If you feel a sense of social responsibility, first of all keep working on yourself. Being peaceful yourself is the first step if you want to live in a peaceful universe.

When the faith is strong enough, it is sufficient just to be. Its a journey towards simplicity, towards quietness, towards a kind of joy that is not in time. Its a journey that has taken us from primary identification with our body and our psyche, on to an identification with God, and ultimately beyond identification.

Along with faith comes the requirement for dogged persistence. At first meditation may bring you mild highs or some relief from suffering. But there may come a time - just as there does in the development of any skill - when there will be a plateau. You may be bored, discouraged, or even negative and cynical. This is when you will need not only faith, but persistence.

The soul is not part of the incarnation. It comes into the incarnation. And the soul is not afraid of death because it has done it so many times.

Pain is the mind. It's the mind. It's the thoughts of the mind.

It's only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.

Our journey is about being more deeply involved in life, and yet less attached to it.