People From India

"Jupiter is the biggest planet in our solar system. That is why it is called as 'Guru Graham' in Sanskrit. It is this planet which is related to the intellect of humans. That is why it is called as Guru."

"This year Christmas and Datta Jayanti have come together. To understand the subtle relation between the two, we have to observe the history of the festival of Christmas. When Lord Christ was born, the writing down of date and other birth details was not so developed as it is now (in those times there were no facilities for such record keeping). But still, upon coming to know that Christ was born, three wise men from the east came to see him. The position of a star helped them to find their way to the birthplace of Christ. The stars we decorate the Christmas tree represent that star which helped the wise men from the east. But these three wise men also did not record the birth date of Christ. Thus nobody exactly knows the exact date of birth of Christ."

"It is of primary importance to attune with God through prayer, worship and the chanting of God's holy names … Then God Himself will give you good guidance."

"శరీరానికి భోజనం ఎంత ముఖ్యమో ఆత్మకి భజన అంతే ముఖ్యం"

"Some ill-designing people had turned his brain, and carried him to the eastern part of the Mughal Empire, which would be the cause of much trouble and ruin to our authority."

"Charismatic communications from Bhagwan or his designated surrogate, Sheela, were grandiose and served as motivation, direction, and inspiration for the group. Bhagwan's and Sheela's rhetorics posed problems for the movement in their very expansiveness and arrogance toward other groups and institutions. While the attacks on other cultures attracted followers dissatisfied with governments and institutions, they also alarmed and alienated more conventional audiences."

"Rajneesh had taken a vow of public silence before his arrival in America. He now spoke to his followers only through his inner circle, chiefly Ma Anand Sheela, who met with him every day."

"All evidence suggested that Sheela and her small circle were responsible for these dangerous activities, but whether or not Rajneesh knew remains in dispute. However, for the past twenty years, Sheela has sworn that Rajneesh directed every criminal and violent move."

"Once the Rajneeshees moved beyond Rancho Rajneesh and began to publicly challenge the status quo's discursive formation, their radical vision direcly threatened the existing order. Ma Anand Sheela's polarizing rhetoric took the values and definitions of the establishment and subverted them, gaining a public voice for the Rajneesh cause."

"Tough titties."

"In order for the Moral Majority and the mobs to understand Rajneesh, they will have to leave their mob mentality and their morality and become amoral. Right now they are living in the 16th century; it is about time that they grow up and move with the science. And become sophisticated as Rajneesh are."

"By the year 2000, Oregon will be collapsed and the city of Rajneesh Puram will be existing."

"You tell your Governor, your attorney general and all the bigoted pigs outside that if one person on Rancho Rajneesh is harmed I will have 15 of their heads, and I mean it. You have given me no choice. Even though I am a non violent person I will do that."

"Rajneesh is a great leader and a good man who was never really understood in his own country. In India he was a philosophy professor whose real name was Mohan Chandra. Rajneesh was a nickname he acquired in his childhood. He began lecturing in 1957 at colleges and universities. In 1971, he changed his name to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh."

"How can the government stop anyone from protesting? The land is not their 'father's property'. The citizens are the masters of this country and the ministers are their servants."

"True patriotism is not just about waving the flag. It is about giving back to the country and standing up for what is right."

"Every drop of my blood will contribute to the growth of this nation. I will keep fighting till my last breath."

"This is not the time to sit back and relax. It's time to wake up and save the country."

"My fight is for the people. I will not allow my country to be looted anymore."

"If we want to rid the country of corruption, we have to take the initiative. We can’t keep waiting for someone else to do it."

"Salutations unto the Feet of Supreme Fathers, Almighty Lords Sawan and Kirpal, Who have had mercy on the poor souls. They showered Their grace upon the souls and gave them the gift of Their devotion..."

"Of course, if you find someone who has meditated like my Master made me meditate, very happily you can take advantage of him. I am ready to help you in that case. Do not follow the false one; do not waste your life."

"Satsangis should never understand themselves as alone, and they should never feel that they are helpless and alone, because they are never alone; they are never helpless. The gracious hand of the perfect Master is on their head."

"Our Satguru, Maharaj Kirpal Singh Ji, came into this world with the message of love, and He taught us to love. And even now we should work according to His message and teachings."

"World-peace can be achieved when the power of love replaces the love of power."

"The difficulty is that we try to perfect others before we perfect ourselves."

"A single thought has the power of a bullet: either it can destroy you or it can help you immensely."

"Hope knows no fear. Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss. Hope secretly feeds and strengthens promise."

"Those who run after happiness will never be happy. Happiness is something that has to come to the fore from within."

"To be true to oneself is the hardest test of life."

"To be rich is to give a smile with no expectation of return."

"The human mind is utterly stupid when it carries, quite willingly, the heavy burden of resentment."

"Instead of creating a reason why you cannot love the world, try to create a reason why you should and must love the world."

"It is better to make mistakes than to lie idle."

"Love is something that never cared to learn how to judge anybody."

