A Himalayan trek is a metaphor for life itself. On a trek we are searching for a majestic peak or high plateau, a beautiful stream or waterfall, or a shrine or monastery. The destination or goal serves to quench our thirst, our desire. It provides a short respite from the rigors of the trail, a brief "One Night's Shelter." Then we have to descend, move on. We cannot stay there.

There is no death. How can there be death if everything is part of the Godhead? The soul never dies and the body is never really alive.

In India in particular, where millions have no home but the streets, virtually every life event is carried out in public: prayer, eating, sleeping, nursing, crude dentistry, even bodily functions. In the secular West, where nothing is sacred, everything seems hidden; yet in Asia, where nothing is hidden, everything is sacred.

When I was a child, my grandmother died and was buried in the churchyard in Castlecomer, Ireland.  The following year I went there on holiday.  One day we drove to visit relatives, I in the back seat with my grandfather.  As we pass the graveled driveway leading up to the churchyard, my grandfather, thinking he was unobserved, pressed his face against the window of the car and with a small, hidden motion of his hand, waved. It was then I came to my first understanding of the majesty and vulnerability of love.

Never 'for the sake of peace and quiet' deny your own experience or convictions.

"Property in ideas is an insoluble contradiction.  [He who complains of "theft" of his idea] complains that something has been stolen which he still possesses, and he wants back something which, if given to him a thousand times, would add nothing to his possession."

I work in the margins.  The margins are where you'll find the nice people.  You'll find real friends.  You'll find honesty. You'll find integrity.  You'll find relationships that will last you for a lifetime and will be there to support you in the bad times, which are the only relationships that matter anyway.  Relationships that are all about power and money aren't worth having.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

The Bible declares that on the sixth day God created man. Right then and there, God should have demanded a damage deposit.

Saint George killed the last dragon, and he was called a hero for it. I've never seen a dragon, and I wish he would have left at least one. Saint Patrick made a name for himself by running the snakes out of Ireland, leaving the place vulnerable to rodent infestation. This business of making saints out of men who exterminate their fellow creatures has got to stop. All I'm saying is, it's starting to get a little lonely up here at the top of the food chain.