Shiva Quotes

A Thought from the heart"
To begin anew is to breathe
To open your heart is to see
To allow change is to embrace
To love is to be open to the truth ~ Nikki Shiva

My links with [Mahatma] Gandhi now are very political links because I do not believe there is any other politics available to us in the late twentieth century, a period of a totalitarianism linked with the market. There is really no other way you can do politics and create freedom for people without the kinds of instruments he revived. Civil disobedience is a way to create permanent democracy, perennial democracy, a direct democracy. ~ Vandana Shiva

I started out in nuclear physics. But after I became more sensitized to the environmental and health implications of the nuclear system - I was being trained to be the first women in the fast-breeder reactor in India (and was in it when it first went critical) - I didn't feel comfortable with it. So I went into theoretical physics. ~ Vandana Shiva

The fight for truth ... is not just our right as free citizens of free societies. It is our duty as citizens of the earth. ~ Vandana Shiva

In Hinduism, Shiva is a deity who represents transformation. Through destruction and restoration, Shiva reminds us that endings are beginnings, and that our world is constantly undergoing a cycle of birth, death and rebirth. ~ Karen Salmansohn

Shiva will always be a true definition of love. ~ Kuldeep Gera

Water must be free for sustenance needs. Since nature gives water to us free of cost, buying and selling it for profit violates our inherent right to nature's gift and denies the poor of their human rights. ~ Vandana Shiva

I'm not a rock star, I'm not Seane Corne or Shiva Rea or Rodney Yee or Baron (Baptiste) or John Friend, and thank God, because there's just too much risk of getting hit by flying tomatoes if you stick out that much. ~ Beryl Bender Birch

We must occupy the food system to create food democracy. ~ Vandana Shiva

Abhinavagupta does not prescribe a hermit's life for that Shiva yogin, who is free to live without restrictions, to remain in the household, and to participate in pleasures of the senses and the mind within the limits of the currently acceptable social standards. In other words, one is free to live a normal life and at the same time to pursue some method of Trika yoga. As soon as the seeker's practice in yoga yields the experience of Self-bliss, worldly enjoyments automatically lose their power and fascination, and one's senses develop a spontaneous indifference, known as anadaravirakti, to former pleasures. Once seekers have become expert practitioners in the experience of Self-bliss, they are able to move freely through worldly enjoyments without any fear of spiritual pollution. Such enjoyments can actually serve to further illumine the extraordinary experience of Self-bliss. As Abhinavagupta explains:

The mind (of a Shiva yogin) does not become wet (or stained) from within, just like the rind of a dried gourd which has no opening, even if it dives deep into the water of sensual pleasures. ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

As the Primal Being, Lord Shiva has neither ancestors, nor caste, neither guru, nor education, for he is the origin of all. ~ Wolf-Dieter Storl

He adored telling this story of near disaster and how he had triumphed, just as he relished the report of how he went on stage every night on tour in his The Cosmic Dance of Shiva, requiring all manner of spinal flexibilities and related actions, while his sacroiliac was painfully out of place. ~ Walter Terry

Satyam Shivam Sundaram Shiva is truth. Shiva is beauty Shiva is the masculine. Shiva is the feminine Shiva is a Suryavanshi. Shiva is a Chandravanshi ~ Amish Tripathi

The director of the institute where I was working apologized about these young, enthusiastic researchers when the World Bank visited because he was afraid the institute would lose the World Bank consultancies.I went back home and started the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology-an extremely elaborate name for the tiny institute that I started in my mother's cow shed. My parents handed over family resources and said, "Put them to public purpose." That's how I survived. ~ Vandana Shiva

I did physics because of my love of nature. As a young student of science, I was taught that physics was the way to learn nature. So my travels through physics really are the same urges that make me travel through ecology. ~ Vandana Shiva

Oh, Kali, my mother full of bliss! Enchantress of the almighty Shiva, in thy delirious joy thou dancest, clapping thy hands together. Thou art the Mover of all that moves, and we are but thy helpless toys. ~ Cassandra Clare

