Ka Quotes

“They had to stir the churn of the ocean, until the soma floated up, as butter floats from milk. And this task could not be undertaken in opposition to the Asuras, but only with their help. The pronouncement ran contrary to everything the Devas had previously thought. But in the end, what did they have to lose, given that their lives were so futile? Now they thought: Anything, so long as there be a trial, a risk, a task.”
― Roberto Calasso, Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

“Nothing enchants the mind more than the existence of the outside world, of something that resists it and will not obey.”
― Roberto Calasso, Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

“That something merely happens is pointless. But that something happens and a watching eye gathers it into itself is everything.”
― Roberto Calasso, Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

“But once formed, a frame evokes a center.”
― Roberto Calasso, Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

“They’re afraid I’ll die,” Prajapati thought. “They’ll always be afraid I’ll die, and they’ll always be trying to kill me.”
― Roberto Calasso, Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

“One operates on the mind with the mind. What else is there, after all?”
― Roberto Calasso, Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

“To his foreign guests, Vasiṣṭha said: “You have entered a place where amazement is vain. Everything is normal here. There are fathers who are sons of their sons or sons who are fathers of their fathers and their sisters, who are their lovers and wives too. Here the latter-day priest is also among the first of the gods. Here the monster is an ascetic and the ascetics fight the monsters.”
― Roberto Calasso, Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India