Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan was not just another physicist. He was a physicist who saw in his pursuit of science a spiritual sadhana. His physics was organically integrated with his Vedanta.

The discoveries made by Sudarshan are today becoming more and more relevant. One such discovery is Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE). It was formulated by Sudarshan and B Misra in 1977. According to QZE, an observed quantum system changes at a rate slower than an unobserved quantum system. In 2001, physicist Mark Raizen observed QZE in actual quantum systems. Today, the emerging field, which examines the role of quantum processes in biological phenomena, looks at some important biological mysteries like bird navigation. In fact, Neill Lambert and his co-workers use the QZE in 'the radical ion pair mechanism' in avian magnetoreception to explain the mystery of bird navigation. Another interesting contribution of Sudarshan is the proposal of tachyons, (which he proposed along with O M P Bilaniuk and V K Deshpande) in 1962. These are theoretical faster-than-light particles. The creative output of Sudarshan to science continued for more than five decades.

In 1999, he co-authored Doubt And Certainty: The Celebrated Academy Debates On Science, Mysticism Reality with Tony Rothman. It is a very interesting and important book. While the authors point out how the Eastern mysticism does have important insights to offer to humanity with the worldview that is being unveiled by quantum mechanics, they also point out where to draw the line when people like Deepak Chopra use the Q word or rather abuse it for peddling questionable speculations.

Why does one pursue science? In a TV interview to a Malayalam channel, the physicist answered by quoting Vishnu Sahasra Nama (VSN) - “A Brahmin pursues it for Vedantic knowledge; Kshatriya pursues it for victory; Vaishya pursues it for wealth and Shudra pursues it for comfort.” Then he pointed out that none of such motivations are in themselves inferior or superior to them. One of the important insights of Sudarshan was his observation that the psychology of discovery has a spiritual dimension to it. After pointing out that the very first name in VSN is viswam - the universe, he explained: