The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.

Religion was made to order to "save the world," to use a phrase Christians use so much, but we really haven't been doing a good job of it for centuries. It's heartbreaking really.

The school of relationships is where you learn self-knowledge. I just don't know how you could learn it sitting alone in the desert on a rock by yourself. You have to see where you fail at it. And that confrontation with your own ability - "I was again not able to love" - those are the teachable moments.

Most of us were taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves you so that you can change. What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change.

Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God

The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God, not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong.

Contemplation is an alternative consciousness that refuses to identify with or feed what are only passing shows. It is the absolute opposite of addiction, consumerism or any egoic consciousness.