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The Templeton Prize is a prestigious award given to an exceptional living person who has contributed to life's spiritual dimension through many avenues—practical works, insight or discovery. Identifying "entrepreneurs of the spirit", the award focuses on outstanding individuals who have spent their lives helping expand the world's vision of reality and ultimate purpose with no set faith tradition or God notion. Instead, the quest comprehends the diverse manifestations of the Devine in its many forms.

The John Templeton Foundation has awarded their 2009 prize to Laureate Bernard d'Espagnat for his "studies into the concept of reality". Winning the largest annual prize in the world of $1.4 million dollars, the 87-year old French physicist and philosopher of science was presented the prize by the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham. Presently a Professor Emeritus of theoretical physics at the University of Paris-Sud, d'Espagnat is known for his work on quantum mechanics.

Awarded was Bernard d'Espagnat's work on the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics while coining the term "veiled reality" which describes a world beyond appearances that only science is able to view. Veiled reality is highly compatible to higher forms of spirituality according to the Templeton Prize winner who has spent his entire life affirming the spiritual dimension of life.  According to award organizers, his work in quantum physics has revealed a veiled reality that goes beyond the field of science, yet was present in spirituality and art.

John Templeton Jr, president of the foundation launched by his late father, said at the ceremony that d'Espagnat, 87, had "explored the unlimited, the openings that new scientific discoveries offer in pure knowledge and in questions that go to the very heart of our existence and humanity."

Quantum physics as described by d'Espagnat, a former CERN particle physics laboratory physicist, feels that his books argue that the field of modern quantum physics show ultimate reality can never be described—pointing toward a reality that goes beyond the reach of empirical science. Yet he states that the fields of music,art and spirituality are able to bring us closer to it but cannot quite reach the mystery of it or ven imagine what it consists of. "Mystery is not something negative that has to be eliminated," he said. "On the contrary, it is one of the constitutive elements of being."

Considering himself a spiritualist without any specific religion even though he was raised a Catholic, Bernard d'Espagnat felt he was led to believe that creation in its entirety has a wholeness and interrelatedness that are missed by many scientists. This is due to the fact they breakdown scientific problems into parts of component instead of seeking to understand them in their larger contexts. Bernard d'Espagnat's latest book, "On Physics and Philosophy" was a 2006 publishing.