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| Bengali Poet Rabindranath Tagore with Albert Einstein, August 19, 1930 |
As westerners we have always believed that everything that has been taught to us from a social, political and religious viewpoint within our own society has always been superior to other countries but that is an egoistic fallacy and now it is time to rise above our own ignorance and accept the truth we are more than just a physical human being living here on this planet and India has provided us with all the wisdom about our history as humans. With the invention of the internet many years ago our laziness is no more of a excuse to justify the means and making excuses as westerners that we can only accept the knowledge that has been handed down to us by our own society even though public libraries have wonderful books to gain knowledge if one wants to know how to find the truth behind the origins of humanity. If we took the time to read like past leaders, scientists, scholars, philosophers, writers, and historians we would understand all cultures are one in the same. We have taken the time to do the research and have accepted that truth is stranger than fiction, but once you realize the importance of self-knowledge, you have no fear of death and life can unfold new opportunities to change the world for all and to gain back our rightful freedom from materialism. Until the average Joe or western is curious enough to desire knowledge he/she is trapped to the conformity of popular belief within our society and does not learn for themselves through self - knowledge or discovery of their eternal existence to help change the world from ignorance to enlightenment. A true Occultist knows All secret societies of the esoteric teachings including but not limited too the Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Hermeticism, Skull & Bones, Ordo Templi Orientis, Gnosticism, Kabbalahism, Alchemists, Theosophical Society, Sufism and many more got their wisdom from the Upanishads & Bhagavad-Gita within the Sanskrit of the Vedas from India. All Religions came from the fruits of knowledge within the Vedas from India including Buddhism, Egyptians, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism and the rest of all the world religions.
"Self-knowledge has always been the theme of the Sages; and the Upanishads deal especially with the knowledge of the Self and also with the knowledge of God, because there is no difference between the Self and God. They are one and the same. That which comes out of the Infinite Whole must also be infinite; hence the Self is infinite."
-The Upanishads
Plato (429-347 B.C.E.) the influence of Upanishads is more discernible. His allegory of the cave is reminiscent of the theory of illusion (maya) so well described in the Upanishads. Both Pythagoras and Plato believed in the immortality of the soul (atman) and reincarnation. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.), Plato's student and teacher of Alexander, held similar thoughts. Max Muller, who translated the Upanishads, was indeed shocked to see the similarities of Plato's writings and the Upanishads.
Only a fool would deny the truth that all of humanities history points back to India within the Sanskrit of the Vedas within plain site and if one does their own research and quit relying on others to sway their knowledge they will began to understand that knowledge comes only by the experience of the seeker and not by the teacher. Most if not all from past inventions, social systems, technologies, science, mathematics, astronomy, liturgy and religious thought derived from the culture of India and then flourished to other cultures and or countries. The secret of secrets is all of history that makes the western world superior and other countries came from India within the Sanskrit Writings of the Vedas and many of the wisest man from the four corners of the earth from the past to present derived their knowledge from studying the Vedas and visiting India to discuss knowledge with the Sages or Seers. Knowledge is free for all seekers but unfortunately for thousands of years the average person in the western world have been kept in the dark caused by their own delusional mind being trapped in materialistic endeavors instead of understanding one's purpose, psychology. The word "psychology" is the combination of two terms - study (ology) and soul (psyche), or mind. The derivation of the word from Latin gives it this clear and obvious meaning: The study of the soul or mind.
The Upanishads also influenced Plato's predecessor and mentor Socrates (469-399 B.C.E.) as well. He was reputed to have met an Indian philosopher while roaming the streets of Athens. Socrates learned from the Indian the relationship between the Absolute (Divine) and the relative (the human). Most of these Greek philosophers also believed in reincarnation, the idea that most certainly came from the East. Socrates said, "I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, and the living spring from the dead."
Martin Luther King Jr. finds the teachings of Gandhi beneficial - Bhagavad Gita
The Social Gospel articulated by Walter Rauschenbusch gave King a theological foundation for social activism and for working for the Kingdom of God on earth. But the Christian concept of brotherly love, with its injunctions to "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies," did not appear to King to be an effective means of achieving social change. If love couldn't work, what would? While he was searching for answers, King attended a lecture on the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, presented by Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson, the president of Howard University. Johnson explained how Gandhi had forged Soul Force, or satyagraha -- the force of love and truth combined -- into a mighty vehicle for social change. Johnson argued that the moral power of Gandhian nonviolence could improve race relations in America, too. King was electrified by this possibility. He promptly bought six books on Gandhi, who had studied Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, in turn, had studied the Bhagavad Gita and the Hindu texts the Upanishads. Gandhi took Thoreau's theory and gave it practical application -- "strikes, boycotts, and protest marches all conducted nonviolently, and all predicated on love for the oppressor and a belief in divine justice." Gandhi's goal was not to defeat the British, but to redeem them through love. King became convinced that Gandhi had found the way for an oppressed minority to struggle against social injustice. King's eclectic yet coherent synthesis of theology and social action would provide him with a solid foundation in the tumultuous years ahead. The vision of Thoreau also influenced personalities like Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Bernard Shaw, John F. Kennedy. In 1998, President Clinton recognized the principle of civil disobedience as alternatives to violence.Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was also deeply influenced by Upanishads as evidenced by his compositions of Leaves of Grass, wherein he expresses his knowledge of the Vedas, especially in his acknowledgement of immanence of God and ability to intuit knowledge.
The Vedas are considered the earliest literary record of Indo-Aryan civilization, and the most sacred books of India. They are the original scriptures of Hindu teachings, and contain spiritual knowledge encompassing all aspects of our life. Vedic literature with its philosophical maxims has stood the test of time and is the highest religious authority for all sections of Hindus in particular and for mankind in general. Veda” means wisdom, knowledge or vision, and it manifests the language of the gods in human speech. The laws of the Vedas regulate the social, legal, domestic and religious customs of the Hindus to the present day. All the obligatory duties of the Hindus at birth, marriage, death etc. owe their allegiance to the Vedic ritual. They draw forth the thought of successive generation of thinkers, and so contain within it the different strata of thought.
The influence of the Bhagavad-Gita has not been limited to a single period in history or a single place in the world; it has not been bound to a single school of philosophy or a single sect of people. It transcends all boundaries and distinctions. Here is a collection of quotations about the Gita:
“I hesitate not to pronounce the Geeta a performance of great originality, of a sublimity of conception, reasoning, and diction almost unequalled; and a single exception, amongst all the known religions of mankind.”
Warren Hastings (1754-1826)
First Governor-General of British India
“I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavat Geeta. It was the first of books; 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 (1803-1882)
American transcendentalist philosopher
“…probably the most beautiful book which has ever come from the hand of man.”
Émile-Louis Burnouf (1821-1907)
French orientalist
“Among the priceless teachings that may be found in the great Hindu poem of the Mahabharata, there is none so rare and priceless as this, ‘The Lord’s Song’.”
Annie Besant (1847-1933)
Irish theosophist
“In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-Gita with full understanding, it is necessary to attune our soul to it.”
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)
Austrian philosopher
“…a magnificent flower of Hindu mysticism.”
Count Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949)
Belgian poet
“...the Bhagavad-Gita, perhaps the most beautiful work of the literature of the world.”
Count Hermann Keyserling (1880-1946)
German philosopher
“The Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution. 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 (1894-1963)
English writer
“The greatness of the Bhagavad Gita is the greatness of the universe, but even as the wonder of the stars in heaven only reveals itself in the silence of the night, the wonder of this poem only reveals itself in the silence of the soul.”
Prof. Juan Mascaró (1897-1987)
Spanish writer
“The Gita can be seen as the main literary support for the great religious civilization of India, the oldest surviving culture in the world. It brings to the West a salutary reminder that our highly activistic and one-sided culture is faced with a crisis that may end in self-destruction because it lacks the inner depth of an authentic metaphysical consciousness.”
