Sectarianism Quotes

“The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential.... In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds.”
― Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught

“Divide and rule, the politician cries;
Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gedichte

“At least two important conservative thinkers, Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss, were unbelievers or nonbelievers and in any case contemptuous of Christianity. I have my own differences with both of these savants, but is the Republican Party really prepared to disown such modern intellectuals as it can claim, in favor of a shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity?

Perhaps one could phrase the same question in two further ways. At the last election, the GOP succeeded in increasing its vote among American Jews by an estimated five percentage points. Does it propose to welcome these new adherents or sympathizers by yelling in the tones of that great Democrat bigmouth William Jennings Bryan? By insisting that evolution is 'only a theory'? By demanding biblical literalism and by proclaiming that the Messiah has already shown himself? If so, it will deserve the punishment for hubris that is already coming its way. (The punishment, in other words, that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson believed had struck America on Sept. 11, 2001. How can it be that such grotesque characters, calling down divine revenge on the workers in the World Trade Center, are allowed a respectful hearing, or a hearing at all, among patriotic Republicans?).

[. . . And Why I'm Most Certainly Not! -- The Wall Street Journal, Commentary Column. May 5, 2005]”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The Gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect.”
― Porphyry

“The philosophic outlook rises above all sectarian controversy. It finds its own position not only by appreciating and synthesizing what is solidly based in the rival sects but also by capping them all with the keystone of nonduality.”
― Paul Brunton, Healing of the Self, the Negatives: Notebooks

“God is merciful cant we all be on the right track of faith but just using different roads?”
― Ali Al-Ahmed

“The universal reason is love,
The universal faith is love.
All else is but a faint echo,
Driving us away from love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Intolerance is born of ideological allegiance.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion

“Trying to make peace with peace talks while overlooking divisionism is like trying to keep a boat afloat by peddling fast while overlooking the giant hole at the bottom.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“People give power to the symbols, people can strip them of power.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“If sectarianism is cast away from religions, the devil will be reduced to half his size.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“The universal faith is love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Ask not, is there life after death!
Ask instead, is there life in existence divided!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“We see that the Scholastics are reasoning, whatever their logic tells them they come up with. And once you speculate on the idea of newness, you begin to say, “Why can’t we have something new now? Because Christianity itself becomes stale. Our monks have become corrupt.” That’s what Francis was rebelling against. He wanted to have himself a purer poverty. And therefore from the very idea of Christianity, once the idea of Christian tradition is removed, you logically have the idea of a “new” Christianity, some new flowering of wisdom, spirituality, and actually a new revelation. This, again, is the “Grand Inquisitor” of Dostoyevsky, the making of a new Christianity better than Christianity was.

And of course all that time released Protestantism and all the sects of today. And the source for this is no longer the Orthodox tradition, which is lost; the source is either reason or visions. At this time of course we have all these new things arising in the Catholic Church, the new orders: Dominicans, Franciscans, and all the rest, the very idea that this is the normal way. And so these two, Francis and Joachim, will be very influential in later times. People keep coming back to their ideas because they are in the seed period of the modern age.”
― Seraphim Rose, Orthodox Survival Course

“Labels are like training wheels, at some point you gotta let them go.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Now more than ever the hateful, intolerant, separatist bigots need our help, for they are ill, terribly ill. They are suffering from a condition, I call, Clinical Culturitis. So next time you see one, offer them a flower, and say - get well soon!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“I have never considered the exoteric doctrines of my associates very seriously... Some of the purest characters I have ever known are Roman catholics, and the most sordid, sectarians and presbyterians. Speculative opinions have less to do than is supposed with the conduct of men.”
― John Galt, The Autobiography of John Galt, Volume 2

“Submission to division is the death of a human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Sectarianism turns mind into manure.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion

“It was the old tragedy of the Englishman and his foreign guests; a spectacle continually re-enacted, from which neither side ever learns. The Englishman with all the warmth of his heart applauds the foreign revolutionary whose enemies are his own enemies; amid much public enthusiasm an expedition is sent out in support of the plucky under-dog. But this warmth of heart is not matched by clearness of head; the Englishman in his generous mood of applause forgets to ask whether the foreign revolutionaries he is supporting are really nice people; and when the expedition has bungled and the disappointed survivors of the movement tum to the generous country which has befriended them, as to their natural asylum, there is inevitable disappointment on both sides.”
― Ronald Knox, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion

