Rumi called his teacher "the friend." And that's what we need. We need friends.

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.

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

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.

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.

We don't need anymore empowered people who are all about the ego.

I have noticed if I pull from fear or despair about the state of the world, I get tired, ineffective, afraid and sometimes mean-spirited.