It's not like we're all animalistic people trying to become more spiritual. We're really living spirit, trying to find out how to live embodied in this nitty gritty world, these corporeal forms, in these fleeting bodies in the material world where everything's changing and we're not in control.

Mahar-jji used to say 'wherever the Satsang gets together, I am there', kind of echoing Jesus' statement: wherever two or more of you get together in my name, I am there. So Maharaj-ji was a universal part of the spirit in that way. He's always with me, here. He's with whoever is with him. Not only just me.

I think it's very important to really find the wheat amidst the chafe and not give into superficialities, to not get caught up the commercialism or the fads, you know, the "over-popularization" of some things that we might see today. That doesn't mean we have to throw out the Buddha with the bath water, it's not all bad.

Why'd he name Ram Dass that? And Krishna Das that, instead of vice versa? Is Krishna Das more Krishna like and Ram Dass more Ram-like? Maybe... why not? We grow into our names. But why did my parents named me Jeffrey and my brother Michael? Who knows?

I think that today, integration is the name of the game and not separating these things out, and not trying to find the razor's edge, the narrow path. There's a lot of lanes in the highway, the trick is not fall into the ditches on either side, like a one sided nihilism, nothing matters life.

The religions are the buildings or the institutions, the groups, but inside of that is what moves, is what's alive, is the beating heart of spirituality, and really, the heart's blood is the mystical experience. Not airy fairy vague mystical experience, but transformative, intimate experience that really touches your heart with love, and not just sex.

Everything passes, nothing remains. Understand this, loosen your grip and fine serenity.