Trying to achieve something in the spiritual world is just as foolish as trying to achieve something in the material world. There's nothing to achieve. There's only letting go. As we let go, more and more, of ego identifications, desires, and support systems, bliss will arise.

Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us.

If we want to be loved, we are looking for a support system. If we want to love, we are looking for spiritual growth.

Whatever we attempt is a reflection of our inner thirst, which we hope to quench in all these external ways. What we are looking for lies within us, and if we gave out time and energy to an interior search, we would come across it much faster, since that is the only place where it is to be found.

If we divide into two camps--even into violent and the nonviolent--and stand in one camp while attacking the other, the world will never have peace. We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence within ourselves. We must work on ourselves and also with those we condemn if we want to have a real impact.

To look for total satisfaction in oneself is a futile endeavor. Since everything changes from moment to moment, where can self and where can satisfaction be found? Everybody is unhappy simply because of unfilled desire. Everybody is looking for something that isn't available.

As long as we have practiced neither concentration nor mindfulness, the ego takes itself for granted and remains its usual normal size, as big as the people around one will allow.