Fritjof Capra – The Tao of Physics
Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics is a seminal work and can now be considered a modern classic. I recently re-read this book and can recommend it to anyone who is looking to reconcile the seemingly opposite worlds of modern science and spirituality – there are many such books now, but I think many of them owe a great debt to Capra’s work!
For as long as I can remember, I have been looking for ways of integrating the many ways there are of looking at the world into some kind of coherent whole (a bit like my own personal grand unified theory of everything!) – and along the way I have come across eastern spirituality which fascinates me, and quantum physics, which also fascinates me. In my world view, any philosophy, explanation or theory of existence and humanity which leaves out quantum physics and the mysterious makeup of the Universe that science is unravelling, is just a tad blinkered. And science itself is similarly blinkered I would say if it ignores some of the lessons that spirituality has to offer. It is therefore fascinating to read this book and discover that the ancient eastern spiritual knowledge has much to share with the world of modern physics! While Capra does not go into the why’s of these similarities, he offers a very detailed study of the similarities between the two ways of thinking which allow the reader to formulate their own questions – and it is my belief that, perhaps, the universe is trying to tell us something 
The book opens beautifully with an account of Capra witnessing what he pictured as a gigantic cosmic Dance of Shiva, and how this prompted some of the motivation to write the book. And we are then treated to a detailed study of how both schools of thought – Eastern Spirituality and Modern Physics – appear to point to the same “Truth” – that everything is interconnected, in a state of flux, co-dependent, knowable and yet elusive.
The book was first written in 1975, and in those days books were not subject to the dumbing down of some more modern releases, so in parts readers might find it heavy going, I certainly did, especially as my grasp of mathematics is not great, and some sections go into physics quite a lot. But this is a failing on my part and not the author’s and the more I read the book, the more I understand. It is certainly a beautiful book, and well worth reading, definitely one of those books that will irreversibly change the way you look at the world and yourself in the grand scheme of things.
Rob’s Book Reviews » The Universe in a Single Atom by the Dalai Lama said,
February 26, 2007 at 3:29 pm
[...] which are often outside the remit of religion: namely, science. In my previous review I looked at Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics, and the Dalai Lama’s book sees this great man bringing science and sprituality together in a [...]