The Question is The Billboard

Idol worship isn't meaningful; putting these guys on pedestals isn't meaningful; trying to learn from successful people isn't meaningful. The only thing meaningful is to discover who you are.

Nobody should put anyone on a pedestal. Every human being is a completely screwed up human being, okay? Every human being from top to bottom is totally messed up.

I think what needs to be understood is that everyone is mentally deranged—and that isn't a derogatory statement; I genuinely mean that. Everyone has psychopathology; people have it to just different degrees. There's no such thing as normal. Normal is just an agreed upon normal according to the greatest prevalence in society.

A boss is a devil .... It's better to be homeless than to ever have to ask someone 'Can I do this? Can I do that?' That's not a job; that's slavery.

Everyone's a walking zombie. They get up in the morning, you go over here, you do this, you check the box over here, you go over here, you have a meeting, you talk nonsense, you go home, you watch some stupid TV show, you say such and such to your wife or your kids, and you get up the next morning and you go do it again.

There's no formula or recipe book, and anytime that you try to make something formulaic or follow some recipe book or some success book or motivational book or whatever it is, it's never the way to the top.

Everyone suffers for their entire life. That's mental illness. It isn't mental illness that you shouldn't suffer. The reason it's mental illness is because the mind itself is an illness. The human being lives in a constant state of anxiety of varying degrees of so-called depression.

Leaders are screwed up just like the janitor ... If the janitor is mentally disturbed and then the leader is mentally disturbed, why would you place more responsibility on one of the mentally disturbed for another one? It isn't just because he is at the top of the totem pole that he's this enlightened being.

You can't teach human beings and condition them according to X and then, one day, turn the tables and say Y and think they're going to get it. You made them into X for 50 years ... All they see is X. If it doesn't come in the language of X, they're not going to understand.

You basically have to become a Buddha to treat your kids like strangers, and quite ironically, treating your kids like strangers is the most effective way to parent.

It isn't about saying something to lift someone up, and it isn't about saying something to put someone down. Both of those things are untrue. They're just reactive cosmetic things just to improve someone's mood, and they don't go anywhere. So, really, the only true conversations that are effective are... the ones in which a question is posed. There's nothing for me to offer.

Time is well spent when it's examining one's own life without the compulsion of fixing anything, following anything, having ideals to live up to, becoming more improved.

A person is what he is—and he was that way before this podcast, and he's going to be that after this podcast. So, the attempt to change someone is a waste of time.

If something is not real, if it isn't genuine, if it isn't something that is pursued for outright transformation, then it's cosmetic, and human beings seek cosmetic things. Meditation is makeup; it's eyeshadow.

Money rules human being's lives ... Whether it's the rich man or the poor man or the middle class man, the intricacy with which money is involved in a human being who lives in a society is off the charts intricate.

If someone is genuinely interested in the truth, he must begin with where he is. And if one realizes that everything coming out of his mouth is bumper stickers and billboards, then he will begin to see the nature of his own conditioning first-hand.