In advanced mathematics there's this cool thing called the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture going on.
To begin, there are these two wildly different areas of mathematics, elliptical equations and modular forms.
Elliptical equations have to do with advanced forms of general number theory, while modular forms are a kind of advanced topology that takes place in the upper half of complex regions. They couldn't be more different.
The Taniyama-Shimura conjecture arose in the 1970's and postulated that these two incredibly different areas of mathematics were actually two faces of the same thing. Mathematicians were astounded, but extremely doubtful that this could ever be demonstrated.
Then in 1994, is what is being called the most complicated proof in the history of mathematics, the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture was proven correct. It's now established that elliptical equations and modular forms are the same thing in different disguises.
The same thing is happening in physics. James Maxwell in the late 1800's showed that electricity and magnetism, which seemed wildly different at the time, were actually two different faces of the same electromagnetic field.
Then in the 1980's it was proven that electromagnetism itself is part of something larger, called the electro-weak force, which combines electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force and shows that they're two forms of the same thing.
Einstein showed that matter is actually a form of energy.
In quantum mechanics, Bells theorem, which has now been proven, shows that in the sub-atomic world events can be what is called non-local, that is, that one event can influence another simultaneously even if the two are on opposite sides of the galaxy, and even though there's no conceivable way for that to happen.
Physicists are now peering dimly through the fog at something that they're calling the implicate order—that in some strange way, which nobody understands, everything is connected underneath.
The mystics go further. They've been saying for a long time that things aren't just connected underneath—they're all actually the same thing because nothing is separate from anything else in the first place.
This is what happens when somebody wakes up. They directly see that they don't exist as a separate person, and never did. They see that the whole idea of a personal existence was just a constructed fiction put together by thought.
When they clearly perceive that they don't exist as this separate somebody, then they also see that everything whatsoever is made out of the same stuff, and more, that it all is the same thing.
We can call it God, the infinite, the ungraspable; it makes no difference. It's all the same thing, and nothing whatsoever—no person, no action, not the tiniest grain of sand—is left out.
Seeing this, the heart falls in love, not with this person or that one, but with everything and everybody, perceiving that it's all the same thing, that it is and they are all the infinite itself.
It isn't a thought or concept; rather, it's what's left over when the contents of the mind—the mind's sacred thoughts and stories and feelings and so on—are no longer clung to or taken seriously. The presence of any content in the mind signifies nothing except that it is present.
In that absence, in that eternal moment of personal non-existence, everything becomes connected. The infinite sees itself everywhere, and has compassion on itself everywhere, and appreciates the opportunity to love itself everywhere.
—jim sloman, 02/7/01 for Feb 7
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