Indian Religions

"The recognition ATMAN = BRAHMAN (the personal self equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was after having learnt to pronounce with their lips, really assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts. Again, the mystics of many centuries, independently, yet in perfect harmony with each other (somewhat like the particles in an ideal gas) have described, each of them, the unique experience of his or her life in terms that can be condensed in the phrase: DEUS FACTUS SUM (I have become God). To Western ideology, the thought has remained a stranger... in spite of those true lovers who, as they look into each other's eyes, become aware that their thought and their joy are numerically one, not merely similar or identical..."

"The Atman, the Sun of Knowledge that rises in the sky of the heart, destroys the darkness of the ignorance, pervades and sustains all and shines and makes everything to shine."

"Though Atman is Pure Consciousness and ever present everywhere, yet It is perceived by the eye-of-wisdom alone: but one whose vision is obscured by ignorance he does not see It; as the blind do not see the resplendent Sun."

"Nothing whatever exists other than the Atman: the tangible universe is verily Atman. As pots and jars are verily made of clay and cannot be said to be anything but clay, so too, to the enlightened soul and that is perceived is the Self."

"Atman is an ever-present Reality. Yet, because of ignorance it is not realised. On the destruction of ignorance Atman is realised. It is like the missing ornament of one’s neck."

"Sitting in a solitary place, freeing the mind from desires and controlling the senses, meditate with unswerving attention on the Atman which is One without-a-second."

"Atman never does anything and the intellect of its own accord has no capacity to experience ‘I know’. But the individuality in us delusorily thinks he is himself the seer and the knower."

"Just as luminosity is the nature of the Sun, coolness of water and heat of fire, so too the nature of the Atman is Eternity, Purity, Reality, Consciousness and Bliss."

"One should understand that the Atman is always like the King, distinct from the body, senses, mind and intellect, all of which constitute the matter (Prakriti); and is the witness of their functions."

"He who is called Brahman by the jnanis is known as Atman by the yogis and as Bhagavan by the bhaktas."

"A mind that has the slightest trace of attachment to the world cannot be called pure. When all the impurities of the mind are removed, you may call that mind Pure Mind or Pure Ātman."

"The one Reality takes manifold names and forms as a result of human ignorance. It is one and the same Thing that a Bhakta calls God, a Jnani calls Brahman, a Shakta calls Shakti, an Atheist calls Nature, a Scientist calls Force or Energy, a Christian calls Father in Heaven, a Mussulman calls Allah, some others call Infinity or Truth and a Vedantin calls Atman or Self. Whatever different names there may be, the fact remains that the Thing is one and the same. The difference is only in names. The Absolute Thing, which is beyond name and form, is birthless, growthless, decayless, deathless, sexless, All-pervading, All-knowing, All-blissful, without beginning, without end, changeless, beyond time, space and causation. The One Thing or the Ocean of Consciousness by Itself is ever the same — One only without a second."

"The spark within is akin to the Divine Ground. By identifying ourselves with the first we can come to unitive knowledge of the second. These empirical facts of the spiritual life have been variously rationalized in terms of the theologies of the various religions. The Hindus categorically affirm that Thou art That — that the indwelling Atman is the same as Brahman."

"There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge — that is everywhere, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning."

"In Hindu polytheism, a single principle, Atman, controls the myriad gods and spirits, humankind, and the biological and physical world. Atman is the central essence or soul of the entire universe, as well as of every individual and every phenomenon."

"Ruysbroeck puts it extremely well. He speaks of "a waylessness and darkness in which we never find ourselves again in a creaturely way." We lose ourselves in that divine darkness. And he goes on to speak of God, this "God beyond", as it were, as "a simple nudity, an incomprehensible light". The one who has reached this point " finds himself and feels himself to be that light, gazing at that light, by that light, in that light. Here one has entered totally into the Godhead and one knows in the light and by the light". This is exactly how it is put in the Upanishads and in the Bhagavad Gita, where it is said that one knows the 'atman', through the 'atman'. The 'atman' cannot be known by any other means. God is grasped and held through God."

