For the rest of the year, I would like to take a moment and thank the people who have had a significant impact on me as an individual.

The way they have lived their lives and their body of work has had an outsized impact on how I think about life in general and and work, in particular.

Some of these are contemporary thinkers and some of them are just a memory. Some of them are famous in their own rights and some of them are yet to be found by others. Some of them are young and some of them are old. Some of them are business leaders, some thought leaders, some sportsmen and some coaches. Some of them are artists and some spiritual leaders.

However, if we look deeply, all of them are like you and me, ordinary people who’ve had an extra-ordinary impact on me and potentially a lot of others. And once you get to know them, may be they will have a similar impact on you as well or maybe not, only time will tell.

The reason I am putting together this list and share what I have learnt from them, to thank them publicly for being a teacher and teaching me important lessons in life and in the hope that some of you might be inspired by their company and they can impact you and your life as they have impacted mine.

So, let’s get started.

15. Gary Zukav

I have only read one book written by Gary Zukav (The Dancing Wu Li Masters). I read it so long ago, that I don’t remember much from the book itself but the effect the book has had on my thinking of two fields that i have strong feelings about – spirituality and science, specially physics.

When I read the book I was stuck with wonder, wonder about how similar the concepts of quantum mechanics and Hindu spirituality are. When I read the book, I did not much understand either quantum mechanics nor much about spirituality or about Hindu philosophy. However, the effect the book had still lingers. I still strongly feel that both the fields are like two sides of a coin.

As I have gained a bit more understanding of Physics in general and quantum mechanics in particular (yes, I had picked “Atomic and Nuclear Physics” as one of my optional subject in the final year of my undergraduate study in Applied Sciences) and growing understanding of Hindu spirituality, my conviction that both are talking about similar things has grown stronger.

I never forgot about the book, even recommending the book to anyone who wanted to study the concept of “Atman” or “Brahman” and had an inclination to Physics. We usually think of modern science as something that is always correct and the ancient philosophies as something that is superstitious.

However, if we really looked at how scientists worked, we would know that the scientific process is all about “Something as being proved right until proven wrong”. They are never sure if their hypothesis is absolutely right.

They understand that they can never be absolutely sure of any hypothesis or rules or theorem’s, only that under the current understanding of how things are, these seem to be true. This is exactly what Hindu philosophy talks about our reality as we experience always appears to be true until we experience it not to be true.

You can hear an audio program where Gary explains the key concepts that he shared in the book here.

Conclusion:

While he has written multiple best selling books after “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”, I haven’t had the opportunity to read them yet. This reminds me that I now need to go back and read some of the work that he created.

I am truly grateful to have stumbled on to the book at the time that I did as it created an interest for me in both Physics and Hindu philosophy and spirituality, which has continued from then till now.

Here are some of his more recent work that I found on YouTube verse.