[S]ocial institutions are simply rules of communication which have no more universal validity than, say, the rules of a particular grammar. - Alan Watts

Tools such as these, as well as the tools of language and thought, are of real use to men only if they are awake — not lost in the dreamland of past and future, but in the closest touch with that point of experience where reality can alone be discovered: this moment.

Now let us suppose that we are going to try to do the impossible and become, as it were, completely transparent to ourselves. What happens when we entirely understand the organization or the mechanics of our own brains? Well, you are again back in the situation of God, and when you are God what are you going to do? If you are God you know what you are going to do: you are going to say to yourself, “Get lost.” What you want is a surprise, and when you have figured everything out there will be no more surprises, and then you will be completely bored. But on the other hand, a person

When you confer spiritual authority on another person, you must realize that you are allowing them to pick your pocket and sell you your own watch.