"WE BELIEVE WE ARE NOT IDOL WORSHIPERS.
WE ARE IDEAL WORSHIPERS."
Swami Sidheshwaranand, of the Ramakrishna mission, challenged in 1947
by students while lecturing at a Christian college
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TAKE THIS TEST . . .
Who said it?
"Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is."
a) St. Thomas Aquinas (1225?1274), Catholic philosopher, theologian;
b) Plotinus (205?270), famous Roman philosopher, author of the Enneads;
c) Dr. S. Radhakrishan (1888?1975),Hindu philosopher and former president of India.
(answer on bottom left of the page **)
Out of the past is built the future. Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and then look forward, march forward and make India brighter, greater, much higher than she ever was. Swami Vivekananda (1863?1902).
My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconvenience, and I was frequently chided for my singularity, but with this lighter repast I made the greater progress, from greater clearness of head and quicker comprehension. Benjamin Franklin (1706?1790), inventor and a founding father of America, on his vegetarianism
There once was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him to hammer a nail in the back fence every time he lost his temper. The first day the boy drove 37 nails into the fence. Gradually the number dwindled down as the boy realized it was easier to control his temper than hammer nails. Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. When he told his father of his achievement, he suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day he could hold back his temper. When the fence was finally freed of all nails, the boy ran to his father and said: "Look, I am free of my temper now." The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He showed the boy the gaping holes where the nails had been driven. "You have achieved much. But this fence, which bore the brunt of your anger, will never be the same."
The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage. Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves but are like the haze of heat. Siddhartha Gautama, Buddha (563?483bce)
What do you call a suave Malayalee?
A DebonNair.
Everybody knows that we have five senses. But there is one more sense–the sixth sense which is common sense, which should be devoid of nonsense. Swami Adhyatmananda, of the Divine Life Society
** answer: a) Many Hindus may be surprised to know that the Catechism of the Catholic Church officially honors and practices worship of holy images.
DID YOU KNOW?
Biggest Temple Lamp In the World
The 3,300 pound, 11-foot-high, temple lamp of the Chettikulangara Devi temple in Alleppey, Kerala, is the largest in the world. With 1,000 wicks and 13 tiers, it is arranged like the branches of a banyan tree. The lowest rung is 6.8 feet in diameter with 101 wicks. The lamp, known locally as aalu vilakku, was lit for the first time in September, 1988. P. V. Jeevaraj, Chellappan Achari and 17 workers took 18 months to complete it.