E = mc2

Matter is frozen energy.
--- Einstein

All beings by nature are Buddha,

As ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
Apart from beings, no Buddha.

--- Hakuin

Paul Brunton drew the connection between modern physics and ancient wisdom many years ago.

It can be hard to see the relationship between matter, which is solid, and energy, which is free flowing.  Yet the ancient sages, and modern physicists, do just this.  In fact, modern physics tells us the entire material universe can be drawn back to a single point of intense energy.  The solid world we see around is is simply caused by the repuslive fields around particles--- since atoms are mostly empty space. 

So why is hard to accept that all things are consciousness, as the Hindu masters have taught?    And not just Hindu masters.  Taoist sages have already drawn the ascension from the material to ethereal, converting jing to chi to shen to Void.   

In fact, one might think that the modern temperment, freed from the past prejudices toward form, would be uniquely prepared to understand this truth.  Perhaps we are too close to the truth.  The Vedantins often say that the only reason we know impermanence is that there is a part of that stands apart from change. 

Indeed, changelessness guides us toward the real.  If I saw a person for an instant, I would write that person off as a hallucination.  Not real.  It is only when a person lasts, through time, that I am to believe that such a person exists. 

Yet, taking a larger view, is there really so much of a difference between a mental image that lasts for a flash, or a human being who lasts for eighty years?  Not in the span of billions of years.  In such a span, each of us is but a flash.  Unreal.