Matter Is Myth In Divine Oneness

Almost all religions refer to the oneness of God. Prophets and gurus stress this trait of God in their scriptures where oneness appears as the precursor of all other traits of the Divine, such as omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience. Upon close scrutiny and analysis you will find that all the other traits attributed to God boil down to this trait of oneness.

Oneness of the Divine is not like the oneness of a mathematical digit. In the case of the digit, we do not have ‘one’ alone. It is followed by two, three, four, and so on. In the case of God, oneness means God is one and one alone. He is one without a second. It also implies that there is no other substance or entity except the Divine in the cosmos.

God’s oneness is all inclusive; it does not leave space for any other substance to exist. God being all-pervasive, the coexistence of God and matter at the same place is a contradiction. It also implies that matter does not exist in the form that we perceive with our senses. This concept of matter as a myth is now no longer restricted to eastern spirituality. The latest research in physics interprets matter as if it were a myth.

John Eccles, a renowned physicist, said, “I want you to realise that there is no colour in the natural world and no sound, nothing of this kind; no textures, no patterns, no beauty, no scent.” This means that our senses interpret raw data and create a world of forms, colours and structures. The observer bestows meaning and traits on the cosmos. Otherwise the universe would be pure potential. This view of the universe is in a way linked with the oneness of God. Since it is the senses that create the universe, the universe as we see it does not exist. Only God exists.

All matter is energy, according to physics. If we deconstruct matter into molecules, atoms and subatomic phenomena, we reach the level where subatomic particles turn into ghosts of energy that dissolve into an empty void. This void is not really empty. It is actually full of that element which is dynamic, and being one, pervades the whole of the void.

It is this basic underlying substance that manifests material phenomena at the time of their creation, and absorbs them back at the time of their dissolution. Nothing is really created or destroyed in the cosmos. One primordial substance pervades the entire universe. This is the Divine, who is the original substance of the cosmos. It is who we variously call Brahmn, God, Allah, Akalpurakh, Jehovah, Ishwar. This is the Ultimate Reality of science, logic and philosophy.

Most of us have heard of Ultimate Reality from others, or have read about it in scriptures. This understanding is at an intellectual level. The oneness of God is not an abstraction evolved by the human mind. It is a fact. Its realisation can occur when some knower of God blesses direct perception.

Since the cosmos is an integral whole, its Ultimate Reality is common to all, irrespective of religion, region, caste, creed, race and nationality. Humanity is one too, an organic whole. The oneness of God and the oneness of humanity are interrelated. It is on the foundation of this understanding that prophets have built the edifice of humanism.