From The Lazy Man's Guide To Enlightenment  by Thaddeus Golas:

Who Are We? (excerpts)

We are equal beings and the universe is our relations with each other. The universe is made of one kind of entity: each one is alive, each one determines the course of his own existence.

The basic function of each being is expanding and contracting. Expanded beings are permeative; contracted beings are dense and impermeative.

We experience expansion as awareness, comprehension, understanding, or whatever we wish to call it. When we are completely expanded, we have a feeling of total awareness, of being one with all life.

To the degree that he is contracted, a being is unable to be in the same space with others, so contraction is felt as fear, pain, unconsciousness, ignorance, hatred, evil, and a whole host of strange feelings. At an extreme he has the feeling of being completely insane, of resisting everyone and everything, of being unable to to choose the content of his consciousness.

Each of us is the same kind of being, capable of outflowing attention and awareness, or withdrawing it. And that is all we need do: Give full, permissive, loving attention to absolutely anything that we see in our minds, in our bodies, in our environment, in other people.