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A Tribute to Hinduism | |
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A Tribute to Hinduism | |
Quotes: 1-20 21-40 41-60 61-80 81-100 Thoughts:
Quotes
on Hinduism
21. Swami Vivekananda:(1863-1902) was the foremost disciple of
Ramakrishna and a world spokesperson for Vedanta.
India's first spiritual and cultural ambassador to the West, came to represent the
religions of India at the World Parliament of Religions, held at Chicago in connection
with the World's Fair (Columbian Exposition) of 1893.
"From the high
spiritual flights of the Vedanta philosophy, of which the latest discoveries of science
seem like echoes, to the low ideas of idolatry with its multifarious mythology, the
agnosticism of the Buddhists and the atheism of the Jains, each and all have a place in
the Hindu's religion. 49.
God is the ever-active providence, by whose power systems after systems are being evolved out of chaos, made to run for a time, and again destroyed. This is what the Brahmin boy repeats every day:
"The sun and the moon, the Lord created like the suns and the moons of previous cycles." 50.
And this agrees with modern science.
Vivekananda said: "The Vedas teach that the soul is divine, only held in the bondage of matter; perfection will be reached when this bond will burst, and the word they use for it is, therefore, Mukti - freedom, freedom from the bonds of imperfection, freedom from death and misery." 51.
The Lord has declared to the Hindu in His incarnation as Krishna:
"I am in every religion as the thread through a string of pearls. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there." 52
22. Adi
Shakaracharya: (788-820), Indian philosopher and
religious thinker who developed Advaita Vedanta, a system of philosophical thought within
Hinduism. 
The great genius of Adi-Shankaracharya
led him to establish in the four corners of India,
four principal seats of learning for propagating his teaching ; at a time when he had
revived the understanding of the people and established the true and eternal fundamentals
of Vedic wisdom.
This is what he thought of the Gita:
" From a clear knowledge of the Bhagavad-Gita all the goals of human existence become
fulfilled. Bhagavad-Gita is the manifest quintessence of all the teachings of the Vedic
scriptures." 53
23. Sri Aurobindo:
(1872-1950) most original philosopher of modern India.
Education in England gave him a wide introduction to the culture of ancient, or mediaeval
and of modern Europe.
He was a brilliant scholar in Greek and Latin. He had learned French from his
childhood in Manchester and studied for himself German and Italian sufficiently to study
Goethe and Dante in the original tongues. (He passed the Tripos in Cambridge in the first
class and obtained record marks in Greek and Latin in the examination for the Indian Civil
Service.) This is what Aurobindo
said in his book, " India's Rebirth" (ISBN
2-902776-32-2) pg 139-140
" Hinduism.....gave itself no name, because it
set itself no sectarian limits; it claimed no universal adhesion, asserted no sole
infallible dogma, set up no single narrow path or gate of salvation; it was less a creed
or cult than a continuously enlarging tradition of the Godward endeavor of the human
spirit. An immense many-sided and many staged provision for a spiritual self-building and
self-finding, it had some right to speak of itself by the only name it knew, the eternal
religion, Santana Dharma...." 54
" The people of India, even the "ignorant masses" are by centuries of
training are nearer to the inner realities, than even the cultured elite anywhere
else" 55.
24. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, (1888-1975) was a prominent Indian philosopher, author and educationalist. Radhakrishnan was also a professor of Eastern Religions at Oxford and later President of India:
"Hinduism is not just a faith. It
is the union of reason and intuition that cannot be defined but is only to be experienced.
Evil and error are not ultimate. There is no Hell, for that means there is a place where
God is not, and there are sins which exceed his love. "56
25. J.
Robert
Oppenheimer, (1904-1967) Scientist,
philosopher, bohemian, and radical. A theoretical physicist and the Supervising
Scientist Manhattan Project, the developer of the atomic bomb said:
"Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege
this century may claim over all previous centuries."57.
Oppenheimer
described the thoughts that passed through his mind when he witnessed the first
atomic test explosion.
"Of a thousand suns in
the sky if suddenly should burst forth the light, it would be like unto the light of that
Exalted One. (Bhagvad Gita XI,12)
" Death am I, cause of destruction of the worlds, matured and set out to gather in
the worlds there" (Bhagvad Gita XI 32) 58
26. Colonel James Todd:
"Where can we look for sages like
those whose systems of philosophy were prototypes of those of Greece: to whose works
Plato, Thales & Pythagorus were disciples? Where do I find astronomers whose knowledge
of planetary systems yet excites wonder in Europe as well as the architects and sculptors
whose works claim our admiration, and the musicians who could make the mind oscillate from
joy to sorrow, from tears to smile with the change of modes and varied intonation?"
59.
27. Sylvain Levi, French scholar said :
" From Persia to the Chinese Sea, 'from the icy
regions of Siberia to the islands of Java and Borneo, from Oceania to Socotra,
India has propagated her beliefs, her tales and her civilization"
"She has left indelible imprints on one fourth
of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to
reclaim in universal history the rank that ignorance has refused her for a long
time and to hold her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of
humanity." 60
28. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1887--1961) German philosopher, wrote in his "lectures on the Philosophy of History." Hegel belongs to the period of "German idealism" in the decades following Kant.
"India is the land of dreams. India had always dreamt -
more of the Bliss that is man's final goal. And this has helped India to be more creative
in history than any other nation. Hence the efforescence of myths and legends, religious
and philosophies, music, and dances and the different styles of architecture."
61
29. Fritjof Capra, (1939- ) the famous theoretical high-energy physicist, author of The Tao of Physics, The Turning Point and, more recently, The Web of Life. He is co-director of the Center for Eco-Literacy in Berkeley. Capra who studied with Werner Heisenberg says:
"I saw cascades of energy coming down from outer space, in
which particles were destroyed and created in rhythmic pulses; I saw the atoms of the
elements and those of my body participating in this cosmic dance of energy; I felt its
rhythm and I heard its sound, and at that moment I knew that this was the Dance of Shiv, the Lord of Dancers." 62
"The metaphor of the cosmic dancer has found
its most profound and beautiful expression in Hinduism in the image of the dancing
Shiva." 63
30. Alain Daneliou, (1907-1994) French author of numerous books on philosophy, religion,
history and arts of India. He settled in India for fifteen years in the study of Sanskrit.
He said:
"Hinduism
especially in its oldest, Shivaite form, never destroyed its past. It is the sum of human
experience from the earliest times. Nondogmatic, it allows every one to find his own
way." 64..
Ultimate reality being beyond man's understanding, the most contradictory theories or
beliefs may be equally inadequate approaches to reality. Ecological (as we would say
today), it sees man as part of a whole, where trees, animals, men and spirits should live
in harmony and mutual respect,and it asks everyone to cooperate and not endanger the
artwork of the creator.
It therefore opposes the destruction of nature, of species, the bastardization of
races, the tendency of each one to do what he was not born for. It leaves every one free
to find his own way of realization human and spiritual be it ascetic or erotic or both. It
does not separate intellect and body, mind and matter, but sees the Universe as a living
continuum. "
I believe any
sensible man is unknowingly a Hindu and that the only hope for man lies in the abolition
of the erratic, dogmatic, unphilosophical creeds people today call religions."
65
31. Erwin Schroedinger,(1887--1961) Austrian theoretical physicist, a Nobel
prize-winner, on quantum mechanics, wished to see:
"Some blood transfusion from the East to the West"
to save Western science from spiritual anemia." 66.
Schroedinger explicitly affirmed his conviction that Vedantic
jnana represented the only true view of
reality- a view for which he was prepared even to offer Empirical proof.
32. Nicola Tesla, (1856-1943) the Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer,
and scientist, used ancient Sanskrit terminology in his descriptions of natural phenomena.
As early as 1891 Tesla described the universe as akinetic system filled
with energy which could be harnessed at any location. His concepts during the following
years were greatly influenced by the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda was
the first of a succession of eastern yogi's who brought Vedic philosophy and religion to
the west. After meeting the Swami and after continued study of the Eastern view of
the mechanisms driving the material world, Tesla began using the Sanskrit words Akasha, Prana, and the concept of a luminiferous ether to describe the source, existence
and construction of matter. 67.
33. Alistair Shearer affirms:
"The Hindu understanding of the universe has often been misunderstood as bizzare and
primitive.
The Hindu imagery is in fact a sophisticated iconography conveying universal religious
truths only now beginning to be understood in the West." 68
34. Dr.
Carl Sagan, (1934-1996)
astro-physicist, in his book "Cosmos"says:
"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great
faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an
infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of
modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of
Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about
half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still."
69.
