"The pilgrims, who love the land that brings them - and this for the sole fact that it brings them towards that foreign country that they love more than anything else - otherwise they would not be on their way. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)"

"Does the pilgrimage have value if the road led the pilgrim to a different destination? (Stanisław Jerzy Lec)"

"Conversion: this is the word that most specifically expresses the meaning of pilgrimage. (René Laurentin)"

"Even pilgrims' feet sweat. (Stanisław Jerzy Lec)"

"It is curiosity that shapes the pilgrim no less than devotion. (Abraham Cowley)"

"Pilgrimage liberates the spiritual dimension in each person and allows him to recognize his vocation as a child of God. (Jacques Jean Joseph Jules Perrier)"

"And by the happie blisfull way More peacefull Pilgrims I shall see, That have shooke off their gownes of clay, And goe appareld fresh like mee."

"The true pilgrim walks the path with nothing, lives on offerings, depends only on the generosity of others and brings with him everything he possesses. The pilgrim is poor and must suffer. (The Road to Santiago)"

"We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go Always a little further; it may be Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow Across that angry or that glimmering sea,"

"While the holidays indicate that life is on a journey towards God, the processions and pilgrimages take us out of the usual rhythm, they make us understand that we are not tied to the normal conditions of existence but that we have spaces of freedom, that we can consecrate the our life to God, we can direct it to Him, just as a pilgrimage is directed to its end. (Carlo Maria Martini)"

"In the longer run, some education in comparative religion is the solution, or at least a central part of the solution."

"The comparative study of religions is an academic discipline which has been developed within Christian theology faculties, and it has a tendency to force widely differing phenomena into a kind of strait-jacket cut to a Christian pattern. The problem is not only that other 'religions' may have little or nothing to say about questions which are of burning importance for Christianity, but that they may not even see themselves as religions in precisely the same way in which Christianity sees itself as a religion."

"Orthodox churches were stripped of their valuables in 1922 at the instigation of Lenin and Trotsky. In subsequent years, including both the Stalin and the Khrushchev periods, tens of thousands of churches were torn down or desecrated, leaving behind a disfigured wasteland that bore no resemblance to Russia such as it had stood for centuries. Entire districts and cities of half a million inhabitants were left without a single church. Our people were condemned to live in this dark and mute wilderness for decades, groping their way to God and keeping to this course by trial and error. The grip of oppression that we have lived under, and continue to live under, has been so great that religion, instead of leading to a free blossoming of the spirit, has been manifested in asserting the faith on the brink of destruction, or else on the seductive frontiers of Marxist rhetoric, where so many souls have come to grief."

"Yet China remained a one-party dictatorship and its labour camps – the infamous laogai – continued to hold between four and six million inmates in shocking conditions. Mao’s gigantic image was still displayed in Tiananmen Square. There was no true pluralism of intellectual and political discourse at the highest official levels. Interest groups of employers were not allowed to function. Trade unions were emasculated. The importance of military power went on being promoted. Tibet languished under China’s despotism and its levels of literacy and material provision remained low; and the construction of a railway across its territory, much vaunted in Beijing as showing its wish to share the benefits of modernisation, was seen by Tibetans as a means of reinforcing central control. Great regions such as Xinjiang in the north-west of the People’s Republic were held in a suffocating grip. There the Chinese authorities feared that Islam and Uigur nationalism might breed a separatist movement. Freedom of religious expression was only patchily respected across China. Falun Gong, an indigenous faith of massive popularity, was systematically persecuted. Communist doctrines remained an obligatory ingredient in the school curriculum and a qualification for a serious public career. Marxism-Leninism was otherwise honoured only in the breach."

"Driven by Marxist-Leninist ideology and imperialist nostalgia, the CCP silences dissent and restricts the rights and freedoms of Chinese citizens, to include forced population control, arbitrary detention, censorship, forced labor, violations of religious freedom, and pervasive media and internet censorship. The CCP continues to commit abuses against Uyghurs, Christians, and other religious and ethnic minorities. It maintains an iron grip on Tibet while continuing to assert control and silence foreign critics in Hong Kong. The CCP manipulates international organizations, democratically elected governments, and companies to mask its human rights abuses at home and abroad."