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
American social critic
"First of all, I do not accept the Darwinian theory of evolution. But I do accept another kind of evolution, which I explain in my book Human Devolution: A Vedic Alternative to Darwin's Theory. The key point is that material bodies are vehicles for nonmaterial conscious selves. According to this idea, the conscious self is different from the material body. According to the Vedic cosmology, there are different kinds of human bodies in the universe. The Vedic universe is a consciousness-based universe. This universe has different levels, inhabited by beings of different levels of consciousness. So there are superhuman beings, with higher levels of consciousness. They exist on a different level of reality. So it is possible for the conscious self that now is dwelling in an ordinary human body, on this level of reality, to occupy the body of a superhuman being, on a higher level of reality, in a future life. So there can be an evolution of the conscious self through different kinds of bodies. The bodies are not changing, or evolving, but the conscious self can evolve through the different kinds of bodies." Author, Michael A. Cremo, Forbidden Archeology, Human Devolution
Madame H.P. Blavatsky (1831-1891), co-founder of the Theosophical Society, states: “Since the birth of the Theosophical Society … it is being repeated daily that all the Esoteric Wisdom of the ages lies concealed in the Vedas, the Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita.”
Manly P. Hall (1901-1990), "Truth is eternal. The so-called revelations of Truth that come in different religions are actually but a re-emphasis of an ever-existing doctrine. Thus Moses did not originate a new religion for Israel; he simply adapted the Mysteries of Egypt to the needs of Israel. The ark triumphantly borne by the twelve tribes through the wilderness was copied after the Isaac ark which may still be traced in faint has-relief upon the ruins of the Temple of Philae. Even the two brooding cherubim over the mercy seat are visible in the Egyptian·carving, furnishing indubitable evidence that the secret doctrine of Egypt was the prototype of Israel's mystery religion. In his reformation of Indian philosophy, Buddha likewise did not reject the esotericism of the Brahmins, but rather adapted this esotericism to the needs of the masses in India. The mystic secrets locked within the holy Vedas were thus disclosed in order that all men, irrespective of castely distinction, might partake of wisdom and share in a common heritage of good." Rosicrucian and Masonic Origins - From Lectures on Ancient Philosophy—An Introduction to the Study and Application of Rational Procedure: The Hall Publishing Company, Los Angeles, First Edition 1929, pp 397-417
Alice Bailey (1880-1949), founder of the Arcane School, states, “There are three books which should be in the hands of every student, the Bhagavad Gita, the New Testament, and the Yoga Sutras, for in these three is contained a complete picture of the soul and its unfoldment.”
Carl Jung (July 1875 -1961), “The idea that man is like unto an inverted tree seems to have been current in by gone ages. The link with Vedic conceptions is provided by Plato in his Timaeus in which it states…” behold we are not an earthly but a heavenly plant.”
Will Durant, American historian: "India was the motherland of our race, and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages: she was the mother of our philosophy; mother, through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics; mother, through the Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity; mother, through the village community, of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all".
Mark Twain, American author: "India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only."
Albert Einstein, American scientist: "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made."
Max Mueller, German scholar: If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India.
Romain Rolland, French scholar : "If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India."
Henry David Thoreau, American Thinker & Author: Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climbs, and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I read it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night.
R.W. Emerson, American Author: In the great books of India, 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 questions that exercise us.
Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA: "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border."
Keith Bellows, National Geographic Society : "There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won't go. For me, India is such a place. When I first visited, I was stunned by the richness of the land, by its lush beauty and exotic architecture, by its ability to overload the senses with the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes, and sounds... I had been seeing the world in black & white and, when brought face-to-face with India, experienced everything re-rendered in brilliant technicolor."
Dr Arnold Toynbee, British Historian: "It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way."
Sir William Jones, British Orientalist: "The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either."
