From Einstein to the East: The Next Revolution in Understanding Reality
For over a century, Einstein’s theories of relativity have defined how we understand the universe. They work beautifully — as long as we accept certain assumptions: that the speed of light is constant everywhere, and that there is no ether or “medium” through which light moves. These assumptions lead to a coherent mathematical framework, but what if they also blind us to something deeper?
A growing number of physicists and philosophers are suggesting that time and space themselves may not be fundamental features of reality at all — but emergent constructs of the human mind, arising from the way we perceive and measure change.
In this view, spacetime is not the stage on which the universe unfolds — it’s more like a story our brains tell to make sense of events. Just as color doesn’t exist “out there” but emerges from how our minds interpret light waves, time and space may emerge from how consciousness organizes experience.
Interestingly, this is not a new idea. Eastern sages and mystics have spoken of this for millennia — that the world of form, time, and space is Maya, an appearance shaped by perception rather than an absolute reality. They intuited what modern science is only beginning to explore: that reality may be deeper than the framework our senses and equations describe. The difference is that the mystics reached this understanding through direct insight, not mathematics.
If time and space are not fundamental, then even quantum mechanics — which describes how particles behave on the smallest scales — may not be the ultimate layer of reality either. After all, quantum waves themselves “ride” on the fabric of spacetime. If that fabric is itself emergent, then the entire edifice of physics might be a sophisticated approximation of something beyond both spacetime and quantum fields.
Einstein’s genius was in showing that time and space are relative — interwoven and flexible, not fixed absolutes. Perhaps the next leap is to realize they are not intrinsic at all. What lies beneath them could be a reality where consciousness, information, and potentiality precede the very notions of “where” and “when.”
Maybe, as both physicists and mystics hint, the ultimate truth is not that we live in spacetime — but that spacetime lives in us.
Photo by Joshua Kettle downloaded from Unspalash.com