"[N]early every political evil can be found on display in China: slavery, discrimination, religious persecution, xenophobia, tyranny, mass-political indoctrination, colonialism, cultural genocide, and so on. And yet, the outcry against these things in America and the West is a tiny fraction of what it was with regard to South Africa in the 1980s or Israel today. Why? Some of the political answers are pretty obvious — and have much merit. A few that come to mind: China is non-Western, and many of these sins are supposed to be unique to white Europeans; China is a victim (or “victim”) of colonialism, and so we shouldn’t judge it harshly; China is very powerful, and realpolitik dictates that we be diplomatic; and so on. But there’s another reason. As you may have noticed, I’ve become much more interested in evolutionary psychology of late, particularly the topic of coalitional instincts. The coalition instinct is the programming that helped us form strategic groups that advance our self-interest. We are a social species and cooperation is what helped us skyrocket to the top of the food chain."

"But the Marxists think that religion is an evil, because it is anti-reason ; while reason is a good in itself, which moreover emancipates man by equipping him with the intellectual as well as technological means to determine his own destiny. Now this notion of reason and religion stems from a specifically European situation, that conditioned Marx' thought about religion. The fact that Indian Marxists have simply transposed Marx' limited view to the Indian situation is just another example of how dogmatic Marxists generally are. It also shows how utterly ignorant the Indian Leftist (and generally secularist) intelligentsia is of India's home-grown religious culture."

"China, Russia, North Korea, Iran… When we consider the worst situations of systematic violation of religious liberty we tend to forget one country, Cuba. The crimes of the Cuban [Communist] regime are somewhat overshadowed by the more bloody deeds of other governments, some of them sharing with Cuba a Communist and Marxist ideological background. Yet, Cuba should not be forgotten."

"On the eve of the Bolshevik coup d'état, the Orthodox Church claimed a hundred million adherents, two hundred thousand priests and monks, seventy-five thousand churches and chapels, over eleven hundred monasteries, thirty-seven thousand primary schools, fifty-seven seminaries and four university-level academies, not to speak of thousands of hospitals, old people’s homes and orphanages. Within a few years, the intuitional structures were swept away, the churches were desolated, vandalized or put to secular use. Many of the clergy were imprisoned or shot; appropriately enough the first concentration camp of the gulag was opened in a monastery in Artic regions."

"Dawkins is inexhaustibly outraged by the fact that religious opinions lead people to terrible crimes. But what, if there is no God, is so peculiarly shocking about these opinions being specifically religious? The answer he supplies is simple: that when religious people do evil things, they are acting on the promptings of their faith but when atheists do so, it's nothing to do with their atheism. He devotes pages to a discussion of whether Hitler was a Catholic, concluding that “Stalin was an atheist and Hitler probably wasn’t, but even if he was… the bottom line is very simple. Individual atheists may do evil things but they don’t do evil things in the name of atheism.” Yet under Stalin almost the entire Orthodox priesthood was exterminated simply for being priests, as were the clergy of other religions and hundreds of thousands of Baptists. The claim that Stalin’s atheism had nothing to do with his actions may be the most disingenuous in the book, but it has competition from a later question, “Why would anyone go to war for the sake of an absence of belief [atheism]?”—as if the armies of the French revolution had marched under icons of the Virgin, or as if a common justification offered for China’s invasion of Tibet had not been the awful priest-ridden backwardness of the Dalai Lama’s regime."

"We must face the fact that, while we are trying to help build a world of freedom and justice among sovereign people, the masters of international Communism are working constantly to tear down this kind of world. Communism, according to all its own leaders, must be a system of international control and conformity. Thus, at its very heart, it is the complete opposite and enemy of any kind of nationalism. Its avowed program is to destroy totally the religion, governments, institutions and traditions of the Christian world, the Buddhist world, the Islamic world, the Judaic world, and the world of every religion and culture. The Communist rulers then propose to substitute a whole new system of thought and control dictated from Communist Party headquarters. They think that a few theorists and rulers know what is best for everyone, and they are determined to drive everyone toward that kind of world. One small country after another has been swallowed up by international Communism. Their freedom is lost. Their national pride is crushed. Their religion is trampled on. Their economies are mere feeders for that of Russia. And if they attempt to assert their tradition of freedom, their people are shot down by the thousands. Witness: Hungary."

