Best Hinduism Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“धर्म खतरे में नहीं है”

“Widespread criticisms of jihad in Islam and the so-called sword verses in the Quran have unearthed for fair-minded Christians difficult questions about Christianity's own traditions of holy war and 'texts of terror.' Like Hinduism's Mahabharata epic, the Bible devotes entire books to war and rumors thereof. Unlike the Quran, however, it contains hardly any rules for how to conduct a just war.”

“To the Hindu mind there was no real gap between animals and men; animals as well as men had souls, and souls were perpetually passing from men into animals, and back again; all these species were woven into one infinite web of Karma and reincarnation. The elephant, for example, became the god Ganesha, and was recognized as Shiva’s son; he personified man’s animal nature, and at the same time his image served as a charm against evil fortune. Monkeys and snakes were terrible, and therefore divine. The cobra or naga, whose bite causes almost immediate death, received especial veneration; annually the people of many parts of India celebrated a religious feast in honor of snakes, and made offerings of milk and plantains to the cobras at the entrance to their holes. Temples have been erected in honor of snakes, as in eastern Mysore; great numbers of reptiles take up their residence in these buildings, and are fed and cared for by the priests.”

“But we should not cling! A plague upon fundamentalists and literalists! I am reminded of a story of Lord Krishna when he was a cowherd. Every night he invites the milkmaids to dance with him in the forest. They come and they dance. The night is dark, the fire in their midst roars and crackles, the beat of the music gets ever faster - the girls dance and dance and dance with their sweet lord, who has made himself so abundant as to be in the arms of each and every girl. But the moment the girls become possessive, the moment each one imagines that Krishna is her partner alone, he vanishes. So it is that we should not be jealous with God.”

“If god is the root cause for our degradation destroy that god. If it is religion destroy it. If it is Manu Darma, Gita, or any other Mythology (Purana), burn them to ashes. If it is temple, tank, or festival, boycott them. Finally if it is our politics, come forward to declare it openly.”

“In the Hindu religion, one can[not] have freedom of speech. A Hindu must surrender his freedom of speech. He must act according to the Vedas. If the Vedas do not support the actions, instructions must be sought from the Smritis, and if the Smritis fail to provide any such instructions, he must follow in the footsteps of the great men.”

“The Hindus criticise the Mahomedans for having spread their religion by the use of the sword. They also ridicule Christianity on the score of the Inquisition.”

“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.”

“In the tenth century BC, the priests of India devised the Brahmodya competition, which would become a model of authentic theological discourse. The object was to find a verbal formula to define the Brahman, the ultimate and inexpressible reality beyond human understanding. The idea was to push language as far as it would go, until participants became aware of the ineffable. The challenger, drawing on his immense erudition, began the process by asking an enigmatic question and his opponents had to reply in a way that was apt but equally inscrutable. The winner was the contestant who reduced the others to silence. In that moment of silence, the Brahman was present - not in the ingenious verbal declarations but in the stunning realisation of the impotence of speech. Nearly all religious traditions have devised their own versions of this exercise. It was not a frustrating experience; the finale can, perhaps, be compared to the moment at the end of the symphony, when there is a full and pregnant beat of silence in the concert hall before the applause begins. The aim of good theology is to help the audience to live for a while in that silence.”

“Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew.”

“If you can go to a movie and see a picture of war and suffering, and afterward say, “What a wonderful picture!” so may you take this life as a cosmic picture-show. Be prepared for every kind of experience that may come to you, realizing that all are but dreams. Each human life constitutes a drama; and the events of each day represent a drama. You are living a fresh one each of the year’s 365 days. The thought that you are merely a player in these dramas is very comforting. Realize that the acting out of whatever part you are called upon to play does not affect your real being. At the end of every earthly incarnation you are the same—the immortal soul—untouched by sickness, sorrow, or death. “He who cannot be ruffled by these (contacts of the senses with their objects), who is calm and evenminded during pain and pleasure, he alone is fit to attain everlastingness!” (Bhagavad Gita II:15.)”

“Building of character is the only true practice of Yoga, and it is the only way we can really help humanity. Christ helped the world by His character. It is not that He turned this earth into a heaven. That is not possible. There was just as much evil in the world after He came as before, but by His example He is helping each individual soul to over- come its limitations and to strive toward perfection.”

“The darkness you see when you close your eyes is Kali.”

“A voice called to me, but I didn’t know what it was—my rational mind would want to call it a thirst for truth and knowledge but the writer in me tells me romantically it was fate.”

“It is not my desire to impose upon you the shackles of traditional folk beliefs or convictions; instead, I extend to you a heartfelt invitation into a sacred realm where the extraordinary intricately interlaces itself with the fabric of the ordinary.”

“Let the mystical dance of the daivas intertwine with the vibrant hues of our mortal existence, illuminating our paths with revelations about Tulu Nadu’s spirit deities or as they say in Tulu—Satyolu.”

“God wants nothing from us. In that sense, then, He is completely impersonal. At the same time, however, He is very intimately personal where we ourselves are concerned, for He wants for each of us, His creatures, the perfection of absolute Bliss. Sanaatan Dharma offers a blend, one which, to reason itself, is perfectly acceptable, between God as both impersonal and personal. God, as Krishna explains in the Bhagavad Gita, and as I said earlier, dreamed everything into existence. He couldn’t mold anything, outwardly, for there was nothing “out there” to mold nothing in existence anywhere but His own consciousness.”

“In the Bhagavad-gītā (10.8) Kṛṣṇa says, ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate: "I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me." Unless we accept this statement from God, there is no conclusive explanation to the origin of material nature. God cannot be understood without accepting the existence of mystic power, but if you understand God scientifically, then you will understand everything.”

“The religious wars between the Hindus and Moslems and Christians and non-Christians were all conducted on the basis of ignorance. One who is in knowledge knows that God is one; He cannot be Moslem, Hindu or Christian.”

“You are not limited to this body, to this mind, or to this reality—you are a limitless ocean of Consciousness, imbued with infinite potential. You are existence itself.”

“If the radiance of a thousand suns”

“Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.'”

“Coming from a Hindu family, I struggled immensely with the institutionalized aspects of the faith; staring at the idols often made me feel a sense of intense discomfort.”

“My own studies of the Vedas suggest the Vedic society was indeed far ahead of its time, contributing profoundly to cosmology, philosophy, medicine, and mathematics.”

“Whatever thought grips the mind at the time of death is the one which will propel it and decide for it the nature of its future birth. Thus if one wants to attain god after death, one has to think of him steadfastly... This is not as simple as it sounds, for at the time of death the mind automatically flies to the thought of an object (i.e. money, love) which has possessed it during its sojourn in the world. Thus one must think of god constantly.”

“You speak of doing good to the world. Is the world such a small thing? And who are you, pray, to do good to the world? First realise God, see Him by means of spiritual discipline. If He imparts power you can do good to others; otherwise not.”

“What Brahman is cannot be described. All things in the world — the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras, the six systems of philosophy — have been defiled, like food that has been touched by the tongue, for they have been read or uttered by the tongue. Only one thing has not been defiled in this way, and that is Brahman. No one has ever been able to say what Brahman is.”

“The Buddhists or the Jains do not depend upon God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion, to evolve a God out of man. They have not seen the Father, but they have seen the Son. And he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father also.”

“You must worship the Self in Krishna, not Krishna as Krishna.”

“You are not limited to this body, to this mind, or to this reality—you are a limitless ocean of Consciousness, imbued with infinite potential. You are existence itself.”

“You dream of a new world to come, a new world to be birthed, a new dream to be dreamt. In the dream, a flower grows, a lotus from which the creator and the creation will unfold. From which light will begin to shine upon this vast dark sea, unveiling all the magic sleeping within. From this flower, infinite worlds and universes will be born. Each will contain a seed of light. And these seeds will light the heavens for all to guide their journeys by.”

“if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like”

“You're hungry, you see food, and you get excited. You never question where did the hunger come from. You didn't sign up for this endless cycle of hunger and food, problem and solution, question and answer. You're the eternity.”

“The river and its waves are one surf: where is the difference between the river and its waves?”

“Brahman is the ultimate reality; it is simultaneously Saguna and Nirguna; divisions are due to ignorance. Mind and intellect can never catch hold of it; they have only one option and that is to merge with it.”

“Hence this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear: Tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as 'I am in the east and in the west, I am below and above, I am this whole world'.”

“In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.”