P. Johnstone: "Gravitation was known to the Hindus (Indians) before the birth of Newton. The system of blood circulation was discovered by them centuries before Harvey was heard of."
Emmelin Plunret: "They were very advanced Hindu astronomers in 6000 BC. Vedas contain an account of the dimension of Earth, Sun, Moon, Planets and Galaxies." ('Calendars and Constellations')
Sylvia Levi: "She (India) has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim ... her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinese sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales, and her civilization!"
Schopenhauer: "Vedas are the most rewarding and the most elevating book which can be possible in the world." (Works VI p.427)
Colonel James Todd: "Where can we look for sages like those whose systems of philosophy were prototypes of those of Greece: to whose works Plato, Thales and Pythagorus were disciples? Where do I find astronomers whose knowledge of planetary systems yet excites wonder in Europe as well as the architects and sculptors whose works claim our admiration, and the musicians who could make the mind oscillate from joy to sorrow, from tears to smile with the change of modes and varied intonation?"
Lancelot Hogben: "There has been no more revolutionary contribution than the one which the Hindus (Indians) made when they invented ZERO." ('Mathematics for the Millions')
Wheeler Wilcox: "India - The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas."
W. Heisenberg, German Physicist: "After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense."
Sir W. Hunter, British Surgeon: "The surgery of the ancient Indian physicians was bold and skilful. A special branch of surgery was dedicated to rhinoplasty or operations for improving deformed ears, noses and forming new ones, which European surgeons have now borrowed."
Sir John Woodroffe: "An examination of Indian Vedic doctrines shows that it is in tune with the most advanced scientific and philosophical thought of the West."
B.G. Rele: "Our present knowledge of the nervous system fits in so accurately with the internal description of the human body given in the Vedas (5000 years ago). Then the question arises whether the Vedas are really religious books or books on anatomy of the nervous system and medicine." ('The Vedic Gods')
Adolf Seilachar & P.K. Bose, scientists: "One Billion-Year-Old fossil prove life began in India: AFP Washington reports in Science Magazine that German Scientist Adolf Seilachar and Indian Scientist P.K. Bose have unearthed fossil in Churhat a town in Madhya Pradesh, India which is 1.1 billion years old and has rolled back the evolutionary clock by more than 500 million years."
"No work in all Indian literature is more quoted, because none is better loved, in the West, than the Bhagavad-gita. Translation of such a work demands not only knowledge of Sanskrit, but an inward sympathy with the theme and a verbal artistry. For the poem is a symphony in which God is seen in all things....The Swami does a real service for students by investing the beloved Indian epic with fresh meaning. Whatever our outlook may be, we should all be grateful for the labor that has lead to this illuminating work."
Dr. Geddes MacGregor, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
University of Southern California
"The Gita can be seen as the main literary support for the great religious civilization of India, the oldest surviving culture in the world. The present translation and commentary is another manifestation of the permanent living importance of the Gita."
Thomas Merton,
Theologian
"I am most impressed with A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada's scholarly and authoritative edition of Bhagavad-gita. It is a most valuable work for the scholar as well as the layman and is of great utility as a reference book as well as a textbook. I promptly recommend this edition to my students. It is a beautifully done book."
Dr. Samuel D. Atkins
Professor of Sanskrit, Princeton University
"...As a successor in direct line from Caitanya, the author of Bhagavad-gita As It Is is entitled, according to Indian custom, to the majestic title of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. The great interest that his reading of the Bhagavad-gita holds for us is that it offers us an authorized interpretation according to the principles of the Caitanya tradition."
Olivier Lacombe
Professor of Sanskrit and Indology, Sorbonne University, Paris
"I have had the opportunity of examining several volumes published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust and have found them to be of excellent quality and of great value for use in college classes on Indian religions. This is particularly true of the BBT edition and translation of the Bhagavad-gita."
Dr. Frederick B. Underwood
Professor of Religion, Columbia University
"...If truth is what works, as Pierce and the pragmatists insist, there must be a kind of truth in the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, since those who follow its teachings display a joyous serenity usually missing in the bleak and strident lives of contemporary people."
