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Ram Swarup

107 quotes

• “While I stayed at the Ashram, I spent many hours a day with Mira behn.... Even today at this distance, I remember her with great affection in my heart. ... She gave me the impression that she had found what she was looking for.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It should be obvious to anybody that the most vicious anti-RSS propaganda is at heart anti Hindu propaganda. So long as the RSS is identified with Hinduism in one form or another, it would invite this attack.... But while the enemies of the RSS have worked themselves up to a frenzied point and have whipped up their tirade, the propaganda itself is losing its appeal with the thinking people....”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When Shourie's articles first appeared, they aroused great emotions and savage attacks. He quoted from the Bible and the Quran extensively on the question of co-existence. Many were shocked.... Shourie has called his book, Religion in Politics; someday he should bring out another book, Politics in Religion....The first book discusses politics complicated by religions factors; the second would discuss religions which are essentially political...”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What Hindu India needs is not new a doctrine of religious harmony but to find out how to face the threat of intolerant religions. Blavatsky and Vivekananda were serious proponents of the doctrine of the harmony of religions but it did not prevent them from exploring the souls of intolerant religions and opposing them... But all such passages are being expunged... from his works by his followers, probably to make them conform to the new religion they have floated in his and Ramakrishna's name....”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Dharampal is now perhaps the best authority on a most significant period of India's history....”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is obvious from the foregoing discussion that Sikhism belongs to the mainstream of Hinduism in its theology and cosmology, in its fundamental vision of man, deity and the universe, in its spiritual doctrines and praxis.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We are also told that the Gurus repudiated pilgrimage to holy places. Is it true? Though as a “knower”, Nanak was above pilgrimage, yet he went on an extended pilgrimage, as his Udasis tell us, to Hardwar, Prayag, Varanasi, Gorkhmat (near Pilibhit), Ayodhya, Jagannatha Puri, Rameshwaram, Ujjain, Kurukshetra, Hinglaj, Gorakh-Hatri (a great Natha center near modern Peshawar). At Mathura, he visited Keshaav Rao Temple and bathed in the Yamuna.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “To early European writers, it did not occur to regard Sikhism as different from Hinduism, an observation which agreed with the Sikhs’ own self-perception. The fashion to regard them as distinct belonged to the future of a more defined imperialist purpose.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is indeed a strange sect of Islam which claims for itself a founder other than Muhammad and a scripture other than the Quran, and which does not mention the name of the Prophet even once in its scripture quite considerable in length.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Buddhism is returning home to India after a long exile of a thousand years and, like the proverbial prodigal son, is being received with open arms. Religious tolerance of the average Hindu partly explains the warm reception. But a more important reason is the fact that Buddha and Buddhism form an intimate part of Hindu consciousness. Buddha was a Hindu. Buddhism is Hindu in its origin and development, in its art and architecture, iconography, language, beliefs, psychology, names, nomenclature, religious vows and spiritual discipline....Hinduism is not all Buddhism, but Buddhism forms part of the ethos which is essentially Hindu”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The scriptures of Semitic inspiration are hortative, admonitory; they urge, they prove, they enjoin, they warn, they even enforce. There is a note of feverishness in them. But the atmosphere of the Hindu scriptures is unhurried, relaxed and expositional. The first variety seem to goad you; the second one to lead you step by step... There are other differences as well. Christianity and Islam are religions of faith; Hinduism and Its powerful offshoot, Buddhism, are religions of Prajna, wisdom. The former deal with Intensifies of feelings, the latter aim at awakening the mind. The former have been religions of piety with a strong tendency to deny reason. The latter are religions of 'understanding', giving due place to reason though it will have to be purified and separated from the dross of desire before It becomes an instrument of a higher life. In Hinduism, faith is rendered by the world shradha, that which lies hidden in the recession of the heart; so, faith means faith in the hidden truths of the soul, faith in the unrealised possibilities of the mind.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Shri Ram Swarup's chapter, 'Hinduism vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam', in Politics of Conversion edited by Devendra Swarup (Deendayal Research Institute, New Delhi: 1986)

