Preparing for the Miraculous

202 eleven talksitself in spiritual substance.” 15 The language is quite differentfrom the modern scientific terminology. (To Sri Aurobindo‘ether’ was ‘space’ and may become so again in physics.)But the point is that what at the time was a novel theoryin physics is stated as fact in a magnum opus by Sri Aurobindo,intended to contain his spiritual legacy. Moreover,terms like “anomalous base” and “the etheric movement ofvibration” bring to mind the quantum theory according towhich virtual particles arise continuously out of “the void”and may be at the origin of the universe.For “one of the more bizarre consequences of quantumuncertainty is that matter can appear out of nowhere ...Quantum mechanics permits energy to appear spontaneouslyfrom nothing as long as it disappears again rapidly ...In fact, the fluctuating quantum energy of the vacuum causesthe temporary creation of all manner of ‘virtual’ particles... The apparently inert vacuum is actually a sea of restlessactivity, full of ghostly particles which appear, interact andvanish.” 16 (Paul Davies) What we normally regard as emptyspace is actually an ocean of seething activity. “In thisremarkable scenario, the entire cosmos simply comes out ofnowhere, completely in accordance with the laws of quantumphysics, and creates along the way all the matter andenergy needed to build the universe we now see.” 17 But thenthe question arises: what produced the quantum forces thatmade the virtual particles, and consequently the universe,possible? Davies’ “out of nowhere” looks much like “out ofnothing.” And as Sri Aurobindo wrote: “A Nothing whichis full of all potentialities is the most complete opposition ofterms and things possible.” 1815 Sri Aurobindo: Essays Divine and Human, p. 198.16 Paul Davies and John Gribbin: The Matter Myth, p. 138.17 Paul Davies: God and the New Physics, p. 216.18 Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, p. 105.