Dr. Elwin H. Powell
Professor of Sociology
State University of New York, Buffalo
"There is little question that this edition is one of the best books available on the Gita and devotion. Prabhupada's translation is an ideal blend of literal accuracy and religious insight."
Dr. Thomas J. Hopkins
Professor of Religion, Franklin and Marshall College
"The Bhagavad-gita, one of the great spiritual texts, is not as yet a common part of our cultural milieu. This is probably less because it is alien per se than because we have lacked just the kind of close interpretative commentary upon it that Swami Bhaktivedanta has here provided, a commentary written from not only a scholar's but a practitioner's, a dedicated lifelong devotee's point of view."
Denise Levertov,
Poet
"The increasing numbers of Western readers interested in classical Vedic thought have been done a service by Swami Bhaktivedanta. By bringing us a new and living interpretation of a text already known to many, he has increased our understanding manyfold."
Dr. Edward C Dimock, Jr.
Department of South Asian Languages and Civilization
University of Chicago
"The scholarly world is again indebted to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Although Bhagavad-gita has been translated many times, Prabhupada adds a translation of singular importance with his commentary...."
Dr. J. Stillson Judah,
Professor of the History of Religions and Director of Libraries
Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California
"Srila Prabhupada's edition thus fills a sensitive gap in France, where many hope to become familiar with traditional Indian thought, beyond the commercial East-West hodgepodge that has arisen since the time Europeans first penetrated India.
"Whether the reader be an adept of Indian spiritualism or not, a reading of the Bhagavad-gita As It Is will be extremely profitable. For many this will be the first contact with the true India, the ancient India, the eternal India."
Francois Chenique, Professor of Religious Sciences
Institute of Political Studies, Paris, France
"As a native of India now living in the West, it has given me much grief to see so many of my fellow countrymen coming to the West in the role of gurus and spiritual leaders. For this reason, I am very excited to see the publication of Bhagavad-gita As It Is by Sri A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. It will help to stop the terrible cheating of false and unauthorized 'gurus' and 'yogis' and will give an opportunity to all people to understand the actual meaning of Oriental culture."
Dr. Kailash Vajpeye, Director of Indian Studies
Center for Oriental Studies, The University of Mexico
"I can say that in the Bhagavad-gita As It Is I have found explanations and answers to questions I had always posed regarding the interpretations of this sacred work, whose spiritual discipline I greatly admire. If the aesceticism and ideal of the apostles which form the message of the Bhagavad-gita As It Is were more widespread and more respected, the world in which we live would be transformed into a better, more fraternal place."
Dr. Paul Lesourd, Author
Professeur Honoraire, Catholic University of Paris
Alan Watts, (1915-1973) a professor, graduate school dean and research fellow of Harvard University, drew heavily on the insights of Vedanta. Watts became well known in the 1960’s as a pioneer in bringing Eastern philosophy to the West. "There is an unrecognized but mighty taboo--our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Briefly, the thesis is that the prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy religions of the East--in particular the central and germinal Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. This hallucination underlies the misuse of technology for the violent subjugation of man's natural environment and, consequently, its eventual destruction. It is rather a cross-fertilization of Western science with an Eastern intuition.”
Friedrich Majer, (1771-1818) a disciple of Johann Gottfried Herder, an Orientalist found that: “The priests of Egypt and the sages of Greece have drawn directly from the original well of India," that it is to 'the banks of the Ganges and the Indus that our hearts feel drawn as by some hidden urge."
