Hindu Deities

"On Wings of Song, Sweetheart, I carry you away, Away to the fields of the Ganges, Where I know the most beautiful place."

"God creates the world as Brahma, sustains it as Vishnu, and destroys it as Shiva. One day, Shiva started to sing. Vishnu was so moved by the melody that he began to melt. Brahma caught the molten Vishnu in a pot. This was poured on earth. it took the form of the river Ganga. The Ganga nourished the earth. to bathe in the Ganga’s waters is to bathe in God. **Ganga Mahatmya, in Myth = Mithya(2008), p. 6"

"There are few things on which Hindu India, diverse as it is, might agree. But of the Ganges, India speaks with one voice. The Ganges carries an immense cultural and religious meaning for Hindus of every region and every sectarian persuasion."

"The river Ganges (Ganga) on her way to the ocean, was quafied down in a draught by the Muni when interrupted in his meditation by the rush of the water, and was let out by an incision on his thigh at the intercession by Bhagiratha, hence the Ganges is called Jahnavi or the daughter of Jahnu Rishi."

"And again, Subhuti, suppose a woman or a man were to renounce all their belongings as many times as there are grains of sand in the river Ganges; and suppose that someone else, after taking from this discourse on dharma but one stanza of four lines would demonstrate it to others. Then this latter on the strength of that would beget a greater heap of merit, immeasurable and incalculable."

"The Lord is so kind that He has spread the river Ganges throughout the universe so that by taking bath in that holy river everyone can get released from the reactions of sins, which occur at every step."

"India of the ages is not dead nor has She spoken Her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples. And that which She must seek now to awake, is not an Anglicized oriental people, docile people of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of Occident’s success and failure, but still the ancient immemorial Shakti recovering Her deepest self, lifting Her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and Vaster form of Her Dharma."

"This world is all alike the play of Mother. But we forget this. Even misery can be enjoyed when there is no selfishness, when we have become the witness of our own lives. The thinker of this philosophy has been struck by the idea that one power is behind all phenomena. In our thought of God, there is human limitation, personality: with Shakti comes the idea of One Universal Power. ‘I stretch the bow of Rudra when He desires to kill’ [‘to destroy evil,’ Rigveda, X. 125, Devi-Sukta], says Shakti. The Upanishads did not develop this thought; for Vedanta does not care for the God-idea. But in the Gita comes the significant saying to Arjuna, ‘I am the real, and I am the unreal. I bring good, and I bring evil.’ (Gità, IX: 19, X: 4-)"

"Mother is the first manifestation of power and is considered a higher idea than father. With the name of Mother comes the idea of Shakti, Divine Energy and Omnipotence, just as the baby believes its mother to be all powerful, able to do anything. The Divine Mother is the Kundalini (“coiled up power”) sleeping in us; without worshipping Her we can never know ourselves....Every manifestation of power in the universe is ‘Mother’. She is life, She is intelligence, She is love....A bit of Mother, a drop, was Krishna, another was Buddha, another was Christ....Worship Her if you want love and wisdom."

"In an old Veda is found the mantra, ‘I am the empress of all that lives, the power in everything. ’Mother-worship is a distinct philosophy in itself. Power is the first of our ideas. It impinges upon man at every step; power felt within is the soul; without, nature. And the battle between the two makes human life. All that we know or feel is but the resultant of these two forces. Man saw that the sun shines on the good and evil alike."

"There was the other idea in the old Vedic hymn to the Goddess: ‘I am the light. I am the light of the sun and moon; I am the air which animates all beings.’ This is the germ which afterwards develops into Mother-worship. By Mother-worship is not meant difference between father and mother. The first idea connoted by it is that of energy—I am the power that is in all beings."

"The Shakti or Power of Brahman is the manifest aspect of the unmanifest Brahman, the personal aspect of Impersonal Brahman. Brahman and Shakti are inseparable: they are static and dynamic, like energy bottled up and energy released. The one cannot be conceived of without the other: Brahman is inconceivable without Shakti, Shakti is inconceivable without Brahman. It follows that Brahman is a cosmic and cosmic as well as transcendental and relative. These seemingly opposing aspects — unmanifest and manifest, static and dynamic, acosmic and cosmic, transcendental and relative—are identical. In each case the same Being is seen from different viewpoints which balance and supplement each other. Both concepts, Brahman and Shakti, are indispensable to the health and fullness of spiritual life."

"Sri Ramakrishna experienced Shakti, the presence of the Divine Mother in everything. And lo! The whole scene, doors, windows, the temple itself vanished. It seemed as if nothing existed anymore. Instead I saw an ocean of the Spirit, boundless, dazzling. In whatever direction I turned, great luminous waves were rising. They bore down upon me with a loud roar as if to swallow me up. In an instant they were upon me. They broke over me, they engulfed me. I was suffocated. I lost consciousness and I fell... How I passed that day and the next I know not. Round me rolled an ocean of ineffable joy. And in the depths of my being I was conscious of the presence of the Divine Mother."

"...Brahman and Shakti are identical. If you accept the one, you must accept the other. It is like fire and its power to burn. If you see the fire, you must recognize its power to burn also. You cannot think of fire without its power to burn, nor can you think of the power to burn without fire. You cannot conceive of the sun’s rays without the sun, nor can you conceive of the sun without its rays.... You cannot think of the milk without the whiteness, and again, you cannot think of the whiteness without the milk. Thus one cannot think of Brahman without Shakti, or of Shakti without Brahman. One cannot think of the Absolute without the Relative, or of the Relative without the Absolute. The Primordial Power is ever at play. She is creating, preserving and destroying in play, as it were. This Power is called Kàli. Kàli is verily Brahman, and Brahman is verily Kàli. It is one and the same Reality. When we think of it as inactive, that is to say, not engaged in the acts of creation, preservation, and destruction, then we call It Brahman. But when It engages in these activities, then we call It Kàli or Shakti. The Reality is one and the same; the difference is in name and form."

"There is no word of a wider content in any language than this Sanskrit term [Shakti], meaning “Power”."

"The Dharma of the Westerners is worship of Shakti – the Creative Power regarded as the Female Principle."

"Shakti: the Mother Goddess, power or energy, originating, perhaps, in the non-Aryan culture of the Indus Valley. Mythologically Shakti is equated with the Goddesses Kali, Parvati and Durga, consorts of Shiva. The cult of Shakti flourished since the fifth century A.D."

"Shakti worship, especially the worship of God as Mother, is a personal property of India. The great scholar and illumined soul Swami Abhedananda also says, ‘India is in fact the only place in the world where God is worshipped as Mother’."

"The concept of shakti is indivisibly connected with Mother worship (shakti sadhana). Generally the worship of Durga, Kali, Sarasvati and other goddesses is considered Shakti worship. But the worship of Narayana, Shiva, Ganesha and other gods, too, is the worship of Shakti Herself. Whatever the means - image, symbol or yantra - the worship is only of Shakti. This is because, in the use of all these means there is a superimposition of the creation - preservation - destruction aspects of Shakti either fully or partially. So in a wider sense all worshippers are Shakti worshippers."

"Shakti is the supreme, unchanging and spiritual truth that is beyond time and space. Shakti is the essence of chaitanya, or its true self; she neither male, nor female, but is a male-female entity, i.e. pure intelligence. Shakti is otherwise called vimarsha which is the eternal spirit of chaitanya. Shakti is self-existent and all manifest in the form of creation and dissolution. Like the para-Brahman of the Vedanta, this shakti is also pure intelligence. From the [[tantric point of view Shakti and Shiva are but one and the same, thus essentially differing from the Maya of the Vedanta. Shaktism expounds that the manifestation of the non-ego appears as external to shuddatma or pure ego and that chit-shakti is beyond the nescience."

"The very thoughts like: ‘I am meditating,’ ‘I am thinking on the Absolute,’ are within the realm of Shakti. They are the manifested powers of that Eternal Energy. Therefore the Absolute Brahman and the Eternal Energy are in separable and one. The existence of one implies that of the other, as the fire and its burning power. If you accept the existence of fire, how can you deny its burning power? No one can think of fire without thinking of its burning power. In the same manner, we cannot think of the rays of the sun, without thinking of sun himself. Again, we cannot think of sun without thinking of his rays. Therefore, no one think of Brahman as apart from Shakti, or Shakti as separate from Brahman. Likewise, no one conceive of the phenomenal as independent of the Absolute, or of the Absolute as apart from the phenomenal. The same Eternal Energy, the Mother of all phenomena, is creating, preserving, and destroying everything. She is called Kali, the Divine Mother. Kali as Brahman, Brahman as Kali, one and the same Being. I call him Brahman when He is absolutely inactive; that is when He neither creates, nor preserves, nor destroys phenomena; but when He performs all such actions, I call him Kali, the Eternal Energy, the Divine Mother. They are one and the same Being, the difference is in the name and form, just as the same substance water is called by different names in different languages such as jal, water, pani, etc. A tank may have four ghats. The Hindus drink at one ghat and call it jal; the Mohammedans at another and call it pani; while the English who drink at the third call it water. Similarly, God is one, only His names are different. Some call Him by the name of Allah, some God, some Brahman, other Kali, others again Rama, Hari, Jesus, Buddha."

