If we go out into the woods and we look at all the trees, we don’t say, “I wish that oak tree were an elm.” Somehow, we can allow trees to be what they are; we can grant that each tree is perfect just the way it is. But when it comes to people, if everybody isn’t the way we think they ought to be, all hell breaks loose!

Everybody is always doing the best they can, it’s all perfect. There are all these strands of the universe, weaving back and forth, interacting with one another. In each individual manifestation, those strands have woven themselves together in a unique way so as to produce yet another perfect statement of the unstable.

So, someone comes to you, she’s hung up, uptight, and angry. You see the perfection in that. You say, “Far out! There’s God as an angry person. You weird manifestation of God, you.” Give each incarnation the space to manifest exactly as it needs to manifest.

"

— Ram Dass, Paths to God

"If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. It’s your restlessness that causes chaos."

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

"If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson