Brahma

“ There are two states of Brahma—one with shape and the other without it—one perishable and the other imperishable. These two states are manifest everywhere. As the blaze of fire, at one place, spreads light and heat all around so this vast universe is nothing but the manifestation of the energy of the undecaying and eternal Brahma. And as the light and heat are stronger or feebler proportionate to the distance of the spot, so the energy of Brahma is more or less manifest in beings as they are more or less remote from him. ”

“ When He Himself reveals Himself, Brahma brings into manifestation That which can never be seen.
As the seed is in the plant, as the shade is in the tree, as the void is in the sky, as infinite forms are in the void -
So from beyond the Infinite, the Infinite comes; and from the Infinite the finite extends.
The creature is in Brahma, and Brahma is in the creature: they are ever distinct, yet ever united. ”

“ To give you Brahma Loca's perfect rest. [9]
Your prayers are vain unless your hearts are clean.
For how can darkness dwell with perfect light?
And how can hatred dwell with perfect love?
The slandering tongue, that stirs up strife and hate,
The grasping hand, that takes but never gives,
The lying lips, the cold and cruel heart,
Whence bitterness and wars and murders spring,
Can ne'er by prayers to Brahma Loca climb. [10]
The pure in heart alone with Brahma dwell.
Ye say that Brahmans are a holy caste,
From Brahma sprung and Brahma's only heirs ”

“ Brahma is the creator of the universe, and the source from which all the individual deities have sprung, and into which all will ultimately be absorbed. "As milk changes to curd, and water to ice, so is Brahma variously transformed and diversified, without aid of exterior means of any sort." ”

“ I know thee well, and thy power is great and dreadful; for in the midst of the shrines of the Gods I worship, thy image only fixed my eye; and when Brahma spoke by the lips of his Guru, thy voice only left its accents on my ear. Ere thou didst speak, I took thee for the tenth avatar, which is yet to come; and when I listened to thee, I deemed thee one of the Genii of the Arab’s faith, whose words are false though sweet. But they say thou art a Christian, and a sorcerer; and punishment, with a black aspect and a red eye, waits on the souls of them who listen to, and who believe thee. ”

“ Her perfect form, thus shrouded, caught, from the circumstance, a mysterious charm, and seemed, like one of the splendid illusions, with which the enthusiasm of religion brightens the holy dream of its votarist, like the spirit which descends amidst the shadows of night upon the slumbers of the blessed. Considered as the offspring of Brahma, as a ray of the divine excellence, the Indians of the most distinguished rank drew back as she approached, lest their very breath should pollute that region of purity her respiration consecrated ”

“ The Brahma believer sees Brahma alone and no other anywhere, and he looks to Brahma through Brahma himself, as the creator and preserver of all, and whose nature includes all other attributes in itself. ”

“ And, O mighty sage, devoid of envy and grief and fatigue and ignorance and malice, men who have attained heaven, dwell in those regions happily. And, O bull among Munis, higher and higher over such regions there are others endued with higher celestial virtues. Of these, the beautiful and resplendent regions of Brahma are the foremost. Thither, O Brahmana, repair Rishis that have been sanctified by meritorious acts. And there dwell certain beings named Ribhus. They are the gods of the gods themselves. Their regions are supremely blessed, and are adored even by the deities. ”

“ He from whom all works, all desires, all sweet odours and tastes proceed, who embraces all this, who never speaks and is never surprised, he—my self within the heart—is that Brahma, When I shall have departed from hence, I shall obtain him. ”

“ Endued with puissance in respect of creation, do thou set thyself to create diverse kinds of creatures, rational and irrational.' Thus addressed by the author of his being, Brahma with his mind penetrated by anxiety, felt the difficulty of his task and became unwilling to do what he was commenced to do. Bowing his head unto the boon-giving and illustrious Hari, the Lord of the universe, Brahma said these words unto him,—'I bow to thee, O Lord of the deities, but I ask what puissance have I to create diverse creatures? ”

“ These play their parts, and run their courses, until the vast day of Brahma is completed; when he closes his eyes, and falls to rest, while the whole system of finite things returns to the silence and darkness of its aboriginal unity, and remains there in invisible annihilation through the stupendous night that precedes the reawaking of the slumbering Godhead and the appearance of the creation once more. ”

