Monk Quotes

“Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.”
― Ryokan

“If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

“Man of an hard heart! Hear me, Proud, Stern, and Cruel! You could have saved me; you could have restored me to happiness and virtue, but would not! You are the destroyer of my Soul; You are my Murderer, and on you fall the curse of my death and my unborn Infant’s! Insolent in your yet-unshaken virtue, you disdained the prayers of a Penitent; But God will show mercy, though you show none. And where is the merit of your boasted virtue? What temptations have you vanquished? Coward! you have fled from it, not opposed seduction. But the day of Trial will arrive! Oh! then when you yield to impetuous passions! when you feel that Man is weak, and born to err; When shuddering you look back upon your crimes, and solicit with terror the mercy of your God, Oh! in that fearful moment think upon me! Think upon your Cruelty! Think upon Agnes, and despair of pardon!”
― Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk

“Meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree. It completely changes your brain and therefore changes what you are.”
― Matthieu Ricard

“Happiness is an illusion, Natalie. It doesn't actually exist."

"Of course it does," I said. "It's what you feel when you're not sad."

"That's unconsciousness. And I'm pretty sure that I'm miserable when I am unconscious, too.”
― Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk on the Couch

“For several centuries, the Celtic church of Ireland was spared the Greek dualism of matter and spirit. They regarded the world with the clear vision of faith. When a young Celtic monk saw his cat catch a salmon swimming in shallow water, he cried, "The power of the Lord is in the paw of the cat!”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

“All Julie has to do is explain to her friends that she's using it to individually seal each item that she throws out."
"Then they'd think she was a geek," I said.
"She will thank me later," Monk said.
"Why would she thank you for being considered a geek?"
"Don't you know anything about teenage life?" Monk said. "It's a badge of respect."
"It is?"
"I was one," he said.
"You don't say."
"A very special one. I was crowned King of the Geeks, not once, but every single year of high school," Monk said. "It's a record that remains unbroken in my school to this day."
"Were there a lot of students who wanted to be King of the Geeks?"
"It's like being homecoming king, only better. You don't have to go to any dances," Monk said. "You aren't even invited.”
― Lee Goldberg, Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

“He skims through the speech he prepared (for the 50th Independence day):

… Before the Apocalypse, the system gave us a goal, forcing us to exhaustion at the end of the day. We had no time to look inside. The system was a slave-reproduction module where we thought we were free. With time lost, we lost our only chance of final evolution at the end of our one life …

… The system succeeded, enough to turn talents into machines, warriors into lazy citizens, knights into faithful slaves, writers and artists into pets and trophies. They succeeded, and they laughed. But not after the Apocalypse. Not after the War. We fought. We lost many, but we won through evolution. Now, things are different. Now things are better …

Bullshit!—Yuan stops at this point. Too many lies!
Nothing has changed.
Nothing is better.
How can a monk with a voice lie? Moreover, a war hero favoring the Apocalypse—too dark! What was he thinking last night?

“Delete all of it,” he mutters sternly.”
― Misba, The High Auction

“Peaceful and kind one monk is more valuable than violent and rude ten thousand men!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“I don't think, I roar.
I don't write, I pour.
I don't live, I combust,
so you may outgrow the shore.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“No Other, But One
(Naskaristana 2503)

Some say tawhid,
some say advaita,
some say ubuntu,
some say divinidad.

Tawhid doesn't mean
all other gods are false,
tawhid means it's all one god.

Divinity doesn't mean
mortal must submit to divine,
divinity means mortal and divine are one.

Divinity done properly dissolves the self,
poetry done passionately dissolves the self,
neuroscience done honestly dissolves the self.

Shallow theology fights science,
deep theology becomes it.
Shallow science fights spirituality,
deep science becomes it.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Rewiring Divinity, 2732
(Diary of A Monk Scientist)

One thing you must realize,
there is no absolute truth in this world,
whatever you put your life and mind into, goes.

I found the world's perception
of religion prehistoric,
so I poured my existence into rewiring
the very reality of divinity -

because, there is no other divinity out there,
whatever we humans come up with, goes -
and if some prehistoric baboons with two brain cells
could normalize blind faith as divinity,

then a human being with a hundred billion nerve cells,
could cast aside such blindness and redo divinity
from ground up, and this time, not as a coping mechanism
against the unknown, but as enhancement of our humanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Early Naskar, 2015-17, was mostly borrowed research with occasional original Naskar, mid Naskar, 2017-21, was mostly original Naskar with occasional borrowed data, late phase Naskar, 2021 onward, is pure Naskar, beyond the scale and scope of institutions.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“I burnt my reputation to the ground, so I could stand as an undomesticated beacon, doesn't matter if no one comes to my aid, I have no desire to be worshipped by gibbons.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Sacred Without Supernatural
(Monk Scientist Diary, 2706)

Sacred stripped of supernatural
becomes astronomically potent -
blasphemy that ends prejudice is holy,
the divine is just human at full voltage.

