wo sunehre pal :: spirituality

Akbar, miniature portrait from the Akbar-n-meh by Ab-ul-Fazl, c. 1600 - in the India Office Library, London

Thomas Coryat, English traveller to India between 1612 and 1617, has a brilliant anecdote to tell. The only time the Mughal emperor Akbar denied anything to his mother, he observes, was when she asked him to order the tying of the Bible around the neck of an ass and have him beaten around the streets of Agra beacuse the Portuguese had tied the Qur'an around the neck of a dog in Ormuz and beat him around in the town. What the Portuguese had done, Akbar replied, was awful. But being a king, he could not replicate the same in his kingdom, for "the contempt of any religion is contempt of God Himself".




			The Counsel of Strength

			If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bomb-shell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word "fearlessness." And the only religion that ought to be taught is the religion of fearlessness. Either in this world or in the world of religion, it is true that fear is sure cause of degradation and sin. It is fear that brings misery, fear that brings death, fear that breeds evil.

			The greatest sin is to think yourself weak. No one is greater. Nothing has the power except what you give it. We are beyond the sun, the stars, the universe. Teach the Godhood of man. Deny evil, create none. Stand up and say, I am the master, the master of all. We forge the chain, and we alone can break it.




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