We are constantly distilling our selves out of ourselves like fountains that gush from underground wellsprings, flash briefly in the sun, and return to their source.

We are more like a many-faceted whole, and it is our task in the course of a lifetime to realize each facet of our selves - a journey that is more likely to be downward, circular, and labyrinthine than upward, onward, and straight.

The ego breaks free of the soul, its matrix, in order to reflect soul, to make its potential actual, and eventually to be reunited with the realized soul to form the totality of the self.

The more we realize our selves, the less they seem to be our selves, as if the world-soul merely wishes to reflect itself through our eyes. The less self-important we are, the more important we are as selves, with a unique perspective on the cosmos.