"The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman, the reality within."

"Knowledge appears as the grace of God. In the higher knowledge, since the atman is in reality not an object, the cause of its knowledge is not further explicable. In spite of this, religious practice recognizes certain means by which knowledge of the atman may be promoted."

"The atman, in the knowledge of which emancipation consists, is nothing else than the knowing subject in us. For this reason it is not knowable by the grace the senses, "ne'ter canst thou see the seer of seeing. It cannot, like an object, be placed before us and examined; knowledge of it cannot be obtained at will, and even searching in the Scripture is not enough to attain this knowledge, but merely serves to remove obstacles. Whether the atman is known or not depends, as does the perception of every object, on one fact, whether it manifests itself to us; depends consequently on the atman itself. Hence in the lower knowledge, which opposes the atman to our own self as a personal god and worships it."

"One would say Atman is more like the meaning. But then what is meant would be Brahman, I suppose—the identity of consciousness and cosmos. This claims that the meaning and what is meant are ultimately one, which is the phrase ’Atman equals Brahman’ of classical Hindu philosophy."

"The syllable gu means shadows / The syllable ru, he who disperses them, / Because of the power to disperse darkness / the guru is thus named."

"We must consider the possibility that the conviction expressed by gurus is less absolute than it appears in that their apparent confidence needs boosting by the response of followers. As we shall see, some gurus avoid the stigma of being labelled insane or ever of being confined in a mental hospital because they have acquired a group of disciples who accept them as prophets rather than perceiving them as deluded."

"In other words, gurus generalize from their own experience. Some gurus are inclined to believe that all humanity should accept their vision: others allege that, when the last trump sounds, their own followers will be saved, whilst the majority of mankind will remain unredeemed. This apparently arrogant assumption is closely connected with certain features of personality displayed by a variety of gurus."

"Who is whose Guru? God alone is the guide and Guru of the universe."

"I am the rich man's guru."

"If you are not at all concerned with the world but only with your personal salvation, following certain beliefs and superstitions, following gurus, then I am afraid it will be impossible for you and the speaker to communicate with each other. …We are not concerned at all with private personal salvation but we are concerned, earnestly, seriously, with what the human mind has become, what humanity is facing. We are concerned as human beings, human beings who are not labelled with any nationality. We are concerned at looking at this world and what a human being living in this world has to do, what is his role?"

"Most of the devotees with whom we spoke reported a significant drop in the number of people receiving knowledge starting from late 1973. This created a condition of financial strain which became critical when Millennium '73, an all-out extravaganza held in the Houston Astrodome where Guru Maharaj Ji was crowned 'Lord of the Universe,' proved to be an economic flop. … DLM underwent significant organizational and ideological transformations. It no longer projected itself as a movement that would include all of humanity in its membership."

"Obviously the obedience to the spiritual master includes the risk of abuse. However, charges of abuse should be evaluated within the context of the religious tradition. Gurus who kill or [sexually abuse] their followers may not hide under pretexts of religious freedom. On the other hand, “being a guru” or establishing with the disciples a special relationship of trust and obedience is not illegal. It should not be evaluated through individualist and rationalist standards by media, or even by secular courts of law who do not understand the [ancient] religious principle of surrendering a great part of the disciple’s liberty to a spiritual master."

"Although he reputedly hated the label of ‘guru’, Peter Drucker was, by any standards, the greatest management guru the world has yet seen. In 1996, the McKinsey Quarterly journal described him as ‘the one guru to whom other gurus kowtow’ and Robert Heller described him as ‘the greatest man in the history of management’, praise indeed for a man who described himself as ‘just an old journalist’."

"Tim Guest’s extraordinary account of his childhood in the communes of Bhagwan [Rajneesh], the notorious Indian guru, is a survivor’s tale, poignant, funny and wise."

"I have been saying for many years that we are using the word 'guru' only because 'charlatan' is too long to fit into a headline."

