Once beyond the self, however, holiness is no longer possible, because now, there is nothing left to give and no-one left to do the giving.

When one is perfectly still-mind and body, silent and alone-there is no personality to speak of, thus personality is one's unique way of expression, it is what others see and know of us, nothing more or deeper than that.

To be forgiven is not enough; we must put an end to the very need to be forgiven.

Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you're still going to be taken along.

But coming home that day, walking downhill with a panorama of valley and hills before me, I turned my gaze inward, and what I saw, stopped me in my tracks. Instead of the usual unlocalized centre of myself, there was nothing there, it was empty, and at the moment of seeing this there was a flood of quiet joy and I knew, finally I knew what was missing-it was my "self".

I went on to discover that in its deepest sense, the will is not primarily the faculty of desire for anything known, but rather, the desire for something unknown, animate desire for something that lies beyond ourselves, a longing for something we know is missing in us.

Once beyond the self, however, holiness is no longer possible, because now, there is nothing left to give and no-one left to do the giving.