“The place where knowledge occurs is the present. That which recognizes the present is mind.”

Learning to see love and to express that love is the purpose of living this life. What’s real has love at its heart; the universe is constructed from love, and that love is very much tied to our power of attention and imagination.

The real alchemy is transforming the base self into gold or into spiritual awareness. That’s really what new alchemy’s all about.

I want to explain the new alchemy [in the “From Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to a New Vision of Mind and Time”], which has to do with understanding what I call the subjective and objective qualities of existence.

Certainly in terms of technology, it’s made a tremendous impact, but medicine is still within the realm of what we might call “objective” science. It’s still part of the objective way of looking at the world.

I read that Buddha was able to see all of his past lives, and I realized the only way any of these people could do that is by being outside of time.

That’s sort of the idea that if we, in attempting to explain away that which is experienced, the experience itself is diminished.

What is the relationship of the obvious things that we see around us to the things that we believe we understand within ourselves? This is the ancient alchemical formula: “as above, so below, as within, so without.”

Oh, scientific mind. You get all your data from us, the senses, but without us you would be nothing.

Dreams – Language in a dream is unspoken but understood. Words get in the way.

When you start to try to understand everything in terms of words, the understanding of the words becomes the experience, and the experience gets lost.

There is an ability to move and transform things. I think each human being has that power, and it’s often one that we are willing to relinquish to others.

When I speak or when I offer ideas and explain how the universe seems to work from the point of view that I’ve understood, it seems to give people a lift – an unshackling or freeing.

In very subtle ways, how we regard ourselves and others continually changes us into something new.

Asking yourself deeper questions opens up new ways of being in the world. It brings in a breath of fresh air. It makes life more joyful. The real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery.

I’m not talking to you from the point of view of wishful thinking or imaginary craziness. i’m talking to you from a deeper, basic understanding.

The self is fundamentally an illusion arising as a reflection of the soul in matter, much as a clear lake at midnight reflects the moon.