"To live without comparison requires tremendous intelligence and sensitivity, because then there is no example, there is no such a thing as to be, no ideal, no hero. We begin with what actually is; and to understand what is, there is no need for comparison. When we compare, we destroy what is."

"Death is not the end of life. Death is not an event brought about by disease, by senility, by old age, or by accident. Death is something that you live every day with, because you are dying every day to everything that you know."

"Fear can exist only in relation to something, it is not in isolation. How can I be afraid of death, how can I be afraid of something I do not know? I can be afraid only of what I know. When I say I am afraid of death, am I really afraid of the unknown, which is death, or am I afraid of losing what I have known? My fear is not of death, but of losing my association with things belonging to me." My fear is always in relation to the known, not to the unknown."

The demand to be safe in relationship inevitably breeds sorrow and fear. This seeking for security is inviting insecurity. Have you ever found security in any of your relationships? Have you? Most of us want the security of loving and being loved, but is there love when each one of us is seeking his own security, his own particular path?

We are not loved because we don't know how to love. What is love? The word is so loaded and corrupted that I hardly like to use it. Everybody talks of love - every magazine and newspaper and every missionary talks everlastingly of love. I love my country, I love my king, I love some book, I love that mountain, I love pleasure, I love my wife, I love God. Is love an idea? If it is, it can be cultivated, nourished, cherished, pushed around, twisted in any way you like. When you say you love God what does it mean? It means that you love a projection of your own imagination, a projection of yourself clothed in certain forms of respectability according to what you think is noble and holy; so to say, `I love God', is absolute nonsense. When you worship God you are worshipping yourself - and that is not love.

There's so many flowers that age to fullness, yet nobody pays attention to how they die.