• “Hindus learn to look at themselves through borrowed eyes. The two approaches, that of self-discovery and creative response and that of self-alienation and imitation, were both inherited from the immediate history of the freedom struggle, though they derive their strength from the deeper sources in the psyche....For one, the problem is of helping the society to find its roots, for the other to remake it in the image of a chosen pattern. The one serves; the other manipulates....[The first approach] once formed a powerful current, and the freedom struggle was waged under its auspices. But increasingly its hold became weak, and in our own times it seems to have lost altogether....Some see in this change a triumph of Nehru over Gandhi....Nehru represented, in his own way, 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 also had a survival value for us. But its increasing influence can mean no good to us. We, however, believe that deeper Indian nationalism, which is also in harmony with deeper internationalism, may be weak just now, but it has the seed-power and it is bound to come up again under propitious circumstances”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1987 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Cultural Self-Alienation and Some Problems Hinduism Faces, 1987, p. 4-5

• “A fateful thing has been happening. The East is waking up from its slumber. The wisdom of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism is becoming available to the world. Already, it is having a transforming effect on the minds of the people, particularly in countries where there is freedom to seek and express. Dogmas are under a cloud; claims on behalf of Last Prophethood and Only Sonship, hitherto enforced through great intellectual conditioning, brow-beating, and the big stick, are becoming unacceptable. Religions of proxy are in retreat. More and more men and women now seek authentic experience. Borrowed creed will not do. Men and women are ceasing to be obedient believers and are becoming seekers. They no longer want to be anybody’s sheep, now that they know they can be their own shepherds. An external authority, even when it is called God in certain scriptures, threatening and promising alternately, is increasingly making less and less impression; people now realize that Godhead is their own true, secret status and they seek it in the depth of their own being. All this is in keeping with the wisdom of the East.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Introduction to Mohammed and the Rise of Islam by D.S. Margoliouth, Voice of India reprint, New Delhi, 1985, pp. xvii-xviii. 10Ibid., pp. xix-xx.

• “Mother Teresa is a true daughter of the Church in having her mind and heart closed to the religions of the countries of her labour, even adoption. Sometime back, some European Vedantists learning that she was at the Vatican went there to pay their respects. She rebuked them for "betraying Christ". Let me clarify the point a little further by bringing in Sister Nivedita. She is a lady Hindus are proud of. She helped India by helping it to rediscover itself. No higher service could be rendered to a nation in the grip of self-forgetfulness. She stood for national justice for India and she helped us by giving us national pride. This explains why Sister Nivedita is Hindu India's hero. This also explains why Western nations shower praise and money on Mother Teresa while Sister Nivedita remained unsung in the West and there were no contributions from that quarter even for her purely humanitarian work, like education and child care and relief work which she did with no less dedication, sympathy and loving care.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted from Catholic Ashrams by S.R. Goel, Appendix V. 1988

• “A religious minority is a law unto itself. The institutions run by it enjoy protection both from their staff as well as from the Government. Their properties are safe and their management secure from Government intervention, very unlike institutions run by Hindus which enjoy no such protection and which are subject to all kinds of interference from a Government which takes pride in being ‘secular’, and which has developed aversion of secularity informed by anti-Hindu animus. The Indian Express reports ( 28/29 January, ’86 ) that the famous temple of Lord Venkateswara at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh has been ordered to pay rupees twenty crores as tax on the “sales” of prasadam since 1975! The Aurangzebi spirit is very much alive. Favoured treatment and discriminatory taxes have been used by Governments in the past to promote particular culture-groups and destroy others.”

  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.

• “As regards Ramakrishna’s “practice of Islam and Christianity” of which the Mission makes so much, it finds no mention in the Gospel, the earliest and most authentic account of Ramakrishna’s thoughts and experiences in his own words. In this work we find that though Ramakrishna reminisces often about his experiences and God-filled states, there is hardly a word about his so-called practice of Islam and Christianity.... It also seems that the practice of Islam and Christianity made a less than deep impression on Ramakrishna, for subsequently he does not mention on his own initiative either Muhammad or the Koran, neither Jesus nor the Bible. Not even once! Nor did he draw from” his practice such excessive and indiscriminate conclusions as Mission monks now do.”

  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.