For us, not cooperating in the monopoly regimes of intellectual property rights and patents and biodiversity - saying "no" to patents on life, and developing intellectual ideas of resistance - is very much a continuation of Gandhian satyagraha. It is, for me, keeping life free in its diversity. ~ Vandana Shiva

Shiva and Saleem, victor and victim; understand our rivalry, and you will gain understanding of the age in which you live. (The reverse of this statement is also true.) ~ Salman Rushdie

He has turned my life around by 180 degrees, I still don't understand why Shiva has blessed me so much. I believe he'll bless the worst of us first because we need it the most. ~ Amish Tripathi

Breaking through the cyclical laws of physical nature is the basis of the spiritual process that Adiyogi explored. ~ Sadhguru

The essential nature of samvit is the subtle stir of spanda. The introverted and extroverted movements of spanda cause samvit to manifest itself in both the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of creation. These two aspects of samvit are known in Shaivism as Shiva (transcendent) and Shakti (universal). Shiva and Shakti are the two names given to the monistic Absolute (Paramasiva) when it is being considered in its dual aspects of eternal and transcendent changelessness (Shiva), and the ever-changing and immanent manifestation of universal appearances (Shakti).

- B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 17–18. ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

Viewing ecology through the lens of individual life histories or the life cycles of species makes it easy to grasp the Hindu conception of life as drama. Every creature and plant has a separate path of sustenance and survival on the way to their final dance with Shiva. ~ Richard J. Borden

Today you have a situation where now the prescription is: People who don't have enough money to buy food should end up paying for their drinking water. That is going to be the kind of situation in which you will get more child labor. You will get more exploitation of women. You're going to get an absolutely exploitative economy as the very basis of living becomes a source of capital accumulation and corporate growth. In fact, the chief of Coca-Cola in India said: "Our biggest market in India comes from the fact that there is no drinking water left. People will have to buy Coca-Cola. ~ Vandana Shiva

That amazing power of being able to stand with total courage in the face of total power and not be afraid. That is stri shakti. ~ Vandana Shiva

Creating music is a wonderful way to celebrate our devotion for Lord Shiva. ~ Amish Tripathi

Today the environmental movement has become opposed to issues of justice. You can see this in the way issues are framed. It's a permanent replay of jobs-versus-the-environment, in nature-versus-bread. These are extremely artificial dichotomies. ~ Vandana Shiva

Seed is not just the source of life. It is the very foundation of our being. ~ Vandana Shiva

Ajna chakra, Kurma Chakra, Padma Chakars, MahaPadma chakra and the Shiva-Shakti Chakras are associated with Lord Shiva along with the Vishuddhi Chakra and the Muladhara chakra. ~ Amit Ray

Your life is like a car which moves sometimes with jerks caused by the dirt in its gas as if it has hiccups. That's ordinarily how you live – piecemeal. Your energy moves in fits and starts, bit by bit, it never comes to an integrated whole. It's a matter of utilizing your full energy – in anything. For example, if you are a painter and if you were to devote your entire energy into painting a picture – without holding back even a bit – you will attain liberation there and then. Such application of total energy is udyama. As soon as the circuit is complete, you become bhairava. If you are a sculptor and have poured into your sculpture all that you have – so much so that only the sculpture remains, you disappear – the energy circuit completes. So when you use your total energy in any work – it becomes meditation. Then the bhairava is close, the temple is nearby. ~ Osho

Everybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god - from Ra to Shiva - in which he does not believe. All that the serious and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is just one more god to disbelieve in. ~ Richard Dawkins

In the seed and the soil, we find the answers to every one of the crises we face. The crises of violence and war. The crises of hunger and disease. The crisis of the destruction of democracy. ~ Vandana Shiva

It is often too late by the time the government reacts. ~ Vandana Shiva

It feels like Shiva destroyed my universes of possibility, like He's dancing on the ashes of my snatched away dreams. ~ Padma Venkatraman

