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

Everything beautiful has to be worked for.

Meditation may require a lifetime to master, but it will have been a lifetime well spent. ... If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment sounder? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed? Spiritual awareness reveals itself as eloquently in character development and selfless action as in mystical states.

The spiritual life is a call to action. But it is a call to ... action without any selfish attachment to the results.

When we are at home with ourselves, we are at home everywhere in the world. When we have found peace within ourselves, peace and love follow us wherever we go.

A calm mind releases the most precious capacity a human being can have: the capacity to turn anger into compassion, fear into fearlessness, and hatred into love.

The Sufis advise us to speak only after our words have managed to pass through three gates. At the first gate, we ask ourselves, 'Are these words true?' If so, we let them pass on; if not, back they go. At the second gate, we ask, 'Are the necessary?' At the last gate, we ask, 'Are they kind?'