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> there are many people who think they are enlightened but in fact they don't really know what it means. In some cases it's because they've had a very pleasant experience and assume that means enlightenment, but in other cases it's because they've done something stupid

> But I wanted to be free from it so much that I chose to carry on trying to rid myself of it. It was not until many years later that I was able to see that if I were truly free from self-centredness, I would not want to be.

> they seek security in the company of others and cannot surrender themselves completely because they know they cannot lean on anyone sufficiently in this total aloneness. They want to be guided by someone who has come out of the same dark cave as themselves, which is impossible.

> Why do you want to be liberated? What is it that you are seeking to be liberated from? The more you seek liberation the more you go on reinforcing the thing which is seeking liberation. You are reinforcing yourself, reinforcing the self and that is why you feel miserable

> When you start thinking about becoming enlightened, then you're already going backwards. You're identifying with a future goal instead of allowing your life to unfold naturally

> By now I should have discarded all my beliefs and become some kind of superbeing, a great master leading humanity out of the darkness and into the light. But instead, here I am, confused and bewildered, experiencing exactly the same thoughts and feelings as I've always had.

> The enlightened state is an idea, an ideal, and ideas are the chains that bind you.

> In spirituality you are equal to everyone else — even to Krishna, Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed. The idea that spiritual teachers are superior undermines all social equality and democracy; it makes people slaves to their gurus and leaders