R. N. Prasher

“In some languages (Hindi is one), every perception is called "seeing". Maybe, the trick is to rely on the eyes less and less as one perceives more and more.”

“Pleasure and pain are on the same side of the coin of human experience. The opposite is indifference or numbness.”

“My Ten Commandments:1. God is a verb, not a noun.2. Prayers are important only if they lead to corresponding actions.3. Creation is an art. Science provides the tools for the artist. Anybody with the tools is not necessarily an artist.4. Religion involves exclusivity and superiority. Divinity is inclusive and involves humility.5. God by definition should be omnipotent. He should not require intermediation by priests and prophets.6. All prophets have displayed exclusivity and superiority. (Refer to #4 above)7. Rituals involve intermediation and often cruelty towards other fellows of creation. 8. Inclusivity and humility towards all creations of God is divine.9. Rituals are antithesis of the divine. Rituals indicate a god and his intermediaries who are greedy, arrogant, revengeful and cruel.10. God exists only for increasing happiness of all creatures.”

“Whatever time mother goes to heaven, it is always too soon. Fortunately, she is forever.”

“When I am passing through hell, I have to remind myself of the last time I happened to be on that road. How quickly it was over, without any ingenuity on my part. After all, hell is a one-way street. The only direction forward is the way out.”

“Like everything else, we know the futility of money only when we have more than enough of it.”

“When a lie makes a soft bed for everyone, may the truth lie low. God as commonly understood appears to be one such lie. God as non-existence is not everyone's cup of tea and He better remain so.”

“Truth is always a quest and if it looks anything like a destination, it is proof that we are on to illusion. Thus, unique is each quest!”

“When water is being filled in a pot, the sound we hear is a function of the pot, not of the water. Same water makes different sounds in different pots. Each of us, described in Sanskrit as Ghata, meaning pot, responds in a unique way to the stimuli from the surrounding environment. Do not be surprised when the response of another appears entirely different from yours. The pot has created the illusion of a wall, of mine and other. Once you become aware of that illusion, otherness melts and the universe becomes a unified verse again, with apparently diverse responses becoming part of the same symphony.”

“Young children have no past. The old have no future. The rest are too busy with present. This time-tripod holds up the world. You ignore the importance of this interdependence of the three, the world as you know it is in danger of collapsing”

“Women are almost two thirds more likely than men to believe in God, a major study of attitudes among middle aged Britons has found, says The Telegraph. Well, men are twice more likely than God to believe in women! (At least that was so in the Garden of Eden)”

“What is knowledge but a lucid enunciation of ignorance of yesterday. If there is no darkness to dispel, there can be no light.”

“Unconditional love should not be presumed to be without ardent expectations as also the inevitable disappointment.”

“Words, with their multiple meanings and nuances are like trees and oral communication like a forest. Trees are good for hiding, forest for losing the path. When one is trying to contemplate the horizon of illusion and reality, trees and forests can offer no help.”

“Wind is on fire" - beautiful words. What causes the fire, what enhances it, and what finally extinguishes it by itself or by bringing in rainclouds, gets identified with it. Do breath and life have the same relationship with each other!”

“Darkness is perhaps the only reality, the only truth, both of which have only one property; they are eternal. What we call light is a mere temporary absence of darkness, untruth, a mere temporary absence of truth. Vedas point to this absence by neti, neti; not this, not this. Both, darkness and truth overcome light and untruth and start becoming manifest, sooner or later, mostly sooner than later, once we believe and strive to experience. Sages, down the ages, have emphasised the learning path to The Truth; prevent light from entering your eyes by shutting them or sitting in a darker area, to make it easier. And a last word; there is no perfect darkness and no perfect truth. These, just two names for the same absence, are goals to which we may get ever closer, without reaching. And priests and scriptures make God so complicated!”