To feel our character, our personality, and our personal, hard-won history fade from being is to be exposed to whatever lies beneath these comforting, operational conveniences. What remains when the conscious and functioning self has been erased is mankind's fundamental condition _ irrational, violent, guilt-wracked, despairing, and mad.

Love is the perception of perfection beyond the protection of our projection.

To see through the illusion of duality, remember that fear and darkness have no substance in themselves, for they do not indicate the presence of a second universal force, but are only names given to the one Light unperceived.

The shortest interval between two points is the awareness that they are not two.

We do not see things as they are, nor do we even see them as we are, but only as we believe our story to have been.

What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?" I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy. Melphi seemed delited. "Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Melphi relplied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.