When you have grown accustomed to sitting and meditating, try to stop your thoughts. That's the bottom line in meditative practice.

Those who practice deserve your respect. If you respect them, you respect yourself. It's easy to be critical, but it does no good. What's important is to be supportive of all who practice.

I used to live in Seattle, as did Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee. I lived near the arboretum. Very often I would take walks late at night by Lake Washington, because I found it very easy to meditate there.

They say Casanova made love to over 10,000 women. Do you think it changed him? It probably aged him a little bit. But I doubt that it changed him. If it had changed him, he would have stopped somewhere along the line and done something a little different.

Some come to a teacher for power. They still have all the desires, angers and jealousies of an unevolved person. Consequently, they become destructive both to themselves and to others.

When you are meditating, after you've meditated on the yantra or candle flame, simply try feeling gratitude. Sit and feel grateful to existence because you are meditating.

There is a certain beauty and refinement that is often found in our world and it is expensive. It shouldn't necessarily be so. It is just the way our economic system is.