I Wish to Be Water to Become Light: Brahman and Sonoluminescence
Brahman is not something to be seen or found, Brahman is ever-present
I Wish to Be Water to Become Light: Brahman and Sonoluminescence - AI Image by Author (Microsoft Designer)
While I watch videos of sonoluminescence on YouTube, my mind fills with reflections connecting this extraordinary physical phenomenon to the ancient scriptures of Vedanta that I have studied for years. I see the tiny gas bubbles, immersed in liquid and subjected to intense sound waves. They appear to me like miniature universes, evoking the cosmological concepts described in the sacred texts. I wish to be water to become light, I think to myself, imagining being able to experience this extraordinary transformation from within.
Brief Flashes of Light
Reflecting on sonoluminescence, I cannot help but marvel at this extraordinary phenomenon. I envision those tiny gas bubbles, immersed in a liquid and bombarded by intense sound waves, emitting brief light flashes like ephemeral little stars. It is a process that fascinates me deeply: the bubbles oscillate frantically under the effect of sound, shrinking to almost unbelievable dimensions before collapsing in on themselves in the blink of an eye.
In that fleeting moment of collapse, I see the kinetic energy of the gas molecules transform into heat so intense as to defy the imagination. For a nanosecond fraction, extremely high temperatures are unleashed within these microscopic bubbles. It is as if a tiny sun is born and dies in an instant, gifting us a glimpse of its light.
15,000 degrees Celsius
The desire to be water to transmute into light intensifies as I contemplate the transformation of sound energy into a blinding glow.
I still remember the thrill I felt months ago when I first discovered this phenomenon and learned about the study conducted in 2002 by Ken Suslick and David Flannigan at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Their paper in Nature presented the first detailed measurements of what happens inside a single bubble during the sonoluminescence process. Their findings struck me deeply: temperatures of around 15,000 degrees Celsius, nearly three times the 5,772 degree Celsius surface temperature of the Sun, and the creation of a veritable plasma inside the bubble. Reading those words, "No one has ever managed to make measurements like these inside a single, collapsing bubble before," I felt we were touching the limits of our understanding of the universe.
Jyoti
The image of being water that transmutes into light reemerges, this time evoking the transformation from the primordial sound to the luminous manifestation of Brahman.
As I reflect on these scientific findings, I cannot help but connect them to the concepts of Vedanta that I have studied for so long. I think of the different levels of Jyoti, the light that Vedanta describes, each illuminating the next, until culminating in the supreme light of Brahman. I see sonoluminescence as a physical manifestation of this spiritual concept: sound energy transforming into intense light, just as the Nada Brahman, the primordial sound from which all creation emerges according to Vedantic teachings.
Each collapsing bubble in the videos I watch appears to me like a miniature universe being born and dying, mirroring the cosmic cycle of creation and destruction described in Vedanta. The extreme temperatures and plasma generated inside the bubbles remind me of the Vedantic idea of the manifestation of divine energy into varied yet interconnected forms.
Once again, the thought of being water that becomes light passes through me, this time as a vision of a merging of my consciousness with Brahman through this process of transformation and revelation.
Mundaka Upanishad
While I continue watching these videos, with the bubbles collapsing and emitting brief but intense flashes of light, I recall the words of the Mundaka Upanishad (1.1.6):
"That which cannot be seen, nor seized, which has no family and no caste, no eyes nor ears, no hands nor feet, the eternal, the omnipresent, infinitesimal, that which is imperishable, that it is which the wise regard as the source of all beings."
Reflecting on these concepts, it occurs to me that the Sun is light, it emits light. Light has no colour, taste or touch, yet it exists and is revealed through what it illuminates. It has a subtle existence, but we know there is sunlight because we see the room and the people around us.
Brahman
Jyoti, or "light," is that which reveals. Our senses too are a form of light, for they reveal the world to us. Without the senses, the world would still exist but could not be revealed to us. The eyes are thus a form of Jyoti.
The mind too is light, for without it, even if we had eyes, nothing could be revealed to us. The mind itself is revealed by something else: Brahman, the Ultimate Truth, which is the source, the most primordial light.
I Wish to Be Water to Become Light: Brahman and Sonoluminescence - AI Image by Author (Microsoft Designer) and Animation by Luma Dream Machine.
And..so?
The consciousness illuminates the mind, which in turn illuminates the eyes, which illuminate the light and reveal the world. There are layers of Jyoti, one within the other.
It strikes me how the object illuminated can never illuminate the illuminator. The chair cannot reveal the Sun, only the Sun and its light can reveal the chair. Similarly, only the sunlight can reveal the world, only the eyes can reveal the sunlight, only the mind can reveal the eyes and only the consciousness can reveal the mind.
The mind can never reveal the Atman because it is the very Illuminator itself. It is like trying to see one's eye through a microscope: impossible. Brahman is Atman
Tat Tvam Asi.
Sonoluminescence has become for me a window into a world of hidden connections, an invitation to explore the depths of reality with a mind open to both science and spirituality. In these tiny explosions of light, I see reflected the fundamental unity of the universe, that ultimate truth that Vedanta calls Brahman. And I remind myself: Brahman is not something to be seen or found, Brahman is ever-present here and now.
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