Everything we see and experience in our daily lives – a table, a cat, humans, stars, oceans, air, radio waves, light, the floor, a tennis ball – at the fundamental level is not what our intuition thinks it is. Without yet calling everything an illusion, our experience of matter is a ‘simulation’ generated by the brain, and our intuitional idea of substance and reality dry out at their foundational levels – for there is no independent ‘substance’, reality in fact is an effect and not an essence. Evolution caused us to perceive these as we do, while not granting us the ability to perceive the fundamental fabric that causes and forms everything there is in the universe: Quantum Fields

To understand in a simplistic manner, let us construct a hierarchical ‘matter ladder’ from the most composite to the most fundamental for three of the examples cited above, deconstructing a human, a table and a tennis ball. A human body is made up on organ systems emerging from tissues emerging from cells emerging from molecules emerging from atoms emerging from electrons, protons and neutrons – the latter two of which are constituted by Quarks – all of which are finally only Quantum Field interactions. Similarly, a table is deconstructed thus: Wood – plant tissue  – plant cells – cellulose molecules – atoms – electrons, protons & neutrons – quarks – Quantum Field Interactions. Lastly with the Tennis ball, we have Ball – rubber -polymer -molecules  – atoms – electrons, protons & neutrons – quarks – Quantum Field Interactions.

The bottom rung at which boundaries of physics, metaphysics and philosophy start to blur and flow into each other is beyond the electron, proton, neutron, quark level – these basic blocks essentially are not ‘physical’ or ‘substantial’ in the classical sense – but rather excitations in underlying ‘fields’ – electron field, quark field, gluon field etc. In this sense, the Quantum Field Theory (QFT) is supplanting Newtonian postulates vis -à -vis nature of matter – for at the fundamental level matter is not discreet, solid substance like miniature billiards balls but only interplay of measureless, formless fields

All reality and perception, matter and the universe flow down to the same basic fabric – Quantum Fields and a great symphony of their excitations and interactions – the carpet upon which the dance of the universe unfolds – except this carpet is not measurable or viewable and can only be perceived in its ‘echo’ – in its effect but not in its essence. A Quantum field is physical not because it can be measured but because it produces consequences. Reality then is not made of matter in the classical sense, it is made of fields – matter is what fields look like to a biological nervous system

There are seventeen fundamental Quantum fields according to the standard model of Quantum physics – twelve matter fields – whose interactions give us what is perceived as matter, four force fields and one Higgs field – needed to give mass to an entity. In addition there is a mathematical construct of the Spacetime field. All quantum fields are all pervasive and present at every point in the universe – this is to allow for cause and effect to happen. If something is to happen somewhere in the universe – there needs to be a field there and it needs to have a ripple, for all causality needs a stage, medium and cause and the Quantum fields contribute all three requirements.

This multiplicity of fields is in fact a mathematical requirement, not a physical truth. There is now a concept known as the Unified Field Theory – a single mathematical framework that would include all fundamental forces of nature as different aspects of a single, underlying force. At the deepest level, there may just be one Field.

Hence all the nothingness of the universe ultimately isn’t really nothingness but a large swathe of latent intent of the universe – a stage of pure possibility – the field is the medium, and its excitation the event.

In Quantum field theory, everything from the mundane to the monumental – from nuclear reactions to a butterfly flying to a cake being baked to a light flickering, from the sweet smell of a flower to a tender kiss are all fundamentally dances or a great symphony of field excitations of one form or another – as a photon which constitutes light being a localized excitation of the electromagnetic field, the message or information for which, and not the photon itself, travels at the cosmic speed of light (c). Similarly the holding of hands or the petting of a dog isn’t in reality a touch in the Newtonian sense. Instead electron fields, quarks fields, electromagnetic fields enact a complex dance of interaction and excitation which our mind – an integrated pattern of excitations, perceives. In this view, the person, the sun or the dog are not separate things but stable localized excitations or resonances in the same fundamental fields

That all matter and all physicality of any nature in the universe are fundamentally excitations of unviewable or immeasurable fields is particularly provocative to the senses that are immersed in the palpable and the tangible

Donald Hoffman of the University of California, Irvine has written on the nature of reality and consciousness, calling this “consciousness using an interface rather than seeing reality directly.”

The famous 2013 photograph of the Electron from the FOM Institute in the Netherlands  wasn’t a polaroid of a solid particle in the classical sense – it showed an inference pattern -it showed where the electron field excitation most likely was – the footprint of a dance but not the dancer itself – for neither fields nor their excitations – the foundation and substance for everything that exists in the universe, can be viewed directly

While standing at this boundary of metaphysics, philosophy and epistemology, divinity becomes the raison d’etre and not the antithesis of physics. Here tenets of Sanatan philosophies offer guiding light:

The Fundamental reality beyond matter at the most profound level, which demonstrates it as not being composed of classical matter – but excitations of underlying quantum fields or of the one unified field – complex ripples traversing an omnipresent fabric aligns deeply with the tenets of Advait Vedanta, the non -duality which asserts that the individual soul (Atman) is non -different from the Brahman (the only reality)—the recognition that the essence underlying all phenomena is one and indivisible.

