I have always been driven to buck the system, to innovate, to take things beyond where they've been.

Change is the essence of life; be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.

Alas! can we think that the reformation is wrought, when we cast out a few ceremonies, and changed some vestures, and gestures, and forms! Oh no, sirs'! it is the converting and saving of souls that is our business. That is the chiefest part of reformation, that doth most good, and tendeth most to the salvation of the people.

Does Christianity merely mean we must forfeit our Sunday mornings to church attendance, or does being a Christian noticeably improve our lives?

The human ego prefers anything, just about anything, to falling, or changing, or dying. The ego is that part of you that loves the status quo — even when it's not working. It attaches to past and present and fears the future.

We all remain who we are. But on the way to healing or liberation we have to do what the Romans called agere contra: we have to act against the grain of our natural compulsions. This requires clear decisions. Because it does not happen by itself, it is in a way unnatural or supernatural . . . (we) simply have to cut loose now and then, and in the process . . . make mistakes.

Yes, transformation is often more about unlearning than learning, which is why the religious traditions call it "conversion" or "repentance.

all mature spirituality, in one sense or another, is about letting go and unlearning.

Forgiveness is to let go of our hope for a different or better past.

Remember finally, that the ashes on your forehead are created from the burnt palms of last Palm Sunday. New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die.

Your True Self is who you are, and always have been in God . . . The great surprise and irony is that you, or who you think you are, have nothing to do with its original creation or its demise. It's sort of disempowering and utterly empowering at the same time, isn't it? All you can do is nurture it.

We do not think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.