“All music is important if it comes from the heart.”

I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It’s not like I’m cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.

You’ve got to change your evil ways, baby, before I start loving you.

There is no greater reward than working from your heart and making a difference in the world.

Bring the brothers home, and sisters home now. Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education. You will see a transformation in America.

Everybody sooner or later has to drop the luggage and the baggage of illusions.

You cannot behave appropriately, unless you perceive correctly. Once you perceive you are a beam of Light, that comes from the mind of God, you will carry yourself differently.

I know I’m not the kind of person who’s gonna wind up a walking jukebox, like many rock ‘n’ roll artists. They just play their hits and that’s it. That doesn’t appeal to me.

I am becoming the people I love.

I don’t eat meat because meat brings out negative qualities such as fear, anger, anxiety, aggressiveness, etc. Vegetables peacefully offer themselves to the earth when ripe, thus allowing a sublime and peaceful thought-consciousness.

Some musicians, man, you hear the note almost before they hit it. Jimi, Coltrane and Charlie Parker were like that.

Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said, ‘Oh man, this is the stuff.’ It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then I started rebelling.

The music of Hendrix wakes people up to their possibilities. It’s more than just dreaming about being a guitar hero.

I have been accused of being a very simplistic, very lyrical player, and that’s okay. That just comes from the blues, which is my background. But every day you wake up and transcend. You can’t ever rest on your laurels.

Whether you are doing it in the bar, the church, the strip joint, or the Himalayas, the first duty of music is to complement and enhance life.

No one’s better than me. I’m not better than anyone. Whether it’s Eric Clapton or BB King we look straight at each other. And that keeps it real.

Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner.

There was a time, when I blamed my companion if his religion did not resemble mine. Now, however, my heart accepts every form….Love alone is my religion.

An awake heart is like a sky that pours light.

Everybody’s got a hungry heart.

Summer came and summer went and I never saw your eyes again.

Can someone tell the birds she’s gone. They’re still singing for her and it’s breaking what’s left of my heart.

I who have set my heart on watching over the soul, in union with Good Thought, and as knowing the rewards of Mazda Ahura for our works, will, while I have power and strength, teach men to seek after Right. I have become an alien in a foreign land.

Only heart to heart can speak the bliss of mystic knowers.

Whoever cannot find a temple in his heart, the same can never find his heart in any temple.