Physically, the heart is an organ that keeps us alive through a coordinated network of cells beating together. Spiritually, the heart is the center of love, the force that makes our lives worthwhile. Globally, the heart is a symbol of a new organizing principle for how to live together on this finite jewel of a planet.

For it is indeed consciousness that makes the body fully alive, and the body that gives consciousness a place to live.

Ascetic spirituality is a symptom of the very disease which it intends to cure.

To lose our connection with the body is to become spiritually homeless. Without an anchor we float aimlessly, battered by the winds and waves of life

Love is not a matter of getting connected. It is a matter of seeing that we already ARE connected within an intricate web of relationships that extends throughout all life. It is a realization of 'no boundary' -- that we are all made of the same stuff, riding through time on the same spaceship, faced with the same problems in the world, the same hopes and fears. It is a connection at the core, that makes irrelevant skin color, age, sex, looks or money.

Human consciousness is now being drawn inexorably toward the same issues, the gaze of collective attention focused like never before.

We either get success or lessons. If we learn our lessons successfully, we get both.