Dayananda Saraswati

“Lyric helps invoke the core person. And, without lyric, it is difficult to touch the core. Lyrical music is the music of India.”

“It is proper to take photographs or other kinds of pictures of persons to put them before us for sight or remembrance. But it is improper to make pictures and images of God and to take his likenesses therefrom to his great distortion.”

“The soul is one in its nature, but its entities are many.”

“Though music transcends language, culture and time, and though notes are the same, Indian music is unique because it is evolved, sophisticated and melodies are defined.”

“God is absolutely holy and wise. His nature, attributes, and power are all holy. He is omnipresent, incorporeal, unborn, immense, omniscient, omnipotent, merciful and just. He is the maker, protector, and destroyer of worlds.”

“God has neither form nor color. He is incorporeal and immense. Whatever is seen in the world describes his greatness.”

“I love to follow truth; nay, I have made it my duty to persuade others to act on truth and abjure falsehood for the sake of their own good. So, the eradication of iniquities is the object of my life.”

“No human heart is denied empathy. No religion can demolish that by indoctrination. No culture, no nation and nationalism - nothing can touch it because it is empathy.”

“The commendable conduct of man is shown by his discriminate treatment of merits and sympathetic regard for pleasure and pain, profit and loss of others. The contrary course is reprehensible.”

“In life, loss is inevitable. Everyone knows this, yet in the core of most people it remains deeply denied - 'This should not happen to me.' It is for this reason that loss is the most difficult challenge one has to face as a human being.”

“Wealth is a thing, earned with honesty and justice. Its opposite is the Mammon of unrighteousness.”

“The fitness of the pupil is shown in his love for the acquisition of knowledge, his willingness to receive instruction, his reverence for learned and virtuous men, his attendance upon the teacher, and his execution of orders.”

“People should try to know God and imitate him in their works. Repetitions and ceremonials are of no use.”

“People should never worship images. The spread of mental darkness is due to the prevalence of idolatry.”

“The greatest musical instrument given to a human being is the voice.”

“Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.”

“Salvation is the state of emancipation from the endurance of pain and subjection to birth and death, and of the life of liberty and happiness in the immensity of God.”

“What is crucial in dealing with loss is not to lose the lesson. That makes you a winner in the most profound sense.”

“Prayer in any form is efficacious because it is an action. It will, therefore, have a result. That is the law of this universe in which we find ourselves.”

“He is good and wise who always speaks the truth, acts on the dictates of virtue, and tries to make others good and happy.”