If we remove ourselves from the world, we are pretending that we can follow our own individual enlightenment and let the rest of the world go to hell, so to speak.

Education provides you a profession. But not vocation. You do it only because you need to work to earn money to buy your food, buy your clothes, pay the bills. Our life has a greater meaning, and a greater purpose.

In addition to world conflicts, the most challenging problem we face today is hunger, deprivation and social injustice. Because we're ruled by separate self-interest, we go on accumulating personal wealth, ignoring the well being of the others.

The road to climate stability is straight and the solutions simple, and yet scientists, economists, industrialists and politicians are busy making them complicated

The children are being conditioned to think that the purpose of life is to get a good job. You get paid but you don't get satisfaction from your work.

That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.

We need to learn to live in the here and now; this moment is the best moment. Live it fully.