We are born in mystery, we live in mystery, and we die in mystery.

A religion made up solely of heightened religious experiences would not be a religion at all. ...The major religious traditions address the mysteries (with or without entheogens), but they have other business to do: widen understanding, give meaning, provide solace, promote loving-kindness, and connect human being to human being.

When there are miles to go before we sleep, altered traits are more important than altered states.

We become compassionate not from altruism which denies the self for the sake of the other, but from the insight that sees and feels one is the other.

Modernity sees humanity as having ascended from what is inferior to it - life begins in slime and ends in intelligence - whereas traditional cultures see it as descended from its superiors. As the anthropologist Marshall Sahlins put the matter: We are the only people who assume that we have ascended from apes. Everybody else take it for granted that they are descended from gods.

Science can prove nothing about God, because God lies outside its province.

...the only thing that continues is the consequences of our action.