Leap to Freedom

This interesting book would have been better without including in the subtitle the word quantum referring to 'quantum guilt' based on vague analogy with quantum physics - there is also 'quantum forgiveness' and the more common quantum leap, a more legitimate phrase. The author is quite right that many of us are trapped to some degree with guilt, embedded as it is in Christian theology where it is allied to punishment. Her psychological analysis is spot on as is her emphasis on a sense of separation from our source as the fundamental factor, which she describes in terms of metaphysical guilt. It is not actually possible to split off entirely from God even if we remain unaware the fact. This leads to a duality of self and other as well as body and soul. Ramakrishna gives the very good advice that 'the more you focus on sin, the more you become a sinner. The more you focus on God, then you become one with That.'

The basic argument is the Platonic and Hindu view that we are divine sparks imprisoned in a tunic of flesh and that the part of us that is one with God has no sin. However, from a sensory point of view, it looks like only the physical world is real, which is, spiritually speaking, an illusion (maya). There are quite a few references to the non-dual literature in terms of the doer of action being unreal but at some points this seems to be confused with a deterministic outlook that the whole of existence is already scripted and is being played out within the illusion of time; this view has been overtaken by quantum physics and complexity theory. In non-dual awareness, the divine is the doer, there is no separate self, and everything is mutually arising. At one level there is a return to oneness, but at another we are not separate in the first place and we can surrender to our true identity at any moment.