What city has given the world more in terms of American culture than New Orleans? There is none. Not New York. Not L.A. Not Chicago. Not anywhere, in the sense that African American music has gone around the world twenty times over, and it's continuing to evolve. It is our greatest cultural export.

Any music can be healing if it inspires, relaxes, encourages or creates enthusiasm for life in you.

Acceptance means focusing on the present while assessing the choices available to you in this moment. If there are many possibilities, make the choice that is likely to bring the most evolutionary results. If there is only one choice, take it. If there are no obvious choices, relax and accept the fact that for now, you cannot do anything.

Only the human heart can live in present moment awareness. The human mind cannot, because its essential nature is to ponder the past and plan the future. This is why all wise beings encourage us to go beyond the mind into the timeless, boundless transcendence of heart-centered awareness.

Genuine inner freedom is the ultimate aim of life. It is the unspoken goal of every thought you have and every action you take.

What appeals to me in The Deuce is some of the same things that made me interested in The Wire, which is there seems to be a theme here around markets and capitalism and labour. This is a moment, 1971, of something that was under the counter: then brown paper bags suddenly became legal, pornography. And it was really the birth of an industry which is now a multi-billion dollar American standard. And these people were the pioneers at a moment where there really were no rules, then suddenly there was a legal industry that was allowed to exist.

Awakening to who we really are is at the heart of yoga. . . .Yoga offers a path to this underlying field of being, which is the source of creativity, fulfillment, and abundance.