I am convinced that human beings are provided with the foundation and potential necessary for spiritual growth and awakening. It is our birthright. As we come into this world, nature endows us with a wholesome essence on which to build a meaningful, enjoyable life, with no limits to what we can do.
 

Learning from mistakes is a classic example of a quality that nature intended us to retain all the way throughout life. If we are to move rapidly through the process of spiritual evolution and find the happiness we are seeking, we need to reclaim this tool.
 

We always want our love to be returned in equal or higher doses by the recipient. If not, we often follow up with action that we think will bring that love to us but which, ironically, creates a greater distance in the relationship. Once again, if want to progress along the spiritual path, we have to reclaim the attribute of unconditional love.
 

I always tell myself that I want my behaviour to be governed by my values, not by others’ reactions.
 

I cannot see why a doctor, engineer, lawyer, president of a corporation, or any other ‘respected’ professional should be given greater respect than a street cleaner. They all carry the same miracle of human life and deserve the same respect and acknowledgement of dignity.
 

It must be emphasized that we are talking here not about recognition, but about respect. By respect, I mean a spiritual acknowledgement of one human being by another human being simply because they are human beings. Undoubtedly, the professional person should be recognized for his or her significantly higher level of education and training, the extra time and every spend achieving that, and the wider base of knowledge and skills he or she possesses. One obvious way that recognition is show is in the remuneration paid to the professional. But this recognition should not lead to an inequality in the respect shown to all human beings. That inequality is arbitrary and nonexistent in absolute and spiritual terms. It is driven by society for reasons that boil down to ego, and in practice it manifests itself in the form of differences in attitude and treatment and is unjustifiable.
 

For those who really want to learn, to grow, and to mature, criticism provides a wonderful opportunity. I take constructive criticism as material for growth, but I don’t let it affect m emotions. Of course, there is both constructive criticism and ill-founded destructive criticism. People criticize you with good intentions and sometimes with bad intentions.
 

I felt helpless and didn’t know what to do. I had no witness or proof of my innocence. Before long, I discovered the perfect witness: my own conscience. My conscience ‘talked’ to me.
 

Take courage and strength from the truth within. Your conscience will be your most caring guardian and trusted friend, though no one else will see it. If you know the truth, you do not have to prove it to anyone else. With your conscience as your closest confidant, you will be at peace.
 

You are willing to listen to everyone, but you react to, or integrate into your life, only those views that you evaluate as meaningful. All other things not of value are gently discarded.
 

Love is what lifts life above mere existence.
 

blame people because we judge them using the standard of perfection.
 

In this society, many mistake selfish attachment as an essential characteristic of love. Because of this, we believe that it is love that ‘breaks’ our hearts. Only selfishness can break the heart, because selfishness is the hook in conditional love. Unconditional love (metta) has no such hooks; therefore, it cannot break the heart. To get over a heartbreak, you need to find a way to let go of your selfish attachment.
 

Let go of attachment and you will find love within you. Love can never break your heart. True love (metta) can only heal it.
 

In ordinary loving, we do not even realize that there is this all-powerful ego-love. And it is exactly the severe imbalance between this hidden ego-love and the love for others that causes us problems, difficulties, and, therefore, suffering. Note that loving oneself as human being is healthy, should be nurtured, and is very different from ego-love, which inflates one’s value of self at the expense of another human being.
 

Your mind does not go crazy as a result of trying to meditate. When you begin to meditate, you become aware of the ‘craziness’ in your mind, maybe for the first time. Some people are so surprised by what they discover when they first meditate. Seeing the inner chaos, they ask, ‘Is that me? Is that my mind?’ This very awareness of the incessantly wandering mind is in fact the first milestone of progress on the meditative path.
 

For those who are not used to paying close attention to their minds, meditation can be a disturbing experience. It will be disturbing to hear the ‘noise’ in your mind, to which you have never previously opened your ears. In reality, meditation does not bring you any disturbance; it just makes noticeable what is already there.