Hindu Deities

"What might have shocked the highly regimented and stratified society of 1000-900 BC was the Vedic fold and rituals, and mixing with Shudras or 'Dasa' initiated and formalized by Krishna. It was the very daring act of entering the marriage alliance with ‘Shudra’ or the tribal girl (Jambavati) and that too by such popular figure as Krishna who despite not being declared king or heir apparent like his elder brother, Balarama, used to enjoy more power and respect than a King."

"Moreover, Krishna was such a potent force that he had established a new benchmark in the form of Vasudev. What might have been very upsetting and rather threatening for the traditional social and political elites of the ancient India that he had provided virtual guidelines for becoming Vasudev through various acts and machinations. And his life itself was such a broader canvas of Vasudevhood that one could easily imbibe them becoming the Vasudev."

"...at the time when Gita was happening, Krishna had attained the title of Vasudev as he was addressed as such by Bhisma Pitamah many times and others as well. Moreover, he had already destroyed Kans, w:JarasandhaJarasandh, and the other Prati-Vasudev at the beginning of war, and was going to destroy the remaining Prati-Vasudev in the ensuing war."

"The influence of Krishna philosophy and his different temporal and non-temporal theories on the Buddhism could be deciphered from gleaning the various Buddhist texts, which seems to be the extension, supplantation, and elaboration of the [Krishna philosophy]…"

"Moreover Krishna was very fond of the downtrodden and oppressed people such as his friends of childhood or his peers or sixteen thousand hapless women whom society could not accept even if they had been liberated by Krishna from the bondage of demon king of Pragjotishpur (Modern Assam) Narakasur. It was Krishna who adopted them, giving his name and telling them, they were his queens as he had given them all the Mangalsutra or matrimonial thread."

"Krishna, after exterminating the King of Mathura, did not take the power in to his hands but restored the old system of Vritya or Mandal (circle system) and ruling with the consensus in the consultation with the Samati or Sabha (council)."

"...Buddha, though quite different from Krishna, tried to change the socio-cultural scape of India through his scientific religion, even though he and Buddhism were forcibly exiled from this country."

"Even the establishment of the system of Char Dham (Four Pilgrimage) related to Krishna's life— Gokul, Dwaraka, Puri and Badrinath— by Sankarachrya seems to be brilliant strategy to keep Krishna in a historical and mythical mode. Hindu or Vedic religion without Krishna or Krishna as God will be nothing but mere rituals and superstition."

"After seeing this exhibition [at many places] of [Maya|yogamaya by Krishna, who was following human ways, Narada said to Hrishikesh Krishna smilingly: “We know that your yogamaya is hard to perceive, even for magicians. But it will manifest, O Soul of the lords of yoga, by service to your lotus feet”....“Give me you leave, O God. I will wonder about the worlds, which are overflowing with your glories, singing about your lilas which purify the earth.”"

"Bless me [Narada to Krishna] that my remembrance [of them] will remain, so that I can travel about meditating [on them]. Thereafter, Narada entered another residence of Krishna's wives, O dear king, desiring to witness the yogamaya of the Lord of the lords of yoga...There he [saw] Krishna again, this time playing with dice with his beloved and with Uddhava..."

"They knew that Yadavas could establish Krishna Raj again and hence it had become necessary to drive wedge, a divide between Krishna and Yadavas. What would be better way than that of making Krishna a god (from god he became God during Bhakti movement)"

"In the Bhagavad Gita, devotion to Krishna develops slowly out of the surrounding battle scene. Though that development never quite reaches the depths of attachment of later Krishna bhakti, the text provides an image of Krishna who is both the Lord of the Universe and one who incarnates in this world again and again to set things right and protect the dharma."

"Krishna also reveals that there is an eternal, unchanging, loving relationship between the individual soul and Krishna encompassed by the term bhakti, devotion. **In: p.80"

"In chapter 7, Krishna reveals that the unquenchably active Nature is actually Krishna's own lower nature (prakriti). What Nature does, therefore, completely conforms to Krishna's will, even to the point that the Gita seems ultimately to teach that all one can do is be Krishna's instrument for Krishna’s activities. At times it appears that Arjuna himself has little say in his actions and will be compelled to do Krishna’s will no matter what Arjuna decides."

"The places and monuments related with Krishna and his life is being encroached, plundered and destroyed systematically, willfully and with all disregard to the cultural and historical heritage. One can well imagine what would have happened during foreign rules and invasions."

"It is also, I believe, a revelation that Karna and the Kauravas consider the option of killing Krishna. Could Karna—and this never-failing spear—really have done that? We are left to ponder the death of God. And what did Karna think of this option?"

"Whatever one makes of a few slight references to Krishna in texts that are probably older than the Mahabharata, and of the many efforts to imagine him prior to his literary debut in the epic, the Mahabharata is the first text to portray him as both divine and human, and to conceive of his humanity and divinity in a forceful and complex scale."

"While it is the Bhagavata Purana that occupies itself most particularly with the incarnation of Krishna, the Krishna story also occurs in significant detail in other Puranas, particularly the Vishnu Purana, Padma Purana, and the later Brahma Vaivarta Purana, and it is in this genre of literature the stories and legends that developed around his incarnation find their fullest expression."

"In the family of religions, Hinduism is the wise old all-knowing mother. Its sacred books, the Vedas, claim, 'Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.' If only Islam, and all the rest of the monotheistic 'book' religions, had learned that lesson, all the horror of history's religious wars could have been avoided. Which other religion has its God say, as Krishna does in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All paths lead to me'"

"Krishna also relates that it was he, in a former incarnation, who communicated the indestructible yoga to an ancient illuminato, Vivasvat, who gave it to Manu, the great legislator. He, in turn, instructed Ikshwaku, the father of India's solar warrior dynasty. Passing thus from one to another, the royal yoga was guarded by the rishis until the coming of the materialistic ages. Then, due to priestly secrecy and man's indifference, the sacred knowledge gradually became inaccessible."

