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The eye of Shiva: Eastern mysticism and science
The Eye of Shiva represents the all-seeing eye "which can penetrate to the hidden levels of existence impervious to normal sight." In this original and visionary book, Amaury de Riencourt argues that man has reached a watershed in history where these "hidden levels of existence ' will become available to all of us.
The key event is the impending convergence of Eastern mysticism and Western science brought about by revolutionary development in physics. Since the emergence of the "New Physics," mechanical models of the universe have lost their use. Western scientists looking for a new philosophical model of the universe are discovering a framework that mystics have used for millennia.
Amaury de Riencourt maintains that the "higher state of consciousness" of the mediating yogi, the enlightenment' of Eastern mysticism, is not a dream state but a true description of reality. He believes that this consciousness, symbolized by the Eye of Shiva, con provide the appropriate model for further research in physics. Furthermore, he argues that this "hidden level of existence" can unite Eastern and Western traditions and end forever the dualism of Western thought.
The Eye of Shiva is an investigation of the Western scientific and Eastern mystical traditions and a demonstration that the mysticism of the East is as "scientific" as the physics of the West. This is a lucid, provocative, and radical book with the power to challenge and perhaps even change our ways of thinking.
The key event is the impending convergence of Eastern mysticism and Western science brought about by revolutionary development in physics. Since the emergence of the "New Physics," mechanical models of the universe have lost their use. Western scientists looking for a new philosophical model of the universe are discovering a framework that mystics have used for millennia.
Amaury de Riencourt maintains that the "higher state of consciousness" of the mediating yogi, the enlightenment' of Eastern mysticism, is not a dream state but a true description of reality. He believes that this consciousness, symbolized by the Eye of Shiva, con provide the appropriate model for further research in physics. Furthermore, he argues that this "hidden level of existence" can unite Eastern and Western traditions and end forever the dualism of Western thought.
The Eye of Shiva is an investigation of the Western scientific and Eastern mystical traditions and a demonstration that the mysticism of the East is as "scientific" as the physics of the West. This is a lucid, provocative, and radical book with the power to challenge and perhaps even change our ways of thinking.
Hardcover
First published June 12, 1980
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755 people want to read
About the author
Amaury De Riencourt
26 books98 followersAmaury de Riencourt to most modern readers is an enigma. Even the Internet doesn’t offer much about him. He was born in 1918 in Orleans France to family of historic nobility. He studied in France, North Africa and Switzerland achieving a Master’s Degree. During WWII he spent more than three years in the French Navy. For the next 20 years he traveled Asia, Africa the Balkans and America. He is the author of more than eight books, and he lectured extensively in the United States for four years; visiting 40 of the lower 48 states. (From: The Coming Caesars, 2014)
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaury_d...
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaury_d...
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 3, 2022
i wasn't entirely sure what i was getting into when i started this book because i found it randomly at a half-price. but WOW was it a good one, although a little bit dense. spirituality / philosophy books are usually like this, but this one was also published in 1980 so it took some extra focus to read. i really liked that it was broken into 8 really digestible sections, so definitely props for enhancing the readability through the structure of the book.
ultimately, this book looked at the universe through the lens of eastern and western mysticism, and it did so in such a way that helped me finally and really understand that structural differences between the two perspectives. the line between the two is one that i've walked for a long time now, and reading this helped me better organize that within my own mind. as i was reading, there were many moments where i found myself aligning with either the eastern or the western perspective on some universal issue. i especially enjoyed the discussion of both science and art within the author's argument, it fleshed out the meaning so much more (maybe because these are two realms i'm familiar with and they are important to me).
this book really helped me find through-lines within my own spiritual path, figures, symbols, and concepts that have stood out to me multiple times, and oriented them among themselves with definite meaning: Theresa of Avila, the torus, polarities, the burning bush of Moses, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Planck's constant, the randomness of evolution, emergent properties in biology, the Bhagavad Gita... so much more. i really appreciated how the author strung together these ideas and created a consistent and effective picture of the universe, and i really think that "The Eye of Shiva" is both a fitting title and another prong of his argument: in order to really see, an element of destruction must be invoked.
ultimately, this book looked at the universe through the lens of eastern and western mysticism, and it did so in such a way that helped me finally and really understand that structural differences between the two perspectives. the line between the two is one that i've walked for a long time now, and reading this helped me better organize that within my own mind. as i was reading, there were many moments where i found myself aligning with either the eastern or the western perspective on some universal issue. i especially enjoyed the discussion of both science and art within the author's argument, it fleshed out the meaning so much more (maybe because these are two realms i'm familiar with and they are important to me).
this book really helped me find through-lines within my own spiritual path, figures, symbols, and concepts that have stood out to me multiple times, and oriented them among themselves with definite meaning: Theresa of Avila, the torus, polarities, the burning bush of Moses, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Planck's constant, the randomness of evolution, emergent properties in biology, the Bhagavad Gita... so much more. i really appreciated how the author strung together these ideas and created a consistent and effective picture of the universe, and i really think that "The Eye of Shiva" is both a fitting title and another prong of his argument: in order to really see, an element of destruction must be invoked.
