If you're interested in opening the doors to the heavens, start with the door to your own secret self. See what happens when you offer to another a glimpse of who you truly are. When your heart is undefended, you make it safe for whomever you meet to put down his burden of hiding, and then you both can walk through the open door.

I'm deeply disturbed by the ways in which all of our cultures are demonizing the other. This is why I'm launching a new initiative, and it's to help all of us, myself included, to counteract the tendency to otherize.

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.

I know that if we allow ourselves into the gridlock of tribalism, we're in trouble.

What do you want in your life? What do you want in your relationships? And if you say, I'd like them to be harmonious; I'd like them to be free; I'd like not to be in a state of blame all the time or shame. If you answer like that, then I would say, look at what's unforgiven. Look at where you know you did wrong and you would like to go to that person and say - I'm sorry. Can we start over? If you want to have a happier life, I would say, practice forgiveness.

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.

Talking to each other instead of talking about each other is not some kind of nicey-nice (ph) idea. It's the difference between societies falling apart and societies getting something wonderful done.