" We have the strange idea in the West that civilizations just happen: that they come into existence as a hit and miss affair and that we bumble along, creating and inventing and making it better.

But this is not how things are done at all.

Civilizations never just happen. They are brought into existence quite consciously, with unbelievable compassion and determination, from another world. Then the job of people experienced in ecstasy is to prepare the soil for them; carefully sow and plant them; care for them; watch them grow. "

― Peter Kingsley , A Story Waiting to Pierce You: Mongolia, Tibet and the Destiny of the Western World