“I believe from the bottom of my heart that what we call religion is the very most important matter for human beings. I cannot stress enough that the ultimate goal of religion, whether we call it satori or peace of mind, is for each individual to live in peace and tranquility, to live a full and satisfying life.”

“Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: ‘Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it’s just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.’ At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward’s pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention.”

“Let your self-liberation break the law of gravitation…”

“Moksha is indeed one’s own nature. When (one’s) knowledge-vision-conduct become enlightened (samayak,becomes right), that is called moksha.”

“There are four pillars of liberation (moksha): Knowledge (Gnan), Vision (Darshan), Conduct as the Self (Charitra) and penance (tapa). In this, the Lord has not referred to external penance as penance for liberation. ‘He’ has referred to inner penance only as the penance for liberation.  ”

“We’ (Gnani Purush) have Seen the facts as they are, in our Knowledge, and that is what I speak about. There is no superior father figure who binds one. Agnan (ignorance) binds and Gnan (Knowledge of the Self), will liberate. The ignorance that binds is everywhere, whereas the Knowledge that liberates can only be obtained if one comes across a Gnani Purush!”

“Without the attainment of Soul (Self-realization), there is no place that is worth having a fanatic attachment to a viewpoint. It is not worth holding on, or being stuck at a single place.”

“What is pudgal (non-Self complex made up of mind-speech-body)? It is influx and outflow; it is credit and debit. And if you ‘know’ the Soul (get Self-realized), you will attain liberation.”

“Those who see the truth as trouble will end up having to see trouble as the truth.”

“The Truth is harsh, but it will take you out of trash.”

“One has to ‘do’ for worldly happiness, for material happiness. However, one does not have to ‘do’ anything for liberation (moksha) or to attain God. Yet what do the people of the present times teach? ‘Do’, ‘do’, ‘do’.”

“This is indeed the nature of worldly life, isn’t it? We anticipate happiness in old age. But in old age we develop severe back pain, which will not let us sit peacefully. That is why people are searching for moksha [ultimate liberation]; once we reach our own place, there will be no problems, right?”

“The result of external penance and renunciation is worldly life, meaning that one acquires material pleasures and gradually one even attains the path to liberation. However, there is no liberation without Knowledge of the Self (Atma Gnan).”

“Believe in those who seek liberation, but not in those who promise liberty.”