The person who takes the first step in a conflict toward the other, those are brave people.

When we slow down, quiet the mind, and allow ourselves to feel hungry for something that we do not understand, we are dipping into the abundant well of spiritual longing.

My years as a mystic have made me question almost all my assumptions. They've made me a proud I-don't-know-it-all.

It isn't so much that God is the unified state of consciousness that each of us came from and will return to, but more so that God is the creative energy flowing between all states of consciousness. God is in the land beyond the mountains, but God is also in the mountains and in the valley of illusions cradled within the mountains. God is not one thing or another, rather God flows between and through all things.

Your path is your own, but you must walk side by side with others, with compassion and generosity as your beacons. If anything is required it is this: fearlessness in your examination of life and death; Willingness to continually grow; and openness to the possibility that the ordinary is extraordinary, and that your joys and your sorrows have meaning and mystery

It is very, very rare where a slight that turns into a grudge that is in need of forgiveness is only about one of the parties. In most of our day-to-day situations - with colleagues at work, with your partner, with your children, with your friends - most of the time, if you really got down with each other and put aside your pride and your defensiveness and you had those hard conversations, you'd find a place where both people had something to ask for forgiveness from the other and to forgive the other.

When we descend all the way down to the bottom of loss, and dwell patiently, with an open heart, in the darkness and pain, we can bring back up with us the sweetness of life and the exhilaration of inner growth. When there is nothing left to lose, we find the true self - the self that is whole, the self that is enough, the self that no longer looks to others for definition, or completion, or anything but companionship on the journey.