The four Mahavakyas of Advait Vedanta reinforce this effectively:

1: Tat Tvam Asi:

“You are that” asserts identity of the individual self (Atman) with Brahman

2: Aham Brahmasmi:

“I am Brahman” is spoken from the standpoint of a realized seeker

3: Pragnanam Brahma:

“Consciouness is Brahman” defines consciousness as the ultimate reality

4: Ayam Atman Brahma:

“The self is Brahman”

As its central tenet, Advait Vedanta describes the universe as a play of Maya (illusion which appears as duality, with non -duality being the ultimate reality). In the Mandukya Upanishad, sage Gaudapada writes māyāmātram idaṃ dvaitaṃ advaitaṃ paramārthataḥ (This duality is merely an illusion (maya), non -duality is the ultimate reality)

Quantum fields confirm classical materiality as being emergent, contingent upon deeper, unobservable dynamics of the same, singular fabric.

Adi Shankaracharya’s lines offer a concise summary of Advaita Vedanta

“Brahma satyaṃ jaganmithyā jīvo brahmaiva nāparaḥ”

“Brahman alone is real, the world is mithyā (dependent/illusory), the individual self is none other than Brahman”

Mithya here does not connote absolute falsehood. It tends to mean ‘empirically experienced but not ultimately real’

Erwin Schrodinger, the Nobel prize winning scientist who gave the foundational Schrodinger’s equation in Quantum mechanics was a student of the Upanishads who echoed this concept, arguing that “the total number of minds in the universe is one” using the concept of Atman=Brahman, emphasizing that ‘multiplicity is only apparent’

An extract from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad confirms this thus: “Neha nānāsti kiñcana”:

(There is no multiplicity here whatsoever)

The concepts of Werner Heisenberg, J.Robert Oppenheimer, Neils Bohr, Nikola Tesla and other luminaries of the scientific domain are reflective of their parallelism with the tenets of Vedanta

The observable universe, which modern physics tells us began with the big bang  – a slightly deceiving nomenclature for it does not connote, contrary to its name, an explosion which started the universe  – but rather the earliest point from which information in modern sense got propagated, fundamentally follows the laws of Physics in all respects as performed by the quantum fields. There are however facets and dimensions, present but unassignable to any of the presently known laws of physics – These primarily are consciousness, proto or ontological time (time as a condition not a dimension, non -linear time, that which predates the big bang and observable universe, as opposed to physical time measurable by change in events), black holes, the pre -conditions of physics (who wrote the ground rules of the ground rules), the event horizon, proto space (reality before geometry) and more.

Dr Joseph Jordania of the University of Melbourne, in his book “Who asked the first question?” delineates humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom through its unique capacity to ask questions. As an extrapolation, what separates the self, the atman, from the materiality of the universe is its consciousness  – which, belonging to a proto realm does not follow the laws of physics

Chit (consciousness) and Kaal (time) as two facets of the same underlying proto -reality. Chit is proto -consciousness, the substrate of perception; Kaal is proto -time, the substrate of sequencing. Both arise co -dependently. Kaal without Chit is empty sequencing; Chit without Kaal is unmanifest awareness. Fields propagate disturbances, giving rise to measurable time (Kaal) while Chit observes and sustains this manifestation. The Big Bang represents the earliest propagation of information—proto -Kaal unfolding within proto -Chit.

Vedanta echoes this duality: consciousness (Chit) and the principle of temporal manifestation (Kaal) are inseparable aspects of Brahman. “Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma”: “All this is indeed Brahman” (Chandogya Upanishad) and “kālo hi brahma bhūtvā vibhajati sarvam etat”: “Time indeed is Brahman, which differentiates all this universe. (Maitri Upanishad)

Physics mirrors Natraja’s dance: matter emerges from complex field excitations, light propagates information, and time structures causality. Simple and complex excitations coexist, forming a coherent cosmos where matter, energy, time, and consciousness are inseparable, co -arising facets of the same substratum.

The assertion “ahamevedaṃ sarvaṃ iti sa ātmā”: “I alone am all this” (Chandogya Upanishad) reminds us that the observer and the observed are one, that Chit -Kaal and reality, indeed all of everything is essentially the one Brahman  – formless, spaceless, timeless and yet immanent within all things.