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Ram Swarup

107 quotes

“The fact is that the truth of harmony and human brotherhood derives not from an absorbed trance but from an awakened prajñâ or wisdom; and its validity depends not on any dramatic ecstatic visions but it belongs to man’s deeper vision and even to his natural reason unspoilt by theologies of exclusiveness.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ram Swarup: Ramakrishna Mission, p.13. (1986)
“But foreign should not be defined in geographical terms. Then it would have no meaning except territorial or tribal patriotism. To me that alone is foreign which is foreign to truth, foreign to Atman.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1982 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ram Swarup quoted in : Sita Ram Goel. How I Became a Hindu (1982, enlarged 1993) (ch. 7)
“Indian spirituality, proclaimed that the true Godhead was beyond number and count; that it had many manifestations which did not exclude or repel each other but included each other, and went together in friendship; that it was approached in different ways and through many symbols; that it resided in the hearts of its devotees. Here there were no chosen people, no exclusive prophethoods, no privileged churches and fraternities and ummas. The message was subversive of all religions based on exclusive claims.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ram Swarup, introduction to Mohammed and the Rise of Islam by D.S. Margoliouth, New Delhi, Reprint, 1985 and 1995, p. xix.
“Perhaps a creed is best known by what it does when it holds political sway.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted from S.R. Goel, History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996), Ch.20 1989
“The current ideology of religious harmony emphasizes similarity—different religions are harmonious because they say the same thing; The older doctrine of multiple paths lays stress on their diversity—these paths are valid because they serve genuine different needs and answer to different natures. In short, they serve humanity not by being the same but by being different.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ramakrishna Mission. (1986). Ramakrishna Mission: In search of a new identity.
“If there is sufficient aspiration, invoking, and soliciting, there is no doubt that even Gods apparently lost could come back again. They are there all the time. For nothing that has any truth in it can be destroyed. It merely goes out of manifestation; but it could reappear under propitious circumstances. So could the old Gods come to life again in response to new summons.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whenever the mind thinks of anything, it also invokes its corresponding form. The form has an essential sound or name attached to it. In fact, according to these seers, all phenomenal existence is nama-rupa, names and forms. Of these two, names are even more important than forms. An object is merely an outer expression, a material representation of the more internal and essential nama.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the meaning of a word does not reside in this last, visible part.... Indeed, in this status, it is the cause of the world, jagannidanam, and is Brahman Itself.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Take, for example, the word 'orgy'. Once it had a deep meaning. The word is derived from the Gk. orgion, a sacred act or rite. It was the name of acts of secret worship practised by the initiates, just like mystery rites. ... But when these Gods fell before the new, rising Christian God, the word acquired a new meaning...”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Samkhya tells us that it is not the eyes that see but it is the seeing that creates the eyes”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It takes more than an invading army or crusaders or a demolition squad with sledge-hammers to establish the domain of Truth… Similarly, it is not that easy to get over ‘falsehood’… True spiritual demolition involves the demolition of desire-gods and ego-gods, the demolition of the false gods that reside in conceited theologies, in pretentious revelations and fond belief…”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Understanding Islam Through Hadis , Voice of India, Second Reprint, 1987, Pp. 115-16. other source
“The new self-styled social justice intellectuals and parties do not want an India without castes, they want castes without dharma.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ram Swarup: “Logic behind Perversion of Caste”, Indian Express, 13-9-1996.
“For example in Pakistan, as recently as October 31, 1991, all the five judges of the Highest Islamic Court ruled that the punishment for defiling the Rasul was death and not life imprisonment as the prevailing penal law provided. But in countries like India where the Shariat law no longer prevails, but where Muslim opinion counts, any critical discussion of the Prophet and Islam is regarded as lacking in good taste. It is unsecular, a great lapse from accepted ideological morality. Critical writings are as a rule edited out and even often banned.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ram Swarup, Swords to sell a god, ( 16 June 1992 in The Telegraph) quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
“Religious harmony is a desirable thing. But it takes two to play the game. Unfortunately such a sentiment holds a low position in Islamic theology.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
“I must say that the Pagan movement will have a lot to do. The opposing forces are very powerful, and they have a long tradition of using force and repression. But I believe that a new spirit is rising and once the Pagans begin to speak, they are going to be heard.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of Hindus, Pagans and The Return of The Gods Hinuism Today 1991
“Fundamentalism is not accidental but essential to Islam. It is inherent in those religious ideologies which are built on a narrow spiritual vision, have a limited psychic base, and which emphasise dogma and personalities, other than experience and impersonal truth. Islam's fundamentalism is rooted in its theology, its founder and his practices. It means that it will also have to be fought there. But this point is ill understood and, therefore, the struggle is at the best of times phoney war.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ram Swarup, Swords to sell a god, ( 16 June 1992 in The Telegraph) quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy.
