Sectarianism Quotes

“The question has often been asked; Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy? It does not matter what you call it. Buddhism remains what it is whatever label you may put on it. The label is immaterial. Even the label 'Buddhism' which we give to the teachings of the Buddha is of little importance. The name one gives is inessential.... In the same way Truth needs no label: it is neither Buddhist, Christian, Hindu nor Moslem. It is not the monopoly of anybody. Sectarian labels are a hindrance to the independent understanding of Truth, and they produce harmful prejudices in men's minds.”
― Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught

“Divide and rule, the politician cries;
Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gedichte

“At least two important conservative thinkers, Ayn Rand and Leo Strauss, were unbelievers or nonbelievers and in any case contemptuous of Christianity. I have my own differences with both of these savants, but is the Republican Party really prepared to disown such modern intellectuals as it can claim, in favor of a shallow, demagogic and above all sectarian religiosity?

Perhaps one could phrase the same question in two further ways. At the last election, the GOP succeeded in increasing its vote among American Jews by an estimated five percentage points. Does it propose to welcome these new adherents or sympathizers by yelling in the tones of that great Democrat bigmouth William Jennings Bryan? By insisting that evolution is 'only a theory'? By demanding biblical literalism and by proclaiming that the Messiah has already shown himself? If so, it will deserve the punishment for hubris that is already coming its way. (The punishment, in other words, that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson believed had struck America on Sept. 11, 2001. How can it be that such grotesque characters, calling down divine revenge on the workers in the World Trade Center, are allowed a respectful hearing, or a hearing at all, among patriotic Republicans?).

[. . . And Why I'm Most Certainly Not! -- The Wall Street Journal, Commentary Column. May 5, 2005]”
― Christopher Hitchens

“The Gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect.”
― Porphyry

“The philosophic outlook rises above all sectarian controversy. It finds its own position not only by appreciating and synthesizing what is solidly based in the rival sects but also by capping them all with the keystone of nonduality.”
― Paul Brunton, Healing of the Self, the Negatives: Notebooks

“God is merciful cant we all be on the right track of faith but just using different roads?”
― Ali Al-Ahmed

“The universal reason is love,
The universal faith is love.
All else is but a faint echo,
Driving us away from love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Intolerance is born of ideological allegiance.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion

“The fact that one person imagines a "well-behaved" present and the other a predetermined future does not mean that they therefore fold their arms and become spectators (the former expecting that the present will continue, the latter waiting for the already "known" future to come to pass). On the contrary, closing themselves into "circles of certainty" from which they cannot escape, these individuals "make" their own truth. It is not the truth of men and women who struggle to build the future, running the risks involved in this very construction. Nor is it the truth of men and women who fight side by side and learn together how to build this future—which is not something given to be received by people, but is rather something to be created by them. Both types of sectarian, treating history in an equally proprietary fashion, end up without the people—which is another way of being against them.”
― Donaldo Macedo

“Even rabid dogs have a right to live, but no matter their ideology, none has the right to spread death and disease in society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulldozer on Duty

“World begins with nonsectarianism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting

“Anything that is dumped on you as a prison must be discarded at once - be it faith, state, status, ideology or anything else.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting

“Learn from everything and everybody, but be imprisoned by nothing and nobody.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Ingan Impossible: Handbook of Hatebusting

“Sonnet 96

Kill the terrorists,
You postpone terrorism.
Jail the fundamentalists,
You end terrorism.
Sentence the corrupt,
You postpone corruption.
Empower the civilians,
You eliminate corruption.
Disband the soldiers,
You postpone war.
Rehabilitate the nationalists,
You put an end to war.
All wars are the people's fault.
If the people had some common sense,
Would they be swayed by the divisionist lot!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“Neuroscience of Ideology (The Sonnet)

No matter the intention of origin,
No ideology can stand uncorrupt through time.
Even the perfect of theories fall apart, because,
The brain can't pledge obedience without being blind.
To maintain the grandeur of an ideology,
The mind chooses to switch off certain faculties.
Thus the mind starts digging its own grave,
As well as for the world, without even knowing it.
Ideology relevant today won't be relevant tomorrow,
But the ideology itself isn't aware of this.
Thus in the guise of savior it keeps raising sheep,
Who then turn defensive and ruin all possibility of peace.
Borders don't preserve peace, borders only breed war.
All peace is fiction till we treat every border
as Donald Trump's wall.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“Separatism is antithesis of sapiens.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans

“Division is the desecration of divinity.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Divane Dynamite: Only truth in the cosmos is love

“I don't want to be the cause of one more sect. I want to be the reason for lesser sects.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sin Dios Sí Hay Divinidad: The Pastor Who Never Was

“Trying to make peace with peace talks while overlooking divisionism is like trying to keep a boat afloat by peddling fast while overlooking the giant hole at the bottom.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Himalayan Sonneteer: 100 Sonnets of Unsubmission

“People give power to the symbols, people can strip them of power.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“If sectarianism is cast away from religions, the devil will be reduced to half his size.”
― Ehsan Sehgal

“The universal faith is love.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Ask not, is there life after death!
Ask instead, is there life in existence divided!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

“We see that the Scholastics are reasoning, whatever their logic tells them they come up with. And once you speculate on the idea of newness, you begin to say, “Why can’t we have something new now? Because Christianity itself becomes stale. Our monks have become corrupt.” That’s what Francis was rebelling against. He wanted to have himself a purer poverty. And therefore from the very idea of Christianity, once the idea of Christian tradition is removed, you logically have the idea of a “new” Christianity, some new flowering of wisdom, spirituality, and actually a new revelation. This, again, is the “Grand Inquisitor” of Dostoyevsky, the making of a new Christianity better than Christianity was.

And of course all that time released Protestantism and all the sects of today. And the source for this is no longer the Orthodox tradition, which is lost; the source is either reason or visions. At this time of course we have all these new things arising in the Catholic Church, the new orders: Dominicans, Franciscans, and all the rest, the very idea that this is the normal way. And so these two, Francis and Joachim, will be very influential in later times. People keep coming back to their ideas because they are in the seed period of the modern age.”
― Seraphim Rose, Orthodox Survival Course

“Labels are like training wheels, at some point you gotta let them go.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Now more than ever the hateful, intolerant, separatist bigots need our help, for they are ill, terribly ill. They are suffering from a condition, I call, Clinical Culturitis. So next time you see one, offer them a flower, and say - get well soon!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Visvavictor: Kanima Akiyor Kainat

“I have never considered the exoteric doctrines of my associates very seriously... Some of the purest characters I have ever known are Roman catholics, and the most sordid, sectarians and presbyterians. Speculative opinions have less to do than is supposed with the conduct of men.”
― John Galt, The Autobiography of John Galt, Volume 2

“Submission to division is the death of a human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Yarasistan: My Wounds, My Crown

“Sectarianism turns mind into manure.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Either Right or Human: 300 Limericks of Inclusion

“It was the old tragedy of the Englishman and his foreign guests; a spectacle continually re-enacted, from which neither side ever learns. The Englishman with all the warmth of his heart applauds the foreign revolutionary whose enemies are his own enemies; amid much public enthusiasm an expedition is sent out in support of the plucky under-dog. But this warmth of heart is not matched by clearness of head; the Englishman in his generous mood of applause forgets to ask whether the foreign revolutionaries he is supporting are really nice people; and when the expedition has bungled and the disappointed survivors of the movement tum to the generous country which has befriended them, as to their natural asylum, there is inevitable disappointment on both sides.”
― Ronald Knox, Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion