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. - Alan Watts

For every individual is a unique
manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching
of the tree. To manifest individuality, every branch must have a
sensitive connection with the tree, just as our independently moving and
differentiated fingers must have a sensitive connection with the whole
body. The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that
differentiation is not separation.

In having a flawed sense of identity, we act in a way that is inappropriate to our natural environment.

[I]n trying to figure out the brain, the obstacle is that we have no finer instrument than the brain itself for the purpose. The greatest hindrance to objective knowledge is our own subjective presence.