What is wanted is deep inner life.

Silence the bubbling thoughts. Keep the mind cool and calm. Open yourself to higher spiritual consciousness. Feel the Divine Presence and Divine Guidance. Fix your mind at the lotus feet of the Lord. Become like a child. Speak to Him freely. Become absolutely candid, do not hide your thoughts. You cannot do so, because He is the Antaryamin (inner ruler). He watches all your thoughts. Pray for mercy, light, purity, strength, peace and knowledge. You will surely get them. You will be established in Brahmacharya.”

– Practical Lessons in Yoga by Sri Swami Sivananda

Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room. The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.”

–Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

Slowly blossomed, slowly ripened in Siddhartha the realisation, the knowledge, what wisdom actually was, what the goal of his long search was. It was nothing but a readiness of the soul, an ability, a secret art, to think every moment, while living his life, the thought of oneness, to be able to feel and inhale the oneness.”

– Siddhartha by Herman Hesse