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"...It took a while for the personality of civilization to become so dominant. The more mechanical we become, the more culture is a matter of filing holes. Many people say that in the past there was more love and presence, more recognition of reality, and that people were more in touch with their essence than they are now. You've heard of the Golden Age? In the Golden Age, people experienced their essence, no holes. The Silver Age began as Essence diminished and the holes began to appear. Then came the Bronze Age. Now we're in the Iron Age. It's the darkest and heaviest. Iron is nothing but defense...."

"Being who you really are means being free of all the identifications from the past that have built your false sense of identity; it does not depend on what you do in the world. What you do in the world can be an expression of who you are, but it does not define you. When you are your Personal Essence, your own true sense of identity, anything you do will have an essential orientation. You usually think that the job you choose, whatever it is-gardner, physicist, mother-will make you feel who you really are. But that means you are identified with being a part of the world. It means there is a distortion of reality."- A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart, Elements of the Real in Man