"In both countries, Taiwan and Poland, the newly established democratic systems resulted in the development of associations and other civic initiatives, but also in the emergence of new religious and spiritual groups. In both countries religious liberty was officially proclaimed in late 1980s. Yet, in Poland, the initial thaw and ease of registering new religious communities significantly slowed down over the years, and currently—for various reasons—registering a new group is more challenging than three decades ago. Previously, the political climate made similar activities difficult, various groups operated unregistered, and everything was monitored by the secret security services."

"The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed. The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. By 1939 only about 500 of over 50,000 churches remained open. After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. By 1957 about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. But in 1959 Nikita Khrushchev initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced the closure of about 12,000 churches. By 1985 fewer than 7,000 churches remained active. Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB."

"From the outset in 1917, the Communists believed in a utopian ideology, extreme, organised violence, atheism, a redefined place of the individual that served to reject Enlightenment precepts, and the rejection of preceding Russian history. During the Civil War and the 1920s, the Orthodox Church was crushed, with the slaughter of tens of thousands of priests and monks, and the desecration and destruction of churches, monasteries and the tombs of saints. The real and spiritual landscapes of Russia and the psychological life of the people were transformed as a consequence. Communism in its own way therefore constituted a major civilisational challenge to the notion in Europe and North America of a ‘Western Civilisation’, whether or not articulated explicitly in this fashion. This civilisation owed much to Christianity and placed considerable weight on liberalism and toleration. From this perspective, Communism, drawing both on a reconceptualisation of Russian authoritarianism and on a new, totalitarian ideology and practice, posed a counter-civilisational challenge with its own precepts, aims, methods and anticipated outcomes."

"During the 1891 census in Punjab 1,344,862 Sikhs declared themselves Hindus. When the decennial census was carried out in Gujarat in 1911 a total of 200,000 people in the province declared themselves Mohammedan Hindus. The community of Mole-Salam Girasia Rajputs had two names for its members, one Hindu and the other Muslim. Bengali Muslims invoked the Creator as ‘Sri Sri Iswar’ instead of the Islamic ‘Allahu Akbar’, and it was not uncommon for them,right into the nineteenth century, to have Hindu names.In Tamilnad when the most celebrated of the local Muslim writers, Umaru Pulavar (born c. 1655), composed a biography of Prophet Muhammad, he based it on a Tamil version of the Ramayana—this was quite similar to the Bengali anthologies on the lives of the prophet and his grandsons, Hasan and Husain, which were framed in terms of Hindu narratives. Many popular Muslim saints and their shrines in south India displayed features—particularly in terms of mythical episodes, religious objects and cultic practices—that were directly acquired from Saivite, Vaishnavite and goddess traditions. And in Punjab when the head of one of the foremost Muslim centres of pilgrimage was installed, those attending and participating in this key ceremonial included Hindus.” All these materials, I believe, are significant historical indicators that should make us rethink any simplistic usage of the categories Muslim, Sikh and Hindu. In the case of the subcontinent, the either/or dichotomy is not to be taken for granted, for the religious life of the people, particularly in the pre-colonial period, was characterized by a continuum. There was much interpenetration and overlapping of communal identities."

"The Meos (Muhammadans) of the eastern Punjab still participate in the observance of the Holi and Diwali festivals. On the latter occasion they paint the horns, hoofs, etc.,of their bullocks and join in the general rejoicings."

"In other parts of the Province, too, traces of Hindu festivals are noticeable among the Muhammadans. In the western Punjab, Baisakhi, the new year's day of the Hindus, is celebrated as an agricultural festival, by all Muhammadans, by racing bullocks yoked to the well gear, with the beat of tom-toms, and large crowds gather to witness the show, The race is called Baisakhi and is a favourite pastime in the well-irrigated tracts. Then the processions of Tazias, in Muharram, with the accompaniment of tom-toms, fencing parties and bands playing on flutes and other musical instruments (which is disapproved by the orthodox Muhammadans) and the establishment of Sabils (shelters where water and sharbat are served out) are clearly influenced by similar practices at Hindu festivals, while the illuminations on occasions like the Chiraghan fair of Shalamar (Lahore) are no doubt practices answering to the holiday-making instinct of the converted Hindus."

