Even though it's hard to believe, but people who know me really well know I'm shy. I have to go past that fear.

Before you speak, get very quiet, do the meditation, say, "Use me as a channel for what needs to get said to this community. This community needs to hear something very important that I'm the only person in the room who can say it. Please help open me so that I'm not frightened and speak through me. Let me be that channel so that I can help heal." You make yourself so humble that you really are like a flute and that music that comes out comes from el corazón. All the people you're connected to from that light that we call love.

The house was immaculate, as always, not a stray hair anywhere, not a flake of dandruff or a crumpled towel. Even the roses on the dining-room table held their breath. A kind of airless cleanliness that always made me want to sneeze.

I think the erotic is very spiritual, and I never see that spiritual dimension when you look at collections of erotica. That's always missing for me.

What I recommend is this: after you've talked to everybody, go take a nap! Take a nap. Your body really needs to sleep. It's like washing your face. If you can't afford a three-hour nap, do a one-hour nap. If you can't afford a one-hour nap, do half an hour. If you can't afford half an hour, do fifteen minutes.

I try to be as honest about what I see and to speak rather than be silent, especially if it means I can save lives, or serve humanity.

I feel the fear touches on something deeper. A sense perhaps of, "My life is speeding past me and I can't get a handle on it."