The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.

Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don't take your thoughts too seriously.

There's something in everybody that longs for that awakening to be more true to yourself.

Time is the horizontal dimension of life, the surface layer of reality. Then there is the vertical dimension of depth, accessible only through the portal of the present moment.

If I thought it was my identity to be a spiritual teacher, that would be a delusion. It's not an identity. It's simply a function in this world.

To be aware of little, quiet things, you need to be quiet inside. A high degree of alertness is required. Be still. Look. Listen. Be present.

I drink a glass of wine or two occasionally with dinner. 'You drink alcohol?!' Well, if my state of consciousness is so fragile that a glass of wine would upset it, then it can't be worth very much.