Man owes himself to his family; his family owes itself to the fatherland; and the fatherland to humanity.
The egoism of man merits isolation and despair; that of the family, ruin and exile; that of the fatherland, war and invasion.
The man who isolates himself from every human love, saying, “I will serve God,” deceives himself.
Éliphas Lévi, trans Aleister Crowley, Liber XLVI The Key of the Mysteries
3. The pain-bearing obstructions are — ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion and clinging to life.
These are the five pains, the fivefold tie that binds us down, of which ignorance is the cause and the other four its effects. It is the only cause of all our misery. What else can make us miserable? The nature of the Soul is eternal bliss. What can make it sorrowful except ignorance, hallucination, delusion? All pain of the Soul is simply delusion.
Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms, Chapter II – Concentration: Its Practice (in Swami Vivekananda’s Raja Yoga)
