Good karma leads to rebirth also. The desire for higher states of mind is a desire. When you are fixated on higher states of mind, you don't become enlightened.

If there's no background, no foreground, no opposition, no complements, then there's no change becasue there's no subject and object.

A person of knowledge and power never goes out looking for battles. All their battles are within.

In poetry, and in my study in graduate school, I was drawn to a particular poet, Theodore Roethke. I did a dissertation on "The Evolution of Matter and Spirit in the Poetry of Theodore Roethke" for my Ph.D.

Existence is the awareness of awareness.

To look for truth in all the wrong and all the right places is the only excuse for living.

As Buddha points out, you should not rely on the opinions of others for validation of your internal progression.