Quotes about hinduism

Brahman is the ultimate reality it is simultaneously Saguna and Nirguna divisions are due to ignorance. Mind and intellect can never catch hold of it they have only one option and that is to merge with it.

I am Sama Veda among the Vedas I am Indra among the Devas I am the mind among the senses I am the consciousness in living beings.

The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity.

You will breathe throughout your life, every moment of it, but an opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime, and not even to everyone. Go for it!

Some offer their out-flowing breath into the breath that flows in; and the in-flowing breath into the breath that flows out; they aim at Pranayama, breath-harmony, and the flow of their breath is in peace.

What you know can never be the beyond. Whatever you experience is not the beyond. If there is any beyond, this movement of 'you' is absent. The absence of this movement probably is the beyond, but the beyond can never be experienced by you; it is when the 'you' is not there. Why are you trying to experience a thing that cannot be experienced?

I haven’t been to a temple in years, never been forced. My folks always said, marry a nice human being, religion doesn’t matter. They said your god is inside you! Don’t you forget that. Krishna, Jesus, Allah, are all one. Follow vegetarianism as far as you can, but you can choose your own diet, doesn’t matter. Believe in god, but for you and not because the world asks you to. Forgive and forget to be at peace. Do not believe in revenge, believe in karma!!

If god is the root cause for our degradation destroy that god. If it is religion destroy it. If it is Manu Darma, Gita, or any other Mythology (Purana), burn them to ashes. If it is temple, tank, or festival, boycott them. Finally if it is our politics, come forward to declare it openly.

The supreme truth is that nothing ever is born.

As Sri Krishna says, And when he sees me in all and sees all in me, then I never leave him and he never leaves me. And he, who in this oneness of love loves me in whatever he sees, wherever this man may live, in truth, he lives in me...

In the tenth century BC, the priests of India devised the Brahmodya competition, which would become a model of authentic theological discourse. The object was to find a verbal formula to define the Brahman, the ultimate and inexpressible reality beyond human understanding. The idea was to push language as far as it would go, until participants became aware of the ineffable. The challenger, drawing on his immense erudition, began the process by asking an enigmatic question and his opponents had t

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.

The Hindus criticise the Mahomedans for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the Inquisition. But really speaking, who is better and more worthy of our respect—the Mahomedans and Christians who attempted to thrust down the throats of unwilling persons what they regarded as necessary for their salvation, or the Hindu who would not spread the light, who would endeavour to keep others in darkness, who would not consent to share his in

In the Hindu religion, one can[not] have freedom of speech. A Hindu must surrender his freedom of speech. He must act according to the Vedas. If the Vedas do not support the actions, instructions must be sought from the Smritis, and if the Smritis fail to provide any such instructions, he must follow in the footsteps of the great men. He is not supposed to reason. Hence, so long as you are in the Hindu religion, you cannot expect to have freedom of thought

A spirtually illumined soul lives in the world, yet is never contaminated by it.

Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.

Our desires, dreams and hopes, open portals. These portals manifest in our conscience and 5 senses, in the form of decisions related to the material world - one person, a job, an opportunity. Now, at the exact same time, or maybe even slightly before in time, we get the exact opposite, the temptation, the illusion and deception. And when we are about to make a decision, as if by magic, the two things come stronger to us, as if pushing us into a duality that makes it hard to decide. Now, this bri

Faith is intrinsic to humanity and the freedom to practice one's religion is a right no power can deny

Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.''Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.''When are we happy?''When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.''What is regret?''To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.''What is sorrow?''To long for the past.''What is the highest pleasure?''To hear a good story.

...Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed all mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformatio

The 330 million gods and goddesses of the Hindu culture act as placebo for the masses, just like other gods of other cultures do.

Only two kinds of people can attain self-knowledge: those who are not encumbered at all with learning, that is to say, whose minds are not over-crowded with thoughts borrowed from others; and those who, after studying all the scriptures and sciences, have come to realise that they know nothing.

Widespread criticisms of jihad in Islam and the so-called sword verses in the Quran have unearthed for fair-minded Christians difficult questions about Christianity's own traditions of holy war and 'texts of terror.' Like Hinduism's Mahabharata epic, the Bible devotes entire books to war and rumors thereof. Unlike the Quran, however, it contains hardly any rules for how to conduct a just war.

The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.

What Brahman is cannot be described. All things in the world — the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, the six systems of philosophy — have been defiled, like food that has been touched by the tongue, for they have been read or uttered by the tongue. Only one thing has not been defiled in this way, and that is Brahman. No one has ever been able to say what Brahman is.

You speak of doing good to the world. Is the world such a small thing? And who are you, pray, to do good to the world? First realise God, see Him by means of spiritual discipline. If He imparts power you can do good to others; otherwise not.

Whatever thought grips the mind at the time of death is the one which will propel it and decide for it the nature of its future birth. Thus if one wants to attain god after death, one has to think of him steadfastly... This is not as simple as it sounds, for at the time of death the mind automatically flies to the thought of an object (i.e. money, love) which has possessed it during its sojourn in the world. Thus one must think of god constantly.

People never remember who helped them conquer their dreams. When they truly achieve a lot, they often forget me easily. I’ve noticed the same behavior in both children and adults, and even in family members. And it’s kind of interesting that they forget easily once taking ownership of their newly owned skills. Probably, if they remembered, they wouldn't take them as their own. They would probably not even comprehend them. That's why I believe that, if you wish to change the world, you have to do

Humility and Dignity had a daughter, called Arrogance, who was ashamed of her name and used to hide behind Pride. But Pride was in love with Truth, therefore arrogance married Illusion and forever despised Truth. Pride and Truth had a daughter, called Happiness, while Arrogance and Illusion had a son, called Despair. When both meet, one of them cries.

Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.

In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and

if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like

Philosophy is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat.Metaphysics is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there.Theology is like being in a dark room and looking for a black cat that isn't there, and shouting "I found it!"Science is like being in a dark room looking for a black cat while using a flashlight.

When the purpose of clearly exposing the differences between the Aryan and the Tamil culture, civilization, conduct and creed Thirukkural was written. I am of that firm view.

Policemen are often confronted with situations which baffle them at first. A certain crime scene may seem meaningless, but they have to derive some meaning out of it. They have to connect the dots, find the links, delve into its history, look for evidence, come up with a zillion theories and arrive at truth. The thing is, truth is always stranger than fiction.

In the ancient times, when ignorance was the default mode of thinking, Krishna may have proven to be a glorious figure to be adored and relied on in times of distress, but in the modern world of conscientious humans, no Krishna is higher than the Human Self.

You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself - without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat.

I am the Atma abiding in the heart of all beings. I am also the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings.

If you want to accurately judge the spiritual level of any human being, count the number of religions that he is capable of understanding and observe how effective he is in applying the lessons learned to his own life or the life of others.

A Christian sits in his or her well and thinks that the whole world is his or her well. The Jew sits in his or her little well and thinks that it is the whole world. A Muslim sits cooped up in his or her tiny well and believes it to be the whole universe. The same goes for a Hindu and all others. Also, atheists are no different from all those orthodox believers.

No Quran, no Bible, no Gita, no Cow, is greater than the human self.

I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence. Believe me, everything that we call chance today won’t make sense anymore. To me it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.

No text, being human creation, is free from flaws – it is the human mind that should be conscientious enough to accept their good elements and discard the bad ones.

Eventually everyone dies, but death, in various forms and ways, still comes as a shock. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Or they consign you to flames. The flesh sizzles and the bones crackle. be grateful it happens in that order.

Perform all thy actions with mind concentrated on the Divine, renouncing attachment and looking upon success and failure with an equal eye. Spirituality implies equanimity.[Trans. Purohit Swami]

The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightening and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.

In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-Gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it.

One man may read the Bhagavata by the light of a lamp, and another may commit a forgery by that very light; but the lamp is unaffected. The sun sheds its light on the wicked as well as on the virtuous.

God has revealed to me that only the Paramatman, whom the Vedas describe as the Pure Soul, is as immutable as Mount Sumeru, unattached, and beyond pain and pleasure. There is much confusion in this world of His maya. One can by no means say that 'this' will come after 'that' or 'this' will produce 'that'.

