Shivatva Beniwal > Shivatva's Quotes

“To be yourself requires extraordinary intelligence. You are blessed with that intelligence; nobody need give it to you; nobody can take it away from you. He who lets that express itself in its own way is a "Natural Man".”
― U.G. Krishnamurti, The Mystique of Enlightenment: The Radical Ideas of U.G. Krishnamurti

“Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have purpose;
I alone don't know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother's breasts.”
― Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching

“Love

Embracing Tao, you become embraced.
Supple, breathing gently, you become reborn.
Clearing your vision, you become clear.
Nurturing your beloved, you become impartial.
Opening your heart, you become accepted.
Accepting the World, you embrace Tao.
Bearing and nurturing,
Creating but not owning,
Giving without demanding,
Controlling without authority,
This is love.”
― Laozi, The Teachings of Lao-Tzu: The Tao-Te Ching

“My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka'ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.

My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.”
― Ibn al-Arabī

“Each person is oriented toward a quest for his personal invisible guide, or . . . he entrusts himself to the collective, magisterial authority as the intermediary between himself and Revelation.”
― Ibn Arabi

“لقد كنتُ قبلَ اليومَ أنكرُ صاحبي إذا لم يكن ديني إلى دينهِ داني

لقد صارَ قلبي قابلاً كل صـورةٍ فمرعى لغزلان وديرٌ لرهبانِ

وبيتٌ لأوثان وكعبةُ طائـــفٍ وألواحُ توراة ومصحفُ قرآنِ

أَدينُ بدين الحبِّ أنّى توجهــتْ ركائبه فالحبُّ ديني وإيماني”
― Ibn Arabi

“Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“No one can violently attack something without taking it seriously in some way. No one attacks belief in Zeus anymore. No one gets emotional over the Flat Earth Society. Yet Christianity calls forth the deepest emotions -- even and especially in the ones who most reject it.”
― Gene Edward Veith Jr., Loving God with All Your Mind: Thinking as a Christian in the Postmodern World

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”
― Lenny Bruce

“One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad.”
― Aleister Crowley, Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4

“The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;/ We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death”
― Algernon Charles Swinburne

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
― Albert Einstein

“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

“All the tales of miracles, with which the Old and New Testament are filled, are fit only for impostors to preach and fools to believe.”
― Thomas Paine, The Writing of Thomas Paine

“There exists no God. What exists is godliness, and that godliness surrounds you. We are all in the same ocean.”
― Osho

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
― Anglican clergyman

“Freedom and love go together. Love is not a reaction. If I love you because you love me, that is mere trade, a thing to be bought in the market; it is not love. To love is not to ask anything in return, not even to feel that you are giving something- and it is only such love that can know freedom.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“Governments want efficient technicians, not human beings, because human beings become dangerous to governments – and to organized religions as well. That is why governments and religious organizations seek to control education.”
― J. Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life: Jiddu Krishnamurti on Freedom, Self-Understanding, and Mature Love

“The more you know yourself, the more clarity there is. Self-knowledge has no end - you don't come to an achievement, you don't come to a conclusion. It is an endless river.”
― J. Krishnamurti

“You know, if we understand one question rightly, all questions are answered. But we don't know how to ask the right question. To ask the right question demands a great deal of intelligence and sensitivity. Here is a question, a fundamental question: is life a torture? It is, as it is; and man has lived in this torture centuries upon centuries, from ancient history to the present day, in agony, in despair, in sorrow; and he doesn't find a way out of it. Therefore he invents gods, churches, all the rituals, and all that nonsense, or he escapes in different ways. What we are trying to do, during all these discussions and talks here, is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind, not accept things as they are, nor revolt against them. Revolt doesn't answer a thing. You must understand it, go into it, examine it, give your heart and your mind, with everything that you have, to find out a way of living differently. That depends on you, and not on someone else, because in this there is no teacher, no pupil; there is no leader; there is no guru; there is no Master, no Saviour. You yourself are the teacher and the pupil; you are the Master; you are the guru; you are the leader; you are everything. And to understand is to transform what is.

I think that will be enough, won't it?”
― J. Krishnamurti

“Loving just one is too little; loving all is being superficial; knowing yourself and loving as many as possible, letting your soul hide all the powers of love in itself, so that each gets its particular nourishment while consciousness nevertheless embraces it all – that is enjoyment, that is living.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

“And that's the point! Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force strength power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their week ones.”
― Jill Lepore

“Even bullying was important to Wonder Woman, and in Sensation Comics #23 she stopped a gang who were picking on a young boy, showed the head bully the error of his ways and learned about his home situation, spoke to his father about his abusive tendencies, and then helped the father get a job in a wartime factory. She always took the time to get to the root of the problem.”
― Tim Hanley, Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World's Most Famous Heroine

“Over a billion people believe in Allah without truly knowing what Allah supposedly stands for or what he really demands of them. And the minority that do understand continue to be Moslems because they have redefined their morality and ethics to fit within the teachings of Islam, which are floridly lacking in morality. They therefore redefine what is good and evil in order to fit their lives into what is preached by Islam, instead of examining Islam to see if it fits within the good life. Backwards thinking, imposed by a backward religion.”
― Bertrand Russell

“The teachings of Buddha are eternal, but even then Buddha did not proclaim them to be infallible.

The religion of Buddha has the capacity to change according to times, a quality which no other religion can claim to have...
Now what is the basis of Buddhism?

If you study carefully, you will see that Buddhism is based on reason.
There is an element of flexibility inherent in it, which is not found in any other religion.”
― Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, The Buddha and his Dhamma: A Critical Edition

“There is no imam but the mind, who guides by day and night.”
― Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, The Luzumiyat Of Abu'l-Ala: Selected From His Luzum Ma La Yalzam And Suct Uz-Zand