The descriptions of the material universe in vedanta and in modern physics are similar at a broad level.
The key ideas which vedanta and physics agree on are:
- What we see as the material world does not exist in any material sense — it exists as “quantum waves” (for physicists) and as prakriti, a limitless, eternal manifestation of some underlying reality (for vedanta students). I am not trying to say that the underlying reality which the vedanta student talks about is actually quantum fields. I am saying that the material, concrete, world of our perceptions is a simulation, a mental construct. The entire universe literally is “all in the mind.” Up to this point, both disciplines are in agreement.
- The material world is totally deterministic. Vedanta talks of causality being a fundamental feature of the material universe. Physicists have been talking for a long time about everything being deterministic.
- The universe is in a state of ceaseless motion or change. Yat kincha jagatyaam jagat.
Vedanta goes on to talk about an underlying reality which is beyond the
material universe; physicists do not talk about that.