Be alert as you watch a dog at play or at rest. Let the animal teach you to feel at home in the now, to celebrate life by being completely present. You just watch the tail ... with some dogs you just look at them - just a little look is enough - and their tail goes ...'Life is good! Life is good!' And they are not telling themselves a story of why life is good. It's a direct realization.

For most people on the planet, consciousness can be equated with thought. They haven't experienced what it means to be conscious without thought, or they have only for very brief instants.

Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.

You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.

The teaching arises out of the stillness. But when I'm alone, there's only the stillness, and that is my favorite place.

The next step in human evolution is to transcend thought. This is now our urgent task. It doesn't mean not to think anymore, but simply not to be completely identified with thought, possessed by thought.

If you are in a state of intense presence you are free of thought, yet highly alert. If your conscious attention sinks below a certain level, thought rushes in, the mental noise returns, stillness is lost, you're back in time.