"The followers of Advaita Vedanta maintain that creation, preservation, and dissolution, the individual ego, the external world, all these are manifestations of the Eternal Energy (Shakti). They also say that when these are properly analyzed, they appear as dreams, that the Absolute Brahman alone is the Reality, and all else is unreal. Even Eternal Energy (Shakti) is like a dream, unreal, but you may analyze and discriminate thousands of times, you cannot transcend the realm of Divine Energy (Shakti) unless you have reached the highest state of Samadhi or Superconsciousness."

"There is a triangular cavity at the base of the spinal column where sleeps kundalini shakti, called power of powers, coiled some say 2 ½ feet but definitely 3 ½ times."

"The word shava, means corpse. What is this word? Why is it called shava? It is missing something, it is missing shakti. Shiva without shakti, become shava."

"All the objects in the external world are definitely projections of shakti, the power of consciousness, but the waking state is not a product of your mind."

"So from where does our lineage of tradition flow? The first is Brahmadeva, the lotus-born one. Then came Vasishta, Lord Rama’s Guru. This indicates that tradition is older than the Ramayana. After Vasishta comes Shakti, then Parasara, followed by Vyasa, author of the epic Mahabharata, and then Shuka."

"Mantra is like atomic power, the more you explore the Shakti, the power, the atomic energy, in the atom, you will the Shakti is even subtler than the atom itself."

"Why is it that our country is the weakest and the most backward of all countries? Because Shakti is held in dishonour. Without the grace of Shakti nothing is to be accomplished... To me, Mother's grace is a hundred times more valuable than Father's... fie on him who has no devotion for the Mother....If an Indian woman in Indian dress preaches the religion which fell from the lips of the Rishis of India, it will inundate the Western world. Will there be no women in the land of Maitreyi, Khana, Lilavati, Savitri and Ubhayabharati?"

"There is a deeper symbolism. The black image of Kali is standing on the white image of Lord Shiva. Shiva is Brahman and Kali is Brahman’s energy, Shakti. Brahman is passive while Shakti – Kali –is active. The images so stand that Shiva looks at Kali and Kali at Shiva. This symbolizes the fact that every action, big or small, of destruction or creation, performed by Kali at the instance of Shiva. Kali, as it were, is the working organ of Shiva. Shiva and Kali, Brahman and Shakti, the source and energy, are essential one."

"The Guru [Nagaji, Ramakrishna’s] would, never condescend to admit of Maya or Shakti. Brahman only exists – this was his refrain. Ramakrishna on the other hand, had begun his spiritual ascent by his devotion to Shakti standing in the form of the idol of Kali in the temple. To him Shakti was equally real and equally important. Without any argument, or any effort on his part, his guru was caught in the vice like grip of Shakti or Maya."

"Although conceived as female in nature, Shakti is not an individual goddess, but rather a dynamic quality that all goddesses (and even all women, at least within the Shakta Tatric tradition) are said to possess. Unbridled, uncontainable."

"I am a pujari of Bharat Maa. I am a pujari of ‘Shakti Swaroopa’ mothers, sisters and daughters... Can somebody on the soil of India speak of finishing ‘Shakti’? Will you accept this? Don’t we do ‘aradhana’ of ‘Shakti’."

"There is a word 'Shakti' in Hinduism. We are fighting against a Shakti."

"The first and ultimate principle of the Universe is a feminine power, Shakti, whose personified form is Beauty and whose essential nature is consciousness and bliss. It exists eternally associated with the male principle, Shiva, who plays a secondary role. The “Srichakra” is the diagrammatic representation of their union."

"You aim at a result and your efforts subserve one that is different or contrary. It is Shakti that has gone forth and entered into the people."

"The gods were my superheroes growing up. Hanuman, the monkey god, lifting an entire mountain to save his friend Lakshman. Ganesh the elephant headed, risking his life to save the honor of his mother Pārvati. Vishnu, the Supreme Soul. The Soul of all things. Vishnu sleeps, floating on the shoreless cosmic ocean, and we are the stuff of his dreams."

"Alone, he supports threefold the earth and the sky — all creatures. Would that I might reach his dear place of refuge, where men who love the gods rejoice. For their one draws close to the wide-striding Viṣṇu; there, in his highest footstep, is the fountain of honey."

"Let me now sing the heroic deeds of Viṣṇu who has measured apart the realms of the earth, who propped up the upper dwelling-place, striding far as he stepped forth three times. They praise for his heroic deeds Viṣṇu who lurks in the mountains, wandering like a ferocious wild beast, in whose three wide strides all creatures dwell."

"Just as the sun's rays in the sky are extended to the mundane vision, so in the same way the wise and learned devotees always see the abode of Lord Vishnu."

"O ye who wish to gain realization of the Supreme Truth, utter the name of "Vishnu" at least once in the steadfast faith that it will lead you to such realization."

