1. “Regular meditation can make us less affected by negative thoughts, and create a more grounded and stable sense of self, so that we’re less dependent on respect and affirmation from other people.”
2. “Part of the reason why bringing up children can be a spiritual experience is because children are such strongly spiritual beings themselves.”
3. “The human sense of incompleteness generates a craving for possessions, power and status, as a way of trying to complete ourselves and compensate for our inner discord.”
4. “Spiritual experiences are overwhelmingly positive experiences. They are experiences of rapture, in which we perceive reality at a heightened intensity, feel a powerful sense of inner well-being, experience a sense of oneness with our surroundings and become aware of a force of benevolence and harmony which pervades the cosmos.”
5. “Many people who return from encounters with death – either because a threat passes or they make a miraculous recovery – undergo a permanent spiritual shift. Of course, this is one the most significant features of near-death experiences. Most of those who undergo the experience gain a new spiritual outlook, becoming less materialistic and egotistical and more compassionate, more concerned with helping and serving others than fulfilling their own desires and ambitions.”
6. “Like intense despair and desolation, imminent death dissolves psychological attachments. If you know you are going to die soon, there can be no more hopes or ambitions for you. Your possessions, your successes, the status and the knowledge you’ve accumulated can have no more meaning, now that you are going to be separated from them forever.”
7. “Most people are asleep in the sense that their perception of the world is automatic, so that they aren’t able to sense the is-ness and alive-ness of our surroundings.”
8. “human beings have always felt instinctively that our normal consciousness is limited and striven to attain temporary higher states of consciousness – or as I call them, ‘awakening experiences.’ Throughout history people have used a variety of methods to do this, including fasting, sleep deprivation, psychedelic drugs and meditation.”
9. “Awakening experiences have two basic sources. They can be caused by a dramatic change to our normal physiology or brain chemistry, which is why fasting, sleep deprivation and drugs can cause them. They can also be caused by what I call an ‘intensification and stilling of life-energy,’ through meditation, yoga, general relaxation, listening to music etc. This happens when our minds become quiet and still, and when we’re inactive and relaxed.”
10. “We need to wake up for the sake of the human race as a whole, in order to become free of the social chaos and conflict which have blighted the last few thousand years of history.”
11. “To an impartial observer – say, an alien zoologist from another planet – there must be very compelling evidence that human beings suffer from a serious mental disorder, and are perhaps even insane.”
12. “I believe this over-developed ego is the fundamental madness from which we suffer from, and the root cause of our insane behaviour. Intense ego-consciousness is a state of suffering. It brings a basic sense of isolation, of being separate from other people and the rest of reality.”
13. “Our egos send a constant stream of ‘thought-chatter’ through our minds, a chaos of memories, daydreams, worries and fears which disturbs our being and creates a constant state of anxiety.”
14. “Perhaps the desire for wealth and power, minus the ability to empathise, is the root of warfare and the oppression of women and other social groups. Maybe it’s also the root cause of our abuse of the environment. It means that we experience a sense of ‘otherness’ to nature, and that we can’t sense its aliveness, and as a result we don’t feel any qualms about exploiting and abusing it.”
15. “As we transcend the intensified sense of ego, we begin to see the world as a meaningful and harmonious place. We become able to live in the moment and accept ourselves and our lives as they are, without wanting.”
16. “The human race has stamped its authority over the planet Earth not just by covering its surface with concrete and destroying its plant and animal life, but also by burying the natural sounds of the Earth beneath a cacophony of man-made noise.”
17. “Our ‘true self’ might be called the ground, or the essence, of our beings. It’s the pure consciousness inside us, the consciousness-in-itself which remains when we’re not actually conscious of anything. It’s what remains when our the activity of our senses and the activity of our minds cease.”
18. “War seems to be natural to human beings – or at least to male human beings, since war has always been an almost exclusively male occupation. There seems to be something wrong with us, a kind of restlessness and constant dissatisfaction which means that we have to create conflict.”
19. “We need to overcome our sense of ego-separation, develop and new sense of connection to the world and a new sense of spirituality – in fact, to develop a state of being similar to that of native peoples and of the old Neolithic peoples.”
20. “Many mystics have told us that there’s no reason to be afraid of death, not just because life continues but because the process of dropping off the material body is a euphoric, liberating experience.”
21. “This spiritual state may not last indefinitely – after a certain amount of time, it seems, we reach a more crude state of existence, which is in some ways similar to our life on earth, although more subtle and spiritual. However, it’s clear that the horror and trepidation which many people feel when they think about death is misplaced.”
22. “Enlightened people are like spiritual dynamos; they have a very strong presence which touches the people they come into contact with, transmitting something of their enlightenment to them. Even people who aren’t at all spiritual usually feel a sense of well-being in their presence, and so feel attracted to them without knowing why. But for people who have made some spiritual progress already, the effect can be extremely powerful. Contact with an enlightenment person may enable them to make the final jump to permanent enlightenment themselves.”
