5. Mystics of all traditions also agree that when distinctions created by imagination are taken to be real especially the distinction between 'subject' and 'object', 'I' and 'other', 'self' and 'world' we lose sight of the Ultimate Nature of Reality and fall into delusion. This is the cause of all our suffering.

The fundamental dysfunction of our minds takes the form of a separation between I and other. We falsely grasp at an "I" on which attachment grafts itself at the same time as we conceive of an "other" that is the basis of aversion. Bokar Rinpoche (Buddhist)

So long as the sense of "me" and "mine" remains, there is bound to be sorrow and want in the life of the individual. Anandamayi Ma (Hindu)

Every man has plenty of cause for sorrow but he alone understands the deep universal reason for sorrow who experiences that he is. Cloud of Unknowing (Christian)

As long as you are 'you', you will be miserable and impoverished. Javad Nurbakhsh (Muslim)

How can any finite vessel hope to contain the endless God? Therefore, see yourself as nothing; only one who is nothing can contain the fullness of the Presence. Menahem Nahum (Jewish)