May 1, 2024
Riencourt defines the center of focus for the West (Europe and Middle East) and the East (India). For the West, he shows how the focus of thought, religion, and philosophy has been external to man. This is seen in the West’s Abrahamic conception of an external God and the focus of science on the study of the external world. The East, meanwhile, has focused on man’s internal world through the Dharmic religions and Indian philosophy. Riencourt shows how these two have gone to extremes while ignoring the other and how it shaped these different societies. The last section discusses the implications of quantum physics and the seeming alignment between it and Indian metaphysics and the potential reconciliation between East and West worldviews.
March 3, 2022
The author is truly amazing. I have read two books authored by him so far and both have made a significant impact on my perceptions.
This book is one of a kind. A lot of research went to produce this book. Some statements can be glanced over but the fact remain that the book truly delivers what it set out to deliver.
I would recommend it to anyone interested in science and philosophy.
This book is one of a kind. A lot of research went to produce this book. Some statements can be glanced over but the fact remain that the book truly delivers what it set out to deliver.
I would recommend it to anyone interested in science and philosophy.
March 12, 2026
ARE THERE PARALLELS BETWEEN EASTERN MYSTICAL INSIGHTS AND RECENT WESTERN SCIENCE?
Amaury de Riencourt (1918-2005) was a French historian and an expert on Southeast Asia.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1980 book about Oppenheimer’s exclamation upon seeing the explosion of the first atomic bomb, “I am become death, the shatterer of worlds,” and Reincourt comments, “Then and there, Oppenheimer symbolized a most extraordinary conjunction---the juxtaposition of Western civilization’s most terrifying scientific achievement with the most dazzling description of the mystical experience given us by the Bhagavad Gita, India’s greatest literary monument. Ironically, this scientific accomplishment destroyed one of the basic premises that had started Western scientific thinking on its course... the integrity and indivisibility of the atom.”
“Oppenheimer’s spontaneous conjunction of a Hindu mystical poem with a nuclear explosion was of great symbolic significance. Nowhere in Western literature could he have found an almost clinical description of mystical rapture that ALSO fits the description of a nuclear explosion in the outer world. Could this … also point to some hidden convergence of the development of Eastern mystical insight and Western scientific knowledge, concealed behind the apparent divergences?” He adds, “we will reach come conclusions as to the fate of religion in the planetary civilization of the future.” (Pg. 13-15)
In the first chapter, he observes, “It is the startling similarity between the world-picture of today’s physics and the world-vision of Eastern metaphysics that is perhaps the most outstanding cultural phenomenon of our times.” (Pg. 18)
He notes, “It has by now become clear that there can be no real conflict between science and religion, if by science one implies contemporary physics and by religion, mysticism. In fact, they appear to complement one another in an unexpected application of Niles Bohr’s theory of Complementarity. Few prominent physicists are mystically inclined, but many are concerned about the religious problem as a whole and they would probably concur with Einstein when he stated the following: ‘The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science.’” (Pg. 39)
He asserts, “The outcome of this secular trend is the dilemma in which Western metaphysical thought now finds itself… The fact that some of the new physicists of the 20th century now claim that the universe looks increasingly like a great ‘thought’ rather than a machine implies a certain degree of emancipation from the mechanistic model, but what they really mean is that the universe looks increasingly like a cosmic ‘consciousness’ rather than a great ‘thought’… In this context, the ultimate object can only be thought thinking itself… Thought thinking itself, however, is also the ultimate absurdity; and soon enough, the Western intellect had to come to the conclusion that ultimate reality is simply ungraspable.” (Pg. 87-88)
He states, “The great adventure, the crowning achievement of the Eastern mystical science is the actualization of pure consciousness. It has no true counterpart in the West where man deals only with empirical, qualified mental processes dealing with religious, philosophical and scientific symbols, all products of objectifying cultures in which true mystical experience is viewed with either fear or distrust, or as ‘subjective’ delusion. This crowning achievement of the East is now having a growing impact on the West, starting with its physical science of nature.” (Pg. 156)
He argues, “This is the end of the long Western quest for total objectification that contemporary physics has now reached---and its new vision of the universe, unclouded by dogmatic or ideological prejudices inherited from the Western past, begins to look more and more like the Eastern vision of metaphysical reality. The first important item in the Orientalization of physics is the impact of the increasing contribution of Eastern scientists from India, China and Japan, among others… Many… find an Eastern flavor in the vision of the new physics… Science has now become global and intercultural, drawing into its fold an increasing number of non-Westerners who find in its new vision of the universe many elements that are congenial to the traditional cultures from which they spring…. What is really happening is a shattering of the entire world-picture of the objectifying West.” (Pg. 160-162)
