As a man in his sleep doubts the reality of his nightmares and yearns to awaken and return to real life, so the average man of our day cannot, in the depths of his heart, believe the terrible condition in which he finds himself — and which is growing worse and worse — to be a reality. He yearns to attain to a higher reality, the consciousness of which is already within him… Our average man has but to make a conscious effort and ask himself, “Is not all this an illusion?” in order to feel like an awakened sleeper, transported from a hypocritical and horrible nightmare-world into a living, peaceful, and joyous world of reality.

Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910)