You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection – you cannot cope with the future.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

I used to meditate all the time in bed. That was when I was raising my daughter, and I’d get her up and off to school, and then I would go back to bed and meditate. And then I would do the same in the evening, and that was very good for that period because I had so many things to juggle as a single mother.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Sometimes I’m a bit under-aggressive and sometimes a bit over. But I think it’s good to have both.

We’re always looking over our shoulders, ‚what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one – am I making the right career move?‘ When you’re young you have to do all that to survive, I suppose.

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‚yours,‘ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

My only fault is that I don’t realize how great I really am.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

My message isn’t perfectly defined. I have, as a human being, fallen to peer pressure.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.

Vanity is but the surface.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

I’ve never professed to be anything but an average student.

It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available – more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future in order to get more.

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

I never get too high on my stardom or what I can do.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and… the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

When we go out to the country and just sit there, what we’re really doing is just switching off various kinds of alertness that we don’t have to use. When we do that, we are stopping being defensive. We are no longer shutting ourselves off from different types of experiences, we are welcoming them in.

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don’t appreciate the moment until it’s passed.

Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

When we give ourselves the chance to let go of all our tension, the body’s natural capacity to heal itself can begin to work.

We can, for example, be fairly confident that either there will be a world without war or there won’t be a world – at least, a world inhabited by creatures other than bacteria and beetles, with some scattering of others.

Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn’t do to upset one’s own vanity.

I look like a casual, laid-back guy, but it’s like a circus in my head.

He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

We think too much and feel too little.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.