We need love - an awesome love grounded in the evolutionary potential for life on Earth - to become the organizing principle for human society.
I am a student of universal spiritual principles, and I read theology and spiritual writings, so my grasp of basic spiritual principles is fairly good.
I realize that the curriculum is my life on any given day. At this point, more than anything, my spiritual path means looking at every circumstance and trying to see my part in where it's good and where it's not so good.
When somebody comes up to you and shows you yellow underlining of something you wrote, that's such a high. It's a connection to others.
To become romantic artists, we must pierce the armor that hides our hearts, and the piercing is not comfortable.
There is a current mythology in our culture that anytime we meet someone and have that "enchanted evening" experience, that experience of looking into the eyes of the other and falling hopelessly in love - that this is nothing more than a delusion; a mutual projection, a fantasy that will only last until reality sets in.
I believe that the spirit of God enters into the details and if we ask for guidance we will be led to the places where we can learn most fully because we can be most joyful. If I'm in a place that's lonely, I think God has one or two things to say. Extend your hand in service so that you might meet people or go somewhere else - or both.
We arrogantly assume that the nervous system doesn't really need to be coaxed into romance. That romance comes from some other place.
I personally am not a total pacifist. I do believe there is such a thing as a just war. I believe, for instance, the effort to destroy the Nazi regime militarily was justified military action.
I feel that if your soul was branded by the sixties, you never lost the brand. It's like going into a nightclub and having your hand stamped so that you don't have to come back but you can come back.
A primary goal of the spiritual life is to learn to quiet the mind through prayer and meditation, through spiritual practice, so that we can hear what in both Judaism and Christianity, is called the small, still voice within.
I try to be self-disciplined with my thoughts. It’s our thoughts that matter most, and all the rest falls into line behind that: if I remember who I really am and why I’m on the earth, then I more naturally want to treat my body like a temple and so forth.
If you allow yourself to deepen with midlife, your experience of everything deepens, including your experience of God.
The religious stories, the religious truths, the spiritual principles - obviously, they don't change. But as you get older and you experience more, you recognize the applicability, the profundity, and the fundamental truths of spiritual principles in ways that you couldn't when you simply were living a less dimensional life.
Once you get to your forties or fifties in this society, very few people haven't had at least one body blow - financial, bankruptcy, divorce, relationship disaster, addiction, trouble with a child, trouble with a parent. Most people take some blow.
To me, that's the important issue about spiritual principle: that you recognize it as both that which saves you from the self-sabotaging mind and that which heals you and lifts you up when you succumb to it and attract whatever personal disaster you attract.
When you understand the law of divine compensation, you realize that in the presence of spiritual consciousness, there is more than enough compensation for any diminishment in materiality.
I do think that every generation has its unique story.
I do know middle age can bring greater depth, greater wisdom, greater capacity for love, greater capacity for relationship, greater consciousness and desire to serve and awareness of the fate of mankind - all these wonderful things, yes. And I know I'm getting there.
At midlife, you're pregnant with the best self you can be - someone who has learned enough from both successes and failures to add up to a fine human being.
I don't believe the United States is going through a midlife crisis. The United States is going through an adolescent crisis.
The teenager begins to realize he or she really does want to be part of a community, really does want to have good relationships with others, really does want to create something truly good with his or her life. The teenager comes to understand just being smart and just being privileged are not enough.
I've always wanted to have a radio show. It has been a dream of mine for a long time. With a radio show I can sit in a studio, or ultimately even sit in my own living room, and talk to hundreds of thousands of people.
I take very seriously this notion that my highest job is to live a better life, all the time and to the best of my ability. I need to monitor my own progress - take my own inventory - and clean my own closet. I am trying to do all that.
Life is a constant back-and-forth. We take a breath in and then we breathe out. The same is true for the culture as a whole.
