I laugh each time I learn of another "discovery" by science that belatedly (3,000 years?) confirms the truth of Advaita. It seems to me that much of 20th century science moved towards recognition of the perceiver's effect upon the perceived, thus coloring reality, or what we think real, in many subtle and heretofore unacknowledged ways. Psychology, conditioning, environment, our particular experiences all affect and shape our experience of reality. Advaita advances this a bit more by positing a reality absent of perceiver and perceived, undivided and indivisible. The sages tell us that there is no "doer" or "doership." Now I read that a German neuroscientist at a prestigious Berlin research facility has conducted studies that suggest "consciousness of a decision may be a mere bio-chemical afterthought, with no influence whatsoever on our actions." In other words, our supposed free will, our choices, are after-the-fact responses. This scientist used a modern brain scanner to arrive at his conclusion. The rishi's of old could have told him that numberless causes through infinite time underlie every supposed action we attribute to free will. Everything everywhere must be exactly so for me to lift my little finger, supposedly volitionally. We are not living, we are being lived and unaware of it. This is the next paradigm, a new vantage for 21st century science. Of course, the rishi's would laugh as they explained, because they knew it's all an illusory game anyway and that eventually, should we survive so long, we will come full circle to the truth:
"There is neither creation nor destruction,
Neither destiny or free will,
Neither path nor achievement;
This is the final truth." - Sri Ramana Maharshi
Ultimately, dark matter will be found to consist of ourselves, the same substance we observe when we gaze at our own face without a mirror. It's everywhere.
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