"Always resign yourselves to the Lord Shri Krishna. Always remember that we are but puppets in the Lord's hands. Remain pure always. Please be careful not to become impure even in thought, as also in speech and action; always try to do good to others as far as in you lies."

"You must worship the Self in Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna."

"Second day of [Diwali] is called Naraka Chaturdashi or Chhoti Diwali. Narakasur, after defeating Lord Indra, snatched the magnificent earrings of Mother Goddess Aditi and took sixteen thousand daughters of gods and saints to his harem. Lord Krishna killed the demon, brought all women and earrings of Aditi. Lord Krishna came home early in the morning with demon blood on his forehead. Women massaged scented oil on Krishna and washed away dirt from his body. So we take oil massage and bathe before sunrise this day."

"If only people freed themselves from their beliefs in all kinds of Ormuzds, Brahmas, Sabbaoths, and their incarnation as Krishnas and Christs, from beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in reincarnations and resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the external affairs of the universe, and above all, if they freed themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various vedas, Bibles, Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed themselves from blind belief in a variety of scientific teachings and infinitely small atoms and molecules,..."

"To attain Supreme peace, everlasting peace and enjoy Supreme bliss, Lord Krishna does not say that there are different Muktis and the liberated jiva (mukta) will go to Several lokas (Vaikuntha etc) and enjoy with different grades of happiness."

"The sounding of the mridanga (drum) in the kirtana (Devotional singing) is proclaiming loudly that those who have no devotion to Lord Krishna are very shameful and reprehensible. This is so because the mridanga sound diktum diktum, which means Oh! great shame! Oh! great shame!"

"My dear husband, You know all the transcendental truths, and by your mercy I have heard the glories of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Lord Krishna. Oh Lord, now I long to hear from you the glories of the Ṥrīmad Bhagavad-gītā, which was spoken by Lord Krishna and, by hearing which, one's devotion to Lord Krishna increases."

"There was a prophet of God in India who was dark in colour and his name was Kahan."

"Even if you try not to do your duty you will be perforce obliged to do it. Let the body complete the task for which it came into being. Sri Krishna also says in the Gita, whether Arjuna liked it or not he would be forced to fight. When there is work to be done by you, you cannot keep away; nor can you continue to do a thing when you are not required to do it, that is to say, when the work allotted to you has been done. In short, the work will go on and you must take your share in it -- the share which is allotted to you."

"The senses, moving toward their appropriate objects, are producers of heat and cold, pleasure and pain, which come and go and are brief and changeable; these do thou endure, O son of Bharata!"

"As you put on fresh new clothes and take off those you've worn, You'll replace your body with a fresh one, newly born."

"Swords cut him not, nor may fire burn him, O son of Bharata, waters wet him not, nor dry winds parch. He may not be cut nor burned nor wet nor withered; he is eternal, all-present, firm, unshaken, everlasting. He is called unmanifest, unimaginable, unchanging; therefore, knowing him thus, deign not to grieve!"

"One sees This as a wonder; another speaks of This as a wonder; another hears of This as a wonder; yet, having heard none understands This at all!"

"Either slain thou shalt go to heaven; or victorious thou shalt enjoy the earth. Therefore arise, O Son of Kuntī (Arjuna), resolved on battle."

"You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruits of action be your motive, but do not attach yourself to nonaction."

"When your intellect transcends the mire of delusion, then you will attain to disgust of what has been heard and what is yet to be heard. When, perplexed by what you have heard, you stand immovable in samadhi, with steady intellect, then you will attain yoga."

"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"

"To him [the Sage], what seemeth the bright things of day to the mass, are known to be the things of darkness and ignorance—and what seemeth dark as night to the many, he seeth suffused with the light of noonday."

"Not by not acting in this world does one become free from action, nor does one approach perfection by renunciation only. Not even for a moment does someone exist without acting. Even against one’s will, one acts by the nature-born qualities."

"From food come forth beings; from rain food is produced; from sacrifice arises rain, and sacrifice is born of action. Know you that action comes from BRAHMAJI (the Creator) and BRAHMAJI come from the Imperishable. Therefore, the all-pervading BRAHMAN (God-principle) ever rests in sacrifice."

"Nit for me, partha, is there any duty in the three worlds, nor anything to attain that is unattained; and I am always at work."

"All actions are performed by the gunas of prakriti. Deluded by identification with the ego, a person thinks, "I am the doer.""

"One's own duty, even if imperfectly performed, is better than being done by other even if well performed. Death in (performance of) one's own duty is preferable. (The adoption of) the duty of another carries fear (with it)."

"I explained this eternal science of yoga to Vivasvān. Vivasvān shared it with Manu, then Manu imparted it to Ikṣvāku. This science was taught and handed down in succession, but in time it was broken and the science of yoga seems to be lost."

"Whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right, I am born from age to age."

"In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium."

"However men try to reach me, I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end."

"Krishna (Sans.) The most celebrated Avatar of Vishnu, the "Saviour" of the Hindus and the most popular god. He is the eighth Avatar, the son of Devaki, and the nephew of Kansa, the Indian Herod, who while seeking for him among the shepherds and cowherds who concealed him slew thousands of their newly-born babes. The story of Krishna's conception, birth and childhood are the exact prototype of the New Testament story. The missionaries, of course, try to show that the Hindus stole the story of the Nativity from the early Christians who came to India."

"As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change."

"O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."