It's a phenomenon that started in the United States in which corporations make claims on the life forms, biodiversity and innovations of other cultures by applying for patents on them. ~ Vandana Shiva

When the wilderness movement emerged, it emerged separate from the issue of social inequality and the economic problems of survival. It was a preservationist ecology movement created by an occupying culture. Clearly, a wilderness movement started by Native Americans would not have had the same roots. ~ Vandana Shiva

The patron god of children born on Thursdays is Shiva the Destroyer, and that the day has two guiding animal spirits
the lion and the tiger. The official tree of children born on Thursday is the banyan. The official bird is the peacock. A person born on Thursday is always talking first, interrupting everyone else, can be a little aggressive, tends to be handsome ("a playboy or playgirl," in Ketut's words) but has a decent overall character, with an excellent memory and a desire to help other people. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Squeezing the lives of people is now being proposed as the saviour of the planet. Through the green economy an attempt is being made to technologise, financialise, privatise and commodify all of the earth's resources and living processes. ~ Vandana Shiva

And that is why all of us with one voice call one God differently as Paramatma, Ishwara, Shiva, Vishnu, Rama, Allah, Khuda, Dada Hormuzda, Jehova, God, and an infinite variety of names. He is one and yet many; He is smaller than an atom, and bigger than the Himalayas. He is contained even in a drop of the ocean, and yet not even the seven seas can compass Him. Reason is powerless to know Him. He is beyond the reach or grasp of reason. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

The doctrine of Satan is that all religions are equally valid, that all paths lead to God, that God is impersonal, unknowable, and it is therefore irrelevant to Him what we call Him or how we worship Him. If Allah and God are one and the same, then wouldn't the worship of the Hindu chief gods, Vishnu and Shiva, also be the worship of Allah and God, only by a different name? Pretty soon, everybody is God ... Which is the same as saying that nobody is.35 ~ David Jeremiah

Had a powerful meditation just now - caused an earthquake in Southern California ... Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake. Sorry about that. ~ Deepak Chopra

Oh you the creator, you the destroyer, you who sustain and make an end,
Who in sunlight dance among the birds and the children at their play,
Who at midnight dance among corpses in the burning grounds,
You Shiva, you dark and terrible Bhairava,
You Suchness and Illusion, the Void and All Things,
You are the lord of life, and therefore I have brought you flowers;
You are the lord of death, and therefore I have brought you my heart
This heart that is now your burning ground.
Ignorance there and self shall be consumed with fire.
That you may dance, Bhairava, among the ashes.
That you may dance, Lord Shiva, in a place of flowers,
And I dance with you. ~ Aldous Huxley

The kind of capitalism we are seeing today under this expansion of property into living resources is a whole, new, different phase of capitalism. It is totally inconsistent with democracy as well as with sustainability. What we have is capital working on a global scale, totally uprooted, with accountability nowhere, with responsibility nowhere, and with rights everywhere. This new capital, with absolute freedom and no accountability, is structurally anti-life, anti-freedom. ~ Vandana Shiva

On the Sivaratri day after performing the routine, the devotee shall go to the temple of Siva and perform worship. ~ Sushil Singh

Rich kid," Shiva yelled, "you don't know one damn thing! What purpose, man? What thing in the whole sister-sleeping world got reason, yara? For what reason you're rich and I'm poor? Where's the reason in starving, man? God knows how many millions of damn fools living in this country, man, and you think there's a purpose! Man, I'll tell you
you got to get what you can, do what you can with it, and then you got to die. That's reason, rich boy. Everything else is only mother-sleeping wind! ~ Salman Rushdie

Way from Panchavati to Meluha or do we take a detour?' asked Shiva, goading ~ Amish Tripathi

Earth Democracy connects people in circles of care, cooperation, and compassion instead of dividing them through competition and conflict, fear and hatred. ~ Vandana Shiva

I have a deep connection with Mahatma Gandhi, partly because my mother was a very, very staunch Gandhian and brought us up that way. When I was six years old, and all the girls were getting nylon dresses, I was very keen to get a nylon frock for my birthday. My mother said, "I can get it for you, but would you rather-through how you live and what you wear and what you eat-ensure that food goes into the hands of the weaver or ensure that profits go into the bank of an industrialist?" That became such a checkstone for everything in life. ~ Vandana Shiva

Unless the poor of the world agitate for themselves to be heard, there will be no changes in their circumstances ~ Vandana Shiva

I think the American people should see that the corporations abandoned them long ago. That people will have to build their own economies and rebuild democracy as a living democracy. The corporations belong to no land, no country, no people. They have no loyalty to anything apart from their profits. And the profits today are on an unimaginable scale; it has become illegitimate, criminal profit - profits extracted at the cost of life. ~ Vandana Shiva

We're still eating the leftovers of World War II. ~ Vandana Shiva

Nepal is a beautiful country with a lot of holy places. I also like the country because it's close to the Himalayas. According to Hindu mythology, that's the abode of Lord Shiva. ~ Kailash Kher

The art of teaching is clarity and the art of learning is to listen. ~ Vandana Shiva

In the East, we have developed a science: if you cannot find a soul mate, you can create one. And that science is Tantra. To find a soul mate means to find the person with whom all your seven centers meet naturally. That is impossible. Once in a while, a Krishna and a Radha, a Shiva and a Shakti. And when it happens it is tremendously beautiful. But it is like lightning - you cannot depend on it. If you want to read your Bible, you can't depend on it that when the lightning is there you will read. The lightning is a natural phenomenon, but not dependable. ~ Rajneesh

You cannot insert a gene you took from a bacteria into a seed and call it LIFE. You have not created life, instead you have only polluted it. ~ Vandana Shiva

The time has come to reclaim the stolen harvest and celebrate the growing and giving of good food as the highest gift and the most revolutionary act. ~ Vandana Shiva

Thus while Ganesha helps devotees move from south to north, Kartikeya himself moves from north to south for the benefi t of devotees. While as Ganesha tempers materialistic cravings with spiritual insight, Murugan tempers his martial attitude with divine grace and romantic emotions. Thus the Goddess helps Shiva connect with humanity through her two sons. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik

Food is the place where you begin. ~ Vandana Shiva

Soil, not oil, holds the future for humanity. ~ Vandana Shiva

You're right, I have taught you nothing. I could teach you nothing. Everything that you needed was already there. You simply needed the word for it. Some need Kali and Shiva to destroy the world so they may see past the illusion to divinity in them, others need Krishna to drive them to the place where they may perceive what is eternal in them. Others may perceive the Divine Spark in themselves only by realizing through enlightenment that the spark resides in all things, and in that they find kinship. But because the Divine Spark resides in all, does not mean that all will discover it. Your dharma is not to learn, Joshua, but to teach ~ Christopher Moore

Because of these new car models there is suddenly on the streets of Delhi a new intolerance by the motorists for both the cows and the cyclists. So for the first time the sacred cow in India, which used to be such a wonderful speed-breaker, is now seen as a nuisance. For the first time, I've seen cows being hit and hurt. These guys just go right past, and if the cow is sitting on the road, they don't care. We can't afford to have a sacred car rather than a sacred cow. ~ Vandana Shiva

How can sensible people ignore their mother and leave her in unknown place, leaving her to starve. How cruel humans can be? Is there no limit to their atrocities? Don't they have any conscience in their hearts? I felt like crying. It seems that we animals have more kindness, affection and respect in our hearts. ~ Mangalam Shiva

Shiva had the answer: 'Har Ek Hai Mahadev!' The Meluhans stood astounded. Every single one a Mahadev? 'Har Har Mahadev!' bellowed Shiva. The Meluhans roared. All of us are Mahadevs! ~ Anonymous

Health is the greatest gift in life. Aananda or contentment is the greatest gain and of course faith is the best relationship and friendship in life> Shreeom Surye shiva devkota. ~ Shreeom Surye Shiva Devkota

Lord Shiva, you my sunshine, my soul, Sivoham. ~ Usha Cosmico

Spiritually, to be a criminal is a form of suffering, so this was the last gesture of atonement needed before Shiva, lord of spiritual seekers, was satisfied that the thief deserved enlightenment. ~ Deepak Chopra

The youth in India tend to be rebellious, as with everywhere else, and that makes Shiva exciting. He has the rebellious qualities that the youths like. ~ Amish Tripathi

The agrarian crisis [in India] is an unnecessary tragedy, resulting directly from an economics of greed and a politics driven by the economies of greed. ~ Vandana Shiva

One particular spark was when I went back to my favorite spot in the mountains where my father always used to take us before my graduate studies in Canada and finding that the stream I had gone swimming in wasn't there. The forest had been converted into an apple orchard with World Bank financing. The entire place, literally, had changed. ~ Vandana Shiva

Being a planetary citizen does not need space travel. It means being conscious that we are part of the universe and of the earth. The most fundamental law is to recognise that we share the planet with other beings, and that we have a duty to care for our common home. ~ Vandana Shiva

I have called this phenomenon of stealing common knowledge and indigenous science "biopiracy" and "intellectual piracy." According to patent systems we shouldn't be able to patent what exists as "prior art." But the United States patent system is somewhat perverted. First of all, it does not treat the prior art of other societies as "prior art." Therefore anyone from the United States can travel to another country, find out about the use of a medicinal plant, or find a seed that farmers use, come back here, claim it as an invention or an innovation. ~ Vandana Shiva

What is the probability that Yahweh is the one true god, and Amon Ra, Aphrodite, Apollo, Baal, Brahma, Ganesha, Isis, Mithra, Osiris, Shiva, Thor, Vishnu, Wotan, Zeus, and the other 986 gods are false gods? As skeptics like to say, everyone is an atheist about these gods; some of us just go one god further. ~ Michael Shermer

Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates. ~ Vandana Shiva

Seen from a monocultural perspective, manipulating objects is very, very clever. But seen from a multidimensional perspective, from a perspective of diversity, this is extremely crude because what we have lost out on is a cow that serves as a source of sustainable energy. ~ Vandana Shiva

sacred knowledge of the cosmos seems to be hidden within our souls and is shown within our artwork and creative expressions. ~ Nikki Shiva

I am Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. ~ Tucker Max

We will either defend the rights of people and the earth, and for that we have to dismantle the rights that corporations have assigned to themselves, or corporations will in the next three decades destroy this planet, in terms of human possibilities. ~ Vandana Shiva

Vishnu is the god who sustains and maintains what Brahma creates and what Shiva seeks to destroy. He is also pure consciousness. His name means "pervader." Vishnu pervades and enlivens all things. For devotees of Vishnu, Vishnu's blue color indicates that he is as pervasive and intangible as the sky, while his consort Laxmi's red sari represents earth's all-containing fertility. He is the protector; she is the provider: ~ Devdutt Pattanaik

All of us with one voice call one God differently as Parmatma, Ishwara, Shiva, Vishnu, Rama, Allah, Khuda, Dada-Hormuzda, Jehova, God and an infinite variety of names. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

As an idle mind either recalls its past or worries about its future, this Mr. Patil had sat indulged in his past. How beautiful his past life was, happy, lively and warm as the morning itself. It was a perfectly pictured cheerful life of a
farmer. ~ Ganesh Shiva Aithal

Salutations to Shiva who wears live cobras for ornaments, who rides the white bull, Nandi, the consort of Parvati. Salutations to Shiva, who, intoxicated smoking cannabis, dances madly with ghosts, goblins, and other unclean spirits who are his beloved companions, as he chants the holy name of the Goddess. ~ William Schindler