There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but the
dream of the god who, after a Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep. The
universe dissolves with him - until, after another Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes
himself and begins again to dream the great cosmic dream.
Carl
Sagan further says: " The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the
creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the
cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In
the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left
hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions
of years from now will be utterly destroyed." 70.
These profound and lovely images are, I like to imagine, a kind of
premonition of modern astronomical ideas."71
35. Rabindranath
Tagore,(1861-1941) poet, author, philosopher, Nobel
prize laureate. He described the Vedic hymns as:
"A poetic testament of a people's
collective reaction to the wonder and awe of existence."
72
In religion his inspiration was derived from the Vedas and the
Upanishads. Tagore
pointed out that Indian civilization was a "forest civilization".
The essential continuity of the culture was developed and preserved by families living in
small communities close to nature. " The ancient Indians distrusted the pace and pomp of
urbandom; they distrusted it strongly enough to resist central authority and confromism.
He further predicted that: "India is destined to be the teacher of all lands."
73.
36. T. S. Eliot, (1888-1965) American-English Harvard
educated poet, playwright, and literary critic, a leader of the modernist movement in
literature. Eliot
was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. He drew his
intellectual sustenance from the Bhagavad Gita. Over and over again, whether in The
Wasteland, Four Quarters, Ash Wednesday 
or Murder in the Cathedral, the influence
of Indian philosophy and mysticism on him is clearly noticeable.
In his poem 'The Dry Salvages',
Eliot reflects on Lord Krishna's
meaning:
I sometimes
wonder if that is what Krishna meant-
Among other things - or one way of putting the same thing:
That the future is a faded song, a Royal Rose or a lavender spray
Of wistful regret for those who are not yet here to regret, 74.
He refers to the Gita's central doctrine of nishkama karma, 'selfless
endeavor' .
37. John
Dobson, scientist and a teacher. His theories in
physics and cosmology boldly break new ground and significantly challenge the scientific
orthodoxy. He was featured in the PBS television series "The Astronomers".
John
Dobson is perhaps best known for his work in the design and construction of telescopes,
however, as most telescopes made today use what is known as a "Dobsonian" mount.
He discusses the apparitional nature of the universe and why we are fooled into viewing it
in a Newtonian-mechanistic way.
"Can we, by now, square
science with religion? In particular, can we square relativity and quantum mechanics with
Swami Vivekananda's Advaita Vedanta? Since there cannot
be two worlds -- one for the scientists and one for the mystics -- it must be that their
descriptions are of the same world but from different points of view. Can we, from the
vantage point of the Swami's Advaita (non-dualism), see both points of view? Swami
Vivekananda said that science and religion would meet and shake hands. Can we see things
from his vantage point? Since the notion of maya or apparition as the first cause of our
physics is central to the swami's Advaita, I have chosen as "The Equations of
Maya". Can we find them in our physics? According to the philosophy of the Advaita
Vedantins, as the swami himself has said, there cannot be two existences, only one. And
maya is, as it were, a veil or screen through which that oneness (the Absolute) is seen as
this Universe of plurality and change. 75.
38. David Bohm (1917-1992) was one of the world's greatest quantum mechanical physicists
and philosophers.
David Bohm explains his theory that there is something like life and mind enfolded in
everything. Bohm was profoundly affected by his close contact with J. Krishnamurti.
76
39. Werner Karl Heisenberg, (1901-1976) German theoretical
physicist was one of the leading scientists of the 20th century. Heisenberg
is best known for his
Uncertainty Principle and was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.
"the startling parallelism between today's physics and the
world-vision of eastern mysticism remarks, the increasing contribution of eastern
scientists from India, China and Japan, among others, reinforces this conjunction.
Physical science has now become planetary and draws into its fold an increasing number of
non-westerners who find in its new vision of the universe many elements that are quick to
note, one cannot always distinguish between statements made by eastern metaphysics based
on mystical insight, and the pronouncements of modern physics based on observations,
experiments and mathematical calculations." 77
40 Dr. Jean Le Mee, born in France in 1931, Studied Sanskrit at Columbia University.
Author of the "Hymns from the Rig Veda" says:
"The Rig Veda is a glorious song of praise to the Gods, the cosmic powers at work in
Nature and in Man. Its hymns record the struggles, the battles, and victories, the wonder,
the fears, the hopes, and the wisdom of the Ancient Path Makers.
Glory be to Them!" 78
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