"To uplift the lowly is dharmam."

"The Doctrine (“”Dhamma“”) allows one to attain a state in which suffering can no longer take root, because one embraces eternity. “”nibbàna“”, liberation, is nothing more than this imperishable state, removed from the becoming of things. (p. 27)"

"Nothing is higher than dharma. The weak overcomes the stronger by dharma, as over a king. Truly that dharma is the Truth (Satya)."

"For those greatly interested seekers of Dharma, the Vedas (Shrutis) are the highest authorities."

"Veda is the source of dharma and the tradition and practice of those that know it (the Veda)."

"It is most difficult to define Dharma. It has been explained to be that which helps the upliftment of living beings. Therefore, that which ensures the welfare of living beings is surely Dharma. The learned rishis have declared that which sustains is Dharma."

"Dharma is that which sustains and ensures progress and welfare of all in this world and eternal Bliss in the other world."

"Dharma sustains the society, Dharma maintains the social order, Dharma ensures the well-being and progress of humanity."

"The reduction of dharma to concepts such as religion and law has harmful consequences: it places the study of dharma in Western hands, moving it away from the authority of practising dharma scholars; moreover, it creates the false impression that dharma is similar to Christian ecclesiastical law-making and the related struggles for state power. The result in India has been to subject dharma to the same limits as Christianity in Europe – all in the name of secularism. To treat dharma as religion remains a major blunder."

"Remember, the centre of our national life is not politics or economy but Dharma."

"No language is perfect. There is no proper equivalent word in English for the Sanskrit term Dharma. Dharma is generally defined as righteousness or duty. Dharma is the principle of righteousness. It is the principle of holiness. It is also the principle of Unity. … If you protect it, it will protect you. It is your sole companion after death. It is the sole refuge of humanity. That which elevates one is Dharma. This is another definition. Dharma is that which leads you to the path of perfection and glory. Self-realisation is the highest Dharma. Dharma is the heart of Hindu ethics."

"Dharma is very wide concept. It is concerned with all aspects of life. It sustains the society. Even further, it sustains the whole world. That which sustains is Dharma."

"Arun Shourie quotes Govind Singh as declaring: 'Let the path of the pure [khâlsâ panth] prevail all over the world, let the Hindu dharma dawn and all delusion disappear. (...) May I spread dharma and prestige of the Veda in the world and erase from it the sin of cow-slaughter.'"

"Neither being nor not-being, all dharmas are born dependent on causes."

"To me, Dharma had always been a matter of moral norms, external rules and regulations, do's and don'ts, enforced on life by an act of will. Now I was made to see Dharma as a multi dimensional movement of man's inner law of being, his psychic evolution, his spiritual growth, and his spontaneous building of an outer life for himself and the community in which he lived."

"The key Hindu concept of dharma — the right way, the sanctioned way, which all men must follow, according to their natures — is an elastic concept. At its noblest it combines self-fulfillment and truth to the self with the ideas of action as duty, action as its own spiritual reward, man as a holy vessel."

"Dharma is a better and more substantive name than the geographically connoted Hindu. It is exceptional for a non-Indian to call himself a Hindu, but anyone could be a Dharmin. It is even better than the term Sanâtana Dharma, “eternal Dharma”, which is nowadays used as an indigenous name for Hinduism. Both the Bhagavad Gita and the Buddha have said that ”this Dharma is sanâtana”, so the composite name has ancient credentials. Yet, those authorities didn’t use it as a composite name, they just spoke of Dharma and then qualified it as sanâtana, eternal. So, the simple name of the religion Hindus practise, is Dharma. Literally “sustenance”, it effectively means “performing the role befitting your place within the whole”, “doing the needful to maintain the correct relation between the part and the whole”. It encompasses both observing a correct friendship with the other parts through morality (not merely vis-à-vis human beings) and realizing a proper relation with the sacred through rituals, prayers and festivals."

"धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः"

"Do not spend your life committing sinful deeds; It is good for you to practice holy Dharma."