You do not want to be God to the annihilation of your own individuality, for then there would be no “you” to enjoy being God. - Alan Watts

common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality, to look at the finger pointing the way and then to suck it for comfort rather than follow it.

the most basic Buddhist stance: sober examination of what lies before you, leaving aside all assumptions.

For I am what I know; what I know is I. The sensation of a house across the street or of a star in outer space is no less I than an itch on the sole of my foot or an idea in my brain. In another sense, I am also what I do not know. I am not aware of my own brain as a brain. In just the same way, I am not aware of the house across the street as a thing apart from my sensation of it. I know my brain as thoughts and feelings, and I know the house as sensations. In the same way and sense that I do not know my own brain, or the house as a thing-in-itself, I do not know the private thoughts in your brain. But my brain, which is also I, your brain and the thoughts within it, as well as the house across the street, are all forms of an inextricably interwoven process called the real world. Conscious or unconscious of it as I may be, it is all I in the sense that the sun, the air, and human society are just as vital to me as my brain or my lungs. If, then, this brain is my brain — unaware of it as I am — the sun is my sun, the air my air, and society my society.