The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody's life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is the honoring of small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.

Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there, or being in the present but wanting to be in the future. It's a split that tears you apart inside.

When someone becomes transparent, then something shines through that person that has nothing to do with the person or any of his or her personal history. What is required is becoming so transparent that the self or ego dissolves.

My sense of identity broke down and was replaced by something that is very hard to put into words. Awareness, Consciousness.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

Life is the dancer and you are the dance.

It is the stillness that will save and transform the world.

The whole world accepts that being stressed is the normal way to live.

You are the Universe expressing itself as a human for a little while.

The planet will not survive another hundred years of the same state of consciousness that produced the external effects of recent history.

When you are fully present with everyone you meet, you relinquish the conceptual identity you made for them - your interpretation of who they are and what they did in the past - and are able to interact without the egoic movements of desire and fear. Attention, which is alert stillness, is the key.

As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.

The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.

Are you polluting the world or cleaning up the mess? You are responsible for your inner space; nobody else is, just as you are responsible for the planet. As within, so without: If humans clear inner pollution, then they will also cease to create outer pollution.

The brain does not create consciousness, but consciousness created the brain, the most complex physical form on earth, for its expression.

Enthusiasm is the power that transfers the mental blueprint into the physical dimension.

Pain is the fuel that lights the flame of our enlightenment.

Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.

You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion.

The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not "the thinker."

The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.

Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are addicted to - alcohol, food, legal or illegal drugs, or a person - you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain.

In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness.