Ruiz’s First Agreement says “be impeccable with your word.” Ultimately what you feel within will find life through your words. If you have love within, negative words can’t take root within, and you don’t feel the need to spread rumors or misinformation.

If we seek to separate and divide ourselves from one another, why do we resist being alone? Thoreau says as our planet is connected to the Milky Way, we are all connected to one another. However, we choose to distract ourselves from the source of life with “outlying and transient circumstances.”

When identified with the ego and the senses, we see ourselves as separate. When we recognize the Self within, we enter the unitive state. This passage comes from the Mundaka Upanishad.

Just as the body needs rest, so do the mind and spirit. Take moments in your life to withdraw from the sensory world and find your inner bliss.

Living in Philadelphia is challenging for me because of the traffic. However, my resistance to sitting in a traffic jam is a reminder of how I’m not accepting the present moment. These reminders are good teachings in resilience.

Chogyam Trungpa writes about the discipline of the warrior in his book, “Shambala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior.” Warriors work for a cause greater than themselves, and therefore they must abandon the ego.

We often engage in behaviors or substances that block our ability to see clearly. During the Christian season of Lent, we are called to reflect on what prevents us from our clear seeing.

We see the embrace of meditation and contemplation in 14th century Christianity in works such as “The Cloud of Unknowing.” The book that follows, “The Book of Privy Counseling,” advances this prayer of quiet, of moving beyond defining God.

So many of us seek answers outside ourselves, but the questions themselves might be meaningless if we don’t look within. Some books have the ability to shake us up, turning the questions inward. Choose those.

Who is the “you” on social media? Who are “you” in society? The roles and labels we give and create are temporal. How we serve humanity at this moment is most important.