“The only real protection will come from doing a spiritual practice over a prolonged period of time. Because it retrains us to see the world and ourselves in a different way.”

When we start to talk about gurus, we’re talking about beings who actually know what this is all about. They know who we were, where we came from, and where we’re going. They are not imprisoned in a selfish or self-centered view of the universe.

This is what I do to keep my head screwed on semi-straight and keep my heart open. Whenever I sing, that’s why I sing. Whether it’s at the Grammys, whether it’s in the bathroom, whether it’s in front of 10,000 people or three people, by my guru’s grace, my head stays in that place.

Love is what we are; we don’t get it from somebody, we can’t give it to anybody, we can’t fall in it or fall out of it. Love is our true Being.

The heart in us is deeper than any emotion or psychological issue.

On the Path, it’s impossible to know how you are doing because it’s the judger who is disappearing.

It takes two to tango! I need everybody to sing with me.

I knew that if I did not start chanting with people, that I would never be able to clean out the dark corners of my own heart. I knew it with every cell in my body and mind.

When you fall in love, nobody has to tell you. You know what you feel.

The heart is like a mirror. When we dust it off, we are able to see ourselves. The dust is all our stuff – guilt, anger – this stuff is reflected back to us. Practice removes the dust from the mirror of our hearts.

It’s inexplicable why somebody can lose a leg and it doesn’t effect them at all emotionally; and another person can lose a foot and be destroyed for the rest of their lives.

Don’t wait for a Guru. Your life is your Guru.

Surrender happens by Grace. All we’re doing is cleaning up the room so when Surrender walks in, He can sit down.

Don’t give up on your dreams. You can become the person you know you really are.

Bliss is easy, just take a drug. What is hard is feeling good about our real selves.

Even if somebody tells us something, the hit, the light goes on inside of us, not out there. We learn and understand everything within ourselves.

I chant to save my heart. Every time I sit down, that’s what I’m doing.

The body is but a vessel to carry the soul. A container ship to protect it as it passes through this world.

Protect your dreams from your nightmare.

I believe that fairness creams protect the skin against the harsh effects of the sun.

As long as white people put people of color, African Americans and Latinos, in the same dispensable bag, and look at our children of color as insignificant and treat women of color as not as deserving of protection as white women, we will never achieve true equality.

Were women to “unsex” themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection.

Negative thoughts are not protecting you. They are making you smaller.

If you have a dream, you’ve got to protect it.

He [God] watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.