“Like any other imperialism, Muslim and British Imperialisms also created a class of mercenaries and compradores - and here I am talking of intellectual mercenaries; they created a collaborationist tradition or school which endured even after the rulers had left. Marxist historians, for example, belong to the school of Hindu munshis whom the Mughal kings employed to eulogize their rule and their religion, and who wrote servilely to flatter their patrons and whose writings failed to reflect even remotely the feelings, fears, hopes and yearnings of their own subject fellow brothers.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted from the preface by Ram Swarup in Gurbachan, S. T. S., & Swarup, R. (1991). Muslim League attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947.
“In Mongolia has been discovered a mass grave containing the remains of thousands of Buddhist monks liquidated by a former communist regime. An 83-old man, once head of an extermination squad, admitted that he personally put 15,724 to death. 1197-at-Nalanda was repeated not by invading Muslim armies but by local communist revolutionaries and social transformers.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted from the preface by Ram Swarup in Gurbachan, S. T. S., & Swarup, R. (1991). Muslim League attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947.
“Their record has been matched only recently by Communism, considered a Christian heresy by thinkers like Bertrand Russell. In China, the communist regime destroyed half a million Buddhist shrines. (Were the Buddhists there also in the habit of hoarding their gold in their shrines, thus attracting communist expropriatory justice and getting them destroyed in the process? Or was it a rare example of an act purely motivated by an ideology? Probably Stalinist historians of the JNU would like to explain.)”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Indeed. there is a whole section in the Old Testament which does not square with its dominant ideas. The Proverbs, to my mind the best part of the Bible, represents a non-Mosaic tradition. In its spirit, it is very different from the Pentateuch and the Prophets; its ethics is high; it represents a very different spiritual tradition, the tradition of Self-knowledge. Its teaching is mostly, anonymous; it has also a woman teacher... rather an exception in the Bible...”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History moves in strange ways.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I personally believe that India has much to learn from the Western culture but, I am afraid, very little from Western Christianity.... Wherever Christianity went, it carried fire and sword... The natives lost their body as well as their souls. Now most of these countries have regained their political freedom but they have not recovered their souls.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“European Imperialism and European Christianity were twins. It is difficult to say whether the flag followed the cross or the cross followed the flag.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great truths have to be seen and lived and revealed again and again.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the Patanjali Yoga, five fundamental impurities are mentioned: avidya (nescience), asmita (ego), raga (attachment), dvesha (aversion), and abhinivesa (gross worldliness, craving).... They are klesas, very inadequately defined as defilements.... All that we have desired and thought have gone into making them. They are woven into the fabric of our emotions, desires, thoughts. They keep us bound down to a particular life-cycle. They are built up of samskaras, impressions accumulated over repeated births. (p. 31)”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To the Yoga the hightest concept of God is that of a being who is free from all klesas, klesapramrishtah, but in actual practice in most cases we have God who is joined with klesas. (p. 86)”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Prajna is knowledge but not all knowledge is prajna. Only spiritual knowledge is prajna. It destroys the illusion of a separtieve exstence. Klesas which were merely weakened by samadhi are completely burnt up by prajna. Prajna is liberating knowledge par excellence; it is also the knowledge which comes with liberatino. Prajna is Self-knowledge. (p. 90)”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Gita tells us that there are four kinds of people who take to God-life. Of them ,the afflicted (arta) are the very first ones. The rest in their order are the seekers of knowledge, the seekerse of truth as it is, and the seekers of wisdom. (p.180)”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Behind the material, there is also a subtle world which itself emanates from a larger casual world.... In man the three worlds meet. In the ancient language of Hindus, man is a citizen of the three worlds: bhuh, bhuvah, swah. (p. 240)”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It prescribes five daily sacrifices, pancha mahayajnas... The first yajna is Self-knowledge and self-study.. This is called bhrama-yajna... Daily reading of scriptures is its external aspect. The second yajna is pitri-yajna, offerting to one's ancestors... The third is deva-yajna, offering to Gods.... Deva-yajna is in reality an offering to our own higher nature, the secret Godhead within us. The fourth is bhutna-yajna, offering made to elements and all creatures... The last offering is called nri-yajna, which is an offering to men... (p. 242 ff)”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As it saw in the Self all Godly attributes, it saw in Gods the truth and powers of the Self; indeed, it taught that one who worships a God as other than himself becomes his sacrificial animal, his draught-animal. He is driven and ridden by him.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hindu dharma reverenced women; therefore, it had no difficulty in conceiving Goddesses. Hindus also learnt to give their women the honour they gave to their deities. Hindu lawgivers taught that women must be honoured by their fathers, brothers, husbands and brothers-in-law, who desire their own welfare; that Gods are pleased where women are honoured, but where they are not honoured sacred rites yield no rewards.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some see in this change a triumph of Nehru over Gandhi. They, of course, do not mean Nehru as a person for Nehru was merely a symbol and he represented, in his own way, a typical response, the response of a defeated nation trying to restore its self-respect and self-confidence through self-repudiation and identification with the ways of the victors. The approach was not altogether unjustified at one time. It had its compulsions and it had also a survival value for us. But its increasing influence can mean no good to us.