The ego's form of happiness can't exist without unhappiness. The ego will be happy when something good happens but unhappy when it ends.

The future is an imagined Now, a projection of the mind.

It is precisely through the onset of old age, through loss or personal tragedy, that the spiritual dimension would traditionally come into people's lives. This is to say, their inner purpose would emerge only as their outer purpose collapsed and the shell of the ego would begin to crack open. The emphasis shifts from doing to Being, and our civilization, which is lost in doing, knows nothing of Being. It asks: being? What do you do with it?

When you make the present moment, instead of past and future, the focal point of your life, your ability to enjoy what you do and with it the quality of your life increases dramatically.

Even the great scientists have reported that their creative break-throughs came at a time of mental quietude. The surprising result of a nationwide inquiry among America's most eminent mathematicians, including Einstein, to find out their working methods, was that thinking 'plays only a subordinate part in the brief, decisive phase of the creative act itself'.

I am optimistic that humanity is going to make it, that humanity is going to reach, finally, a new state of consciousness which will then create a different kind of world.

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