There is no reason why we cannot understand who we truly are, where we are going, there is no reason why the average individual cannot be fully empowered, we are incredibly powerful beings.
Now in our culture we have been trained for individual differences to stand out, so you look at each person and immediately it is brighter, dumber, older, younger, richer, poorer and we make all of these dimensional distinctions, put them in categories and treat them that way. And we get so that we only see others as separate from ourselves, in 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 in which they are like you, not different from you, and experiencing the fact that which is essence in you, and which is essence in me, is indeed ONE, the understanding that there is no other, it is all one.
I wasn’t born Richard Alpert, I was just born as a human being and then was I was TAUGHT and learned this whole business of who I am and whether I’m good or bad or achieving or not, and all of that is learned along the way.
I think I spent 30 years of my life, trying to become something, I wanted to become good at things, I wanted to become good at tennis, I wanted to become good at school and grades and everything I could do, in that perspective, I’m not okay the way I am but if I got good at things. I realized I had the game wrong, because the game was to find out what I already was.
The whole system that we live in drills into us that we’re powerless that we’re weak that our society is evil ect. and so forth. It’s all a big fat lie, we are powerful, beautiful and extraordinary. There is no reason why we cannot understand who we truly are, where we are going, there is no reason why the average individual cannot be fully empowered, we are incredibly powerful beings.- Richard Alpert
