For us to remain in this world, our animal brain has to be there to support us.

You should not take prayer too seriously. There is something playful about God. You only have to look at a penguin ... to realize that He likes to play little jokes on creatures.

Technology isn't fulfilling its promise of unlimited progress and solving every problem through technology. With the Enlightenment and its aftermath, there already was a general loss of confidence in the Western religions.

For us to remain in this world, our animal brain has to be there to support us.

Over time we are able to undermine habitual modes of thinking formed by our self-made self in early childhood, which tries to squeeze happiness from the gratification of our desires for the symbols in our culture of survival and security, power and control, and affection and esteem.

We're obviously at the edge of something quite new in humanity's experience. That is this globalization process which isn't just economic or social, but involves the interpenetration of cultures, people moving to different places several times in their lifetime, traveling for business or pleasure, and marrying people of very different cultural backgrounds, all of which was almost impossible a hundred years ago.

For human beings, the most daunting challenge is to become fully human. For to become fully human is to become fully divine.