“In our culture we have been trained for individual differences to stand out. So you look at each person and immediately you think brighter, dumber, older, younger, richer, poorer, and we make all these dimensional distinctions, put them into categories and treat them that way. And we get so we only see others as separate from ourselves and the ways in which they’re separate. And one of the dramatic characteristics of experience is being with another person and suddenly seeing the ways they are like you, not different from you. And experiencing the fact that that which is essence in you, and is essence in me, is indeed one. The understanding that there is no other. It is all one.”

— Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)