He says, “The parallels with the ambiguous formulations of Eastern mystical insights are striking; these insights have always been conveyed via negative or paradoxical statements, such as the traditional ‘not no, not so’ of the Indians… Whereas in classical physics a thing either is or is not, following Aristotelian logic… in which there is no room for a third possibility, this is no longer the case at the subatomic level. The new picture of the universe disclosed by contemporary physics appears to be largely in accord with Eastern metaphysics.” (Pg. 164-165)
He states, “We find something of this conceptual vision in all the traditional formulations of the East---the Void of the Upanishads, the Nirvana of the Buddhists, and Tao of the Chinese---not quantified expressions of a science of physics but intuitively felt and seen with the mystical mind’s inner eye---the Eye of Siva in India’s traditional lore. The void-like background postulated by physics… which spontaneously produces and reabsorbs particles is thus essentially ‘creative potentiality’; it creates forms and destroys them; matter condenses out of it and disappears back into it… The Void is not emptiness, far from it; it is indeed creative potentiality, one which can presumably be experienced by mystical insight although science cannot penetrate beyond this ultimate barrier. The mystical emphasis is always put on the ultimate non-reality of the material world and on the all-pervading reality of unindividualized consciousness… which underlies all physical appearances---but physical science can only stand on the threshold of this ‘other side’ or ‘beyond’ of the visible universe. Can the data of mystical insight and that of the sciences of nature converge at some point?” (Pg. 172-173)
He concludes, “It might well be that mankind is now on the threshold of a psychological and physiological revolution of a magnitude that will overshadow all the social and political revolutions of our century---made possible by the seemingly incongruous, yet perfectly logical marriage between science and Eastern mysticism’s insights.” (Pg. 196-197)
This book will interest those seeking reconciliation of Eastern and Western world views (what we used to call ‘New Age’ thinking).
Amaury de Riencourt (1918-2005) was a French historian and an expert on Southeast Asia.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1980 book about Oppenheimer’s exclamation upon seeing the explosion of the first atomic bomb, “I am become death, the shatterer of worlds,” and Reincourt comments, “Then and there, Oppenheimer symbolized a most extraordinary conjunction---the juxtaposition of Western civilization’s most terrifying scientific achievement with the most dazzling description of the mystical experience given us by the Bhagavad Gita, India’s greatest literary monument. Ironically, this scientific accomplishment destroyed one of the basic premises that had started Western scientific thinking on its course... the integrity and indivisibility of the atom.”
“Oppenheimer’s spontaneous conjunction of a Hindu mystical poem with a nuclear explosion was of great symbolic significance. Nowhere in Western literature could he have found an almost clinical description of mystical rapture that ALSO fits the description of a nuclear explosion in the outer world. Could this … also point to some hidden convergence of the development of Eastern mystical insight and Western scientific knowledge, concealed behind the apparent divergences?” He adds, “we will reach come conclusions as to the fate of religion in the planetary civilization of the future.” (Pg. 13-15)
In the first chapter, he observes, “It is the startling similarity between the world-picture of today’s physics and the world-vision of Eastern metaphysics that is perhaps the most outstanding cultural phenomenon of our times.” (Pg. 18)
He notes, “It has by now become clear that there can be no real conflict between science and religion, if by science one implies contemporary physics and by religion, mysticism. In fact, they appear to complement one another in an unexpected application of Niles Bohr’s theory of Complementarity. Few prominent physicists are mystically inclined, but many are concerned about the religious problem as a whole and they would probably concur with Einstein when he stated the following: ‘The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science.’” (Pg. 39)
He asserts, “The outcome of this secular trend is the dilemma in which Western metaphysical thought now finds itself… The fact that some of the new physicists of the 20th century now claim that the universe looks increasingly like a great ‘thought’ rather than a machine implies a certain degree of emancipation from the mechanistic model, but what they really mean is that the universe looks increasingly like a cosmic ‘consciousness’ rather than a great ‘thought’… In this context, the ultimate object can only be thought thinking itself… Thought thinking itself, however, is also the ultimate absurdity; and soon enough, the Western intellect had to come to the conclusion that ultimate reality is simply ungraspable.” (Pg. 87-88)
He states, “The great adventure, the crowning achievement of the Eastern mystical science is the actualization of pure consciousness. It has no true counterpart in the West where man deals only with empirical, qualified mental processes dealing with religious, philosophical and scientific symbols, all products of objectifying cultures in which true mystical experience is viewed with either fear or distrust, or as ‘subjective’ delusion. This crowning achievement of the East is now having a growing impact on the West, starting with its physical science of nature.” (Pg. 156)