When you control seed you control food ~ Vandana Shiva

Then how does one go about making the impossible, possible ? ~ Renee Ahdieh

The myth of "free choice" begins with "free market" and "free trade". When five transnational corporations control the seed market, it is not a free market, it is a cartel. ~ Vandana Shiva

Don't turn blue all over now. ~ Amish Tripathi

We have a very old conservation movement, particularly in the United States, which has focused on campaigns to protect endangered species: the spotted owl, the old-growth forest. But usually it stops there. To me, biodiversity is the full spectrum. Species conservation is not only about wilderness conservation. It's also about protecting the livelihood of people even while changing the dominant relationship that humans have had with other species. In India, it's an economic issue, not just an ecological one. ~ Vandana Shiva

No injustice ever takes place in this universe. Whatsoever happens is always just and right, for there is no human being sitting up there doing either justice or injustice. The universe is ruled by certain laws, and these laws constitute religion. ~ Osho

According to Indian crop ecologist Vandana Shiva, humans have eaten some 80,000 plant species in our history. After recent precipitous changes, three-quarters of all human food now comes from just eight species, with the field quickly narrowing down to genetically modified corn, soy, and canola. If woodpeckers and pandas enjoy celebrity status on the endangered-species list (dubious though such fame may be), food crops are the forgotten commoners. We're losing them as fast as we're losing rain forests. An enormous factor in this loss has been the new idea of plant varieties as patentable properties, rather than God's gifts to humanity or whatever the arrangement was previously felt to be, for all of prior history. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential. ~ Vandana Shiva

I was at the famous Shiva temple of Brihadishwari in Tanjore, ~ Thomas Hoover

Nature has gifted this rich biological diversity to us. We will not allow it to become the monopoly of a handful of corporations. We will keep it as the basis of our wealth and our sustenance. ~ Vandana Shiva

The logic is simple: if you do the right things, the right things will happen to you even without your intent. Shiva ~ Sadhguru

If you want a cow to be not just a cow but a milk machine, you can do a very good job at that by creating new hormones like the Bovine Growth Hormone. It might make the cow very ill, it might turn it into a drug addict, and it might even create consumer scares about the health and safety aspects of the milk. But we've gotten so used to manipulating objects and organisms and ecosystems for a single objective that we ignore the costs involved. I call this the "monoculture of the mind." ~ Vandana Shiva

This very body is indeed Kashi, the illumined divine field of cosmic energy and pure consciousness. ~ Amit Ray

Kali's nakedness shows that she has cast away illusion; in her, the entire truth about life and death is revealed. Even her color is esoteric; Kali's dark colors stand for the ultimate void state, where as differences dissolve into the absolute beyond all form. Her sword is the force that slices delusion, ignorance, false hope, and lies. Her position on top of Shiva reveals that she is the dynamic force in the universe, the power that churns the stillness of the void, so worlds can be created inside that transcendent nothingness. ~ Sally Kempton

Shiva embraced his younger son. 'Give them hell, Kartik! ~ Amish Tripathi

Many have come to understand that while reality and truth are not always the same, they do not necessarily oppose or preclude one another. The myths of Shiva, the lake and the mountain, Buddhist stories and visualisations, the feeling of a mountain rising: none of these need be literal in order to be considered truthful. Such moments simply point to a truth as complex as the people who seek to understand them. ~ Kavitha Yaga Buggana

If you have to write a fictional adventure to convey a philosophy of evil, the best person is the destroyer of evil himself, Lord Shiva. ~ Amish Tripathi

Yes. But the Brahmins don't just cure people. They are also teachers, lawyers, priests, basically any intellectual profession.' 'Talented people,' sniffed Shiva. ~ Amish Tripathi

We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a human future at all. ~ Vandana Shiva

And there's a special place in shiva hell reserved for men in sandals, their cracked, hardened toenails, dark with fungus, proudly on display. ~ Jonathan Tropper