“What if you let go of every bit of control and every urge that you have, right down to the most infinitesimal urge to control anything, anywhere, including anything that may be happening with you at this moment?”

Life becomes almost magical. The illusion of the “me” is no longer in the way. Life begins to flow, and you never know where it will take you.

To awaken to the absolute view is profound and transformative, but to awaken from all fixed points of view is the birth of true non-duality. If emptiness cannot dance, it is not true emptiness.

At each moment we are expressing what we know ourselves to be. If we know ourselves very little we will express and manifest that unconsciousness of our true nature.

If we do not live and manifest in our lives what we realize in our deepest moments of revelation, then we are living a split life.

Freedom is a state of complete and absolute insecurity and not knowing. So, in seeking security and safety, you actually distance yourself from the freedom you want.

Awareness isn’t something we own; awareness isn’t something we possess. Awareness is actually what we are.

Stop all doing and be still. Let the fire of stillness burn everything and reveal That which is Openness.

True freedom is to be free from the desire to be free from anything.

All you have to do is say “yes.” Don’t make some big project out of it. Don’t make some big deal out of it. Just say “yes.” You don’t even know what it means to say “yes,” but you say it anyway. You’ll never know what it means to say “yes,” but you do it anyway.

If you want to know something, go elsewhere. If you want to un-know everything, then sit and listen.

The most intimate question we can ask, and the one that has the most spiritual power, is this: What or who am I?

If we look at the world around us, we see that we are conditioned to not listen deeply. Because isn’t that what silence is? It’s a listening, a deep wordless listening.

The more honest and authentic we are, the more deeply we go into the mystery of our own being.

Spirituality does not require that you work hard toward achieving a result in the future as much as it requires you to be fully present.

In the same vein, my teachings are not meant to acquire followers or imitators, but to awaken beings to eternal truth and thus to awakened life and living.

Whatever you want, be it. If you want connection, it’s because you are connection. Be what you want, and then it happens all around you. If you want love, be it.

Teen pregnancy went way down in the ’90s, and 75 percent of it was because of increased use of contraception.

It was predicted in the grooves that we would be here sometime later on down the road.

Most people zero in on their failures. I try to keep all my attention on a pyramid type philosophy rather than the averaging-down philosophy.

A couple of incidents of shortness of breath and checked myself into a hospital, but that one in France really sat me down for a few minutes.

Mike Bloomfield sat down and started playing, and I went, whoa! Because I had never heard any white person play like that before.

These songs are old friends I have entertained myself with when I’m washing the dishes, driving to the store and walking down the aisles.

I was an organizer in the Food, Agricultural and Tobacco Workers Union down in North Carolina.

After my varied and celebrated career in television, movies, publishing, and the lucrative world of corporate speaking, being a fellow at Harvard seemed, frankly, like a step down.