The great task of our time is to build a global society, where people can live together in peace

Alexander's achievement was not the conquest of India, but the feat of actually getting there and his two years in India were more of a geographical expedition than a military campaign. .... a Greek army had reached what they regarded as the end of the earth. They had pitted themselves against the ultimate as bravely as the yogins had struggled to break through the limits of the human psyche. Where mystics had conquered interior space, Alexander explored the farthest reaches of the physical world. .... like many of the axial sages, he was constantly 'straining after more'.

Illness itself can make you angry, enraged, furious, and it made me angry, enraged, and furious. I don't think it brought me to God at all. It depends how you deal with it. And I think that, at its best, three little words that always have to be applied to religion, religion can help you to deal with that.

Compassion is not an option. It's the key to our survival.

For centuries, the Muslims were able to co-exist perfectly well with Jews and Christians in the Middle East.

I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

If professional religious leaders can [no longer] instruct..., our artists and creative writers can perhaps step into this priestly role and bring fresh insight to our lost and damaged world.