Great Throughts Treasury

"In the chessboard of life, the different pieces have powers which vary with the context and the possibilities of their combination are numerous and unpredictable. The sound player has a sense of right and feels that, if he does not follow it, he will be false to himself. In any critical situation the forward move is a creative act."

"In the mystic traditions of the different religions we have a remarkable unity of spirit. Whatever religion they may profess, they are spiritual kinsmen. While the different religions in their historic forms bind us to limited groups and militate against the development of loyalty to the world community, the mystics have already stood for the fellowship ofhumanity in harmony with the spirit of the mystics of ages gone by."

"Increasing knowledge of science without corresponding growth of religious wisdom only increases our fear of death."

"Indian wisdom is essential not only for the revival of the Indian nation but also for the re-education of the human race."

"Intuition is a distinct form of experience. Intuition is of a self-certifying character (svatassiddha). It is sufficient and complete. It is self-established (svatasiddha), self-evidencing (sv?sa?vedya), and self-luminous (svayam-prak?s?a). Intuition entails pure comprehension, entire significance, complete validity. It is both truth-filled and truth-bearing Intuition is its own cause and its own explanation. It is sovereign . Intuition is a positive feeling of calm and confidence, joy and strength. Intuition is profoundly satisfying . It is peace, power and joy."

"Intuition must be not only translated into positive and creative action but shared with others. There is a sense of urgency, if not inevitability, about this. One cannot afford to be absolutely silent and the saints love because they cannot help it."

"Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be my proud privilege if 5 September is observed as Teachers' Day."

"Intuitions are convictions arising out of a fullness of life in a spontaneous way, more akin to sense than to imagination or intellect and more inevitable than either."

"It is not easy to know the difference between good men and bad. Ideas may be theoretically divided into good and bad, but not men and women, for each of us contains, in himself or herself, in varying degrees, the good and the bad, the high and the low, the true and the false. Besides, society has queer notions about right and wrong. Unorthodox personal relationships are wrong, while acts involving whole nations in war are right. Cruelty, treachery, and exploitation are condoned, while loving the wrong person not wisely but too well is condemned, though the latter is only a misfortune, not a crime. It is easier to make saints out of libertines than out of prudes and Pharisees. The infinite pathos of life calls for infinite understanding."

"It is essential to awaken in one's pupils a feeling of need for a silent hour, a time of pure refreshment for heart and spirit, for self-communion, which will help them to collect their thoughts, reassemble their personalities and find themselves. In that silence we hear the still voices of the soul with its plaintive cry of the prisoner for freedom, of the wanderer from home, the cry of the finite for the infinite. Religion is what we do with ourselves when we are alone. In every one of us is a secret shrine where no one could intrude, to which we must retire as often as possible and discover what our true self is as distinct from the appearance we present to the world outside."

"It is for philosophy of religion to find out whether the convictions of the religious seers fit in with the tested laws and principles of the universe."

"It is one of the hardest things to criticize the actions of those of whom we are fond, but it is what one expects and longs for from true friendship. Every time the courage is found, the bond becomes stronger. A true friend not only seeks and inquires, but probes and pierces, digs his fists into the heart, though this process of ruthless unveiling or pitiless exposure is most painful and costing. But then the only way to attain peace of mind and inward harmony is by means of knowledge and adjustment. We must be completely sincere with ourselves and then adjust ourselves to circumstances. We must never lie to ourselves. If it is true that we do not know perfectly until we love perfectly, it is also true that we do not love perfectly until we know perfectly."

"It is quite true that we attempt to regulate war, as we cannot suppress it; but the attempt cannot succeed. For war symbolizes the spirit of strife between two opposing national units which is to be settled by force. When we allow the use of force as the only argument to put down opposition, we cannot rightly discriminate between one kind of force and another. We must put down opposition by mobilizing all the forces at our disposal. There is no real difference between a stick and a sword, or gunpowder and poison gas. So long as it is the recognized method of putting down opposition, every nation will endeavor to make its destructive weapons more and more efficient. War is its only law add the highest virtue is to win, and every nation has to tread this terrific and deadly road. To approve of warfare but criticize its methods, it has been well said is like approving of the wolf eating the lamb but criticizing the table-manners. War is war and not a game of sport to be played according to rules."

