But if you wish, you can imagine that the Shadow does wait for your return and that it does remember everything that has gone before and that it doesn__ let you accept yourself as perfect until you let it. There is truth in that. That is why a child usually cries as soon as it__ born. With its first breath, the Shadow returns.

From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.

Peace of mind arrives the moment you come to peace with the contents of your mind.

Sooner or later on this journey, every traveller faces the same question: Are you a human intending to be a god, or a god pretending to be human?

In absence of consciousness, human beings would merely be animated material objects. Without the synergistic impact of consciousness, free will, and perception of a cohesive self, which act to direct human conduct, many of the qualities that we associate with our humanness would be moot or superfluous delusions including laughter and pain, memories and thoughts, love and anger, imagination and dreams. Without consciousness and free will, humankind would lack the ability to choose right from wrong and there could be no mental discipline directing each person__ lifestyle, attitudes, and belief systems.

When we teach people that suspending moral judgments is a virtue, the necessary outcome is moral horror.