Along the path of developing consciousness, it is important to understand that it is not simply we who adopt a belief; beliefs will possess us if we fail to preserve self-awareness.

We do not own ideas; we are possessed by them. Continually, on our journey of consciousness, we enter the eternal lands of ideas we did not create—ideas far older than ourselves. We stop at their dwellings, and sometimes remain imprisoned for an entire lifetime in a small or large room of a particular form of consciousness. But eventually we leave, while the dwelling remains.

Understanding this truth is liberating for every philosopher because it prevents us from attributing to ourselves more credit than we deserve. We know that we are only travellers through the valleys of ideas, not rulers of these lands.

This path did not begin with us and will not end with us. Calling people to become “one person” is precisely a call to “be oneself”: a call not to remain forever in the house of any thinker or idea.

Do not sell your individuality to any cult of personality. It is a transaction that brings nothing but loss, and its price is the loss of the Self.

Aydin Areta