“The mind carries its own confusion unless we bring about clarity. Our self-esteem is so vulnerable that our mind comes to our rescue to protect ourselves against the light that would shatter us…It requires a lot of courage to face the truth. That’s something we gain as we move from childhood into adulthood…

“As an illustration, say there’s a mouse in our hut and we put a flashlight on. All of a sudden the mouse leaps out of the light to get back into the shadow again, but we don’t allow it to do that. That’s the way our light is able to unmask the hoax and bring it out into the open.”

–From Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan’s “Light and Ecstasy: The Grand Illumination.”