(…) in reality the INDIVIDUALITY represents nothing more than a transitory and contingent manifestation of the real being. It is only one particular state among an indefinite multitude of other states of the same being; and this being is, in itself, absolutely independent of all its manifestations, just as, to use an illustration that occurs frequently in Hindu texts, the sun is absolutely independent of the manifold images in which it is reflected. Such is the fundamental distinction between “self” and “I,” the personality and the INDIVIDUALITY; as the images are connected by the luminous rays with their solar source, without which they would have neither existence nor reality, so the INDIVIDUALITY, either of the human individual or of any other similar state of manifestation, is bound by the personality to the principial center of being by this transcendent intellect of which we are speaking. (MetaOrient)