[Sophie]

"Man has built in himself images as a fence of security—religious, political, personal. These manifest as symbols, ideas, beliefs. The burden of these images dominates man's thinking, his relationships, and his daily life. These images are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man."

"But how can we be free to look and learn when our minds from the moment we are born to the moment we die are shaped by a particular culture in the narrow pattern of the "me"? For centuries we have been conditioned by nationality, caste, class, tradition, religion, language, education, literature, art, custom, convention, propaganda of all kinds, economic pressure, the food we eat, the climate we live in, our family, our friends, our experiences – every influence you can think of – and therefore our responses to every problem are conditioned."

"Actual freedom is freedom from dependency, attachment, from the craving for experience. Freedom from the very structure of thought is to be a light to oneself."


"Most humans are conditioned to such a level that true self-inquiry becomes difficult and in order to be free as humans, we need to break the chains of our dogmas and beliefs by becoming truly self-aware."

"Truth is apprehended as the result of freeing oneself from the lies and limitations of the conditioned thinking mind."