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hinduism is like a great reservoir of water from which many streams take their rise and to which they again repair after passing through many strange and fair lands. It is a great, creative matrix giving birth to many beautiful and living forms. Itself a historical, it has given birth to many sects and branches with interesting, chequered histories. Paying sole allegiance to the Guide within seated in the cave of the heart, it has put forward from time to time many teachers and sages of incomparable power and vision, incarnating the very Gods above and within.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In order to qualify for Government grants, Shanti Niketan, the famous institution found by the great Rabindra Nath Tagore, the poet of the soul's Godward aspiration and a great representative of undying India, had to give up its Upanishadic motto: satyam, Sivam, sundaram. These figures represent the deepest and loftiest that spirituality has conceived about man, his aspirations and destiny, his hopes and possibilities. But to the modern secular ears of the present-day rulers, these terms sound communal and antiquated.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Western thought, the body holds the soul; in Indian thought, the soul holds the body.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Therefore, he developed an ethical theory which had room both for instincts as well as the intellect. He said that man is not one but multiple; He is not one self, but a colony of selves. He must live all his selves and all his parts, and live them not moderately but fully.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Time Must Have A Stop, which belongs to this period, is probably his best novel and certainly the one which, as he himself says, he "most enjoyed doing".”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He only quotes from Rabia, Bayazid, Abu Sa'id and Rumi who do not properly represent even the sufi silsilas, the mainstream Islamic Sufism.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Huxley realizes his difficulty. He knows that mysticism is not native to Christianity and has been an uneasy implant from outside. In his Grey Eminence, he shows how through "neo-platonism and along with it, at several removes, the most valuable elements of Hindu religion, entered Christianity and became incorporated, as one of a number of oddly heterogeneous elements, into its scheme of thought and devotion".”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“E. Hermann says that the Neo-Platonic doctrine of via negativa "from Dionysius onwards took an Asiatic rather than a Greek from". She does not explain what its Greek form was and how it differed from its "Asiatic" (Indian) form.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This aim is formulated with utmost brevity in the famous Gâyatrî Mantra which is daily recited by hundreds of thousands of people all over India. The Mantra prays for arousing, activating, animating and manifesting our mind and understanding. Several Upanishads begin with this prayer: "Make strong my limbs, my speech, my vitals, my eyes, my cars and other senses".”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ancient educational thinking also emphasized the importance of a certain atmosphere in which alone any worthwhile education is possible. First, there must be a complete rapport between the teacher and the taught. "May we study together. May God protect us both. May we never spite each other", that is the prayer of the teacher and the pupil with which several Upanishads open. There must be an atmosphere of serious inquiry, of hankering for truth for its own sake, of affection, deference, service and respect. Hindus believed that without this environment, no higher education is possible.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tibet preserved as best as it could, what India was no longer in a position to do. For example, 4000 books belonging to the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit literature were translated into Tibetan language. Today, about 3800 of them are no longer even known in India. They were so completely destroyed. The work of destruction was so complete. Today much of old India is found in neighbouring countries like Tibet and Siam and Cambodia; and India's old past history cannot be reconstructed except with their aid.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Apollonius believed that Egypt and Ethiopia derived their wisdom from India, and that the Naked Philosophers of Ethiopia were emigrants from India. He also believed that Pythagoras (about 500 BC) and his sect derived their philosophy from India.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pythagoras taught the doctrine of the witness, drashTâ of the Hindus. He said that life is like a gathering at the Olympic Games, where some come to buy and sell, others to play, but the best of them come to look on. This is just like the Upanishads' two birds on a tree, one eating its fruits and the other just looks on. It has reference to the witness self of the Upanishads, the kûTastha of the Gita. In higher Greek religion the doctrine of the life of a spectator holds a high place.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we come to the period of recorded history, we find that India had intimate contacts with Greece which at this time was more a part of Asia than of Europe. Greek religion, philosophy and literature show lively Indian influences. India even at this time was known for its wisdom and many Greek philosophers like Democritus, Anaxarchus and Pyrrho visited India and according to Lucianus, the Goddess of philosophy first descended upon "the Indians, the mightiest nation upon the earth".”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This new religious cast of mind was forging a new iron-curtain, a far more effective one than a physical one. The new mind that was taking over was incapable of understanding deeper things of the spirit; it understood dogmas and creeds; it dropped the law of karma, the theory of the Self. Antoninus, a neo-Platonist of the 4th century predicted that "a fabulous and formless darkness is about to tyrannize over all that is beautiful on earth" (Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 9.317).”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Apollonius of Tyna (born c. 4 AD), the great saint of the Greek world, was a Pythogorian teacher, a great ascetic, a celebate, a vegetarian; he was against every form of cruelty to animals; he protested against gladiatorial shows. He was a great name throughout the Pagan world.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not long ago, all the copies of the Hindi edition of my book, Understanding Islam Through Hadis, were confiscated by the police. ... The civil liberties wallahs, otherwise a vocal lot, have been eloquently silent on this and similar bans. But then they are active only in certain preferred directions, on behalf of certain preferred sections and for the benefit of certain preferred ideas.”
Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source