• “The Semitic religions are not religions in the Eastern sense of the term. Their thrust is towards outward expansion, not towards inward exploration. In fact, in the Eastern sense, they are not spiritualities, but are what Marx calls ideologies, tailored for political expansion and imperialist aggression. The two systems —Eastern and Semitic— differ widely in their outlook, perspective and approach. The former speaks in the language of Self or Atma, the latter in the language of external Gods; the former speaks of the Law, the rita, the inner, spiritual and moral law of being and action, the latter speak of Commandments of an external being. The two differ also in their concept of the deity. The god of Semitic religions is “jealous”; he can brook no other gods. He is the sole Lord of the world; therefore, he marches at the head of an army of believers to lay claim to his domain. Those who oppose him are rebels.”

  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.

• “With government money comes government control” is an axiom in any country. But the situation in India is unique with regard to minority religions. Under Article 30 of the constitution, “minority” religions are allowed to run educational institutions free from government control, but remain equally eligible for government funding as are institutions run by members of the “majority” religion. For the purposes of the constitution, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs are considered “Hindus” and hence part of the majority religion. Effectively the provision applies only to Muslims, Christians, and anyone who can get themselves declared a minority religion. One strange consequence of this is that the Vira Saivites of South India successfully argued earlier this century for minority status...”

  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.

• “The Hindu pantheon has changed to some extent but the old Gods are still active and are still understood though under modified names. Hindu India has a sense of continuity with its past which other nations, that changed their religions at some later stage, lack. It is also known that the Hindu religion preserves many old layers and forms. Therefore, its study may link us not only with its own past forms but also with the religious consciousness, intuitions and forms that prevailed in the past in Europe, in Greece, in Rome, in many Scandinavian and Baltic countries, amongst Germanic and Slavic peoples and also in several countries of the Middle East. In short, the study may reveal a fundamental form of spiritual consciousness which is wider than its Hindu expression.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Vedic approach is perhaps the best. It gives unity without sacrificing diversity. In fact, it gives a deeper unity and a deeper diversity beyond the power of ordinary monotheism and polytheism. It is one with the yogic and the mystic approach... In this deeper approach, the distinction is not between a true One God and false Many Gods; it is between a true way of worship and a false way of worship. Wherever there is sincerity, truth and self-giving in worship, that worship goes to the true altar by whatever name we may designate it and in whatever way we may conceive it. But if it is not desireless, if it has ego, falsehood, conceit and deceit in it, then it is unavailing though it may be offered to the most true God, theologically speaking.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And yet the birth of Many Gods will not herald the death of One God; on the other hand, it will enrich and deepen our understanding of both. For One God and Many Gods are spiritually one. (...) A purely monotheistic unity fails to represent the living unity of the Spirit and expresses merely the intellect's love of the uniform and the general. Similarly, purely polytheistic Gods without any principle of unity amongst them lose their inner coherence. (...) Monotheism is not saved by polytheism, nor polytheism by monotheism, but both are saved by going deep into the life of the soul. (...) Depending on the cultures in which they were born, mystics have given monotheistic as well as polytheistic renderings and interpretations of their inner life and experiences.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Pagan renaissance is overdue. It is necessary for Europe to heal its psyche. Under Christianity, Europe learned to reject its ancestors, its past, which cannot be good for its future also. Europe became sick because it tore apart from its own heritage, it had to deny its very roots. If Europe is to be healed spiritually, it must recover its spiritual past--at least, it should not hold it in such dishonor.... For self-recovery, these countries have to revive their old gods. But this is a task which cannot be done mechanically. They have to recapture the consciousness which expressed itself in the language of many gods... In my book, The Word as Revelation: Names of Gods, I spoke of a new kind of pilgrimage: a return to the time of the Gods. Meanwhile, European scholars can do a lot. They should write a history of Europe from the Pagan point of view, which would show how profoundly persecuted Paganism was. They should compile a directory of Pagan temples destroyed, Pagan groves and sacred spots desecrated. European Pagans should also revive some of these sites as their places of pilgrimage.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Interview in the June, 1996, issue of Antaios,

• “Having proved its value, the politics of taunts and accusations continues unabated. Those who benefit by it have merely to hurl the epithet ‘communal’, and there is a panic all around and the accused try to establish their secular credentials by the only way they know - by denouncing Hinduism. All this has led to competitive minorityism, selective communalism, the politics of out-musliming the Muslims and Hindu-bashing. But this politics is already getting discredited and yielding opposite results. It is awakening the Hindus and it is making them realize that the whole lot is rotten and that they should now take things in their own hands.”

  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.

  Also quoted by: Gurbachan Singh Talib

• “Indeed, we are face to face with a strange kind of Sikhism. The Sikh Gurus had worked and fought for the resurgence of Hinduism but now we are told that this resurgence is precisely the cause of Sikh uneasiness. Guru Govind Singh started sending Sikh Gyanis to Varanasi to learn Sanskrit and to study the Epics, the Puranas and other classics to understand the Adi Granth itself, but the neo-Akali ideologues find Sanskrit and these classics objectionable. Maharaja Ranjit Singh banned cow-killing in his kingdom and a hundred Sikhs were blown to smithereens by the British because they stood for cow-protection, but now it is an anathema to secularist Akali scholars. The fact is that it is not the old Sikhism of the Gurus but a new version of it which has been taking shape under the impact of very different ideological and political forces that we are meeting. This neo-Akalism is a child of self-alienation and spiritual illiteracy and it, is at odd not only with Hinduism but for that very reason with Sikhism itself.”

  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.

• “Therefore, the Hindus and Sikhs, the minorities in the new Muslim homeland, were not to be suffered to stay there. This “minorityism”, the name for Hindus and Sikhs, was “the major enemy of the Milltat,” as Rehmat Ali, one of the early League leaders and intellectuals and coiner of the word Pakistan, said. According to its original conception, Pakistan itself was to be larger than it turned out to be; it was to include Kashmir, Assam and Bengal in the East and Hyderabad and Malabar in the South and many independent Muslim states within the rest of the Indian territory. India, or whatever remained of India, was itself to be considered Dinia, an important Islamic concept.”

  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.

• “The above discussion shows why the Pope regards the New Age Movement with hostility. He regards it as an old enemy. If it derives from old Gnosticism... then it is easy to understand this hostility. The Movement is subversive of Christianity – its ideas, its externality, its exclusiveness, its authoritarianism.... All this shows that the Movement has a great responsibility to shoulder and a great role to play - an old role in a new context. To play it adequately and honourably, it has to become more conscious of its inspiration, its underlying ideas and philosophy; it has to become aware of its lost Pagan ancestry, its Eastern links and its common spiritual heritage.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Pope John Paul II on Eastern religions and yoga: A Hindu-Buddhist rejoinder. 1995

• “He also deals with the role of Marxism is recent negationist efforts: "Marxists have taken to rewriting Indian history on a large scale and it has meant its systematic falsification... The Marxists' contempt for India, particularly the India of religion, culture and philosophy, is deep and theoretically fortified. It exceeds the contempt ever shown by the most die-hard imperialists... Marx ruled out self-rule for India altogether and in this matter gave her no choice... Marxism idealizes old imperialisms and prepares a people for a new one. Its moving power is deep-rooted self-alienation and its greatest ally is cultural and spiritual illiteracy... No true history of India is possible without countering their philosophy, ideas and influence.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Ram Swarup, quoted from Elst, Koenraad. Negationism in India: concealing the record of Islam. 1992.

