I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing. - Nisargadatta Maharaj

The essence of slavery is to imagine yourself to be a process, to have past and future, to have history. In fact, we have no history, we are not a process, we do not develop, nor decay (…).

We shall suffer as long as our thoughts and actions are prompted by desires and fears.

Exactly as the shadow appears when light is intercepted by the body, so does the person arise when pure self-awareness is obstructed by the “I am the body” idea. And as the shadow changes shape and position according to the lay of the land, so does the person appear to rejoice and suffer, rest and toil, find and lose, according to the pattern of destiny.