Saints

"Nowhere in the Gospel do we read that the Lord said: "I am sending you a Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon." For He wanted to make Christians, not mathematicians."

"Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. Et si tuam naturam mutabilem inveneris, trascende et teipsum."

"Augustine, Augustine, quid quaeris? Putasne brevi immettere vasculo mare totum?"

"I have come to save the devotees. I was sent here because the world was seen in misery."

"The whole background of Kabir’s thought is Hindu."

"Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck, and the Sufi poet Jalalu'ddin Rumi are perhaps the chief who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God. These have resolved the perpetual opposition between the personal and impersonal, the transcendent and immanent, static and dynamic aspects of the Divine Nature; between the Absolute of philosophy and the "sure true Friend" of devotional religion. They have done this, not by taking these apparently incompatible concepts one after the other; but by ascending to a height of spiritual intuition at which they are, as Ruysbroeck said, "melted and merged in the Unity," and perceived as the completing opposites of a perfect Whole."

"The contrast of Kabir’s intimate Hindu thought, writings and ritual with the purely superficial knowledge of Moslem belief revealed in the Bijak is too striking to be ignored."

"The basis of Kabir’s belief was not, as has been commonly supposed, Vaisnava bhakti or Sufism but tantric yoga. Kabir’s name is certainly a Muslim one, but it has always been clear that his knowledge of Islam was relatively slight. In contrast to this there is a wealth of hatha-yoga terminology and a thought-structure with obvious resemblances to that of the Naths. In the light of this contrast the theory that Kabir belonged to a caste which had recently been converted from tantric yoga to Islam is at once convincing."

"While there is evidence that both Hindus and Muslims were ready to assault Kabir physically during his lifetime, they have since his death been ready to assault each other over the privilege of claiming him as their own. … Some modern commentators have tried to present Kabir as a synthesizer of Hinduism and Islam; but the picture is a false one. While drawing on various traditions as he saw fit, Kabir emphatically declared his independence from both the major religions of his countrymen, vigorously attacked the follies of both, and tried to kindle the fire of similar autonomy and courage in those who claimed to be his disciples."

"It is often said that the 15th-century poet Kabir was neither a Hindu nor a Muslim because he criticized and mocked both Hinduism and Islam, or rather, both Hindus and Muslims... Thus, Kabir’s rejection of Islamic animal sacrifice... does pit him against Islam as such. But Hinduism has far more fluid boundaries: most things Hindu have been rejected at one time or other by authoritative thinkers whose inclusion in the Hindu category is not in doubt... Kabir’s relative originality lies in his combination of devotion with the conception of the object of devotion as faceless (nirguna, “without quality”) rather than iconographically distinct, but that doesn’t place him outside the Hindu continuum... Scholars who place Kabir (or Sikhism founder Guru Nanak) as much outside Hinduism as outside Islam, may be suspected of projecting non-Hindu, mainly Christian categories of box-type religious divisions onto a civilization in which they don’t apply."

"I have it on good authority that Kabir's thought is Hindu through and through. The fable that Kabir brought a synthesis between Islam and Hinduism, does not survive a comparison between his works and the Quran. That Kabir was a simple weaver who produced lofty poetry just like that, is another fable for children of socialists : Kabir was well-read and knew his classics. There are hardly any Muslims in the Kabirpanth, and it is only the Hindus who venerate him. The simplest proof that his contribution to Indian culture was un-Islamic, is that he was persecuted for his Kafir ideas by the Muslim ruler Sikandar Lodi."

"Poets like Jayasi, Rahim, and Raskhan are rare phenomena. So are saints like Kabir, Nanak and Gharib Das. They attempted a synthesis of the two cultural streams in the field of literature in their own way. But their endeavours were severly limited and short-lived. They failed to be popular amongst and influence the Muslims."

"I am looking at you, You at him, Kabir asks, how to solve This puzzle — You, he, and I?"

"A drop Melting into the sea, Everyone can see. But the sea Absorped In a drop — A rare one can follow!"

"I am not a Hindu, Nor a Muslim am I! I am this body, a play Of five elements; a drama Of the spirit dancing With joy and sorrow."

"When the bride is one with her lover, who cares about the wedding party?"

"I do not quote from the scriptures; I simply see what I see."

"He comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the Lord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains to Him. Kabîr says: "It cannot be told by the words of the mouth, it cannot be written on paper: It is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing — how shall it be explained?""

"They call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all truths are stored! There within Him creation goes forward, which is beyond all philosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him: There is an endless world, O my Brother! and there is the Nameless Being, of whom naught can be said. Only he knows it who has reached that region: it is other than all that is heard and said. No form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how can I tell you that which it is?"

"On the harp of the road what true melodies are being sounded! and its notes pierce the heart: There the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of birth and death."

"There the Unstruck Music eddies around the Infinite One; There in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon the great Being sits — Millions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of His body."

"He is the Ultimate Rest unbounded: He has spread His form of love throughout all the world. From that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are perpetually springing: and He pervades those forms."

