When I drop down into myself in the quiet hours of the night, it feels as though I have tapped into a deep river that runs strongly beneath the busyness of my daily life. When I allow myself to fully experience this deep river without, I connect not only with myself and what matters most to me but also with a powerful stream of silence, mystery, clarity, aliveness. I seem to tap into a universal source available to us all of deeply nourishing spiritual qualities that can provide a healing balm for our out-of-balance lives.
We cannot separate awareness and compassion. Awareness without compassion is sterile and lacks depth, while compassion without awareness is blind and unable to respond creatively to real situations. Awareness married to compassion allows a real relationship to develop. It is only through understanding, through a feeling of relationship to the world, that we can go beyond the selfishness that characterizes so much of the modern world.