Different ages have certain approaches, which may be more effective for one age and no longer effective in another age. The world that we live in now has much greater density to it; it is much more all-pervasive. And when I say "world," I include the human mind in it. The human mind has grown even since the time of the Buddha, 2,500 years ago. The human mind is more noisy and more all-pervasive, and the egos are bigger.

Sense your presence, the naked, unveiled, unclothed beingness. It is untouched by young or old, rich or poor, good or bad, or any other attributes.

To know another human being in their essence, you don’t really need to know anything about them - their past, their history, their story. We confuse knowing about with a deeper knowing that is non-conceptual. Knowing about and knowing are totally different modalities. One is concerned with form, the other with the formless. One operates through thought, the other through stillness.

At the deepest level, an 'open heart' is spacious presence, in which the sense of separateness between yourself and the 'other' dissolves and there is the recognition of oneness, of shared consciousness. That recognition is love. Sensing the formless essence in another and recognizing it as one with your own essence - that's what love is. All this is an intrinsic part of the awakened consciousness and the revelation of the spiritual dimension of life.

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

The ego says, I shouldn't have to suffer, and that thought makes you suffer so much more.

Make it a habit to ask yourself: What's going on inside me at this moment? That question will point you in the right direction. But don't analyze, just watch. Focus your attention within. Feel the energy of the emotion. If there is no emotion present, take your attention more deeply into the inner energy field of your body. It is the doorway into Being.