Theology, philosophy, all are vanity -
bow to the breeze, submit to the soil.
Enlist as disciple to the original masters,
being awakens braving the heat of turmoil.

Soil is forever illiterate,
soil is eternally humble,
yet it contains the wisdom of the universe,
for it's made of the same stuff as the heavens.

What good to me are academic walls,
what good to me are church ceilings!
Mountains are my classroom, sky, my blackboard -
nature is my canon, cosmos is my kin.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Naskaristana 2789

I arrived with a clever brain,
walked among clever apes,
studied history written by winners,
so I could earn some ape respect.

Then I got weary of all the hypocrisy,
idolizing morons as savior of humanity,
mistaking the lens for the landscape,
confusing privilege as social sanity -

frustrated I plunged into fire,
brain, vanity, esteem, the lot,
all reputation burnt to ashes,
what remain is unflinching humanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Philosophy is just a kid brother to theology.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“My sonnets, my rules -
my science, my rules -
my theology, my rules -
my universe, my rules.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“I have no genre, I am the genre.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Don't need angels in the air, when the angels are right here.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Religion has a fanaticism problem - center religion on metaphor, and problem solved. Science has a freezing problem - center science on service, and problem solved.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Today I'm Naskar, tomorrow another - truth will find a postman, across time and space.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“I’m the impulse before the language,
I’m the reason before the science,
I’m the pulse before the poetry,
I’m the kernel before the divinity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“Jai Insaan, Cheytna Saagar;
Jai Vivek, Vidyut Ujaagar.
Koi bole water, koi bole paani;
Koi bole darvish, koi sanyaasi.

Utho Insaan, Marham ka Sagar;
Ana al Haq, Vigyan Ujaagar.
Koi bole water, koi bole paani;
Koi bole scientist, koi bole sufi.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“Naskar has many zones – neuroscientist, dervish, monk, decolonizer, sacred feminine, and countless others I lose track of – my nondual works are authored by Naskar the Monk, my texts drunk on love are poured by Dervish Naskar, my decolonial papers are penned by Indigenous Naskar, my demisogynizing pieces are from Naskar the Feminine, my behavioral documents are by Neuroscientist Naskar, and all these are integrated personalities of the Complete Human Naskar.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“I am the equation, solved by neither faith nor intellect - spin of my particles unsung by LHC, essence of my being unspliced by CRISPR.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“In the garden of love the gardener is the flower, STEM without ethics is fanaticism with glitter. I am the equation, solved by neither faith nor intellect - spin of my particles unsung by LHC, essence of my being unspliced by CRISPR.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“After all my studies of the Divine—and of His most eloquent absence—I have come to suspect that Heaven bears a far stronger resemblance to a weathered beach bar in Bloody Bay, Jamaica, than to anything the eye of man, casting its searching rays outward into the world, has ever mistaken for eternity.”
― Christopher DeMorteau, PELLEGRINA

“The Naskar Anomaly (Sonnet 3119-3120)

What happens when an engineering dropout becomes a monk, monk becomes brain scientist, brain scientist becomes poet polyglot, and poet polyglot becomes dervish, and none of the identities ever retire, only get absorbed into the next one!

And you wonder why you cannot classify my texts! Because the Naskar canon is not born of any single discipline, it's born of the confluence of multiple disciplines and cultures.

The world says, I blend science and spirituality, but the fact of the matter is, I don't even know how to, I don't even know the difference between science and spirituality, inside my mind science and spirituality are one, something you cannot fathom with cold intellect or blind faith, particularly because my spirituality is not erected on supernaturalism, nor is my science founded on cold intellectualism:

kindness is my spirituality, welfare is my science - I'm aware of the facts as the next scientist, but my priorities are lightyears apart from most scientists.

Your ape societies haven't evolved to accommodate a multicultural, multidisciplinary existence, they've evolved to gaslight brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, nation against nation, culture against culture - and whenever a life shows the slightest civilized sign of inclusivity and integration, it's classified as a threat and a traitor.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“Your ape societies haven't evolved to accommodate a multicultural, multidisciplinary existence, they've evolved to gaslight brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, nation against nation, culture against culture - and whenever a life shows the slightest civilized sign of inclusivity and integration, it's classified as a threat and a traitor.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human