Interfaith Quotes

“Awakening to faith is not a one-time event, but a continuously unfolding reality. The journey of faith is not a race, but a marathon of love that each person walks at a different pace.”
― A. Helwa, Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam

“Any person who, with all the sincerity of heart, is in search for God, on land or in the sea, is worthy of respect.”
― Riaz Ahmed Gohar Shahi, The Religion of God

“With Love From A Muslim Poet (Sonnet 2451)

Love your neighbor,
more than you obey the state;
a world left to the whims of politicians,
doesn't take long to be a land of waste.

Nothing's easier than being an ape:
obey the tribal chief,
practice the state-approved religion,
and never love a neighbor
that your monkey king disapproves of -

but to be human takes heart, brain, and backbone,
three fundamental forces which invoke
the very ruin of political power,
for they pluck the apes from the cesspool of fear,
and elevate them to human consciousness,
which is adamantly allergic to primitive nonsense.

I am a muslim poet, yet I refuse
to hate my brother from another mother -
like many streams finally meet in the sea,
we are all born of nature and
ultimately disperse into nature.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Beyond faith, intellect, reason and ritual, existence blooms in I-less continuum.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“There's not one religion but two,
one is commercial religion,
rooted in fear, prejudice and bigotry,
and the other is lived religion,
rooted in kindness and inclusivity -

the atheist and the believer
drink from the same water,
breathe the same air,
eat the same food -

mother nature, the actual origin of life,
doesn't segregate between believer and
nonbeliever, it's only the savages who do that.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Kingdom of God is Within You
(Naskar's Version, S.2457-2459)

Leave it to the monkeys,
and every secular democracy
soon turns into a fanatic republic -

Christian Republic of America,
Islamic Republic of Turkey,
Jewish Republic of Palestine,
Sanatan Republic of India,

all run by prejudice legalized as piety,
and no humanity to speak of -
jungle grows tall in every corner,
survival of the chosen as ape gospel.

God's original name is Human,
but it isn't very profitable,
so the apes cook up fancy names,
and sprinkle in tales of magic.

Organized religion is the planet's largest circus,
where apes commodify divinity to sell tickets -
more divide means more fear, means more control,
divine distant from human is the holy grail of commerce.

Human is the first and final name of divinity,
but that goes against the entire religious
industrial complex - for the purpose of brevity
I say religious, but I mean fundamentalist.

There's not one religion but two,
one is commercial religion,
rooted in fear, prejudice and bigotry,
and the other is lived religion,
rooted in kindness and inclusivity -

the atheist and the believer
drink from the same water,
breathe the same air,
eat the same food -

mother nature, the actual origin of life,
doesn't segregate between believer and
nonbeliever, it's only the savages who do that.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“The atheist and the believer drink from the same water, breathe the same air, eat the same food – mother nature, the actual origin of life, doesn’t segregate between believer and nonbeliever, it’s only the savages who do that.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Like many streams finally meet in the sea, we are all born of nature, and ultimately disperse into nature, our identity, our memory, emotions, everything - then the only place we exist is in the memories of other people, whose lives we might have influenced in some way.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Naskarveda/Naskarverdad
(Insan Chalisa, S.2489-2492)

Jai Insan, Chetna Sagar;
Jai Vivek, Vidyut Ujagar.
Rise Insan, Ilaaj Ilahi;
Al Hub, Hayat Paygamber.

Ik Onkar, Satnam Shahada;
One Insan Bodhi Vihara.
Born of Ash, Deed Amartya;
Once Ignited, Ashiq Ananta.

Vision Virat, Vajra Avinashi;
Kafir Kareem to Vidyesh Vinashi.
Unbent Akhanda in Realm Divided,
Dervish Divaane, Advaita Ruhani.

No hero, no charlatan saint,
no prophet out to herd a flock;
unhinged in duty, an unflinching flame,
I'm just a signpost on the cosmic clock.

Viva el humano, la cura para locura;
la verdad valiente ante miedo-mentira.
Persona es puente, el puente es la verdad;
corazón, mi razón - cerebro, mi arma.

Ek Insan, aur Ek Hi Lakshya,
Atut Asambhav, Nischal Nimagna;
Karma is action without agenda,
Dharma is duty without saffronmania.

By Karma we become Visvaroop,
No Dharma in Vanarvibhajan;
Sapiens stands Merhem-e Manavta,
Ananta knows no foreign-sanatan.

Ek Insan, Hoonkar-e Asmaan,
Khalsa in Veins, Noor-e Nadaan;
no togetherness, no tomorrow -
Awake, Arise, O Christly Insan.

Time is togetherness, time is memory;
benevolence before blood, life makes family.
What good is ape tradition and validation,
when time is my home, integration, my reality!

Monkeys pray monkeys to save them,
in danger human stands guard of humans;
when minister monkeys legislate lies as law,
it's your cosmic duty to be Insan Armageddon!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Insan Chalisa (Abridged)

Jai Insan, Chetna Sagar;
Jai Vivek, Vidyut Ujagar.
Rise Insan, Ilaaj Ilahi;
Al Hub, Hayat Paygamber.

Ik Onkar, Satnam Shahada;
One Insan Bodhi Vihara.
Born of Ash, Deed Amartya;
Once Ignited, Ashiq Ananta.