He argues, “This is the end of the long Western quest for total objectification that contemporary physics has now reached---and its new vision of the universe, unclouded by dogmatic or ideological prejudices inherited from the Western past, begins to look more and more like the Eastern vision of metaphysical reality. The first important item in the Orientalization of physics is the impact of the increasing contribution of Eastern scientists from India, China and Japan, among others… Many… find an Eastern flavor in the vision of the new physics… Science has now become global and intercultural, drawing into its fold an increasing number of non-Westerners who find in its new vision of the universe many elements that are congenial to the traditional cultures from which they spring…. What is really happening is a shattering of the entire world-picture of the objectifying West.” (Pg. 160-162)
He says, “The parallels with the ambiguous formulations of Eastern mystical insights are striking; these insights have always been conveyed via negative or paradoxical statements, such as the traditional ‘not no, not so’ of the Indians… Whereas in classical physics a thing either is or is not, following Aristotelian logic… in which there is no room for a third possibility, this is no longer the case at the subatomic level. The new picture of the universe disclosed by contemporary physics appears to be largely in accord with Eastern metaphysics.” (Pg. 164-165)
He states, “We find something of this conceptual vision in all the traditional formulations of the East---the Void of the Upanishads, the Nirvana of the Buddhists, and Tao of the Chinese---not quantified expressions of a science of physics but intuitively felt and seen with the mystical mind’s inner eye---the Eye of Siva in India’s traditional lore. The void-like background postulated by physics… which spontaneously produces and reabsorbs particles is thus essentially ‘creative potentiality’; it creates forms and destroys them; matter condenses out of it and disappears back into it… The Void is not emptiness, far from it; it is indeed creative potentiality, one which can presumably be experienced by mystical insight although science cannot penetrate beyond this ultimate barrier. The mystical emphasis is always put on the ultimate non-reality of the material world and on the all-pervading reality of unindividualized consciousness… which underlies all physical appearances---but physical science can only stand on the threshold of this ‘other side’ or ‘beyond’ of the visible universe. Can the data of mystical insight and that of the sciences of nature converge at some point?” (Pg. 172-173)
He concludes, “It might well be that mankind is now on the threshold of a psychological and physiological revolution of a magnitude that will overshadow all the social and political revolutions of our century---made possible by the seemingly incongruous, yet perfectly logical marriage between science and Eastern mysticism’s insights.” (Pg. 196-197)
This book will interest those seeking reconciliation of Eastern and Western world views (what we used to call ‘New Age’ thinking).
April 18, 2025
50% good 50% schizo
December 5, 2022
An astounding book
An incredibly sophisticated work spanning the limits of knowledge in an objective material universe and the contributions offered by deep subjective knowledge towards advancing our relationship with it, both scientifically and philosophically.
An incredibly sophisticated work spanning the limits of knowledge in an objective material universe and the contributions offered by deep subjective knowledge towards advancing our relationship with it, both scientifically and philosophically.
April 14, 2025
The opening, where he describes the history of quantum mechanics, is amazing. Better than any book I've read, even though it's not the center focal point of the book. However, however, however...the book is about how amazing hinduism is and how lame the West is. even someone mildly educated on religions in the west, like De Riencourt pro-ports to be, can see through it. I really wish these big brained dudes would take the time to read Aquinas or Augustine. Well, actually, I doubt it would help, because at the center of all these writers is the deep desire to be an independent man and have their own thoughts, their own ideas about reality. They want to weave their own theology, and being bound to a religious system is like going to prison. It's interesting to me, because if they have humility, they would see that what they're creating, while interesting, is never as good or as deep as the real thing.
I do recommend for the intro.
I do recommend for the intro.
September 22, 2024
Great link between advainta vedanta and quantum mechanics
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 14, 2024
Intersection. My first chip in the armour of science residing in my mind
January 9, 2025
Endlessly interesting
January 27, 2026
INTRO
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
CONVERGENCE
Are some of the most interesting stuff I ever read
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
CONVERGENCE
Are some of the most interesting stuff I ever read
April 12, 2025
It is one of the most profound spiritual/religious books I have ever read. Amaury De Riencourt does a very good analysis of Western vs. Eastern metaphysical thought processes and then explains his view on the converging of modern science and traditional religions that point towards an emerging higher form of consciousness in the human race.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews