1
Like everything else, we know the futility of money only when we have more than enough of it.R. N. Prasher
2
Pleasure and pain are on the same side of the coin of human experience. The opposite is indifference or numbness.R. N. Prasher
3
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 collapsingR. N. Prasher
4
Unconditional love should not be presumed to be without ardent expectations as also the inevitable disappointment.R. N. Prasher
5
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.R. N. Prasher
6
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.R. N. Prasher
7
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.R. N. Prasher
8
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.R. N. Prasher
9
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! .R. N. Prasher
10
What is knowledge but a lucid enunciation of ignorance of yesterday. If there is no darkness to dispel, there can be no light.R. N. Prasher
11
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)R. N. Prasher
12
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.R. N. Prasher
13
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!R. N. Prasher
14
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!R. N. Prasher
15
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.R. N. Prasher
16
Whatever time mother goes to heaven, it is always too soon. Fortunately, she is forever.R. N. Prasher
17
As you look up to see the stars, keep watching the ground with your feet.R. N. Prasher
18
Earth" is not too long an address. It is the parts which make us forget the way.R. N. Prasher
19
Religion can only be a means to a set of values cherished by its living adherents. If those values relate only to a past or a presumed afterlife, it is a sign that religion has become a goal serving the ends of a priest or a demagogue and rest of the living are merely tools to serve that end. If it is not to become a fossil, it has to be a living faith serving the cherished values of the living.R. N. Prasher
20
One of the perils of life is to be asked a question which the wisest of them cannot answer. But a smile does the job.R. N. Prasher
21
Racism and religious bigotry are two essential pieces of baggage mankind carries as it moves from one century to the next.R. N. Prasher
22
Of all creatures on earth, in proportion to their size and weight, humans have the smallest footprint on the ground and the largest on the environment.R. N. Prasher
23
Humans are like Variables in mathematics, some Dependent, some Independent. Variables are in relationship but remain Variable. Of course, there are some Constants too both in mathematics and humans. Constants help define precisely the relationship between variables. Maybe, that is why humans keep adding (to problems), subtracting (from happiness), multiplying (what else, we are all over earth) and dividing (the earth among themselves).R. N. Prasher
24
If I do not agree with something or do not like something, it will be wrong to presume that I hate it. Presuming disagreement or dislike to be the same as hatred is stifling engagement. Disengagement leads to otherness, which leads to fear, which in turn leads to real hatred. Either we tolerate disagreement and dislike or we have to tolerate real hatred. The intolerance of disagreement is filling civil society lexicon with phobias each of which is leading to a disconnect, to another closed door. It may sound odd but only tolerance of disagreement demolishes walls. Doors and windows, open or closed, presume that there exists a wall, a wall created by intolerance. And doors and windows, if they exist, are closed too easily, at the slightest of pretexts.R. N. Prasher
25
As the dew drop slides down the leaf to wet the soil, they call it "fall in love". Yet, do we know the way up from the way down?R. N. Prasher
26
The Seeker, The Teacher and The Genius:Knowing is an art; communicating that knowledge is art twice over; but it is only the genius who can use that knowledge.R. N. Prasher
27
As long as one can think as an outsider, an observer apart from the conflict, there is hope for a resolving thought.R. N. Prasher