But most of us know that we will not, and probably cannot do it — that we shall continue to cling to our habitual ways of life with all the helplessn… - Alan Watts

This willful, compulsive, moralistic approach to man’s transformation always obstructs it — for it still implies that very illusion of self-mastery which stands in the way. But it is just when I discover that I cannot surrender myself that I am surrendered; just when I find that I cannot accept myself that I am accepted.

All too easily, we confuse the world as we symbolize it with the world as it is.

Ego is a social institution with no physical reality. The ego is simply your symbol of yourself. Just as the word "water" is a noise that symbolizes a certain liquid without being it, so too the idea of ego symbolizes the role you play, who you are, but it is not the same as your living organism.