20 July 2013 - QA 1

Dear Gurudev, recently there has been a discovery of something called the Higgs-Boson particle. Is it leading scientists towards pure consciousness?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

I visited the institute CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) where they found the God particle. We presented them with the book, Yoga Vasishta, and some meditation CDs. In fact, the head of that institution came and spoke at our World Forum for Ethics in Business conference.

Scientists are very close to spirituality, they are not far from it. What they are saying is absolutely the same thing that we have been saying.

A German scientist, who was with the institute for 40 years, said that all these years he studied matter, only to find that it does not exist. Matter simply does not exist! What exists is only energy, and all this is just an illusion.

This is what the Gurus (masters) of the holy tradition said thousands of years ago, ‘All this is just maya, an illusion, because nothing exists; only one thing exists’. Now scientists are saying the same thing.

Scientists say that there is a close connection between the perceiver and the perceived. If you are not there, you can’t even see the electron, it does not exist. You influence an electron on being there. Thus, the seer, the seen, and the process of seeing; the knower, the object of knowledge and the process of knowing; all that is one. And this is what we have been saying in spirituality.

It was so refreshing to hear exactly the same thing from a scientist. Even they were happy and joyful.

The scientists said, ‘We thought we had found out a lot of things about the universe, but as we got to know more, we realized there are so many things that we don’t know, like black matter and black energy.’

We presented them with a book that The Art of Living has published on The Creation by Bharath Gyan.

In the Vedas, there is a hymn on the creation that goes, ‘In the beginning, there was darkness enveloped by darkness’. No pundit could really make sense of it, or interpret it. Now, that is exactly what the scientists are saying; there is a dark matter and dark energy.

Why are things spherical in the universe? It is because of the pressure of the dark matter around everything, which is why we see everything spherical.

Why is the Sun round? Because the dark energy around the sun is so much, it compresses the Sun. It is like the gas particles in a bottle of water. If you shake a fizzy drink, bubbles get formed. The bubbles inside are round because of the pressure of water all around it.
Similarly, this universe comprises of unseen dark energy. They call it dark energy, because you can’t see it. It is because of the presence of this dark energy that all other matter, including the stars and planets, are spherical.

Moreover, what we see, these stars, planets, they form only 10% of the creation; 90% is the dark energy, dark matter, and that is exactly what Shiva Tattva is.

Then the scientists told me how their discovery came to be known as the God Particle.
When the scientists found The God of Particles, meaning from where all other particles have come (a particle means its neutron, proton, electron, then sub-atomic particles), they found that in the finest of the particles there had to be three isotopes. Matter cannot exist without three isotopes. This is exactly what the Rishis (sages) said, 'Three things have to be there for creation to exist - sattva, rajas and tamas. If even one of these is missing, things cannot exist'.

Scientists said three things have to be there for matter to exist. When the scientists further broke down those three things, they found that they are just vibrations; that is what they called The God of Particles.

The marketing department of the institute said, ‘If you call it God of particles, then it will not sell, simply call it God Particle.’
So, the marketing department took off the of and said, ‘God Particle was found’, then it was taken by the media in a big way. This is what they told me. It is interesting.

Now, the machine is shut down for 18 months for repairs. It is a 27 kilometer big tunnel built underneath; a particle comes from both directions and they have a collision at great speed, which is captured by many pictures.

The scientists say that the analysis will take many years; hundreds and thousands of scientists will work on it. Currently, there are around 3,000 scientists working in the institute, analyzing these particles.

So, what is The God particle? It means the mother of particles. It is all very interesting. You can draw a parallel to the Vedic knowledge with whatever the scientists have said, it is strikingly similar.