“Yes, India is the land of the Gods par excellence… The experience of the divine presence in India is within the reach of anyone who searches even a little bit. The temples are full of flowers and offerings, and you only have to flow along with the crowd, melt into it and place yourself in the hands of the Gods. I do not advocate conversion to Hinduism, but I do recommend its inspiration. I told this to the brahmins that took me into their homes. One said, 'Establish your reawakened Paganism on a valid foundation and there'll come a day when it will catch on. It won't be long.”

As true Pagans, they feel no need to convert anyone.
Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Christopher Gérard9

1962

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“India is still foreign to me, it's a familiar foreignness in some way, but it's still surprising. When you see a temple in India, you don't say, oh there's another temple, you say: "My God! How could anyone have had the imagination to do something so amazing!"”

Wendy Doniger (1940) American Indologist

It's never what you expect.
About her comfort level staying in India.
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“Just as the Brahmins are shouting Hinduise India, we should shout Dalitise India. Shout that we hate Hinduism, we hate Brahmanism. Capture the Hindu temples by expelling the Brahmins from them. … The hated must hate. They must become powerful and organised. I want to create anger.”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

Quoted in "The Earthy Pundit" at OutlookIndia (25 December 2000) http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20001225&fname=Ilaiah+Profile+%28F%29&sid=1.

“I am genuinely sympathetic towards India. I have got real fears about the future. India, I feel is a burden on us. We have got to maintain an army and for the sake of India we have to maintain Singapore and Near East strength. If India could look after herself we would be delighted. … I would be only too delighted if the Reforms are a success. I have all along felt that there are fifty Indias. But you have got the thing now; make it a success and if you do I will advocate your getting much more.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

G.D. Birla's account of his conversation with Churchill in a letter to Gandhi (September 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 619
The 1930s

“I have lived and flourished in a secular India. In the fullness of time if God wills, I would also like to die in a secular India.”

Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician

Fali S. Nariman, ‘Before Memory Fades: An Autobiography

“There are many arguments about the role of religion in the history of this country. But the fundamental fact still remains that India has been a historic home to all the great religions of the world. I believe this pluralism and this ability to have an individual element in your religion is culturally specific to India…I came to India as an orthodox Christian thinking there was only one way to God. I now believe there are many ways to God and that came from living in India.”

Mark Tully (1935) British journalist

Source: " Former BBC-India Chief Highlights Multiple Paths to God http://hafsite.org/media/pr/former-bbc-india-chief-highlights-multiple-paths-god", hafsite.org, Hindu American Foundation (HAF), 19 October 2010

“All these points are so obvious that anyone who says that Hinduism is as foreign to India as Islam or Christianity, deserves to have his head examined. The followers of both Islam and Christianity have full knowledge of and pride in the time and place of origin of their religions outside India, the early history of their religions outside India, the arrival of their religions into India (brought in by invaders and imperialists), and the manner in which their religions were established in India. On the other hand, until the Aryan invasion theory was mooted by the European imperialists, no Hindu had ever suspected that any foreign connection could be attributed to his religion. Even today, with the Aryan invasion theory being instilled into every Hindu brain right from childhood, no Hindu worth his salt would accept the contention that Hinduism is of foreign origin.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

The Aryan Invasion Theory and Indian Nationalism (1993)

“Open your hands, ye Whose hands are full! The world is waiting for you! The whole machinery of the Divine beneficence is clogged by your hard hearts and rigid fingers. Give and spend, and be sure that God will send; for only in giving and spending do you fulfill the object of His sending.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 25.

“Now many excellent scientists in India are doing really first rate work and it should not matter when the next Indian Nobel Prize is because they are doing very good work — that is what matters and the more you have this infrastructure, with good scientists within India, eventually someone will get a Nobel Prize for work done within India.”

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952) Nobel prize winning American and British structural biologist

Venki’ makes light of India link- Winner says not to treat science like cricket; league of misses grows

“Do not search for God outside of you. God can only be found within you, for His only abode is the heart.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

6 : God is Shy of Strangers, p. 7.
The Everything and the Nothing (1963)
Context: If you are convinced of God's existence then it rests with you to seek Him, to see Him and to realize Him.
Do not search for God outside of you. God can only be found within you, for His only abode is the heart.

“Yes, I hate Hinduism. Hinduism is not ours, it is against us. If we have to become Hindus, the Brahmins will have to change the entire religious texts, our food habits, our gods and goddesses and images. I am angry at the Hindu gods.
Look at the images of Hindu gods. They wield weapons. We read that Hindu gods killed our own ancestors. How can I worship the killers as divine? What kind of a religion is it? There are three major religions — Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. These major religions were constructed by prophets who sacrificed and struggled in life for people's liberation. All these three religions never said that the larger sections of their people were born from the feet of God.”

Kancha Ilaiah (1952) Indian scholar, activist and writer

Interview at rediff.com (17 January 2000) http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/jan/17inter.htm.

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Christopher Gérard9

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