“It is perhaps surprising that in eighteenth century travellers' accounts Glasgow is most often compared with Oxford for the beauty of its prospect and the excellence of its ambience. It was post-industrial Revolution accounts of the city that began to articulate the 'Glasgow discourse' which was to become hegenomic. Initially signalled in urban planning and public health reports of the nineteenth century, this discourse was powerfully accelerated by tabloid journalistic accounts of gang warfare in interwar Glasgow and by folkloric embellishments of these. The result was that a monstrous Ur-narrative comes into play when anyone (not least, it should be said, Glaswegians themselves) seeks to describe or deal imaginatively with that city. In this archetypal narrative, Glasgow is the City of Dreadful Night with the worst slums in Europe, its citizens living out lives which are nasty, brutish and short. The milieu of Glasgow is so stark, so the narrative runs, that it breeds a particular social type, the Hard Man, a figure whose universe is bounded by football, heavy drinking and (often sectarian) violence. The image of Glasgow, which beckons, Circe-like, to any who would speak or write of that city, is one of men celebrating, coming to terms with or (rarely) transcending their bleak milieu. An order of marginalisation, if not exclusion, is served on women.”
― Colin McArthur, The Cinematic City

“Why do the pharaohs, popes, priests, some sects, etc. build objects based on a certain arithmetic pattern? It is very obvious; /.../”
― Eve Janson, Ann - This is mine! Re-Programming 2: Anu

“Don't take the lens for the light.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“Crutches are not feet, chains are not roots.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“We've evolved from the jungle, violence is in our DNA. That's not up for debate, it's a biological fact. Question is, will we continue to pass on the parasitic traits of the past, in the name of heritage and loyalty, or will we choose the path that deviates from the coward's quo of jungle tribalism into the sunlit valley of valiant peace!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“The path of truth is the path of religion, but this path is not a christian path, a jewish path, a muslim path, a hindu path or any other kind of sectarian and tribal path. The path of truth, that is, the path of religion has no label of tribalism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, A Push in Perception

“As the University of Chicago religion scholar Mircea Eliade observed five decades ago, in the famous encyclopedia entry on Catholic Christianity, what is most directly opposed to Catholicism is not Protestantism (which, in any case, has many Catholic elements within it) but sectarianism...For the sectarian, dialogue and collaboration are invitations to compromise, and compromise is anathema.”
― Mark S. Massa S.J.

“A psychologist came to me for a personal meeting and said, "It's good that it's not a cult." There are two kinds of people, who come to spiritual teachers and spiritual organizations. The first kind is the power people and the second kind is the awareness people. The power people focus on the outer world. They focus on creating rules, ideologies , hierarchies, churches and organizations. The awareness people focus on the inner world. They focus on meditation, love, silence, truth, freedom, creativity and the divine. Often these two kinds of people come in conflict in a spiritual organization.
I do not belong to any spiritual group or tradition any longer, I am just interested in exploring what it means to live with open eyes.
People in spiritual organizations tend to get caught in ideas of how it should be, and in the need of the ego to create hierarchies of power, status, roles, ambition and obedience.
Spiritual Masters teach on many different levels at the same time. Some people take what they can and some take something deeper.
Padma, my beloved friend for many lives, recounted during satsang with me that she told a visiting therapist during an individual consultation at a meditation center in Stockholm that she did not feel at home at the center. The therapist replied, "That is because you don’t belong to the collective unconscious at the center."
The members of a dysfunctional and unconscious group structure play the three roles: aggressor, denier (the denier is the role of "I have not seen anything,, "I do not understand what is going on", "I do not say anything" and "I do not hear anything" - like the three apes, who do not speak, see or hear) and the third role is the victim of the dysfunctional group.
This is the psychological structure in both alcoholic families, in dysfunctional groups and in cults. A dysfunctional group is a neurotic group, where there is no real love. The core of the dysfunctional group is instead neurotic, and the group does not really want to change, so any attempts from the outside for change will be met with resistance, silence and aggressive attack.
The basic sign of a dysfunctional group is that the members of the group play three roles and positions: aggressor, denier and victim. It is always easier to follow the group without reflection or awareness, than to trust your own heart, to trust your own intelligence, truth, wisdom and creativity. It is not always easy to follow your own heart, but it always leads you right.”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Way of the Heart

“I am not your peer (Naskaristana 2734-2735)

I spent my youth building reputation,
then I spent a life setting fire to it,
because reputation among sectarian apes
only means that I've failed as a human.

Either you build reputation
or you build civilization -
there is no greater dishonor than
being respected across the mental asylum.

Early Naskar, 2015-17, was mostly borrowed
research with occasional original Naskar,
mid Naskar, 2017-21, was mostly original Naskar
with occasional borrowed data,
late phase Naskar, 2021 onward, is pure Naskar,
beyond the scale and scope of institutions.

I'm not your peer that you can review me,
you grew up believing world war 2
as the big battle between good and evil,
you grew up worshipping churchill as hero,
you believe philosophy was invented in greece,
with that kind of prehistoric intellect
you're going to review a multicultural mind -

you don't peer review the Himalayas,
you chart the course according
to your own limited capacity,
so you may one day climb the summit,
and when you do, I'll be waiting with a cup of tea.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“I spent my youth building reputation, then I spent a life setting fire to it, because reputation among sectarian apes only means that I’ve failed as a human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace