How to Be a Mystic

"Wake up every morning with thank you on your lips.

"Brush your teeth with gratitude bubbling up in your mouth.

"Leave the newspaper folded, the answering machine on and the door to your prayer place closed to the world till you have taken the call from the One Who Speaks in Silence.

"Let your mind empty and fill with ten thousand thoughts and remember there is nothing that is not holy.

"Be aware that the words you speak on Monday become the life you live on Thursday.

"Look deeply enough into the eyes of those who speak to you that you see yourself in there.

"Embrace thoughts that are contrary to yours and travel to the place where there is nothing to defend.

"Crawl into bed at the end of the day singing thank you and thank you a hundred times."
If, as the result of some interior revolution, I were to lose in succession my faith in Christ, my faith in a personal God, and my faith in spirit, I feel that I should continue to believe invincibly in the world. The world (its value, its infallibility and its goodness) that, which when all is said and done, is the first, the last, the only thing in which I believe. It is by this faith that I live. And it is to this faith, I feel, that at the moment of death, rising above all doubts, I shall surrender myself.
— Teilhard de Chardin