"That both were originally of the same race seems sufficiently clear, not only from comparisons to physical characteristics, but from the similarity of their language, manners and customs. The Bengali Musalman is still in many respects a Hindu. Caste distinction, one of the main objects of which would seem to be to prescribe the limits of the jus connubii, are to a certain extent as prevalent and as fully recognised among the Mohammedans of Bengal,as among Hindus. As Buchanan pointed out sixty years ago, they not unfrequently meet at the same shrine, both invoking the same object of worship though perhaps under different names. Instead of commending a letter "In the name of God" (which is the orthodox fashion), the Bengali Musalman will superscribe the name of some Hindu deity. He speaks the same language, and uses precisely the same nomenclature and the same expressions of thought as his Hindu neighbor. Their very names are identical, the prefix of Shaikh alone distinguishing the convert to Islam."

"In a surprising and important way, shamanism more accurately reflects contemporary social reality than does theism."

"It can be argued that the shaman is actually the repressed self of the society, articulating some possibilities latent in a culture, possibilities which the ‘sane’, the ‘mature’ and the ‘rational’ cannot self-consciously express or seriously pursue."

"I don't know why, but memories well up in me about my counter with the Jesuit “Father” Caspar Miller, a white-haired old man from some place like Ohio. He lived for many years in Kathmandu and was practically a fixture at the Jesuit schools between Kathmandu and Patan. He wrote a book about shamanism in Nepal, entitled Faith Healers of the Himalayas, that has been reprinted a number of times. Shamanism, however, has nothing to do with faith. Shamanism is experience. It is only religion that is faith, because it lacks experience. Ever since the publication of this book, the seductive and misleading term “Faith healer” haunts the literature on the subject, Although Cass was a nice man, I asked him: What does a Jesuit have to do with shamanism? In response to my question I received a fantastic answer — he was given the assignment by his superiors to research shamanism with the goal that it could be more successfully penetrated and ultimately undone. The Jesuits go out into the world to spread the "Good News.” They do not do this in as superficial a manner as the Christian extremists, fundamentalists, and fanatics. They proceed more cleverly: first research, then destroy... Since the good father has never been in a trance before, he could not have experienced anything of the shamanic world. He was not allowed to do so. His superiors had forbidden him to get involved with the shamanic reality; he was only supposed to research the surface in order to discover holes for the Catholic Jesuit mission to make use of. When the good father explained that in principle there is no difference between shamanism and Catholicism because both of them battle “evil” I started to feel ill. I politely took leave of the Jesuit—and of the devil as well... Luckily the Jesuits have had a tough time of it with the shamans of Nepal. In the meantime, they have extensively established their missionary activities."

"In the 1930s an anthropologist named Paul Radin first described it as "shamans being half mad," shamans being "healed madmen." This fits exactly. It's the shamans who are moving separate from everyone else, living alone, who talk with the dead, who speak in tongues, who go out with the full moon and turn into a hyena overnight, and that sort of stuff. It's the shamans who have all this metamagical thinking. When you look at traditional human society, they all have shamans. What's very clear, though, is they all have a limit on the number of shamans. That is this classic sort of balanced selection of evolution. There is a need for this subtype — but not too many. The critical thing with schizotypal shamanism is, it is not uncontrolled the way it is in the schizophrenic. This is not somebody babbling in tongues all the time in the middle of the hunt. This is someone babbling during the right ceremony. This is not somebody hearing voices all the time, this is somebody hearing voices only at the right point. It's a milder, more controlled version. Shamans are not evolutionarily unfit. Shamans are not leaving fewer copies of their genes. These are some of the most powerful, honored members of society. This is where the selection is coming from. … In order to have a couple of shamans on hand in your group, you're willing to put up with the occasional third cousin who's schizophrenic."

"The notion of the psychopathology of the shaman works just as readily in understanding the roots of major Western religions as well."

