First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"It was hell, but for every negative stroke I've received in my life, I've had two positive strokes to counter it."
":(in an interview following release from prison)"
"It is part of our doctrine that homosexuality and bisexuality are morally and socially equal to heterosexuality."
"Residential Area - by invitation only"
":Freeman's sign in The Monastery"
"Every church is a business enterprise. The question is pecuniary gain, if we have a profit here. The answer is no."
"We view dancing as a form of worship and we teach through the medium of music."
"I can't even have a beer with friends at home."
":(Said in response to legal persecution due to church and residence at same address, with alcohol disallowed at church)"
"The gut issue is that I'm black and I'm queer. That bothers a lot of people. So what we have is a vice squad that has a mandate to prosecute sin."
"I am a black homosexual minister of the Universal Life Church."
"In the eight years of the Monastery, nobody was ever stabbed, nobody was ever killed, nobody ever OD'd, nobody ever died. The only security we ever used were two people at the front door, the ushers. And yet we ran the gamut of black people, white people, young people, old people, gay people, straight people. All in one head space. The most integrated institution ever to exist in this city! Probably it will never exist again."
"We believed that God is in all forms of creativity. We're all joined in the same universe. No matter who you are, you're a creation of God. The Bible isn't the absolute document on the word of God. It can't be. It was written by man."
"You know when the spirit's there, when the place is hopping and people are jumping and they're crazed and they're having fun and they're down and everybody's on one mental plateau, and they're traveling all together, and you have unity. That's the essence of life.... That was the whole experiment with the Monastery, as opposed to a cult -- this evil, wicked place where people are having sex."
"My mind is a free mind. I'm not locked into territories that are traditional. And yes, it may get you into trouble, but it's the right way that we should mold a society. We can't go on the way we are."
"We are all children of the same universe."
":Personal statement on website"
"Science is God."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.