Johann Gottfried Herder, (1744-1803) German philosopher, poet and critic, clergyman, born in East Prussia. Herder was an enormously influential literary critic and a leader in the Sturn und Drang movement. He saw in India the: "lost paradise of all religions and philosophies," 'the cradle of humanity,' and also its 'eternal home,' the great Orient 'waiting to be discovered within ourselves. According to him, " mankind's origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and virtue with a simplicity, strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken - nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, cold European world. Herder regarded the Hindus, because of their ethical teachings, as the most gentle and peaceful people on earth. Herder's "Thoughts of Some Brahmins "(1792) which contains a selection of gnomic stanzas in free translations, gathered from Bhartrihari, the Hitopdesa and the Bhagavad Gita, expressed these ideals."
Troy Wilson Organ, a professor at Ohio University wrote: "Hindu thought is not a philosophy. It is a philosophical religion... "Hinduism is a sadhna which seeks to guide man to integration, to spiritualization, and to liberation......The concept of reincarnation is the Hindu way of asserting that there are no temporal nor developmental limits to the perfecting. "Hindu thought is natural, reasonable, and scientific. It is a process, not a result - a process of perfecting man". In the Hindu Monism (Advaita) God is not anthropormorphic being. He is All; He is not a despot or autocratic God. In the Hindu world, the folklore and popular mythology carry the truths and teachings of the philosophers to the masses. In India, the mythology never ceased to support and facilitate the expression of philosophic thought. The rich pictorial script of the epic tradition, the features of the divinities whose incarnations and exploits constituted the myth, became the vehicles of communication for the priests. In this way a wonderful friendship of mythology and philosophy was effected; and this has been sustained with such result that the whole edifice of Indian civilization is imbued with spiritual meaning. The close interdependence of the two has served to counteract the natural tendency of the philosophy to become esoteric, removed from solving life's problems. In this symbolic form, the ideas have not been watered down to become popular. The vivid, perfectly appropriate pictorial script preserves the doctrines without the slightest damage to their senses."
Andre Malraux (1901-1976), profound thinker and French prolific writer, an essayist, novelist, art-historian, and political speech writer, Malraux did give his readers a philosophy. "The problem of this century is the religious problem and the discovery of Hindu thought will have a great deal to do with the solving of that particular problem.”
Dr. Karan Singh, heir apparent to the Maharaja of Jammu & Kashmir, Indian Ambassador to the U.S. and an outstanding thinker and leader. "The Entire Cosmos is all pervaded by the same divine power. there is no utlimate duality in human existence or in consciousness. This is a truth which in the West is only recently being under stood after Einstein and Heisenberg and quantum mechanics. The Newtonian-Cartesian-Marxist paradigm of a materialistic universe has now been finally abolished, it has collapsed in the face of the new physics. Our ancient seers had a deeper insights into the nature of reality than people had even until very recently.”
August Wilhelm von Schlegel, German Scholar and Poet, (1767-1845). Learned Sanskrit and led the extensive development of Indology in Germany. "The divine origin of man, as taught in Vedanta, is continually inculcated, to stimulate his efforts to return, to animate him in the struggle, and incite him to consider a reunion and reincorporation with Divinity as the one primary object of every action and reaction. Even the loftiest philosophy of the Europeans, the idealism of reason as it is set forth by the Greek philosophers, appears in comparison with the abundant light and vigor of Oriental idealism like a feeble Promethean spark in the full fold of heavenly glory of the noonday sun, faltering and feeble and ever ready to be extinguished." Schlegel edited to original text of the Bhagavad Gita, together with a Latin translation, and paid tribute to its authors. " I shall always adore the imprints of their feet."
Jawaharlal Nehru, (1889-1964) first prime minister of free India. Nehru called the Vedas as: "The unfolding of the human mind in the earliest stages of thought. And what a wonderful mind it was. It is the first outpourings of the human mind, the glow of poetry, the rapture at nature's loveliness and mystery. A brooding spirit crept in gradually till the author of the Vedas cried out: 'O Faith, endow us with belief'. It raised deeper question in a hymn called the The Song of Creation. The Bhagavad-Gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe."
A. E. George Russel, the Irish poet, essayist, painter, Nationalist leader, mystic, and economist; a leader in movement for cooperation among Irish farmers; editor The Irish Statesman 1923-30. Russel paid an eloquent tribute to the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.