"In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance."

"The religious thinking of Europe is accustomed to rigid impoverishing definitions, to strict exclusions, to a constant preoccupation with the outward idea, the Organization, the form. A precise creed framed by the logical or theological intellect, a strict and definite moral code to fix the conduct, a bundle of observances and ceremonies, a firm ecclesiastical or congregational Organization, that is Western religion. Once the spirit is safely imprisoned and chained up in these things, some emotional fervor and even a certain amount of mystic seeking can be tolerated – within rational limits; but, after all, it is perhaps safest to do without these dangerous spices."

"It is no secret that we in the West live in a time of spiritual crisis. Western civilization has been guided by Christianity. Now it appears that this period is drawing to a close. Both religious institutions and social structures are in disarray. A great many things that were considered basic assumptions of western thought are being challenged. The reality of the external world, the soul, the linear nature of time."

"When one permits those whom one studies to define the terms in which they will be understood, suspends one’s interest in the temporal and contingent, or fails to distinguish between “truths,” “truth-claims,” and “regimes of truth,” one has ceased to function as historian or scholar, In that moment, a variety of roles are available: some perfectly respectable (amanuensis, collector, friend and advo cate), and some less appealing (cheerleader, voyeur, retailer of import goods). None, however should be confused with scholarship."

"The study of religion is guided by what academics call methodological agnosticism. We believe, however, that irrespective of any theological issue scholars can and should take a firm stand for [natural] rights and freedom of religion or belief."

"There's no such thing as being too respectful of other people's traditions."

"As scholars of religions, we do not evaluate theological declarations—we leave these to clergy, theologians, and to some extent religious practitioners—but analyze the empirically detectable effects of these statements in the surrounding contemporary world. We aim to objectively describe, contextually analyze, and analytically provide the most accurate scholarly interpretation of an examined phenomenon."

"Equality and true respect for other faiths are never offered. Interfaith exchanges are a zero-sum game."

"Interfaith dialogue is one of the major venues in which the assertion that everyone is 'the same' is used to obscure important differences... Such public forums will never resolve the complex, age-old incompatibilities of the world's religions (if there were easy solutions, the problems would have been solved long ago), but we can at least demand that their participants, who presumably are serious thinkers, face and address issues head-on and not cover up differences by pretence. There is today an entire movement built on the notion of sameness – fuelled by political correctness, ignorance and, in many cases, sheer dishonesty. We must tease out the real issues that lie beneath the mask of hypocrisy pervading most interfaith dialogues."

"Hence, in interfaith dialogue, each side merely tolerates the other, with subtle changes in interpretation which give each side the ability to claim itself as the final religion."

"When researching a religious group, it’s essential not only to hear from its members and leaders, but also to consider what independent and credible observers have said about it. Balanced external perspectives can help separate truth from bias, offering a more complete understanding."

"Many workers appear to take a delight in blaming others for all ills. Some may put the blame on the political perversities, others on the aggressive activities of the Christians or Muslims and such other faiths. Let our workers keep their minds free from such tendencies and work for our people and our Dharma in the right spirit, lend a helping hand to all our brethren who need help and strive to relieve distress wherever we see it. In this service no distinction should be made between man and man. We have to serve all, be he a Christian or a Muslim or a human being of any other persuasion; for, calamities, distress and misfortunes make no such distinction but afflict all alike. And in serving to relieve the sufferings of man let it not be in a spirit of condescension or mere compassion but as devoted worship of the Lord abiding in the heart of all beings, in the true spirit of our dharma of surrendering our all in the humble service of Him who is Father, Mother, Brother, Friend and Everything to us all. And may our actions succeed in bringing out the Glory and Effulgence of our Sanatana-Eternal - Dharma."

"There is much in Luther that is interesting, perceptive, and true. However, there is also much that does not speak the same language as early Christianity. And herein lies the great divide in the ecumenical dialogue. For the ecumenical dialogue to bear fruit, the very controversies that separate the churches must not be hushed up. Rather they must be brought into the open and discussed frankly, respectfully, and thoroughly."

"Extra ecclesiam nulla salus"

"No one can have God for his Father, who does not have the Church for his mother."