Then, O King! the God, so saying,Stood, to Pritha's Son displayingAll the splendour, wonder, dreadOf His vast Almighty-head.Out of countless eyes beholding,Out of countless mouths commanding,Countless mystic forms enfoldingIn one Form: supremely standingCountless radiant glories wearing,Countless heavenly weapons bearing,Crowned with garlands of star-clusters,Robed in garb of woven lustres,Breathing from His perfect PresenceBreaths of every subtle essenceOf all heavenly odours; sheddingBlinding

॥दोहा॥श्रीगुरु चरन सरोज रज, निज मनु मुकुरु सुधारि।बरनउँ रघुबर बिमल जसु, जो दायकु फल चारि॥DohaWith the dust of guru’s lotus feet having,I cleanse the mirror of my soul sparkling,Raghuvar’s spotless glory I be singing,The four fruits of life it ever is giving.- 303 -

नमस्तेशरण्येशिवेसानुकम्पे, नमस्तेजगद्व्यापिकेविश्वरूपे।नमस्तेजगद्वन्द्यपादारविन्दे, नमस्तेजगत्तारिणित्राहिदुर्गे॥१॥She the refuge, peaceful and merciful undoubtedly, She pervades over all, is universal form certainly, Her lotus feet worshipped by universe – all Glory, On your appeal “Protect me Durga” saves entirely.- 458 -

From Brahma Puranब्राह्मीं च वैष्णवीं भद्रां, षड्-भुजां च चतुर्मुखीम्। त्रि-नेत्रां खड्ग-त्रिशूल-पद्म-चक्र-गदा-धराम्॥पीताम्बर-धरां देवीं, नानाऽलंकार-भूषिताम्। तेजः-पुञ्ज-धरीं श्रेष्ठां, ध्यायेद् बाल-कुमारिकाम्॥Meditate on youthful Brahmi* and Vaishnavi* surely,With six hands, four faces, three eyes gives safety,With sword, trident, lotus, wheel, globe, mace be,Greatest – yellow dressed, well decorated elegantly.

Shani Chalisa॥दोहा॥ Dohaजय-जय श्री शनिदेव प्रभु, सुनहु विनय महराज।करहुं कृपा हे रवि तनय, राखहु जन की लाज॥Shani Maharaj, glory to you with sincerity,Listen to my prayers I request humbly,Bestow your grace and protect me fully,Keep respect and honour of your devotees.- 341 -

गु� ��मा, गु� �व�णु, गु� देवो महे�वरःlगु��सा�ाथ परम ��मा त�मै�ी गुरावेनामः॥Guru the darkness dispeller, Guru Brahma the Creator be,Guru Vishnu the Preserver; Guru Shiv the Transformer be,Guru, the Supreme Being in human form – our savour be,My salutations, awe, gratitude to that Divine Teacher be.- 1 -

जयति महाकाली जयति, आद्य काली माताजय कराला वदने जयति, जगाता मातु विख्याताVictory to you, O Mahakali! - To you Victory,The primordial source of all beings - Victory!The formidable-looking goddess - To you Victory,Renowned as the mother of the world - Victory!

This prayer in praise of Lord Vishnu be,His incarnations graced earth constantly. शान्ताकारं भुजगशयनं पद्मनाभं सुरेशं विश्वाधारं गगनसदृश्यं मेघवर्णं शुभाङ्गम्।लक्ष्मीकान्तं कमलनयनं योगिभिर्ध्यानगम्यं वन्दे विष्णु भवभयहरं सर्वलोकैकनाथम्।I bow to Vishnu, Master of Universe unquestionably,Who rests on great serpent bed, peaceful perpetually,From His navel sprouts Lotus of Creative Power surely,He the Supreme Lord of cosmos undeniably does be.- 146 - He supports the entire universe and all-pervadin

A prayer from Shri Vishwanatha SuprabhataMorning Salutations to Shivaत्वमेव माता च पिता त्वमेव, त्वमेव बन्धुश्च सखा त्वमेव ।त्वमेव विद्या द्रविणं त्वमेव, त्वमेव सर्वं मम देव देव ॥tvameva mata cha pita tvameva,tvameva bandhush-cha sakha tvamevatvameva vidya dravinam tvamevatvameva sarvam mama deva devaYou my mother and father be,You are kin and friend to me;You my knowledge, wealth be,God of gods! You my all do be.

An orchestra of temple bells and chanting erupted suddenly like a pleasing drizzle.

