If your purpose is to liberate yourself and others into love and freedom, then you should do whatever magnifies the love and freedom in your life and in the lives of whom your actions affect.

You are not only a man, you are a superior man: a man who does his best to live as love in the world and in his intimacy, a man whose heart remains open and whose truth remains strong...

No, there is not more beauty here than elsewhere, and all these objects, continuously admired by generations and patched and mended by workmen's hands, signify nothing, are nothing, and have no heart and no value;-- but there is much beauty here, because there is much beauty everywhere.

Successfully completing a lesser purpose doesn't feel good very good for very long, because it is simply preparation for advancing toward a greater embodiment of your deeper purpose.

Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder.
Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth.
Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate.
Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that...

Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

My name is Ishmael.

Are you looking for me?
I am in the next seat.
When you really look for me, you will find me instantly -
You will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
{S}he is the breath inside the breath.

Let the heart of your practice guide your response to yourselves and others. Let the law of your practice guide your actions. And where and when the two appear to clash, therein lies the space for deeper practice, for breath, for awareness — for awakening.