Why am I here? What have I been called to do? How am I getting in my own way? How can I best live out my destiny?

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it's wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.

I've spent so much time these last years wondering what I'm supposed to be. A wife? A lover? A celibate? An Italian? A glutton? A traveler? An artist? A Yogi? But I'm not any of these things, at least not completely. And I'm not Crazy Aunt Liz, either. I'm just a slippery antevasin - betwixt and between - a student on the ever-shifting border near the wonderful, scary forest of the new.

The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

... both pleasure and devotion require a stress-free space in which to flourish...

... the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity.

Most of my writing life consist of nothing more than unglamorous, disciplined labor. I sit at my desk and I work like a farmer, and that's how it gets done.

Your treasure - your perfection - is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. The kundalini shakti - the supreme energy of the divine - will take you there.

... "The world is afflicted with death and decay, therefore the wise do not grieve, knowing the terms of the world," says an old Buddhist teaching. In other words: Get used to it.