Having come to realize in the first stage of meditation that we are not our bodies, in the second stage we make an even more astounding discovery; we are not our minds either.

When someone at peace and free from hurry enters a room, that person has a calming effect on everyone present.

Activity is not achievement. It is not enough to rush about beginning a lot of things and keeping busy. A well-spent life is one that rounds out what it has begun.

As we get deeper, we move closer and closer to other people; we feel closer to life as a whole.

Excitement and depression, fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain are storms in a tiny private, shell-bound realm - which we take to be the whole of existence. Yet we can break out of this shell and enter a new world.

In the Confucian tradition is a simple formula that appeals to me deeply: 'If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.' I urge everyone to reflect deeply on these words, as simple as they are profound.

Beneath the surface level of conditioned thinking in every one of us there is a single living spirit. The still small voice whispering to me in the depths of my consciousness is saying exactly the same thing as the voice whispering to you in your consciousness. 'I want an earth that is healthy, a world at peace, and a heart filled with love.' It doesn't matter if your skin is brown or white or black, or whether you speak English, Japanese, or Malayalam - the voice, says the Gita, is the same in every creature, and it comes from your true self.