Jeremy Riden

“If you can't find truth outside your scripture, your scripture is a lie.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Intellect don't impress me much,
Devoutness of doctrine repulses me.
Have you ever made a stranger smile,
Ever left your seat to the elderly!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Secularism is not a rejection of religion, secularism is inoculation against fundamentalism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets

“Letter from God
(An Autobiographical Sonnet)

Some people chant Bismillah,
Some people chant Bhagvan.
Some people call me Lord God,
I'm actually very much human.

Seek me in church and temple,
I shall elude you for time eternal.
All churches are without God,
But God cannot be without human.

Above all hagiographies, human is real,
There's nothing more divine than human.
Godliness unfolds only through humanness,
Only sin in the world is the sin of division.

Secularism is not a rejection of religion,
secularism is inoculation against fundamentalism.
Religion is not the search for a mythical deity,
but the realization of oneness within every human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Dervis Vadisi: 100 Promissory Sonnets