Vision Virat, Vajra Avinashi;
Kafir Kareem to Vidyesh Vinashi.
Unbent Akhanda in Realm Divided,
Dervish Divaane, Advaita Ruhani.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Sapiens stands Merhem-e Manavta, Ananta knows no foreign-sanatan.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Ek Insan, Hoonkar-e Asmaan,
Khalsa in Veins, Noor-e Nadaan;
no togetherness, no tomorrow -
Awake, Arise, O Christly Insan.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Savages measure religion by the harvest of converts, the civilized find holiness in helping beyond religion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Your dictionaries are too small for my voice, your disciplines are too primitive for my existence - not with intellect, not with faith - to read me you have to think plurally and feel planetary.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Not with intellect, not with faith - to read me you have to think plurally and feel planetary.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Why is it that, for one religion to be true, all other religions have to be false!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Why (Sonnet 2493)

Why is it that, for one religion to be true,
all other religions have to be false!
Why is it that, for one culture to find glory,
all other cultures have to be dehumanized!

Why is it that, for one people to prosper,
another people have to be exploited!
Why is it that, to conceive a brave new nation,
the landmass has to be sterilized of the natives!

Why is it that, for one nation to be strong,
all other citizens have to be tagged as enemy!
Why is it that, for one kind of love to flourish,
love's myriad spectrum gets banished to the closet!

Why is it that, for one community to flourish,
rest of humankind must be choked against the wall!
Why is it that, for the state to come into power,
the citizens must be brainwashed into vegetable!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“To read me you have to think plurally and feel planetary.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“I Don't Have Time to Explain
(Sonnet 2466-2467)

I don't have time to explain basic science,
I don't have time to explain
why vaccines are crucial,
why the earth is not flat.

I don't have time to explain basic theology,
I don't have time to explain why
no religion is truer than another,
and why belief as coping mechanism is okay,
but belief mustn't be confused with truth.

For example, if you wanna talk facts,
most scientific religion is buddhism,
for much of buddhist literature is basic psychology,
sure, all religious meanderings occasionally
align with modern science, but no theology
is more aligned with modern science than buddhism -

likewise, most nonviolent religion is jainism,
to harm even a fly is sin in jainism -
and most charitable religion is sikhism,
nobody goes hungry where there is a sikh langar,
that too without being converted into a sikh.

There are two kinds of divinity in the world,
doctrinal divinity and human divinity -
doctrinal divinity is less holy, more prejudice,
whereas human divinity prioritizes humanity.

There are two kinds of truth in the world,
empirical truth and human truth -
empirical truth is all about facts,
human truth is more than facts -
human truth applies facts wisely among other
instruments to uplift human condition.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Belief matters less where people matter more.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“Scientific truth changes with data, spiritual truth changes with era, cultural truth changes with civilization, but to unite, empathize, love and lift across fractures, is the one absolute virtue.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“Your dictionaries are too small for my voice, your disciplines are too primitive for my existence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“Insan Chalisa (Excerpt)

Jai Insan, Chetna Sagar;
Jai Vivek, Vidyut Ujagar.
Rise Insan, Ilaaj Ilahi;
Al Hub, Hayat Paygamber.

Ik Onkar, Satnam Shahada;
One Insan Bodhi Vihara.
Born of Ash, Deed Amartya;
Once Ignited, Ashiq Ananta.

Vision Virat, Vajra Avinashi;
Kafir Kareem to Vidyesh Vinashi.
Unbent Akhanda in Realm Divided,
Dervish Divaane, Advaita Ruhani.

Ek Insan, Hoonkar-e Asmaan,
Khalsa in Veins, Noor-e Nadaan;
no togetherness, no tomorrow -
Awake, Arise, O Christly Insan.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“By the time I'm finished with religion, religion would be more allergic to superstition and prejudice than science. By the time I'm finished with science, science would be more service centered than religion.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“Pluralism is not a polite idealism, pluralism is civilizational emergency.”
― Abhijit Naskar, With Love From A Blue Rock

“Wandering the earth as a monk scientist I've understood one thing about converts - people convert to christianity looking for bread, people convert to hinduism looking for answers, people convert to buddhism in search of freedom, people convert to islam in order to heal - it has nothing to do with god, it has nothing to do with truth - every person carries a secret wound, religion we run to is the bandage that fits.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“I am born of dust, and as I'm nearing to be dust again, my tolerance of intolerance has become apocalyptic.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Don't Be The Salt (Sonnet)

Wandering the earth as a monk scientist
I've understood one thing about converts -
people convert to christianity looking for bread,
people convert to hinduism looking for answers,
people convert to buddhism in search of freedom,
people convert to islam in order to heal -

it has nothing to do with god,
it has nothing to do with truth -
every person carries a secret wound,
religion we run to is the bandage that fits.

I am born of dust, and as I'm nearing to be dust again,
my tolerance of intolerance has become apocalyptic.
We are all wounded, looking for a bandaid -
some act like salt, I choose to be ointment.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“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

“I'm not a citizen of the planet,
I'm the Engine of Earth Society.
I'm bound by no constitution,
I'm the Constitution of Humanity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace