I'm not a doom-and-gloom person. But I think there is a difference between transcendence and denial, and much of the Western world is in major denial today.

There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children.

Love will push every button, try every faith, challenge every strength, trigger every weakness, mock every value, and then leave you there to die. And then you will be ready to be born at last, to become a soul who is strong enough to take love on. You'll be a romantic mystic who has achieved the elements: you endured the flames of love, you were baptized in the waters of love, and now you can soar like only a mystic can through the skies and skin of a lover's heart.

My father was a deeply committed humanitarian. He was a fighter for social justice. He was spirited in the deepest sense.

We have great power to affect the attitudes and behavior of the people around us, at work and at home. We have the power to set a tone of honor, to create an energy around ourselves that says, 'I respect myself. I respect you. Let's respect each other.'

Once you've had enough and you can't do it anymore, you consider the possibility that there might be a better way. That's when your head cracks open and God comes in.

You can know everything that the books have to say, but ultimately it boils down to whether we do the inner work of devotion and surrender, whether we can put aside our own agendas and allow the spirit to move through us.