When we get below or beyond our persona we glimpse a universality in which we all merge and the you-me distinction is dissolved. This is not to say we lose consciousness of individuality. The mysterious paradox is that we see ourselves both as distinct and as part of a whole from which we came, to which we shall return, and in which we have our being. Our consciousness is enlarged and seems to incorporate many other consciousnesses, so that we our able to perceive reality with something far fuller and stronger than our human senses…Experiencing this in some measure, we begin to develop a real understanding of our relationship to each other, not just our friends, but everyone. We are all members of one body…If one is hurt, all suffer, just as my whole body seems to suffer, although the rest is unharmed, if I sprain my finger. We live in a world in which more than half the human beings are hurt by hunger, poverty, oppression, ignorance, or war. It is as though more than half our body were scorched, damaged by far more than a sprain: must we not all share this pain and try to alleviate it? We are involved with all humankind because we are all humankind.
—Adam Curle, True Justice: Quaker peace makers and peace making