Paul Deussen, (1845-1919) scholar of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, has observed: "Whatever may be the discoveries of the scientific mind, none can dispute the eternal truths propounded by the Upanishads. Though they may appear as riddles, the key to solving them lies in our heart and if one were to approach them with an open mind one could secure the treasure as did the Rishis of ancient times.”
Happold said about the Upanishads: "The most profound and revolutionary statement on the nature of reality, which mankind has as yet made.”
Dr. Heinrich Zimmer was a scholar with a great deal of first-hand knowledge of Indian philosophy and art history. Zimmer declared in his book "Philosophies of India. We of the Occident are about to arrive at crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of India hundreds of years before Christ.”
Ashby Philips of Princeton University echoes: "The Hindu argument that all religions are equally valid may well sweep the world in the next 25 years. It may well be that within the foreseeable future, it will be Hinduism which will be challenging Christianity not only in India but in the west as well. Hinduism indeed has a new vitality not only suitable for defense but also adaptable for offense against Western religions."
N. A. Palkhiwala, the eminent Indian jurist says: "India is eternal. Though the beginnings of her numerous civilizations go so far back in time that they are lost in the twilight of history, she has the gift of perpetual youth. Her culture is ageless and is as relevant to this present 20th century as it was to the 20th century before Christ."
Huston Smith, philosopher, most eloquent writer and authority on the history of religions. Has taught at MIT and is currently visiting professor at Univ. of California at Berkley. Smith has also produced PBS series. He has written various books, "The World's Religions", "Science and Human Responsibility", and "The Religions of Man". Here are Smith's views on Symbols and Idols of Hinduism: "Enter Hinduism’s myths, her magnificent symbols, her several hundred images of God, her rituals that keep turning night and day like never-ending prayer wheels. It is obtuse to confuse Hinduism’s images with idolatry, and their multiplicity with polytheism. They are 'runways' from which the sense-laden human spirit can rise for its "flight of the alone to the Alone". Even village priest will frequently open their temple ceremonies with the following beloved invocation:
O Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations:
Thou art everywhere, but I worship you here;
Thou art without form, but I worship you in these forms;
Thou needest no praise, yet I offer you these prayers and salutations,
Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations.
Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet, (1694-1774) France's greatest writers and philosophers, said: "We have shown how much we (Europeans) surpass the Indians in courage and wickedness, and how inferior to them we are in wisdom. Our European nations have mutually destroyed themselves in this land where we only go in search of money, while the first Greeks traveled to the same land only to instruct themselves. I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe.”
William Macintosh wrote: "All history points to India as the mother of science and art, This country was anciently so renowned for knowledge and wisdom that the philosophers of Greece did not disdain to travel thither for their improvement."
Pierre Sonnerat, a French naturalist, concurred: "We find among the Indians the vestiges of the most remote antiquity....We know that all peoples came there to draw the elements of their knowledge ... India, in her splendor, gave religions and laws to all the other peoples; Egypt and Greece owed to her both their fables and their wisdom.”
Sir William Jones, ( 1746-1794),came to India as a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta. He pioneered Sanskrit studies. His admiration for Indian thought and culture was almost limitless. Even at a time when Hinduism was at a low ebb and it was quite fashionable to run it down, he held it in great esteem. While he believed in Christianity, he was attracted to the Hindu concepts of the non-duality of God, as interpreted by Sankara, and the transmigration of the human soul. The later theory he found more rational than the Christian doctrine of punishment and eternity of pain. Writing to his close friend, Earl Spencer, in 1787, he said: "I am no Hindu, but I hold the doctrine of the Hindus concerning a future state to be incomparably more rational, more pious, and more likely to deter men from vice, than the horrid opinions, inculcated on punishments without end. I can venture to affirm, without meaning to pluck a leaf from the never-fading laurels of our immortal Newton that the whole of his theology, and part of his philosophy, may be found in the Vedas.”