• “The story of Islam is no different. Prophetic Islam is inimical to mystic ideas. In the beginning, some Sufis courted martyrdom, but eventually they bought peace and safety by surrendering to Prophetic Islam. There have been some outstanding Sufis, but by arid large the Sufi movement has been part of a larger aggressive apparatus, just like Christian Missions of Imperialism. Though Islam persecuted "infidels", destroyed their temples, enslaved and looted them, we find no Sufis protesting. In fact. they were often beneficiaries of this vandalism. "In many cases there is no doubt that the shrine of a ·Muslim saint marks the site of some local cult which was practised on the spot long before the introduction of Islam," says Thomas Arnold making it look quite normal and harmless. Mu'in aI-Din Chishtl's dargah at Ajmer is one such shrine built on the ruins of an old Hindu temple. The saint had also got the present of a Hindu princess, part of thebooty captured by a Muslim General, Malik Khitab, when he attacked the neighbouring pagan land. Sufi saints often took full part in Islamic jihad.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “They also found that their old religion was part of a larger religious system which once prevailed in other parts 'of the world as well. Nigel Pennick, author and thinker, found great similarity between old European Paganism and Hinduism. He said that Hinduism represented the Eastern expression of this universal tradition and foresaw the possibility that Hindus might come to accept Europe's Pagans as a European branch of Hinduism. Prudence Jones, the spokesperson for the U.K. Pagan Federation, said the same things. She observed that all the world's indigenous and ethnic religions have three features in common: they are nature-venerating, seeing nature as a manifestation of Divinity; secondly, they are polytheistic and recognize many Gods, many Manifestations; the third feature is that they all recognize the Goddess, the female aspect of Divinity as well as the male. She showed how European Paganism was similar to Hinduism, Shintoism, and the North American tradition. She thought that apart from doctrinal similarity, it would be useful for the European Pagans to be affiliated with a world Hindu organization which would give them legal protection - remember, that Paganism in Europe is still a heresy and it has no legal rights and protection. She emphasized that European Pagan religion is the native, indigenous religion of Europe, and religions with doctrines like Christianity came later.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We also said that what is true of Europe is also true of Africa and South America. The countries of these continents have recently gained political freedom, but it has done little to help them to regain their spiritual identity. If they wish to rise in a deeper sense, they must recover their soul, their Gods, their roots in their own psyche. If they need any change, and there is no doubt they do, it must come from within themselves as a part of their own experience. They have to make the .best use of their own psychic and spiritual gifts. They cannot nse through imported deities, saviours and prophets.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Vyasa, the great commentator of Yogadadana, does somewhat better. He tells us that mind has five habitual states or planes (bhumis): mudha (dull or inert), kshipta (restless, or probably it is samkshipta and means contracted), vikshipta (scattered), ekagra (one-pointed), and niruddha (stopped). He makes a further pregnant statement that samlidhi is natural to mind and it can take place on all bhamis (sarvabhauma); but he adds a warning that the samlidhis of the first three bhUmis are non-yogic and only the samlidhis of the last two bhUmis are yogic. Only the yogic samlidhi leads to spiritual development.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Muslims had destroyed and looted the temples. The British did not do that but they took over a good deal of the temple lands as a 'revenue measure'; they did not use the word 'confiscation' and, in fact, converted some of these lands into 'monetary remuneration'. As a result, according to the Government of India's own comprehensive study beginning in 1962 and lasting for over ten years, the ten thousand five hundred and odd temples of Tamilnadu have a total annual income of only rupees twenty-seven million, from all their moveable and immoveable properties I Over 5,000 temples have only an annual income of Rs.500/- each! There is almost no money for the pujas, and the priests also hardly get anything. The only people who get proper remunerations are the Government functionaries employed to overseer the working of the temples. The 14,000 priests in Madhya Pradesh got five naya paisa per month at the time of Independence; now they get six naya paisa according to the Madhya Pradesh Pujaris Mahasangh!”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Sufism that survived and even prospered was tame and promised to subserve prophetism. Some great Sufi poets like Rumi and Attar convey a wrong impression of Islamic Sufism in general; they have been its show-pieces, not its representative figures. Mainstream Sufism has been represented by its silsilas like the Naqshbandiyya, Qadiriyya, Chishtiyya, Dervish, Marabout, Ribat, etc. They had no independent ideology of their own and they only served the spiritual-intellectual categories (manisha) of prophetic Islam; in fact, they became its most willing spokesmen. They never questioned its dogmas, not even its barbaric ideas about the kafirs, the jihad, the zimmis, the dar al-harb. There is nothing to show that they ever spoke against Islamic wars and oppression. On the other hand, as their history shows they were part and parcel of Islamic Imperialism, its enthusiastic sappers and miners and also its beneficiaries. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Dervish and Sufis have fought against the unbelievers in time of war. The devotees have accompanied the Shaikh or Murshid or Pir to the threatened frontiers. ... In India, the sufis have been an important limb of Islamic Imperialism and expansion.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “All this was obvious enough at the time even though it was not always put forward exactly in this form and in this language. Schlegel found India "the home of universal religion, the cradle of the noblest human race." J.C. Herder asked the question: "All the peoples of Europe, where are they from?" And he answered: "From Asia." Schopenhauer thought that India was the "fatherland of mankind," and he expressed the hope that European peoples "who stemmed from Asia ... would re-attain the holy religions of their home." All this however changed under a growing consciousness of Imperial power and Euro-centricity. New theories reflected new power realities and new Imperial needs. Aryan dispersion from a common centre was retained, but its direction was changed and it became the theory of the Aryan invasion of India. The theory was meant to justify and to help the British Imperialism. The theory has little intellectual respectability left, but it has not lost its political usefulness and it is quite popular with the representatives of preceding Imperialisms and their Hindu apologists.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “As we go further into humanity's past and study its great spiritual cultures, the need for Vedanta becomes still greater. There is no other way of understanding them except through a living culture which is also as ancient as they. Take Egypt, for example. We have happily found plenty of texts bearing on its religion, but the oral traditions through which its spiritual knowledge was transmitted was lost. Therefore, bare texts do not make a meaning as literalists have found. To understand them, "it is necessary that we tum to the Vedanta ... because the Upanishads provide the purest metaphysics available to us from the primordial past," as Arthur Versluis, the author of The Egyptian Mysteries, says. He himself followed this method and he found that the study of Vedanta "in-fills" Egyptian studies. His labour resulted in an illuminating study of Egypt's ancient religious tradition.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Patanjala Yoga used the word klesa for the principle of impurity in the soul which keeps it in bondage.... Following Samkhya the Patanjala Yoga enumerates five klesas. IOn the descending order of subtlety and potency, they are avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha and abhinivesa... According to Samkhya philsophy, there are two principles: Purusha and Prakriti.... According to Samkhya even chitta (mind stuff) or buddhi (intelligence) is material and is Prakriti's first modification. It is also called mahat..... Chitta or buddhi thinks it is conscioiius or a seer, but it is only an instrument of seeing. This is called asmita klesa and gies rise to a false sense of personality.... How to conquer klesas is the cental problem of Yoga...(p. 76 ff.)”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “For liberation, one enters into another territory called nirvana-bhumi by the Buddhists and nirodha-bhumi by Patanjala Yoga. But between this and the previous stage there is an intermeditate ground, a no man's land. It is at the apex of samprjnata samadhi and at the beginning of asmaprajnata samadhi. ... Here by sustained practice of the Yoga of discrimination or viveka-khyati, which separates the seer from the seen and the instruments of seeing, Purusha is seen for the first time as separate from Prakriti.... When this knowledge arises, the asmita klesa is destroyed. ... But when the chitta or the buddhi knows that it merely reflects a light which belongs to someone othere than iteself, the spiritual man is born. The asmita klesa, known as the heart-knot in the Upanishads is destroyed.... But what we have called the intermediate no man's land above has a rough and ready sort of Buddhist analogue in its eighth samapatti: naivasamjna nasmajna, neither knowing nor unknowing. It means the samsara has ended but the nirvana has not begun; the mind has ended but the Self has not begun. What is called asamjna here is called asamprjnata in Patanjala Yoga.(p. 83 ff)”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is not that there are different Purushas to experience but the same Purusha is experienced differently at different levels. There is the experience of Divinity at the level of purified manas, but the same is also experienced at the level of buddhi. ... In the first, the experience is more particularised; in the second it puts on a more universal aspect. ... Manas particularizes; buddhi generalises. In the movement from manas to buddhi, spirituality rises from a spiritual experience to a spiritual truth. .... One need not grade the two experiences but one should try to understand the difference between them. At the level of purified mans, there is faith, joy, sonship, prophethood, inspired utterances, luminous visions, chosen destinies, unique roles.... (p. 101 ff)”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In a way, none of these values were new but in the crucible of the Bhakti Movement they combined to crystallise in a new form and give rise to a new ethos. And under the influence of many great bhaktas and santas, they acquired a new urgency, a new poer. It made religion living for millions of people. Bhakti is now one of the greatest elements in Hindu religion. ....Hinduism has never been exclusively 'brahmanical'. It is particularly true of present-day Hinduism. It is the product of influences emanating from the humblest sources, and from most diverse circumstances. Kabir was a weaver; Raidas was a cobbler; .... (p 121 ff)”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A country cannot be defeated politically unless it is defeated culturally. Our alien rulers knew that they could not conquer India without conquering Hinduism - cultural India's name at its deepest and highest, and the principle of its identity, continuity and reawakening. Therefore Hinduism became an object of their special attack. Physical attack was supplemented by ideological attack. They began to interpret for us our history, our religion, our culture and ourselves. We learnt to look at us through their eyes.... The long period created an atmosphere of mental slavery and imitation. It created a class of people Hindu in their names and by birth but anti-Hindu in orientation, sympathy and loyalty. They knew all the bad things and nothing good about Hinduism. Hindu dharma is now being subverted from within. Anti-Hindu Hindus are very important today; they rule the roost; they write our histories, they define our nation; they control the media, the academia, the politics, the higher administration and higher courts. They are now working as clients of those forces who are planning to revive their old Imperialism... During this period our minds became soft. We became escapists; we wanted to avoid conflict at any cost, even conflict and controversy of ideas, even when this controversy was necessary. We developed an escape-route. We called it "synthesis". We said all religions, all scriptures, all prophets preach the same things. It was intellectual surrender, and our enemies saw it that way; they concluded that we are amenable to anything, that we would clutch at any false hope or idea to avoid a struggle, and that we would do nothing to defend ourselves. Therefore, they have become even more aggressive. It also shows that we have lost spiritual discrimination (viveka), and would entertain any falsehood; this is prajñâ-dosha, drishti-dosha, and it cannot be good for our survival in the long run. People first fall into delusion before they fall into misfortune.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Hindus temples have been under unprecedented attack for a thousand years. They suffered desecration, destruction, confiscation of their property and iniquitous taxation under the Muslim rulers. Under the British, the more physical methods ceased but fiscal methods were adopted for undermining "heathenism". A large part of the land and properties of the temples were taken away under all kinds of pretexts. After independence, the temples have fared no better. Their properties have not been restored to them and they continue to exist in deepening poverty. In the South where there are still many noble structures left, the temples are under the control of a Government which takes pride in being "secular", and whose secularity is thoroughly anti-Hindu in orientation.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But even if we take the Vedas to be history, we must apply a chosen criterion consistently and not pick and choose according to our convenience. In a Rg verse (7.6.3) which speaks of the foolish, the faithless, the rudely-speaking, the niggardly, of men without belief, sacrifice and worship (nyakritu, grathina, mRdhra-vâc, paNi, aSraddha, avriddha, ayajña), we are also told that "Far, far away has Agni chased those dasyus, and, in the east, has turned the godless westward", a direction which is just the opposite of what the Orientalists have been telling us - not eastward and southward but westward. Why neglect this testimony?”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “For example, Apollonius of Tyna, the great sage of the Greek world who is reputed to have come to India to meet its sages, is mentioned just to be told that his biography by Philostratus is "legendry". There is nothing improbable in a saint of the Greek world visiting India, but even if the biography is legendry, it is known to have been written by 220 AD, and even as a legend it is a good witness and tells us where India stood in the estimation of Greek sages and philosophers of an early date. It tells us that the Pythagoreans of Greece and the Naked Philosophers of Egypt had derived their doctrines from the "Wise men of India".”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Professor Halbfass follows a scholar's methodology in determining the extent of Indo-Greek contact. He is determined to find a document, some written mention, some journey relating to this contact before he would admit it, but by their very nature such evidences can only be very rare considering the time that has lapsed and the changes that have been wrought. But if Professor Halbfass had followed a more inward method or criterion of looking at Greek literature, he would have easily found plentiful evidence of a living Indo-Greek contact, particularly at the deeper level of the spirit. Both shared a common spiritual approach; both intuited man and his world in the same way; both expressed their spiritual intuition in the language of Gods; both taught âtma-vâda, and the theory of Two Selves and Two Ways; both taught the theory of karma, rebirth and moksha. In fact, the Greece of Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus has more in common with Hindu India than with Christian Europe.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The fact is that Christian art failed at a deeper level. It failed not in execution but in conception and vision, and this failure was at bottom failure of Christian theology in which mysticism is rudimentary and peripheral. Christian theology has no concept of transcendence, non-attachment, recollectedness, equality (samatâ), liberation (moksha), the vast (bhûmâ) and the infinite (ananta), compassion (kurunâ), of cosmic action emanating from restfulness at the centre; therefore, it felt no call to try to convey them in its art-forms. A deeper iconography needed the support of a deeper theology and vision. This explains why Christian art has no equivalents of Far Eastern Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as Huxley notices. The Eastern tradition was shaped by Hindu religious thinking and sensibility. Hindu art tried to portray the inner man: the Man behind the man, the Eye behind the eye, the Seeing behind the seeing, man's inner prânika or life-currents, the nodal points in his subtle body where the individual meets the cosmic. It portrayed man's inner physiognomy. .... But they portrayed the external man; there was no portrayal of the inner man, the luminous man, the transcendental man.