Indian Mythology and Philosophy Quotes

“All animals contain a part of God, but only the cat knows it.”
― Neel Burton, Indian Mythology and Philosophy: The Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Kama Sutra… And How They Fit Together

“The Buddha explicitly rejected a creator God, yet Buddhism is counted as the fourth largest world religion after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—suggesting that the hallmark of religion is not a belief in a creator God, or any god, but a belief in the conservation of values, that is, in something like karma, about which the Indian religions, especially Jainism, have a great deal to say. Karma is the greatest constant in Indian thought, lending a family resemblance to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Gandhi, for one, regarded Buddhism and Jainism as traditions of Hinduism, which has adaptively assimilated the Buddha as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, after Rama and Krishna, and before Kalki, who will preside over the apocalypse. In Hindu thought, the universe has a moral order that is independent of the gods, who are less than omnipotent. In the Chandogya Upanishad, Indra, the king of the gods, is made to wait 101 years before being told the secret to the self—not a bad deal, considering. Towards the end of the Mahabharata, Krishna is killed by a hunter who mistakes him for a deer.”
― Neel Burton, Indian Mythology and Philosophy: The Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Kama Sutra… And How They Fit Together

“Hinduism is a lot looser than the Abrahamic religions, with no founding prophet, no single scripture, no central authority, no core doctrine or code of conduct, and no clear concept of God. Hindus might coherently think of themselves as monotheists, polytheists, pantheists, deists, agnostics, or anything in between. India is a world unto itself: as a religion, Hinduism developed more as a negative concept of contradistinction, and it might be said that Hindus are only Hindus insofar as they are not anything else.”
― Neel Burton, Indian Mythology and Philosophy: The Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Kama Sutra… And How They Fit Together

“The oldest Vedantic school, Advaita [‘Not two’], represents an extreme and purist position in arguing that Brahman alone is real. The self and the world are within Brahman, with any apparent difference arising from illusion [maya] and ignorance [avidya]. It is as with a rope, which seems to be a snake, or a seashell, which seems to be of silver. This world is like the foam on the sea, or a peacock’s egg, created simply for play [lila]. Since Brahman is all, Brahman is without attributes. When the mind, which is given to maya, tries to conceive of Brahman, it sees Ishvara in one of his many forms. If certain Upanishadic statements appear to be theistic, it is because their author (nominally, Brahman) is catering to his audience. Only in deep sleep, when we are no longer dreaming, might we experience something of the formlessness of Brahman. We are then pure, disengaged consciousness, like the sun after it has set. This is the experience of disembodied Atma, of death, of home.”
― Neel Burton, Indian Mythology and Philosophy: The Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Kama Sutra… And How They Fit Together