Reading this book has really been a challenge for me in so many ways . It has challenged my beliefs as to what I thought of our Universe and in many ways what and how  I define myself in relation to our Universe and the whole. As we continue to read in chapter three the author cites several studies that demonstrate how we are all connected universally . If you read and ponder all this information one must really stop and think . How is it that we are not taught to think in a way that is interconnected versus disconnected. This chapter cites example after example of this. The one point that stood out for me and hit me like a ton of bricks is the following statement by Montague Ulman a psychiatrist and founder of the Dream Laboratory in New York,  he states :

“An individual can disconnect from all that’s cooperative, meaningful  and loving and still survive, but nations don’t have that luxury. Unless we learn how to overcome all the ways we’ve fragmented the human race, nationally, religiously, economically, or whatever, we are going to continue to find ourselves in a position where we can accidentally destroy the whole picture. The only way we can do that is to look at how we fragment our existence as individuals. ”   

This is such a profound statement. Just think for a moment if nations considered this . We would not have nuclear threats, we would not have wars , we would not have racism and on and on we could go. We could actually have a world where we live cooperatively with each other and with the understanding that we are all interconnected.

But most importantly is the last statement he makes of how we fragment ourselves as individuals.  We must start somewhere and that must begin with each of us looking deep within in our souls to see how we have done this and begin to find our way back . In doing this we not only will find happiness for ourselves but this change within ourselves will begin to emanate out into our world and begin to create that change. It reminds me of a picture of a puzzle where a child was told to put the puzzle together of the human being and once he did , and it was turned around it was the picture of our Universe. Each individual piece of the puzzle of the human is a fragmented piece of self. Put together we affect the world!

Maria Jacques