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “European soldiers, traders, missionaries - later on ably assisted by its colonial ideologies and scholars - opened up the East to the influences of the West. But Huxley belonged to that small group of European thinkers and seekers who opened up the West to the influence of the East - a more arduous task and in the long run perhaps more important too. He did not seek this role, it was merely a bye-product of his search for truth. Huxley was one of the finest products of Europe - of a new Europe seeking its old roots, of a Europe no longer satisfied with mere technology and science and rationality but seeking a new dimension of the spirit, a Europe self-critical and in search. He was also a profound student of Europe's various traditions, religious, literary and artistic, and he discusses them with great knowledge, insights, authority and intimacy. In his hands, cultural Europe becomes alive. A critical discussion of Europe by such a sympathetic insider is meant to help, to fecundate; it can do no harm but will only help Europe in its spiritual rediscovery. In opening up to India and China, it would merely be opening up to an ancient tradition which was lost by her but preserved and developed in India and China.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When Huxley accepted the spiritual view of life, his opposition to monotheism remained and in fact deepened. He could not be reconciled with the Christian God, the Father and a habitual whipping father too - the wholly other. He sees sadism in this God. In Island, a very late work, one of his character says: "Somebody ought to make a historical study of the relations between theology and corporal punishment in childhood. I have a theory that, wherever little boys and girls are systematically flagellated, the victims grow up to think of God as - 'Wholly Other'... A people's theology reflects the state of its children's bottoms. Look at the Hebrews - enthusiastic child-beaters. And so were all good Christians in the Age of Faith.8 Hence Jehovah, hence Original Sin and the infinitely offended Father of Roman and Protestant orthodoxy. Whereas among Buddhists and Hindus education has always been nonviolent. No laceration of little buttocks - therefore Tat tvam asi, thou art That, mind from Mind is not divided." Continuing he mentions Augustine and Martin Luther, as the "two most relentlessly flagellated bottoms in the whole history of Christian thought"; and how their flagellation-theology is carried to its logical conclusion by Calvin and others. "Major premise: God is Wholly Other. Minor premise: man is totally depraved. Conclusion: Do to your children's bottoms what was done to yours, what your Heavenly Father has been doing to the collective bottom of humanity ever since the Fall: whip, whip, whip!”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Here one may also mention Huxley's idea of modern medicine. He says that it has marvellous antibiotics but absolutely no method for increasing resistance. Similarly, fantastic operations but nothing in the way of teaching people the way of going through life without having to be chopped up. Good for patching up when one is falling apart, but bad for keeping him healthy. And of course it knows nothing of integrated treatment as it knows nothing of integrated life. It knows nothing of the higher and positive consciousness and therefore there is no attempt to help a man to "open himself up to the life force or the Buddha nature".”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Discussing the problem concretely, he finds that both in its spirit and deeper conceptualization, the Perennial Philosophy is opposed to and is also opposed by the so-called "revealed religions" which make salvation and God's truth dependent on a unique and single revelation in history, dependent on an authorized mediator, and makes it a privilege of a particular church or ummah. Perennial Philosophy recognizes no such historical fatality, no priviledged intermediaries, no surrogates, no authorized proxies. Spiritual life is a lawful process, not a lucky accident or piece of history, a happenstance. Salvation is man's assussured possession, not a chance windfall. God is not a pie in the sky who appeared from nowhere at a particular time and became operative in human affairs; he has been active from the beginning. The great spiritual life resides in the heart and its truths are open to all sincere seekers. Man has known, possessed and lived those truths long before "revealed religions" were heard of.”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In this lecture, Huxley also relates how mysticism acquired a "tolerated position" in Western Christianity by an early "pious fraud". About the sixth century, a Neoplatonic writer, a convert to Christianity, wrote a book on Mystical Theology under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, who was mistaken for one Dionysius who was the first disciple of St. Paul in Athens. Under this mistaken identity, the book was well received. In the ninth century, it was translated by John Scotus Erigena and thereafter it entered into the tradition of the Western Church. It was not until recent times that the fraud was recognized for what it was, but by then it was too late. Huxley says that "in one of the odd, ironical quirks of history, this curious bit of forgery played a very important and very beneficent part in the Western Christian tradition".”

  Ram Swarup (1920–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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