“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self”. — Albert Einstein

We human beings — most of us anyway — tend to habitually look at everything through mental screens of conditioning that involve boundaries and borders. Most of us habitually delimit what is observed into fragments and snippets involving identification and learned recognition via what was absorbed in the past. Then we often further delineate things via words and labels. Words are symbolic and secondhand; they — for the most part — are not the actuality of what is observed. The word dog isn’t the dog. Words for many people are often seen as realities and although being primarily symbolic, they are not seen as representations but, rather, as what can take the place of reality just fine. Many people get lost in a world of symbolism, often letting the symbols seem to be realities.

It is good to use symbols when needed but it is also good (and very prudent) to go beyond them (and see their limitation). Then, if one is lucky, the whole is there (without the superficial symbolism). And a lot of people will think that they see the whole (although they do not). Self-deception is very easy, especially when that self is, itself, something that seems to recognize a wholeness from a distance. Chicanery is easy when the perceiver and the perceived appear to be separate and when recognition seems to occur from an internal center. Thought/thinking fabricates the internal center and such a supposed center is then given credit for having great perception, or it is praised for being right, or it is given blame for making mistakes, or it is lauded for exercising freedom of choice.

Most minds resist investigating this kind of thing; most minds are heavily conditioned to support the illusion at any cost. And it’s a tragedy really, because the real magic and the profound beauty only occur if one has the passion and the guts to fully delve into it.