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“Productivity isn’t everything,” the Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman has written, “but in the long run it is almost everything. A country’s ability to raise its standard of living depends almost entirely on its ability to raise its output per worker.” A country’s willingness to raise the majority of its people’s standard of living in sync with increasing productivity and growth—to share the good fortune fairly—depends, of course, on politics.”
― Kurt Andersen, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

“When consciousness is disturbed, Pure Awareness cannot be distinguished from the waves of mind. The restlessness of the mind, like a choppy pond, fractures the reflection. When consciousness is stilled, however, a great mystery is revealed: Pure Awareness abides in its very nature. And what is this nature? This consciousness, when stilled, has two remarkable characteristics: it is reflective, reflecting Pure Awareness back to itself; and it is transparent, allowing itself to be completely seen and penetrated. It is one of the glories of this technique that the end of the path is present even in the beginning. For even from the first days of practice, the meditator begins to “know” and “be known.” And to understand that knowing and seeing is what it is all about.”
― Stephen Cope, The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living

“Struggle,” says Swami Kripalu, “changes an ordinary human into a spiritually awake person.”
― Stephen Cope, The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living

“At the beginning joy is just a feeling that our own situation is workable. We stop looking for a more suitable place to be. We’ve discovered that the continual search for something better does not work out. This doesn’t mean that there are suddenly flowers growing where before there were only rocks. It means we have confidence that something will grow here.”
― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times