If you intend to take the journey of mastery, the best thing you can do is to arrange for first-rate instruction.

Keep practicing, even when you seem to be getting nowhere.

At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silence pulse of perfect rhythm which is absolutely individual and unique, and yet which connects us to everything else.

What was once impossible now summons us to dismantle the walls between ourselves and our sisters and brothers, to dissolve the distinctions between flesh and spirit, to transcend the present limits of time and matter, to find, at last, not wealth or power but the ecstasy (so long forgotten) of commonplace, unconditional being. For the atom's soul is nothing but energy. Spirit blazes in the dullest of clay. The life of every woman or man-the heart of it-is pure and holy joy.

At the root of all power and motion, at the burning center of existence itself, there is music and rhythm.

Running, close companion to death, summons us to the most vivid acts of life. Our ancestors (we have forgotten) ran for food and for love, love and lust. For us, a prime symbol of sexuality is the automobile. For the ancients it was the chase, the foot race. Satyr and nymph, maiden and god, hot pursuit. The mythic hunters, Diana and Atalanta, available only to the males, men or gods, who could outrun them; death to all others.

Perhaps the safest prediction we can make about the future is that it will surprise us.