"It is the intense spirituality of India, and not any great political structure or social organization that it has developed, that has enabled it to resist the ravages of time and the accidents of history."

"It takes centuries to make a little history; it takes centuries of history to make a tradition."

"It is true that we have the League of Nations, but it is only a mechanical frame and the soul has still to grow into its body. The spirit of ill-will and distrust is widespread. Internationalism is only an idea cherished by a few and not a part of human psychology. Ten years after the peace, the sky is not clearer than it was in August, 1914. Europe has a million more men under arms than there were before the war."

"It is true that internationalism is growing. Economists warn us that war does not pay. It is bad business. Some of us are growing pacifist by policy, though not by conviction. The spirit of internationalism is but skin-deep. Except a small minority in each country who remained heroically faithful to its principles, the rest sacrificed their humanity at the altar of their country in the last war. Even the dignitaries of the Church proved themselves to be of the school of Mephistopheles, "who built God a church and laughed his word to scorn." Churches were turned into recruiting offices. The fanatic appeals of all sides to the Almighty must have confused God himself, and the frame of mind in which the onlookers were is well expressed in J. C. Squire's quatrain : ? God heard the embattled nations sing and shout"

"Knowledge when acquired must be thrown into logical form and we are obliged to adopt the language of logic since only logic has a communicable language."

"Knowledge gives us power, love gives us fullness."

"Man is a complex, multi-dimensional being including within him different elements of matter life, consciousness, intelligence and the divine spark."

"Logical knowledge is indirect and symbolic in its character. It helps us to handle and control the object and its workings."

"One has to achieve not merely technical efficiency but greatness of spirit."

"Man, as he is, is incomplete, ignorant, unregenerate, and he wishes to complete himself, to get beyond his present imperfections; and he tries to achieve completeness of being? And if we are able to attain that kind of perfectness of being, completeness of being, we try to use that wisdom for the purpose of creating a better life in this world."

"Man is not a detached spectator of progress immanent in human history, but an active agent remolding the world nearer to his ideals. Every age is much what we choose to make it. The trouble with our civilization is that in our anxiety to pursue the things of time, we are neglecting the things that are not of time, the enduring and the eternal. The significance of man?s life is not exhausted by his service of the earthly kingdom. The whole complex range of human life becomes shallow, aimless, and unsatisfying if it is not shot through with a sense of the eternal. We must build all relationships on a basis of understanding fellowship, remembering the controlling principle that life on earth is meaningless apart from its eternal background. Growth of civilization is marked by an increase of genuineness, sincerity, and unselfishness. The only effective way of altering society is the hard and slow one of changing individuals. If we put first things first through patient effort and struggle, we will win power over circumstances and mold them. Only a humanity that strives after ethical and spiritual ideals can use the great triumphs of scientific knowledge for the true ends of civilization."

"My ambition is to unfold the sources of India in the profound plane of human nature."

"Peace can come not by political or economic changes but through a change in human nature."

"Mankind is still in the making and every religion is attempting to reformulate its faith in accordance with modern thought and criticism."

"Poetic truth is different from scientific truth since it reveals the real in its qualitative uniqueness and not in its quantitative universality. Poetry is the language of the soul, while prose is the language of science. The former is the language of mystery, of devotion, of religion. Prose lays bare its whole meaning to the intelligence, while poetry plunges us in the mysterium tremendum of life and suggests the truths that cannot be stated."

"Poets and prophets do not go into committees."

"Psychic experiences are a state of consciousness beyond the understanding of the normal, and the supernormal is traced to the supernatural."

