The physics is pretty deep..an overview of theoretical particle and classical physics which is not something you can just do in a few pages. The book is more physics heavy than it is with the Eastern mysticism overview. There are short chapters on Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism for a discussion of their perspectives.

It felt like it kept plodding through the same territory in the physics realm sometimes - almost repeating material.

It's more of a direct comparison presentation. Here is physics - here eastern religion thought and where it intersects. I was expecting more conjecture/hypothesis/prophesying about what it all means but there's very little of that.
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Some is spot-on, some is too speculative and shows a faulty understanding of physics.
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Not the later, revised version.

'Readers will find much of interest in Dr. Capra's clear explanations of the basic ideas behind the various forms of Eastern mysitcism, and of the pardoxes of modern physics which seem to have been anticipated in the paradoxes of mysticism. It is likely that when the relations between them are well understood, the time will be ripe for considerable advances in our comprehension of the universe.'-B.D. Josephson, Noble Prize Winner, 1973, Professor of Physics, University of Cambridge

The book explores the parallels-which in recent years have sometimes been noted but never fully discussed-between the underlying concepts of modern physics and the basic ideas of Eastern mysticism. The author gives a clear account, supplemented by diagrams and photographs, of the theories of atomic and subatomic physics, of relativity theory and of astrophysics, up to and including the most recent research, and relates the world view emerging from these theoris to the mysitcal traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen and the I Ching.

Dr. Capra, himself a research physicist and experienced lecturer, has remarkable gift for explaining the complex concepts of physics in terms that the layperson can understand. He takes the reader on a fascinating journey to the world of atoms and their constituents, which makes compelling reading. From his text emerges a picture of the material world not as a machine made up of a multitude of objects, but a harmonious 'organic' whole whose parts are determined by their inter-relations. The universe of the modern physicist, like that of the eastern mystic, is engaged in a continuous cosmic dance; it is a system of inseparable, interacting and ever-moving components of which the observer is, him- or herself, an integral part; it reflects a reality behind the world of ordinary sense-perception which involves spaces of higher dimensions and transcends ordinary language and logical reasoning.

Since taking his Ph.D. at the University of Vienna in 1966, Fritjof Capra has been doing research in theoretical high-energy physics at the University of Paris, the University of Calfornia, Santa Cruz, Stanford University and Imperial College in London. Beside his technical research papers, he has written several more general articles about the relations between modern physics and Eastern mysticism, and has lectured extensively about this topic to general student audiences in England and the United States. He is presently lecturing at the University of California, Berkeley.

Contents

Preface
I The Way of Physics
1 Modern physics-A path with a heart?
2 Knowing and seeing
3 Beyond language
4 The New Physics
II The way of Eastern mysticism
5 Hinduism
6 Buddhism
7 Chinese thought
8 Taoism
9 Zen
III The parallels
10 The unity of all things
11 Beyond the world of opposites
12 Space-time
13 The dynamic universe
14 Emptiness and form
15 The cosmic dance
16 Quark symmetries-A new Koan?
17 Patterns of change
18 Interpenetration
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliogaphy
Index

Illustrates how quantum physics is beginning to use the same language as Eastern metaphysics/cosmology to describe the basic constituents of the Universe. Everything is composed of everything else; everything is a part of everything else. It is an oxymoron to suggest that anything can exist outside of, or apart from, anything/everything else. ( )