You may find it surprising that much of Christianity originated from India. Indeed, over the centuries, numerous historians and sages have pointed out that not only has Hinduism had a predominant influence on Christianity, but that many of the Christian rites could be directly borrowed from Hindu (Vedic) India. French historian Alain Danielou had noticed as early as 1950 that "a great number of events which surround the birth of Christ - as it is related in the Gospels - strangely reminded us of Buddha's and Krishna's legends." Danielou quotes as examples the structure of the Christian Church, which resembles that of the Buddhist Chaitya; the rigorous asceticism of certain early Christian sects, which reminds one of the asceticism of Jain and Buddhist saints; the veneration of relics, the usage of holy water, which is an Indian practice, and the word "Amen," which comes from the Hindu (Sanskrit) "OM." - Author Stephen Knapp, Proof of Vedic Cultures's Global Existence.
In addition, Elaine Pagels, in her work on the gnostic gospels, points out that trade routes linking Greece and Rome to the Far East were opening during the first and second century A.D., and that Indian Brahmins (those of the priestly caste in India) are mentioned in a treatise by the Christian leader Hippolytus who resided in Rome (Pagels, 1981:xxi). Could early Christianity have been influenced by Indian tradition, either directly or secondarily through the spread of gnosticism? Writing cautiously, Pagels continues: These hints indicate the possibility [of Indian influence], yet our evidence is not conclusive. Since parallel traditions may emerge in different cultures at different times, such ideas could have developed in both places independently. What we call Eastern and Western religions, and tend to regard as saparate streams, were not clearly differentiated 2,000 years ago. . . .we look forward to the work of scholars who can study these traditions comparatively to discover whether they can, in fact, be traced to Indian sources (Pagels, 1981:xxi; brackets mine). In this thought provoking booklet, George Wolfe reveals that many themes central to Christianity, including the teachings of death and resurrection, and freedom from sin as gained through the incarnate Lord, can be found in Hinduism's Upanishads, a series of East Indian texts dealing with spiritual enlightenment. The author also presents the story of Nachiketa from the Katha Upanishad which may have been the inspiration for important ideas and events depicted in the gospels. While some Christians may view these discoveries as undermining the validity of Christian doctrine, Dr. Wolfe takes a surprisingly different view that the gospel message is actually meant to be far more universal and culturally embracing than anyone previously has dreamed. Author, Dr. George Wolfe, Parallel Teachings in Hinduism and Christianity.
From reading The Gnostic Gospels, one can make this conclusion: The Gnostic understanding that “to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God” and other such concepts compare much more closely with Hinduism than any other religion, which, therefore, fabricates the vast chasm that separates Gnosticism from Orthodoxy. Orthodox Christians, according to the Nicene Creed, “believe in one god, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth” (Pagels 28). This single statement rejects the faith of gnostic Christians as they base their beliefs on Marcion, who “concluded that [the God mentioned in the Old and New Testaments] must be two different Gods” (Pagels 28). This interpretation by most Gnostics establishes the belief in multiple gods, a belief that parallels Hinduism. Like Gnostics, Hindus believe that the creator god they call Brahma and the Supreme Lord (Krishna, in their case (Miller 48)) are two individual gods, although the understanding of Brahman or the “absolute reality” encompasses all this polytheistic religion’s gods into one God and makes it, in turn, a monotheistic religion (Knott 18). Gnostics share a similar understanding, although they do not see what the Hindus call Brahman as a person or encompasser of all gods. Rather, Brahman for a Gnostic is simply a higher existence. Author, Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels."Know Thyself"
The Ancient Words From the Past that resonates in the Minds of the "Knowers" of the Mysteries is the true Wisdom of Life & Death.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/people/martin-luther-king-jr.html
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/hinduism/parama/isa.asp
http://hinduism.about.com/cs/vedasvedanta/a/aa120103a.htm
http://hinduism.about.com/od/history/a/indiaquotes.htm
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/quotes1_20.htm
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