Personal growth can be painful, because it can make us feel ashamed and humiliated to face our own darkness. But our spiritual goal is the journey out of fear-based, painful mental habit patterns, to those of love and peace.

What we really need to avoid is this epidemic of false positivism and false happiness, which says if it hurts, it must be bad. Sometimes it hurts because you have a conscience.

What's difficult in life is to stay centered when somebody does or says something that tempts us to close our hearts because their heart was closed. That is hard. But that is also how we grow. We go through those circumstances in order to evolve into people who can hold to our loving center no matter what the world throws us.

A certain desperation is usually necessary before we're ready for God... Until your knees finally hit the floor, you're just playing at life, and on some level you're scared because you know you're just playing. The moment of surrender is not when life is over. It's when it begins

May we not succumb to thoughts of violence and revenge today, but rather to thoughts of mercy and compassion. We are to love our enemies that they might be returned to their right minds.

I think those of us on a spiritual journey can help create a new conversation, a new America, and a new world.

Everything connects to everything; therefore, as we change, the world cannot but change with us.