Some form of suffering often brings about a readiness. One can say it cracks open the shell of the egoic mind with which many people identify as "me." Life cracks open that shell, and once that crack is there, then we are reached more easily by spiritual teaching.

You cannot receive what you don't give. Outflow determines inflow. Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you won't even know that you have it. This includes abundance.

Humanity had to go through egoic madness and then outgrow it.

Through death you find yourself, because you no longer identify with form. You realize you are not the form with which you had identified ­ neither the physical nor the psychological form of "me". That form goes. It dissolves and who you are beyond form emerges through the opening where that form was. One could almost say that every form of life obscures God.

When you are aligned with the now internally, when you take responsibility for this moment, then life is helpful and tends to bring you what you need.

Many adults play roles when they speak to young children. They use silly words and sounds. They talk down to the child. They don't treat the child as an equal. The fact that you temporarily know more, or you're bigger does not mean the child is not your equal.

Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.