"Santana … was already looking for some spiritual guidance. He had been fasting and praying, and, inspired by the example of John Coltrane, he had started to read about Eastern mysticism and philosophy. Then, when he met guitarist John McLaughlin, McLaughlin had a photo of Sri Chinmoy, and the guru seemed to have an enormous peace about him. The thing that really got Carlos was one of Chinmoy's statements: "When the power of love replaces the love of power." That made plenty of sense to him. Chinmoy gave him the name Devadip, which means "the eye, the lamp of the light of God." Deborah, who had joined with him, became Urmila. They signed up to a stern regimen. "Cut your hair, no drugs, total vegetarian," he summarizes. "It was like a West Point approach to spirituality. Five o'clock in the morning mediating, every day." Long-distance running was an enthusiasm of Chinmoy's, and Deborah ran marathons. She also ran a devotional vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. "We used to do ridiculous things," she says. "There was always this competition in how much we could do to prove our devotion – who could sleep the least and still function, because you were working so hard, how many miles could you run. I once ran a forty-seven-mile race. It wasn't enough just to run a marathon." Carlos avoided most of the roadwork: "I was, 'This shit is not for me – I don't care how enlightening it is.'" Instead, he would play Chinmoy's songs at meditations and performances that, to his increasing frustration, were often announced as though they were Santana performances. The few interviews Carlos gave in those years are crammed with reverence toward Chinmoy. "Guru has graduated from the many Harvards of consciousness and sits at the seat of God. I'm still in kindergarten," said Carlos. Likewise: "Without a guru I serve only my own vanity, but with him I can be of service to you and everybody. I am the strings, but he is the musician." Eventually, says Carlos, "everything about him turned into vinegar – what used to be honey turned into vinegar." One turning point was when he heard Chinmoy pontificate meanly about Billie Jean King because she'd talked of a lesbian relationship. "And a part of me was, 'What the fuck is all this – this guy's supposed to be spiritual after all these years; mind your own spiritual business and leave her alone.'" Carlos emphasizes that he took much that was good from these years with Chinmoy – "It was a good learning experience about spirituality" – but the end was awkward. "He was pretty vindictive for a while," Santana says. "He told all my friends not to call me ever again, because I was to drown in the dark sea of ignorance for leaving him.""

"For Chinmoy, a particular person's religion was immaterial. "You call it Christianity, I call it Hinduism, somebody calls it Judaism and somebody else calls it Islam," he would say. "But there is only one religion . . . there are many branches of the religion-tree, but there is only one religion, and that religion is God-realisation." The path lay through harmony and enlightenment, to reach what he called "the ever-transcending beyond". Progress towards that goal could never end, "for God himself is inside each of us and God at every moment is transcending his own reality"."

"Chinmoy's athleticism underlined a deeper point: that physical activity played a vital part in the search for enlightenment. "His life was all about challenging yourself and being the best you can be," Carl Lewis said."

"Popular mythology tends to imagine a guru – in the word's original and proper Hindu sense of spiritual adviser or teacher – as a placid and mostly sedentary figure. Not so Sri Chinmoy, who wove vigorous exercise into a meditational system that preached peace and inner harmony and gained him thousands of disciples worldwide, as well as admirers ranging from the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to the Olympic champion Carl Lewis and the soul and jazz singer Roberta Flack. … Some derided his activities as gimmickry. Others claimed he ran a sinister cult. More fundamentally, his success reflected a paradox of the modern age, where official religion has manifestly failed to provide answers to the world's problems, leading man's unquenched spiritual thirst to seek less conventional outlets."

"When it came to finding pathways to spiritual enlightenment, the guru Sri Chinmoy had few equals. Chinmoy, who has died aged 76, spread his message of world peace through a mixture of meditative art, performance and extreme sport. … Chinmoy's teachings were a mixture of Hindu meditation, Vedantic yoga and Vaishnavism, which stresses belief in "the Supreme" the one transcendent force in the universe. He was unusual in giving equal importance to extreme physical activity, first long-distance running, and later heavy lifting, as a means of opening oneself to spiritual enlightenment. He also possessed a remarkable ability to win over doubters, particularly people of prominence, who inevitably succumbed to his message of peace. It gave him a Zelig-like ability to attach their celebrity to his work, particularly when he was lifting them off the ground. During the past 20 years, he elevated everyone from Nelson Mandela to Muhammad Ali, figures as light as Yoko Ono or as heavy as sumo wrestlers, and, perhaps most amazingly, two New York congressman from opposing parties."

"He was very pure in mind and heart. He was a lover: a lover not only of his race but a lover of all mankind. His heart was so broad, so great, so magnanimous, and this gave him a most sincere feeling of absolute oneness with everyone. This is what made him so divinely great."

"America’s special strength lies not in frightening the weak and challenging the strong, but in strengthening the weak and illumining the strong."

"Do not judge but love and be loved, if you want to be really happy."

"No price is too great to pay for inner peace."

"Alas, why does my mind have to walk through the dust of the past every day?"

"Be kind, be all sympathy, for each and every human being is forced to fight against himself."

"To deliberately criticise another individual may cause an indelible stain on the critic."

"I do not give up, I never give up, for there is nothing in this entire world that is irrevocably unchangeable."

"The waves of hatred-night can easily be dissolved in the sea of oneness-love."

"The world's oldest wisdom: each evil thought infuses the mind, sooner or later, with an unholy fear."