? Where did it come from? And please give me one piece of knowledge that can provide all the answers!

Let's think about that. At least many hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years ago, a group of people who lived on the shores of the Ganges had somehow come to the conclusion that there is a single piece of knowledge that gives the answers to all questions. And yet the same idea didn't surface in Western Science until really quite recently, and only really did so because it was found, about 80 years ago, that Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity could not work together!

Science doesn't yet have an answer, and I have a radical, unpopular and - to be honest - unfounded, opinion as to why that is.

In my opinion - and that's all it is - the reason Science does not have, and cannot have, an answer to their own problem is that they do not factor Consciousness into the equations. Science does not really accept the existence of consciousness. Most scientists believe that it is simply an illusion caused by the the complexity of the human brain. Imagine a ball of string accidentally tangled up in such a way as to look like a face. There is no face. The face has no real existence, but the complexity of the way the string is tangled causes the impression of a face to emerge. That's a close analogy to the current reductionist view of consciousness. They even use the term 'emergent feature'. The brain is so complex that the impression of consciousness emerges, but has no reality.

Hmm. Ok.

So who is it that is deluded into perceiving this emergence?

Well, that's another matter.

My point is that I believe science will continue to fail until it realises that Consciousness is not only an intrinsic aspect of the Universe - every bit as much as gravity, for example - but is in fact, a huge step towards answering the ultimate question:

'What is that through which, if it is known, everything else becomes known?'

And of course, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita approach the question from the perspective Consciousness, not the perspective of the Strong, Weak, Elctromagnetic and Gravitic forces. The starting point for the philosophers of the Upanishads was not rolling balls down slopes and watching apples fall from trees. Their starting point was similar to the finishing point of Rene Descartes: I think therefore I am. For the Vedic seers, consciousness was the most refined and most promising start point for their investigations into the absolute nature of existence.

So, whilst Science has progressed looking ever outwards, investigating the interactions of 'things', the Vedic philosophers delved inwards. This lead scientists to the fundamental forces of Nature, and lead the Vedics to the fundamental Nature of mind.

Now, both of these things are great, and I am not in any way denigrating Science. In fact, I adore Science.

But maybe it becomes clear why the same question - precisely the same question - has lead to very different attempts to answer it.

So, what is the answer given by Angiras? Well, his answer is in fact the rest of the Mundaka Upanishad, which is long, obscure and wrapped in Hindu thought. But contained within it are some nuggets. In fact, contained within is the answer. But I feel that a better version of the answer to largely the same question is given by Krishna in the Gita, chapters seven and eight.

Interestingly, Krishna directly alludes to Mundaka in Chapter 7 verse 2:

2. And I will speak to thee of that Wisdom and vision which, when known, there is nothing else for thee to know.

He continues:

5. But beyond my visible nature is my invisible Spirit. This is the fountain of life whereby this universe has its being.

By 'visible nature', we should understand 'nature which is detectable', so this includes the fundamental particles and forces. The invisible Spirit should not be taken to mean 'magnetism', as is so often and so infuriatingly done, or as any of the other forces of nature that are 'invisible' to the naked eye. The Spirit to which Krishna alludes is something beyond this normal range of detectable objects and forces.

7. In this whole vast universe there is nothing higher than I. All the worlds have their rest in me, as many pearls upon a string.

Here's an interesting coincidence. Of course the name 'Krishna' means black or dark. Just today in the Sunday Times there was an article about a bunch of scientists who conjecture that the distribution of galactic clusters and superclusters are formed along vast ribbons of dark matter.

So, for now, that's plenty.

Maybe those attending our next session could read Chapters 7 and 8, and see what thoughts come to mind for discussion!