It is very difficult for one to be in a state of dhikr, to be in a state of worshipfulness while we struggle with relationships and struggle with the difficulties of the mundane and the day-to-day, which have the effect of keeping our attention and our energy quite low.

We have two ways of using our attention. Is there any difference to the feeling in the statements, "He's looking at me" and "He's listening to me"? For most people there's a difference.

The truth of our individual existence is that we don't exist as individuals. We are constituted by that which is not us. Every human being alive, in fact, you as you sit there right now are a collection of elements and energies and forces that have colluded and collided from various parts of the universe...

Our base condition, our root condition, our normative condition, is ecstasy. That’s what we've been designed to experience. An ecstasy of such a profound character and nature, that to experience it even for a moment, is to fulfill a life. It is to have achieved the purpose of a life.