"When you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart; He will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you will know indeed that He transcends this universe."

"Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world! consider it well, and know that this is your own country."

"Do not go to the garden of flowers! O Friend! go not there; In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty."

"O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death? It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body: If He is found now, He is found then, If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death. If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter."

"Hindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no mark of distinction."

"It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs; For the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the thirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God. It is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be; The barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter — Even Raidas was a seeker after God."

"Kabîr says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.""

"O servant, where dost thou seek Me? Lo! I am beside thee. I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash: Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation. If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time."

"When you were born, you cried while others laughed. Perform such deeds that when dying, you laugh while others cry.”"

"A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up."

"Don't open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way."

"Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false."

"I've burned my own house down, the torch is in my hand. Now I'll burn down the house of anyone who wants to follow me."

"The poorest ploughman is in Christ equal with the greatest prince that is. Let them therefore have sufficient to maintain them…"

"My father was delighted to teach me to shoot with the bow. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body to the bow; not to draw with strength of arm as other nations do, but with the strength of the body."

"Saviour! teach me, day by day, Love's sweet lesson to obey; Sweeter lesson cannot be, Loving Him who first loved me. Charity is the very livery of Christ."

"Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."

"And now I would ask a strange question: who is the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all others; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plough; no lording nor loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery. He is ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plough; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory...O that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel."

"The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling."

"I strongly recommend that all read the autobiography of St. Theresa. In spite of the fact that this work went through the "spiritual" censorship of the Church, some amazing pages have been preserved. By propagating the dogma of Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, the Church contradicts the very sense of the prayer given to us by Jesus Christ himself, "Our Father which art in heaven." And also the words of the Scriptures, "So God created man in his own image." (Genesis 1:27) Thus, by claiming the exclusiveness of sonship and divine origin for Jesus Christ, the Church, by that very claim, forever divorced him from mankind. From this came a whole train of grave events; the exclusion of Jesus Christ from the life of humanity, the obliteration of his human Sacrifice and the awful suggestion implying that the death of Christ on the Cross saved humanity from "original" sin (?!) and from all subsequent sins."

"Christ has no body [...] but yours. [...] Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. [...] Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world."

"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."

"Souls are not Spaniards too; one friendly flood Of baptism blends them all into a blood. Christ's faith makes but one body of all souls, And love's that body's soul; no law controls Our free traffic for heav'n; we may maintain Peace, sure, with piety, though it come from Spain. What soul soe'er, in any language, can Speak heav'n like hers is my soul's countryman. Oh, 'tis not Spanish, but 'tis heav'n she speaks! 'Tis heaven that lies in ambush there, and breaks From thence into the wond'ring reader's breast, Who feels his warm heart hatched into a nest Of little eagles and young loves, whose high Flights scorn the lazy dust and things that die."

"The image of St. Theresa, the Spaniard, is not less than that of St Francis of Assisi. Let us also recall the ancient times when, in spite of the fact that masculine egoism always attempted to suppress the achievements of women, there were always some illumined minds that did not submit to this shameful weakness."

"You ask whether it is possible to understand the indication regarding the appearance of Christ in lesser images and in reality. Certainly. Medievalism made an inaccessible idol of Christ and deprived him of any humanity, therefore also of divinity. Thus, all the Teachings of the East proclaim that there is no god (or gods) who was not at one time a man. Such a forced separation of Christ from human essence threatened and still threatens a complete break in the communion of humanity with the Higher World. One can trace how in the Middle Ages there appeared every now and then great saints who tried to re-establish this almost lost communion, and all of them insisted precisely on the human essence of Christ. Especially strong affirmations of this can be found in the pages of the autobiography of St. Theresa, the Spanish saint of the sixteenth century, and still earlier, in the visions and writings of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Gertrude. Thus, the form and the quality of the visions and communications received through such communion always correspond with the level of the consciousness of those who see and receive them, and also with the needs of the time. As it was said, "In is precisely by following the character of the visions that the best history of the intellect may be written.""

"Dear brothers and sisters, St Teresa of Jesus is a true teacher of Christian life for the faithful of every time. In our society, which all too often lacks spiritual values, St Teresa teaches us to be unflagging witnesses of God, of his presence and of his action. She teaches us truly to feel this thirst for God that exists in the depths of our hearts, this desire to see God, to seek God, to be in conversation with him and to be his friends. This is the friendship we all need that we must seek anew, day after day. May the example of this Saint, profoundly contemplative and effectively active, spur us too every day to dedicate the right time to prayer, to this openness to God, to this journey, in order to seek God, to see him, to discover his friendship and so to find true life; indeed many of us should truly say: “I am not alive, I am not truly alive because I do not live the essence of my life”. Therefore time devoted to prayer is not time wasted, it is time in which the path of life unfolds, the path unfolds to learning from God an ardent love for him, for his Church, and practical charity for our brothers and sisters."

"Be gentle to all and stern with yourself."

"Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul."