Aravind Adiga - Bettany Hughes TV - Robert Beckford TV - Nostradamus Effect TV - Walter Cruttenden - Robert Winston TV - Art of Faith: Hinduism TV - Kumbh Mela: The Greatest Show on Earth TV - Laws of Manu - The Upanishads - Henry David Thoreau - Aldous Huxley - Bhagavad Gita - Klaus L Klostermaier - Swami Vivekananda - Mahatma Gandhi - Carl Sagan - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Joanna Lumley TV -
It is an ancient and venerated custom of people in my country to start a story by praying to a Higher Power.
I guess, Your Excellency, that I too should start off by kissing some god’s arse.
Which god’s arse, though? There are so many choices.
See, the Muslims have one god.
The Christians have three gods.
And we Hindus have 36,000,004 divine arses to choose from. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
Hinduism emerged more than three thousand years ago. Professor Bettany Hughes, Divine Women I: When God Was a Girl, BBC 2012
The story of Jesus wasn’t quite as unique as you might have thought. That the Hindu God Krishna also had a miraculous birth and was also attended by angels and shepherds. And that like Jesus the Buddha also performed miracles, walking on water and feeding the five hundred. Dr Robert Beckford, The Hidden Story of Jesus, Channel 4 2006
Krishna: there is also an immaculate conception and the birth is heralded by angels. ibid.
More similarities I found between Krishna and Jesus. ibid.
Here in Kashmir there is a totally different story – one that claims that Jesus did not die on the cross but escaped to India. Where he continued his teaching, got married, had a son and lived to a ripe old age. And even that he was buried here. ibid.
Ghandi’s Jesus was the original charismatic teacher. ibid.
The ancient Hindus created a calendar that some interpreters believe also points to 2012. The mythology of the Hindus, like that of the Maya and Hopi, believes that life in the universe occurs in cycles. According to Hindu myth each cycle of life is divided into four ages called Yuga:, the Dvapara, Treta, Satya and the Kali. Nostradamus Effect: Extinction 2012, History 2009
The modern system of Time we use on our watches – it’s twelve hours of a.m. and twelve hours of p.m. ... Our present system of Time is a microcosm of the Yugas system. Walter Cruttenden, author Lost Star of Myth and Time
Hinduism has produced an astonishing variety of forms and expressions. Inside and outside India it seems there are almost as many ways to be a Hindu as there are Hindus. Professor Robert Winston, The Story of God, BBC 2005
The ultimate religious truth is this: we are all God. ibid.
It has no single founder and no unified system of beliefs spelt out in a creed. It’s a rich and complex faith whose diversity is powerfully reflected in its iconography and architecture. Art of Faith: Hinduism
Carved from a solid mountain side this is the Kailasanatha Temple in Ellora. ibid.
Mamallapuram caves and carvings. ibid.
Khajuraho shrines and erotic carvings. ibid.
Brihadeeswara Temple Thanjavur. ibid.
Hinduism isn’t so much a religion as a way of life. ibid.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia: ibid.
The incredible and awe inspiring celebration of the world’s oldest religion happens every twelve years, at the place where Hindus believe two sacred rivers meet. Kumbh Mela: The Greatest Show on Earth, BBC 2013
The largest gathering of humans in one place ever. ibid.
There are millions here from all over the world. ibid.
The festival goes on for fifty-five days. ibid.
Sadhu: these Ascetic wear no clothes and cover their bodies with ash. ibid.
The very birth of a priest [Brahmin] is the eternal physical form of religion; for he is born for the sake of religion and is fit to become one with ultimate reality. Laws of Manu 1:98
The man who gives shim [the pupil] the benefit of the revealed canon … should be known as his guru. 1:149
Since people in the other three stages of life are supported every day by the knowledge and the food of the householder, therefore the householder stage of life is the best. 3:78
You can never get meat without violence to creatures with the breath of life, and the killing of creatures with the breath of life does not get you to heaven; therefore you should not eat meat. 5:48
A girl, a young woman, or even an old woman should not do anything independently, even in [her own] house. 5:147
Man has said that non-violence, truth, not stealing, purification, and the suppression of the sensory powers is the duty of the four classes, in a nutshell. 10:63
From delusion lead me to Truth.
From darkness lead me to Light.
from death lead me to immortality. The Upanishads, Brihadaranayaka Upanishad
Be compassionate. One should practise this same triad: self- restraint, giving, compassion. ibid.
The invisible and subtle essence is the Spirit of the whole universe. That is Reality. That is Truth. Thou art that. ibid.
Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind. ibid.
In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. Henry David Thoreau, Walden
The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity. Aldous Huxley
Hinduism is not just a faith. It is the union of reason and intuition that cannot be defined but is only to be experienced. Evil and error are not ultimate. There is no Hell, for that means there is a place where God is not, and there are sins which exceed his love. Bhagavad Gita
Hinduism has proven much more open than any other religion to new ideas, scientific thought, and social experimentation. Many concepts like reincarnation, meditation, yoga and others have found worldwide acceptance. It would not be surprising to find Hinduism the dominant religion of the twenty-first century. It would be a religion that doctrinally is less clear-cut than mainstream Christianity, politically less determined than Islam, ethically less heroic than Buddhism, but it would offer something to everybody. It will appear idealistic to those who look for idealism, pragmatic to the pragmatists, spiritual to the seekers, sensual to the here-and-now generation. Hinduism, by virtue of its lack of an ideology and its reliance on intuition, will appear to be more plausible than those religions whose doctrinal positions petrified a thousand years ago. Professor Klaus L Klostermaier
I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. Swami Vivekananda
I have no other wish in this world but to find light and joy and peace through Hinduism. Mahatma Gandhi
The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still. Carl Sagan
I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion … Hinduism and its thirty-three million gods can be bewildering. Joanna Lumley’s India s1e1, ITV 2017