Dayananda Saraswati Quotations

In life, loss is inevitable. Everyone knows this, yet in the core of most people it remains deeply denied - 'This should not happen to me.' It is for this reason that loss is the most difficult challenge one has to face as a human being.

What is crucial in dealing with loss is not to lose the lesson. That makes you a winner in the most profound sense.

A value is valuable when the value of value is valuable to oneself.

No human heart is denied empathy. No religion can demolish that by indoctrination. No culture, no nation and nationalism - nothing can touch it because it is empathy.

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.

Compassion is not defined in one form. There's no Indian compassion. There's no American compassion. It transcends nation, the gender, the age. Why? Because it is there in everybody. It's experienced by people occasionally.

Prayer in any form is efficacious because it is an action. It will, therefore, have a result. That is the law of this universe in which we find ourselves.

Lyric helps invoke the core person. And, without lyric, it is difficult to touch the core. Lyrical music is the music of India.

Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.

The greatest musical instrument given to a human being is the voice.

There is no verb for compassion, but you have an adverb for compassion. That's interesting to me. You act compassionately. But then, how to act compassionately if you don't have compassion? That is where you fake. You fake it and make it. This is the mantra of the United States of America.

To be compassionate is not a joke. It's not that simple. One has to discover a certain bigness in oneself. That bigness should be centered on oneself, not in terms of money, not in terms of power you wield, not in terms of any status that you can command in the society, but it should be centered on oneself.