Beautiful beings do not sing in melodious tones” is the unwritten legendary indigenous postulate in Tamilnadu and this note of German missionary Pressier very much appears to have been accepted by the Germans also! Example: the beautiful peacock‟s voice is not bearable – let alone being pleasant. Conversely, the cuckoo and the lark which are not as beautiful as the peacocks sing very pleasantly. Yet another example is the parrot. It looks beautiful; but its voice is not melodious. And it is a matter of extreme surprise and appreciation to us today, to note that these Germans keenly observed not only the birds and animals here in Tamilnadu; but also our heritage legends and fables, associated with zoological and ornithological beings, all of which they came to know of during their tenure in Tamilnadu as Lutheran „missionaries‟ for nearly two centuries.

It is all right. When a person is unmarried he remains fresh. After marriage reality takes over, imagination is absent. Then, the partner becomes a possession, a part of one's self. Also, there may be fear of losing the person - though not in Hinduism, especially among Brahmins. Yet, tastes change. When a person is a child he may want a tricycle, then a bicycle. Later, that will have no meaning and he'll want a motorcycle. So it is with the mind

Ramaswami Pillai

For spiritual life, infinite patience is needed - not just for one lifetime but for many lifetimes.... The sense of time should disappear

Sri Balarama Reddiar

When I arrived at the Ashrama, Bhagavan gave me a warm welcome with a benign smile. As He was seeing me for the first time, His two spontaneous utterances surprised me. Like an affectionate mother, He asked me, "When did you come?" and "How is your right hand?" My right hand was badly fractured when I was 14-years-old and though it healed up the hand remained bent and short. I used to cover it up with full sleeves and even my friends did not know of this serious deformity. How did Bhagavan know about it? And what affectionate concern He showed! After Bhagavan inquired about it, my sense of inferiority because of the defect totally disappeared. More than all this, He asked me to be seated in front of Him. Gazing at Him I sat down and I do not know what happened to me then. When I got up two hours had elapsed. This was an experience I had never had before and I have always cherished it as the first and foremost prasad and blessing received from my Sadguru. That day I understood the purport of the statement, "The Sadguru ever gives unasked!" That moment I knew I had been accepted into His Fold. This strong bond He allowed me to enjoy until His Mahasamadhi, and even after.

M.G. Shanmugam
in remembering Bhagvan Ramana Maharshi

It is what Thomas Jefferson warned us about in 1816: “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

In the 1860s, in the midst of the rebuilding of Paris under Napoleon III and the Baron Haussmann, Charles Baudelaire presented a memorable portrait of the flâneur as the artist-poet of the modern metropolis:
The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family, just like the lover of the fair sex who builds up his family from all the beautiful women that he has ever found, or that are or are not—to be found; or the lover of pictures who lives in a magical society of dreams painted on canvas. Thus the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.
—Charles Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life", (New York: Da Capo Press, 1964). Orig. published in Le Figaro, in 1863.

They have made Radha queen, in the beautiful
groves of Vrindaban.
At her gate stands Krishna, on guard.
His flute is singing all the time:
Radha is about to distribute infinite wealth of love.
Though I am guard, all the world may enter.
Come all ye who thirst! Say only 'Glory unto Radha!'
Enter the region of love!


That was a great hour indeed when he spoke of Buddha; for, catching a word that seemed to
identify him with its anti—Brahminical spirit, an uncomprehending listener said, "Why,
Swami, I did not know that you were a Buddhist!
"Madam", he said, rounding on her, his whole face aglow with the inspiration of that name, "I
am the servant of the servants of the servants of Buddha. Who was there ever like him? — the
Lord — who never performed one action for himself — with a heart that embraced the whole
world! So full of pity that he — prince and monk — would give his life to save a little goat! So
loving that he sacrificed himself to the hunger of a tigress! — to the hospitality of a pariah and
blessed him! And he came into my room when I was a boy and I fell at his feet! For I knew it
was the Lord Himself!