Some perceive God in the heart by the intellect through meditation; others by the yoga of knowledge; and others by the yoga of work. Some, however, do not understand Brahman, but having heard from others, take to worship. They also transcend death by their firm faith to what they have heard.

Lovers of God possess intense concentration. In prayer their attention rivets itself so completely onto God that nothing can tear it away. Even a suggestion of the divine may draw them into a higher state of consciousness. Occasionally this can be somewhat inconvenient. Sri Ramakrishna once went to see a religious drama produced by his disciple. The curtain went up and a character started singing the praises of the Lord. Sri Ramakrishna immediately began to enter the supreme state of consciousne

When you find out that there was never anything in the dark side to be afraid of … Nothing is left but to love.

It is only when we have renounced our preoccupation with "I," "me," "mine," that we can truly possess the world in which we live. Everything, provided that we regard nothing as property. And not only is everything ours; it is also everybody else's.

Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.

The man who wishes to know the "that" which is "thou" may set to work in any one of three ways. He may begin by looking inwards into his own particular thou and, by a process of "dying to self" --- self in reasoning, self in willing, self in feeling --- come at last to knowledge of the self, the kingdom of the self, the kingdom of God that is within. Or else he may begin with the thous existing outside himself, and may try to realize their essential unity with God and, through God, with one anot

Reincarnation isn't something in which I choose to believe but rather a truth I accept. Most people will never know the meaning of their friendships, passions, choices and even challenges. I embrace them, knowing that there’s always a perfect correlation between everything, including between us and the ones that love us and betray us at the end. That’s how I know I’m almost never traveling somewhere but returning, or not meeting someone but fixing the past, or facing a challenge but ending a kar

In our dreams we find the dreams of others and in other’s dreams we find ourselves. No will is separated from others and no dream is in itself isolated from the will of God.

I’m often told that money and spirituality are different things from people that don’t have time to read spiritual books because they have to work for money.

What does spirituality, money and happiness have in common? Everything.

Ask the person who found you about what kind of people they were looking for before meeting you, as they may not know that they have found one of them already.

Ask the person who found you about what kind of people she was looking for before meeting you, as she may not know that she has found one of them already.

A Christian must worship the Self as Christ, not Christ as Christ. A Muslim must worship the Self as Mohammed, not Mohammed as Mohammed. A Hindu must worship the Self as Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna.

Hindu fundamentalism,” because Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals: no organized church, no compulsory beliefs or rites of worship, no single sacred book. The name itself denotes something less, and more, than a set of theological beliefs. In many languages — French and Persian amongst them — the word for “Indian” is “Hindu.” Originally “Hindu” simply meant the people beyond the river Sindhu, or Indus. But the Indus is now in Islamic Pakistan; and to make matters worse, the word “Hindu”

The true history of the world must always be the history of the few; and as we measure the Himalaya by the height of Mount Everest, we must take the true measure of India from the poets of the Veda, the sages of the Upanishads, the founders of the Vedanta and Sankhya philosophies, and the authors of the oldest law-books, and not from the millions who are born and die in their villages, and who have never for one moment been roused out of their drowsy dream of life.

…the designation of wife in India, of the Hindu wife, is higher and grander than that of Empress. She is called Devi

Above all, as a Hindu I belong to the only major religion in the world that does not claim to be the only true religion. I find it immensely congenial to be able to face my fellow human beings of other faiths without being burdened by the conviction that I am embarked upon a “true path” that they have missed.

I want to say a word to the Brahmins: In the name of God, religion, sastras you have duped us. We were the ruling people. Stop this life of cheating us from this year. Give room for rationalism and humanism.

Matter is a medium of communication between minds, and everything that exists in the mind can also exist in the body. Furthermore, the body—being the expression of a mental state is developed as a manifestation of the mind.

सक्ताः कर्मण्यविद्वांसो यथा कुर्वन्ति भारत।कुर्याद्विद्वांस्तथासक्तश्चिकीर्षुर्लोकसंग्रहम्॥॥३- २५॥न बुद्धिभेदं जनयेदज्ञानां कर्मसङ्गिनाम्।जोषयेत्सर्वकर्माणि विद्वान्युक्तः समाचरन्॥॥३- २६॥`Ignorant toil for result; wise – selflessly,Blaze the trail for detached action clearly,For the common weal, path to eternity,For the benefit of the entire humanity.’3. 25-26

To a realized master, death and rebirth is in every breath. Death is that of body consciousness, ego and limits of the mind. Rebirth is that of the cosmic mind of being the Spirit. In this realization is liberation.When awake as liberated, each prayer and each moment of meditation is for humanity as there is no more individual ego or identity left. Such realized masters continually gift humanity with the grace of higher consciousness- so that each of us attain our fullest potential in goodness.

May the sunshine ever greet youand sorrows flow away,May the knowledge flow within youand darkness fade away.

The drive behind life has lost none of its power; proof that, impelled by that drive, man can build as well as destroy; that in his nature is more of Vishnu the Creator than of Siva the Destroyer.

Shutting out all external objects, fixing the vision between the eyebrows, making even the inward and outward breaths, the sage who has controlled the senses, mind and understanding, who is intent upon liberation, who has cast away desire, fear and anger, he is ever freed.

Artha - attainment of wealth, material prosperity,Its realization on righteous and moral basis be;- 5 -

Dharma – the foundation of all human goals be,Refers to obligations, conduct, moral duties;- 25 -

Kama purusharth advocates desires fulfilled be,Albeit in awareness, without harming anybody;

If Brahman an infinite ocean, then Atma a wave within be,Ocean not different from its waves, the waves as ocean be;They are but one and the same very similar in actuality,So Brahman and Atma are one and the same in reality.960

One must be a lotus to emerge from mucky waters clean.

He who has no faith in himself can never have faith in God. 

In Hindu parlance he had 'realised the Self'; that is to say, he had realised by direct experience that nothing existed apart from an indivisible and universal consciousness which was experienced in its unmanifest form as beingness or awareness and in its manifest form as the appearance of the universe.

As the sun, revealer of all objects to the seer, is not harmed by the sinful eye, nor by the impurities of the objects it gazes on, so the one Self, dwelling in all, is not touched by the evils of the world. (The Upanishads: Breath of the Eternal, pg. 35)

As fire, though one, takes the shape of every object which it consumes, so the Self, though one, takes the shape of every object in which it dwells. (The Upanishads: Breath of the Eternal, pg. 35)

When one's mind dwells on the objects of Senses, fondness for them grows on him, from fondness comes desire, from desire anger. Anger leads to bewilderment, bewilderment to loss of memory of true Self, and by that intelligence is destroyed, and with the destruction of intelligence he perishes.

In a great number of the cosmogonic myths the world is said to have developed from a great water, which was the prime matter. In many cases, as for instance in an Indian myth, this prime matter is indicated as a solution, out of which the solid earth crystallized out.

God stipulates in the Bible that Jesus Followers are to love and serve everyone regardless of their faith or lack of it. But, this does not require us to honour and respect their Biblically-heinous cultural practises like multiculturalism does!

Real teachers like Jesus, Buddha, Nanak, Rumi have much more to teach humanity, than the imaginary figure Krishna, concocted by an ancient Indian man named Vyasa.

शान्ताकारं भुजगशयनं पद्मनाभं सुरेशं विश्वाधारं गगनसदृश्यं मेघवर्णं शुभाङ्गम्।लक्ष्मीकान्तं कमलनयनं योगिभिर्ध्यानगम्यं वन्दे विष्णु भवभयहरं सर्वलोकैकनाथम्।I bow to Vishnu, Master of Universe unquestionably,Who rests on great serpent bed, peaceful perpetually,From His navel sprouts Lotus of Creative Power surely,He the Supreme Lord of cosmos undeniably does be.- 146 - He supports the entire universe and all-pervading be,He dark as clouds with beautiful Lakshmi form glowingly,He the lotus-eyed, wh

The law of karma says that no matter what context I find myself in, it is neither my parents, nor my science teacher, nor the mailman, but I alone who have brought myself into this state because of my past actions. Instead of trapping me in a fatalistic snare, this gives me freedom. Because I alone have brought myself into my present condition, I myself, by working hard and striving earnestly, can reach the supreme state which is nirvana.

The ultimate goal of human life is to transcend culture and personality to the unconditioned pure being. But the means to do this is through our culture and way of life.