The uplift of the women, the awakening of the masses must come first, and then only can any real good come about for the country, for India.

Culture and civilization are two inseparable aspects of the lifestyle of a community, country, or nation. A man may be considered cultured if he dresses nicely and then presents himself before others—but this does not necessarily make him a civilized person. Civilization refers to the way a nation thinks and feels; to its development of ideals such as non-killing, compassion, sincerity, and faithfulness. Culture is an external way of life. Culture is a flower, while civilization is like the fragrance of the flower. A man may be poor and yet be a civilized person. A cultured man, without civilization, who may be successful in the external world is not helpful for society, because he lacks the inner qualities and virtues which enrich the growth of the individual and the nation. Culture is external, civilization is internal. In the modern world the integration of these two is necessary. Indian civilization is very rich, but its culture has become a pseudo-English culture which still creates problems in India today.

Service is the highest spiritual discipline. Prayer and meditation, or knowledge of scripture and Vedanta (holy scriptures of India), cannot help you reach the goal as quickly as service can. Service has a double effect, it extinguishes the ego and gives bliss.

I would rather have India without education, if that is the price to be paid for making it dry.

The Khaddar of my conception is that handspun cloth entirely takes the place of mill cloth in India.

The most distinctive and largest contribution of Hinduism to India's culture is the doctrine of ahimsa.

To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it.

By the definite science of meditation known for millenniums to the yogis and sages of India, and to Jesus, any seeker of God can enlarge the caliber of his consciousness to omniscience to receive within himself the Universal Intelligence of God.

The Self of everyone, the Atma of everyone, the transcendental field of reality of everyone, is the same in everyone. Whether the body calls itself an American, German, Indian or Chinese, it doesn't matter.

The seers of ancient India had, in their experiments and efforts at spiritual training and the conquest of the body, perfected a discovery which in its importance to the future of human knowledge dwarfs the divinations of Newton and Galileo , even the discovery of the inductive and experimental method in Science was not more momentous.

In India when we meet and part we often say, "Namaste," which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us… "Namaste."

Though music transcends language, culture and time, and though notes are the same, Indian music is unique because it is evolved, sophisticated and melodies are defined.

I think the Greeks first took astrology to India and took from the Hindus the science of astronomy and carried it back with them from Europe. Because in India you will find old altars made according to a certain geometrical plan, and certain things had to be done when the stars were in certain positions, therefore I think the Greeks gave the Hindus astrology, and the Hindus gave them astronomy.

India has an unbroken tradition of nonviolence from times immemorial.

Indian religion has always felt that since the minds, the temperaments and the intellectual affinities of men are unlimited in their variety, a perfect liberty of thought and of worship must be allowed to the individual in his approach to the Infinite.

My interest in India's freedom will cease if she adopts violent means, for their fruit will not be freedom but slavery in disguise.

The progressive growth of the finite consciousness of man towards this Self, towards the universal, the eternal, the infinite, in a word his growth into spiritual consciousness by the development of his ordinary ignorant natural being into an illumined divine nature, this is for Indian thinking the significance of life and the aim of human existence.

India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples.

Those who are acquainted with the literature of India will remember a beautiful old story about this extreme charity, how a whole family, as related in the Mahabharata, starved themselves to death and gave their last meal to a beggar. This is not an exaggeration, for such things still happen.

Many of us, utterly overcome by Tamas, the dark and heavy demon of inertia, are saying nowadays that it is impossible, that India is decayed, bloodless and lifeless, too weak ever to recover; that our race is doomed to extinction. It is a foolish and idle saying. No man or nation need be weak unless he chooses, no man or nation need perish unless he deliberately chooses extinction.