"Oh, never star Was lost here, but it rose afar! Look East, where whole new thousands are! In Vishnu-land what Avatar?"

"Vishnu (Sk.). The second person of the Hindu Trimûrti (trinity), composed of Brahmâ, Vishnu and Siva. From the root vish, “to pervade”. in the Rig -Veda, Vishnu is no high god, but simply a manifestation of the solar energy, described as “striding through the seven regions of the Universe in three steps and enveloping all things with the dust (of his beams ”.) Whatever may be the six other occult significances of the statement, this is related to the same class of types as the seven and ten Sephiroth, as the seven and three orifices of the perfect Adam Kadmon, as the seven “principles” and the higher triad in man, etc., etc. Later on this mystic type becomes a great god, the preserver and the renovator, he “of a thousand names — Sahasranâma”."

"Like the Indian Vishnu, to float about along an infinite ocean cradled in the flower of the Lotus and wake once in a million years for a few minutes."

""It is you, isn't it, Kalkin? That's your belt. This is your sort of war. Those were your lightnings striking friend and foe alike. You did live, somehow, eh?" "It is I," said Sam, leveling his lance."

"I knew him a long time ago," said Rudra. "Accelerationist?" "He wasn't then. Wasn't much of anything, politically. He was one of the First, though, one of those who had looked upon Urath." "Oh?" "He distinguished himself in the wars against the People-of-the-Sea and against the Mothers of the Terrible Glow." Here, Rudra made a sign in the air. "Later," he continued, "this was remembered, and he was given charge of the northern marches in the wars against the demons. He was known as Kalkin in those days, and it was there that he came to be called Binder. He developed an Attribute which he could use against the demons. With it, he destroyed most of the Yakshas and bound the Rakasha. When Yama and Kali captured him at Hellwell in Malwa, he had already succeeded in freeing these latter. Thus, the Rakasha are again abroad in the world."

"From Hellwell to Heaven he went, there to commune with the gods. The Celestial City holds many mysteries, including some of the keys to his own past. Not all that transpired during the time he dwelled there is known. It is known, however, that he petitioned the gods on behalf of the world, obtaining the sympathy of some, the enmity of others. Had he chosen to betray humanity and accept the proffers of the gods, it is said by some that he might have dwelled forever as a Lord of the City and not have met his death beneath the claws of the phantom cats of Kaniburrha..."

"Is it not a pity, Guivric, that this Kalki will not come in our day, and that we shall never behold his complete glory? I cry a lament for that Kalki who will someday bring back to their appointed places high faith and very ardent loves and hatreds; and who will see to it that human passions are in never so poor a way to find expressions in adequate speech and action. Ohé, I cry a loud lament for Kalki! The little silver effigies which his postulants fashion and adore are well enough: but Kalki is a horse of another color."

"Now, the redemption which we as yet await (continued Imlac), will be that of Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion: all evils and every sort of folly will perish at the coming of this Kalki: true righteousness will be restored, and the minds of men will be made as clear as crystal."

"Jurgen returned again toward Barathum; and, whether or not it was a coincidence, Jurgen met precisely the vampire of whom he had inveigled his father into thinking. She was the most seductively beautiful creature that it would be possible for Jurgen's father or any other man to imagine: and her clothes were orange-colored, for a reason sufficiently well known in Hell, and were embroidered everywhere with green fig–leaves. "A good morning to you, madame," says Jurgen, "and whither are you going?" "Why, to no place at all, good youth. For this is my vacation, granted yearly by the Law of Kalki—" "And who is Kalki, madame?" "Nobody as yet: but he will come as a stallion. Meanwhile his Law precedes him, so that I am spending my vacation peacefully in Hell, with none of my ordinary annoyances to bother me." "And what, madame, can they be?" "Why, you must understand that it is little rest a vampire gets on earth, with so many fine young fellows like yourself going about everywhere eager to be destroyed.""

"When Kalki was published in 1978, it looked to be something of an artistic retrenchment for Vidal, an improbable entertainment in the sci-fi genre that afforded him the opportunity to exercise his spleen on some old friends — grasping politicians, the popular media, and credulous religionists. In retrospect however the novel seems a remarkably insightful cautionary tale and, further, represents an important developmental phase in the Vidal canon. For instance the themes that Vidal addressed straightforwardly in Messiah (1954) — religious hysteria and manipulation of the popular will by the commercial media — are expanded surrealistically in Kalki. These concerns will later be addressed comically, and more effectively yet, in Live from Golgotha (1992). The more serious his purposes, it seems, the more extravagant are Vidal's conceits. Briefly, Kalki is a futuristic affair with a messianic prophet of doom who would save the planet by annihilating the human race."