“The secret self knows the anguish of our attachments and assures us that letting go of what we think we must have to be happy is the same as letting go of our unhappiness.”

“What's the first sign of a lurking, hidden expectation you didn't know you had? Pain! People don't do what we want, things don't happen quickly enough, the weather doesn't cooperate, our bodies don't cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Because our minds are focused on a static, unchanging, me-centric picture while the dynamic unfolding of a broader life continues around us. There is nothing wrong with expectations per se, as it's appropriate to set goals and work, properly, towards their fruition. But the instant we feel pain over life not going "my way," our expectations have clearly taken an improper turn. Any moment you feel resistance or pain, look for -- and then let go of -- the hidden expectation. Practice giving yourself over to what "you" don't want. Let the line at the store be long. Let the other person interrupt you. Let the nervousness make you shake. Be where your body is, not where your mind is trying to take you.”

“One way to prevent yourself from going through a considerable amount of useless pain is to see the truth of the following and then to act upon your discovery accordingly: judging others doesn't change how much they disturb you; it serves only to distract you from seeing just how little it actually takes to set you off.”

“As those who have learned to rule their own mind will attest, misfortune is a state of mind long before it becomes a miserable circumstance. ”

“No one rises above who he or she has been without first having fallen down. The best time - in fact, the only time - to make a real change in your life is in the moment of seeing the need for it. He who hesitates always gets lost in the hundred reasons why tomorrow is a better day to get started.”

“This disappearance, this annihilation is all a matter of appearances as seen through the eyes of the false self. The annihilation is only apparent, for the self being annihilated is itself only apparent. It is a self without God, that is, a self that can never exist. What is annihilated is our false self, our external self made absolute, the imposter, the mask (persona), the liar we think we are but are not. The annihilation therefore is not annihilation at all, for nothing real or genuine is annihilated. Rather, what is genuine is affirmed as our psychological, historical, social self and placed in its true relationship to God. All that is annihilated is the illusion of the self that cannot bear God's presence, save as an idol fabricated for the ego's own glorification. It is this "self" that is "annihilated" through God's merciful love. The annihilation is merciful for it, in fact, is the antithesis of annihilation. It is rather an obscure, inexplicable foretaste in faith of our final consummation as created persons. It is the mystery of the cross creatively at work in the foundations of consciousness, recreating our awareness that we might know God as he knows himself.”

“How strange God's ways are! He calls us to a union we do not understand. He calls us to a place of encounter which we cannot find. We search and search. Our silence reveals to us not a garden of delights but an awful nothingness. God leaves us in an awful emptiness. All our initial enthusiastic notions of prayer deteriorate into an acknowledgement of our utter superficiality and lack of authenticity before God. We can only throw ourselves completely on his mercy. We can only wait in the darkness and cry out for our salvation. We can but trust that God's love is such that our sinfulness does not even matter. We can only have faith.”