Religious Studies Quotes

“If religion means primarily God-consciousness, or the realization of God both within and without, and secondarily a body of beliefs, tenets and dogmas, then, strictly speaking, there is but one religion in the world, for there is but one God.”
― Paramahansa Yogananda, The Science of Religion

“Interfaith is faith supreme.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“Grow out of the kindergarten of scripture, earn your admittance into the university of love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Infidelity is the first sign of religion,
Disbelief is the sign of practical divinity.
Birth of a question is the birth of understanding,
To question division is to practice humanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“[These are] the rewards of reading the Old Testament regularly. You keep on discovering more and more what a tissue of quotations from it the New Testament is; how constantly Our Lord repeated, reinforced, continued, refined, and sublimated, the Judaic ethics, how very seldom He introduced a novelty.”
― C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

“One has to be very careful lest the desire to patronise and the itch to be a busybody should disguise itself as a vocation to help the "fallen", or tend to obscure our knowledge that we are fallen - perhaps in God's eyes far more so - ourselves.”
― C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

“If theologians cannot be the forerunners of religious integration, then such theology isn't worth a penny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“There is no such thing as organized religion, because religion organized is religion lost. Religion by nature ought to be about liberating the mind of all divisions - all organizations - if not, then it is not religion to begin with - or at the very least, it is the most infantile form of religion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“There is no such thing as organized religion, because religion organized is religion lost.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“If the fundamentalists call you infidel because of your inclusive spirit, know that you are doing something right for a change - you are doing something human for a change.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“If organized religion is the most infantile form of religion, secularism is religion for the grownups. But it doesn't end there. The next stage is where the very concept of secularism turns obsolete.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“Keep your belief if you must, but keep it as belief, not as truth - that is, keep it only, and only, as a personal truth, and not a supreme truth. Contrary to tradition, this doesn't make your truth inferior to that of others, instead this seemingly simple behavior of the human mind paves the way for an actual world of peace - a world where more personal truths can coexist in harmony without belittling each other.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“It doesn't matter whether you are muslim, christian, jew or atheist. It doesn't matter whether you are black, white, brown or martian. If you have love in your heart and kindness in your hands, then you are human. But if your existence is anemic of love and kindness, then no matter how human you look, and how many Sundays and Fridays you spend at the church or the mosque, you ain't no human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“If theology is to contribute anything good to the world, then it must shift its focus from the study of scriptures to the outspoken advocacy of religious integration. And if theologians cannot be the forerunners of religious integration, then such theology isn't worth a penny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“Religion organized is religion lost.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“Thus Speaks God (The Sonnet)

Ik onkar, satnaam,
Porque, yo soy insan.
Aham bismillahsmi,
Çünkü, benim adım vicdan.
Sarva dharman parityajya,
Giving up all national grave,
Nos haremos vessels of verdad,
Rise we shall as sapiens brave.
Divinidad está en cada cultura,
But no culture is pure divinity.
Human divided is human undivine,
Hatelessness is civilized divinity.
Thus speaks God in tongue beyond tongues.
One vessel isn't enough to contain my neurons.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“One Spirit, Many Vessels (Sonnet 1021)

Christ was not a christian,
Vyasa was not a hindu.
Mohammed was not a muslim,
Abraham was not a jew.
Buddha was not a buddhist,
Confucius was not confucian.
Zoroaster was not zoroastrian,
Naskar is not naskarean.
Nanak was not a sikh,
Mahavir was not a jain.
All that we ever wanted is,
To remind the humans to be human.
Move past the person, and delve into spirit.
There you shall discover, divisions do not exist.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo

“In worshipping the moon in the water of the well people forget about the real moon up in the sky. They take the reflection to be the real thing and the well to be the entire sky. And over time as this habit grows stronger through generations by tradition, the very thought of a moon and a sky outside the well strikes like blasphemy.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo

“All say, what religion is Naskar!
Naskar says, what religion is the sun!
Some name it alshams, bazıları güneş, algunos sol,
All bask in the same light, varied though the tongue.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Centurion Sermon: Mental Por El Mundo

“I don't study the cultures of the world, I am the cultures of the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Her Insan Ailem: Everyone is Family, Everywhere is Home

“Religion organized is religion lost..”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“Interfaith dialogue doesn't mean, 'come, let me tell you something about my faith.' Interfaith dialogue means, 'come, tell me something about your faith - I want to learn - I want to grow'.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Mukemmel Musalman: Kafir Biraz, Peygamber Biraz

“I have found unorthodoxy to be quite rare in the domain of religion, yet that very unorthodoxy is what brings religion to life, whereas orthodoxy turns religion into a vessel of death.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Girl Over God: The Novel

“Infidelity is the first sign of religion, Disbelief is the sign of practical divinity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Land of love is godland.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amor Apocalypse: Canım Sana İhtiyacım

“All Roads Lead to Aum
(The Sonnet)

God needs no man,
Because (hu)man is God.
God is a mythical lie,
Godliness is not.

Oneness is Godliness,
Godliness is oneness.
World without oneness,
is a manifestation mindless.

Oneness is the Noor,
Oneness is Kabbalah.
Oneness is Aum,
Oneness is Nirvana.

All roads lead to Aum,
Whether you speak sanskrit, latin or klingon.
Light up the noor at the altar of heart,
Finally as true sapiens a common ape will dawn.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Systems of faith are systems before they are places of faith. They are made by people
and share the flaws of their builders.”
― Thenmozhi Soundararajan, The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition

“We Jews like to believe Judaism can stand on it's own, not just a pillar of Christianity.”
― Daniel Radosh, Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture

“God is Schrodinger's cat,
one moment it's there, the next it's not -
all depends on the state of mind -
God is the oldest fear-bending construct.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator

“God is Schrodinger's cat, one moment it's there, the next it's not - all depends on the state of mind - God is the oldest fear-bending construct. Problem is when apes use God to enforce fear, a healthy refuge is rendered harmful refuse.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Humanitarian Dictator