"rAmAnuja qualifies the non-dual philosophy so as to make the personal God supreme. While brahman, souls and the world are all different and eternal, they are at the same time inseparable. [a-pRhthak-siddha. ] Inseparability is not identity. brahman is related to the two others as soul to body. They are sustained by Him and subject to His control. rAmAnuja says that while God exists for Himself, matter and souls exist for His sake and subserve His purposes. The three together form an organic whole. brahman is the inspiring principle of the souls and the world. The souls are different from, but not independent of, God. They are said to be one only in the sense that they all belong to the same class. The ideal is the enjoyment of freedom and bliss in the world of nArAyaNa, and the means to it is either prapatti or bhakti. The individual souls, even when they are freed through the influence of their devotion and the grace of God, retain their separate individuality. For him and Madhva, God, the author of all grace, saves those who give to Him the worship of love and faith."

"Religion consists in doing justice, in loving mercy and in making our fellow creatures happy."

"Religion in terms of ?personal experience is an independent functioning of the human mind, something unique, possessing and autonomous character. It is something inward and personal which unifies all values and organizes all experiences. It is the reaction to the whole of man to the whole of reality. It may be called spiritual life, as distinct from a merely intellectual or moral or aesthetic activity or a combination of them."

"Religious intuition is a unique form of experience. Religious intuition is more than simply the confluence of the cognitive, aesthetic, and ethical sides of life. However vital and significant these sides of life may be, they are but partial and fragmented constituents of a greater whole, a whole which is experienced in its fullness and immediacy in religious intuition."

"Religion includes faith in human brotherhood and politics is the most effective means of rendering it into visible form."

"Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation."

"Religious intuition informs, conjoins, and transcends an otherwise fragmentary consciousness."

"Religion is a kind of life or experience."

"Shankara derives the word upaniShad as a substantive from the root sad, 'to loosen', 'to reach' or 'to destroy' with upa and ni as prefixes and kvip as termination. [ Introduction to the KaTha upaniShad. In his commentary on TaittirIya upaniShad, he says, upaniShannaM vA asyAm paraM sreya iti.]If this derivation is accepted, upaniShad means brahma-knowledge by which ignorance is loosened or destroyed. The treatises that deal with brahma-knowledge are called the upaniShads and so pass for the VedAnta. The different derivations together make out that the upaniShads give us both spiritual vision and philosophical argument. There is a core of certainty which is essentially incommunicable except by a way of life. It is by a strictly personal effort that one can reach the truth."

"Rules change from age to age."

"So many civilizations have come, floated on the surface, disappeared again. What remains is humanity. It is for the sake of that humanity that we have to work."

"Technique without inspiration, is barren. Intellectual powers, sense facts and imaginative fancies may result in clever verses, repetition of old themes, but they are only manufactured poetry. It is not simply a difference of quality but a difference of kind in the source itself."

"The art of discovery is confused with the logic of proof and an artificial simplification of the deeper movements of thought results. We forget that we invent by intuition though we prove by logic."

"The barriers of dogmatic religions are sterilizing men?s efforts to coordinate their forces to shape the future."

"The concept of one world must be implemented in every action of every nation, if that one world is to become established. I have no doubt that the world will become one?.. We are being led from state to state the concept of one family on earth. If we?re able to achieve it, we should do so by handling our own minds and hearts."

"The creeds of religion correspond to theories of science... intuitions of the human soul should be studied by the methods which are adopted with such great success in the region of positive science."

"The disciples surrounded with cheap marvels and wonders the lonely figure of that serene Soul, simple and austere in his yellow robes, walking with bared feet and bowed head towards Benares."

"The destiny of Man is to know himself."

"The challenge of Christian critics impelled me to make a study of Hinduism and find out what is living and what is dead in it. My pride as a Hindu, roused by the enterprise and eloquence of Swami Vivekananda, was deeply hurt by the treatment accorded to Hinduism in missionary institutions."

"The East and the West are not so sharply divided as the alarmists would make us believe. The products of spirit and intelligence, the positive sciences, the engineering techniques, the governmental forms, the legal regulations, the administrative arrangements, and the economic institutions are binding together peoples of varied cultures and bringing them into closer reciprocal contact. The world today is tending to function as one organism."