The personal ego has its singularities and particularities, its present aims and past memories, its life within time, its own temperament and special characteristics. All this amounts to this: it is unique. The individuality is the highest, subtlest, and finest, even divinest part of being. It is out of time. It is pure essence, the other is a compounded entity. For it the hours do not pass; for the other there is a constant sequence, a moment-to-moment existence. Sometimes men catch a glimpse of it, this other self which is really their own best self and which is not something to be attained by a progression since it is forever present. It does not have or need thoughts. Every moment which they give to identifying themselves with it is their salvation. If this takes one far from kith and kin, from all speech with all persons, it also carries him into a diviner relationship and communication with them.
-- Notebooks Category 8: The Ego > Chapter 1 : What Am I? > # 143
