« The way we look at the world is not the world itself, but the world as we perceive it through the prism of our sensitivity, our emotions, our mind, our culture. If the world seems sad or hostile to you, transform your gaze and it will appear to you differently. It is through inner work, psychological and spiritual, that we can truly change and change our perception of the outside world. »

« From the early 1960s, the American counterculture turned to the East to borrow its spiritual values of inner experience and self-realization (opposed to the social success of the dominant culture), of connection with the cosmos (opposed to the exploitation of nature), or of communion with the guru (opposed to bureaucratic organization). Many young hippies, who had at first used drugs to escape their culture and experience intense sensations, then turn to the East where the experience of meditation allows them to access another "state of consciousness" without the disadvantages of the "redescent" and the painful symptoms of addiction. »

« The problem of pleasure, and philosophers have been discussing it since ancient times, is that it does not last. (...) The second problem, which we have all experienced, is that some pleasures do us good in the immediate future, but in the longer term. (...) These two pitfalls raise a question that the wise men of the East and the West have addressed: is there a lasting satisfaction that goes beyond the ephemeral and ambivalent nature of pleasure? A satisfaction that is not limited in duration, that does not depend on external circumstances, and which does not become, in the end, a bad companionship? In a way, a more global and lasting pleasure. To define this state, a concept was invented: that of happiness. »