“And what I was feeling was the wonderOf being more than me, of being moreThan mere here and now allowedI had become a shining star, a burning novaExploded with loveFlying through an endlesslyExpanding universeAway from the me that wasToward a me that is beyondUnderstanding.”

“O night in which the stars feign light, O night that alone is the size of the Universe, make me, body and soul, part of your body, so that—being mere darkness—I’ll lose myself and become night as well, without any dreams as stars within me, nor a hoped-for sun shining with the future.”

“You have shown me through the darkest nights you still shine for me. You've become more than some fantasy, you've become the fantasy you promised me existed.”

“But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is being a man.”

“And here now is a bit of doctrine that will make you laugh: Love, O Govinda, appears to me more important than all other matters. To see through the world, to explain it, to scorn it--this may be the business of great thinkers. But what interests me is being able to love the world, not to scorn it, not to hate it and hate myself, but to look at it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and reverence.”

“If only, then, I had been more living out of the present--such a beautiful word...present. The sense of it being, now to me, more beautiful than 'to look forward.”