Time, for example, is intimately connected with the goddess Kali, which partly accounts for her destructive nature. Energy - in Einstein's equation, E=MC2 - is personified in India as Shakti in her various guises.

When we are open to ourselves and our own experience, and therefore, open to the world, then the world can respond.

I woke up early one morning a couple of years ago and felt the tenderness of my being alone, the bitter sweetness of it. It has many colors, being alone. I walked out into my living room and I can say honestly that everything was pouring with life - the red sofa, the chairs with their patterns of roses, even the coffee table with its scattering of books. Everything was alive with the presence of being. Seeing the world though those eyes, I realized that I could never really be alone.

We have all had serendipitous moments - the most unlikely meetings out of nowhere - that can happen when we have this quality of deep acceptance towards ourselves.

Each of us is already special in the sense that nobody has the unique pattern of potentialities that anyone else has.

Some of us have the good fortune of some type of natural gift, whether it's playing tennis or painting or writing.

When the heart opens, we forget ourselves and the world pours in: this world, and also the invisible world of meaning that sustains everything that was and ever shall be.