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 Fritjof Capra, physicist and philosopher is also the author of several international bestsellers, especially The Tao of Physics which makes an assertion that physics and metaphysics (spirituality) are both inexorably leading to the same knowledge.

What does spirituality mean to you?

It is a very intense feeling of being alive --- being so alive in mind and body that the separation between the two is transcended; and in some extreme moments the separation between myself and the environment is transcended as well. Those are what Abraham Maslow calls peak experiences. But spirituality is more than that. It fundamentally is a way of life. Those experiences help develop a certain attitude towards nature or human existence, they teach me things that I can then integrate into my life, that inform and shape it.

For instance, when I was last in India twenty-five years ago, I also spent some time in Sri Lanka, which was my first experience of a Buddhist country. There, I had quite a few discussions with leading Buddhist scholars and realized how limited our Buddhist practice was in the West. In Zen especially, we tended to equate Buddhism with meditation whereas the Buddha presented an eight-fold path, eight disciplines starting with right seeing, right speaking and so on --- the last one only being about right contemplation i.e. meditation. So being spiritual transcends all aspects of one’s life. And one should behave in an ethical way not because there is a God set to punish me on the Last Judgment day, but because it would reflect significantly and negatively on my mind and spirit.

Do you believe you are guided and protected by a superior force?

When you talk of a protective force, or karma, or prayer, or any concept connected to religion, it generally is a shortcut to describe something much more complex. The notion of God itself is not one I am comfortable with. I grew up as a Catholic in Austria, which actually comes with a lot of baggage ---moral and beyond--- so I’d rather stay away from the notion of God. Of course it is possible to understand it in a very sophisticated way. I wrote for instance a book called Belonging to the Universe with David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk. For him, the religious experience is essentially one of belonging to a larger whole and God is the ultimate reference-point of belonging. I can go along with it but it is pretty intellectual.

I’d rather focus instead on the mindfulness of body and mind, or what Jung called synchronicity. So many times for instance I had experiences of meeting people or coming across information exactly at the moment I needed it.

Carlos Castaneda used to say that every now and then, a cubic centimetre of chance pops up. The man of knowledge picks it up while the others do not see it. So it has a lot to do with awareness.

Sports are a good illustration of that. I am a dedicated tennis player and a huge tennis fan, and I often hear players say “when I am in the zone, everything works, everything flows, nothing can then go wrong”. Tennis is not about muscles only, it is a very mental game, and so much in it is about that awareness. Players would often say “I saw the ball very well today”, as if the ball was larger and time was slowing down. They are totally into it. So rather than guidance, I would talk of mindfulness and awareness in order to be in that flow.

Do you believe you have a special mission or purpose in this life?

I would not talk of a calling, which would have religious undertones, but I would definitely say I am on a mission. As an environmental activist and educator, I have been for decades on a mission to solve the world’s problems and make it a better place for our children and the next generations. Also, through my writings, research and lectures, I have been trying to present a unified scientific view of life, integrating life’s biological, social and cognitive dimensions. At the beginning of my career, when I came across the parallels between physics and Eastern mysticism, I felt I was at the right place and the right time, and I had to write about it, as if I owed it to myself. It was a pretty strong feeling because it meant in the end a lot of sacrifice. I dropped out of full-time physics research and embarked on an uncertain financial path. But I really believed in it.

Also, even though having a calling would not be the right word, I have to say I am an extremely focused and centred person. When growing up in a small flat in Innsbruck [Austria] after the War, I would hear my mother wake up very early in the morning to write her poetry. The noise of her typewriter punctuated my childhood and somehow I inherited from her the talent for writing, as well as the discipline. I like long projects developing over several years and there generally is a gap of six to ten years between my books. I am long term minded when I write and I love to incessantly refine ideas.

What is spirituality for you in your day to day life?

It is a way of life flowing from the spiritual experience. But there also needs to be practice and discipline. It manifests for instance in my daily Tai Ji practice or in ecological ways --- recycling, walking or cycling instead of driving whenever possible, not wasting plastic bags and so on. It also is about eating as less meat as possible. Or little things like following Castaneda’s advice of never carrying something in one’s hands when walking. So I have had three generations of shoulder bags over 35 years. It also is about being as aware as possible of opportunities when they arise. And of course it is about human relationships as well. On the overall, one should not forget that the original meaning of “spirit” is breath, so it is about feeling the breath of life.