With Quantum Leap Book Club, we are currently studying and discussing the book “Matter into Feeling” by Fred Alan Wolf.

Dr. Wolf refers to Da Free John who describes the unelightened body-mind to be founded on actions of self-contraction. Da Free shares that self-contraction is expressed as differentiation of self from a presumed not-self.  On page 21, 

Da Free John’s concludes that the unenlightened body-mind is a result of the actions of self-contraction.  It is a common tendency for those of us falling into the trap of self contraction, to search almost desperately for “independent self – preservation”.  

My research brought forth information that we tend to be blinded by our self-contraction. The comment that interested me is “you are the self-contraction and not separate from it”.  The result is a sense of separatness.  It is a contraction of feeling and energy and even more from infinite Consciousness.

A balloon can be used as an example. Why would you separate the air into the inside and outside air? If not for the balloon, there is no inside air and outside air. The inside air is something like the ego and the outside air is something like the Cosmic Consciousness; the thin wall of the balloon is what we can call ignorance. It is that ignorance, that film, that makes things seem separate. When that ignorance is broken, when the balloon bursts, the inside air becomes one with the outside air and there is no more separation. But as long as there is a balloon, if you keep on blowing, what happens? At a particular point whether you let the air out or when it bursts on its own, there is only one air.

We tend to become very defensive in our interactions with each other particularly if our thoughts or behaviors are contradictory to another person. The ego is self contraction. There is a common tendency to equate ego with any attempts on a personal level to express “ownership” for our personal opinions and rigid views on any circumstance in life. It does not matter how you attempt to be disconnected.  The outcome is the same. We are masters as human beings in finding ways to feel disconnected and separate.  

Even the act of  believing a stressful thought is an attempt to break the connection.  The reason for our discomfort is the fact we are responsible.  The search, the dis-ease, the struggle, and so on, the pain of existence, is something that you are doing.  

The pure truth is: we are connected with each other and with all that is part of our world. In this thought provoking book by Dr. Wolf, we get to explore the truth of how through our minds we are very connected to matter. 

To quote from Dr. Wolf’s paragraph on page 22,  “ by returning to timeless, thoughtless, feelingless, and intuitionless state, we cease ploying the game” (of separatness and self-contraction) and gain the ability to LIVE! 

Joyce Mollenhauer cohost of Quantum Leap Book Club