I have read brief descriptions of the Eastern mystic religions/philosophies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Zen in Fritjof Capra's book "The Tao of Physics". Hinduism flew over my head, meaning that I haven't a clue as to what its all about. I found the others to be reasonably straight-forward, and they all seem to have the same common goal, which is the attainment of "enlightenment" as to how the universe operates including how we human types fit in. With mystics, enlightenment is revealed by sub-conscious intuition achieved through various means such as meditation as opposed to rational evidence-based attainment of scientific knowledge about how the universe works. Use of the latter process, they say, does not bring about true enlightenment. I challenge that notion!
From being descended from mechanics (my great-great grandfather sold the first gasoline powered engines in our county) to being raised by the same (my dad was an auto mechanic) to college degrees in physics and health science to a 40-year career of teaching and research in human biology, science has become so ingrained in me that it is an integral part of who I am. And it is through my life-long involvement with science, in particular recent studies in the fields of quantum physics and cosmology (the small and the big), that I feel that I have achieved enlightenment every bit as meaningful to me as the enlightenment achieved by practitioners of Eastern mystic religions is to them. It is through such scientific studies that I, and many others like me, have become enlightened as to how the universe, and all within it, operate as an interactive body of atoms and sub-atomic particles in which all things and all beings are interconnected as a whole without boundaries. This is essentially what practitioners of mysticism have come to understand through spiritual means, such as meditation.
Accordingly, it is through my understanding of science, not meditation, that I have become enlightened as to how the universe and all within it exist as an interdependent and intertwined whole. As an example, studies of first ecology and then the phenomenon of quantum entanglement have brought me to see, as well as experience, the whole of nature. A wren sitting on a limb is not just a bird sitting on a limb but is in fact interconnected with the limb which in turn is interconnected with the tree which is interconnected with the ground from which it arose and on and on. In other words, there is no such thing as just a bird, or just a tree, or just a piece of ground. They are all integral and interactive components of an inseparable whole of which we humans are a part.
A more personal example has to do with spiritual animals, that is an animal whose specie you share a spiritual connection with. I had heard of these but was not sure that they really existed until I literally stumbled upon mine, a coyote. While hiking one day in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona I came across a dead coyote in the middle of the trail. I looked it over but could not find any wounds of any kind and it was still limp, indicating that it had just died. Perhaps it had been poisoned (people have been known to do that to coyotes), or it died of a heart attack (all mammals can experience heart attacks) or something. Anyway, as I was looking it over, I had a strong feeling that this coyote had picked me to die in front of for a reason. Before I came to understand how the universe operated as an interactive whole, I would have dismissed this feeling, moved the coyote off to the side of the trail and gone on. But as I continued to look at the coyote it felt as though its spirit was speaking to me, which it probably was.
By and by I came to realize what I think this particular coyote wanted. To fulfill what I felt was its wish, I sat the coyote beside the trail in some bushes so it wouldn't be seen, drove home to get some tools and a blanket to wrap the coyote in, then drove back the next day and buried it in a proper grave. Since that occasion I've come across coyotes on hikes several times, and every time they at least look at me in a non-threatening manner and sometimes walk along with me for a while at a distance beside the trail. It is as if they are saying to me: "Thanks for giving our brother a proper burial."
Off and on during my years of drawing a pay check and well into retirement I occasionally tried meditation as a means of achieving some sort of enlightenment. After all there are a bazillion books out there that say that that's the way to do it. Aside from occasionally being relaxing, I haven't as yet experienced anything through meditation that could even remotely be considered enlightenment. I'm now reasonably sure that this is because all along I have been achieving enlightenment through the study of science. Accordingly, mystic type of meditation hasn't added anything. With this in mind, I guess you could say that reading an informative science book was (is) my way of meditation. I am sure that there are any number of former gurus who would role over in their grave at such an outlandish notion.
Capra's book "The Tao of Physics" points out parallelisms between how the Eastern mystic religions and modern-day quantum physics view the universe. To paraphrase Capra, both Eastern mysticism and modern-day science see all things as interdependent and inseparable parts of a cosmic whole. However, Capra stops short of suggesting that enlightenment, as the mystics experience it, can be achieved through the study of science. I say that it most certainly can, and I encourage anyone who is science oriented to give it a try.