People are asleep, they wake up when they die.
الناس نيام فإذا ماتوا انتبهوا.
—
"Realize you know nothing and you are nobody. It is no easy thing to attain this realization. It does not come with teaching and instruction, nor can it be sewn on with a needle, or tied with a thread. This is a gift from God and a question of whom He bestows it on and whom He causes to experience it."
–– Abu Sa'id (early Sufi)
—
_In the traditional philosophy it is emphasized that "per-sonalities" are inconstants, ever changing and never stopping to "be"; "we" are not entities, but processes. Dr. Sullivan's words are-whether or not by intention— an admirable summary of the Buddhist doctrine of anattà. An attachment of permanent value to personality will be impossible for anyone who has seen things "as become" — yatha-bhutam, objectively, as causally determined processes. The first step on the way to a liberation from "the mother of illusions," and so toward an "infinite happiness," is to have realized by a demonstration that "this (body and mind) is not my Self," that there is no such thing as a "personality" anywhere to be found in the world. Life in a world of time and space is a condition of incessant change; and, as Plato asks, "How can that which is never in the same state be any-thing?" —Cratylus 439 E. Almost the first step in clear thinking is to distinguish becoming from being. The important thing is to know what "we" really are; but this is a knowledge that can only be acquired to the extent that "we" eliminate from our consciousness of being, all that "we" are not.” - AK Coomaraswamy