I've realized that aging is the younger cousin of dying. ... How much time do I have left? We become aware that we're on the downside of the mountain, coasting toward our final days.

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.

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.

If you have fathered a child, if you have given birth, if sex is a source of healthy pleasure, thank your pelvis and your reproductive organs for allowing you to feel the creative rhythms of life.

We don't need any more teachers. We don't. We need friends.

Not only must we follow the golden thread towards spiritual freedom, but we must also unravel the garden-variety twine that is wrapped tightly around our hearts and minds.

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.