I am a traditionalist, I'm not a conventional person, but I am a traditionalist in the true form of the word, in that your heart is opening, you're absolutely there for everyone, the face of pain has no tradition, by the way, and in my tradition, a guru simply means the removal of darkness.

A conventional person can be restrained by the prejudices of its tradition. Convention has too many prejudicial restraints. But unconventional is good, because what happens is the heart is open, it's free, it's non-judgmental. It's not accommodating, but it's embracing, there is a difference. To accommodate means it's already condescending, you condescend to accommodate. To embrace is free, it's totally free.

That is an incredible period I think when you have a near-death experience. You are really understanding that there is a greater self than the physical body, and the cosmic anatomy as I call it is suspended and physical, is almost attached to it but not quite, and you're living in that in-between sphere of apparent reality around you and then the real reality of the infiniteness of it all.

We think that we have to do so many things and it's unfortunate, entire modern society is besotted with the do-ables, we have to do this, we have to have a half-hour of yoga, an hour of meditation, 2 hours of this, and then 12 hours of work and non-stop electronic gadgets, gizmos etc. etc., and then go home and take care of the family, and then take the children to wherever, and what tends to happen is we do way too much. The society does way too much. One of the greatest things in healing is try for just one day to do nothing. Very difficult.

The guru is a tremendous tradition because is a guide, it's a guide to life, and we can guide energetically, we can guide in our thought, we can have a prayer that travels wonderful things.

Everyone must live, and everyone must express themselves, and must express themselves in the way of their karma.

A traditionalist can sometimes be looked at as someone who is a fundamentalist, or they can be looked at as someone with a very strict set of understandings of human nature. But a traditionalist in the Vedic tradition, is one who is open-hearted, who does not judge, there's nothing to judge whatsoever, who understands the basic understanding and karma of all of it, and who basically helps when help is called for.