“The ultimate freedom from the nonexistent ego is to see that it is actually irrelevant.”

To see things as you see them or to see things differently—until you have given the whole world its freedom—you’ll never have your freedom.

Question your thoughts. Question your stories. Question your assumptions. Question your opinions. Question your conclusions. Question them all into utter emptiness, stillness and joy. The keys to freedom are in your hands. Use them.

Whatever you can become will ultimately be destroyed. Only what you already are can’t be taken away.

The most challenging thing for the spiritual seeker to do is to stop struggling.

Your life, all of your life, is your path to awakening. By resisting or not dealing with its challenges, you stay asleep to Reality. Pay attention to what life is trying to reveal to you. Say yes to its fierce, ruthless, and loving grace.

The middle way is an invitation to leap beyond nirvana and samsara and to realize the unborn Buddha mind right in the middle of everywhere.

Most spiritual seekers move away from this insecurity by seeking and striving for a distant spiritual goal. That’s how they avoid feeling insecure.

Trying to maintain a pleasant state and avoid an unpleasant state is actually the cause of sorrow. When you stop resisting, you see that what seems frightening is actually the absolute beauty of reality.

Enlightenment is the unaltered state of consciousness

Stop all delays, all seeking and all striving. Put down your concepts, ideas and beliefs. For one instant be still and directly encounter the silent unknown core of your being. In that instant Freedom will embrace you and reveal the Awakening that you are.

A meditative mind is at ease because it’s not trying to acquire anything.

At any moment, we are either giving humanity the gift of our clarity or our confusion. And that clarity or confusion is affecting the humanity around us, the world around us. It is manifesting. It is taking form.

As soon as you believe that a label you’ve put on yourself is true, you’ve limited something that is literally limitless, you’ve limited who you are into nothing but a thought.

Whenever you aren’t manipulating your experience, you’re meditating. As soon as you meditate because you think you should, you’re controlling your experience again, and you’ve squeezed all the value out of your meditation.

This simply strengthens the ego. In fact, such conclusions arise from the ego itself. Pay no attention to them. Don’t go to war with yourself; simply inquire into who you are.

Feel this moment, see it with a willingness to experience it deeply, whether it be good, bad, or indifferent. Emotionally and feelingly be fully present, right here, vulnerable, with your heart. Just be present. Don’t live from your conditioned mind, live from unconditional truth.

At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable.

I couldn’t wait to get out of school, but once I did, I didn’t actually know what I wanted to do with myself. I don’t really know how it happened, but I just started writing music and realized that’s what I wanted to do.

It would actually feel forced or unnatural to try to do a different singing style or to try to change my sound completely.

I actually love the summer. When I went to Miami on tour, I was actually like, ‘I love this place.’

Actually, I’m happiest in Williams-Sonoma in New York. That’s a wonderful cooking store.

I wanted to be a farmer; actually, I wanted to be a horse-breeder. And I had the stallions… but then I heard Little Richard, and that was it.

Actually, only God can satisfy a Christian’s heart; man cannot.

It is better to treat an adolescent as if he had greater value than he actually shows than as if he had less and let him feel that his merits and self-respect are disregarded.