“ The same Brahma, who has no beginning nor end, spreads himself like the boundless and unfathomable ocean, under all bodies and things; and in whatever we deem as favourable and unfavourable to us, as our friends and our enemies. ”

“ When the universal and infinite being Brahma—the only really existing entity, wholly without form, and unbound and unaffected by the three Gunas or by qualities of any kind—wished to create for his own entertainment the phenomena of the universe, he assumed the quality of activity and became a male person, as Brahma the creator. ”

“ In the woods are many perils—many reptiles and hungry wild animals seeking their prey.”
A Brahman advised the deposed rajah to call upon the sun god, and Yudhishthira prayed: “O sun, thou art the eye of the universe, the soul of all things that are; thou art the creator; thou art Indra, thou art Vishnu, thou art Brahma, thou art Prajapati, lord of creatures, father of gods and man; thou art fire, thou art Mind; thou art lord of all, the eternal Brahma.” ”

“ The learned know Brahma as the ocean rolling in its endless waves, and as significant words and their significations, which go together as Brahma and his creation.
29. Brahma is the Intellect—Chit, Brahma is the mind—manas, Brahma is intelligence—Vijnána, and Brahma is substance—Vasthu; He is Sound—sabda, He is understanding—chit, and He is in the principles of things—Dhátus.
30. The whole universe is Brahma, and yet He is beyond all this. In reality the world is a nullity, for all is Brahma alone. ”

“ When these the mind for their sixth become concentrated in the knowledge, and thus concentrated remain steady and untroubled, then Brahma becomes perceptible like a smokeless fire of blazing flames or the Sun of effulgent radiance. Indeed, one then beholds in oneself one's soul like lightning fire in the skies. ”

“ I say expressly, these apes worshipped Brahma.
There Apery’s Brachmans, all in robes and fringes,
In spite of fasts grew wondrous fat and blooming,
And proved Law, Science, Art, in brief resuming,
Let’s say the All on their own Vedas hinges. ”

“ Brahma, creator of the universe, though all powerful, could not revoke a promise once made. For this reason, Ravana, the demon god of Ceylon, stood on his head in the midst of five fires for ten thousand years, and at the end of that time boldly demanded of Brahma as a reward that he should not be slain by gods, demons, or genii. ”

“ The increate Brahma, being of an intellectual and vacuous form, and an imaginary body endued with volition, appeared as the prime Ego or a personal being, and containing the world in his person.
23. It is the empty void of the Intellect, which displays these wonders that are known to constitute the continued bustle, of the alternate creation, sustentation, and destruction of the world.
24. The clear and increate light, to which the intellect evolves itself of its own accord; and which bears resemblance to the evolution of airy dreams from the mind; is termed the first father of all. ”

“ He, indeed, is a Brahmana in whom the status of Brahma exists,—that condition which is bereft of attributes and which has no stain attached to it. The boon-giving Brahma, while he created all creatures, himself said that the distribution of human beings into the four orders dependent on birth is only for purposes of classification. The Brahmana is a great field in this world,—a field equipped with feet for it moves from place to place. He who plants seeds in that field, O beautiful lady, reaps the crop in the next world. ”

“ The great creative god Brahma, who, by the light of his countenance, dispelled the primeval gloom, and by his divine influence evoked the earth from the primeval ocean, is represented in Hindu theology as having emanated from a golden lotus which had been quickened into life when the spirit of Om moved over the face of the waters. ”

“ That is why he who knows Brahma, who has his joy in Brahma, must also have all his activity in Brahma - his eating and drinking, his earning of livelihood and his beneficence. Just as the joy of the poet in his poem, of the artist in his art, of the brave man in the output of his courage, of the wise man in his discernment of truths, ever seeks expression in their several activities, so the joy of the knower of Brahma, in the whole of his everyday work, little and big, in truth, in beauty, in orderliness and in beneficence, seeks to give expression to the infinite. ”

“ There is no substantiality except that of Brahma. There is no personality (ádesa) of him. He is Brahma the supreme soul and no other. He is neither the outward nor inward nor he is nothing.)
19. There are no other worlds beside Brahma, nor is the heaven without Him. The hills, the demons, the mind and body all rest in that spirit which is no one of these. ”

“ Brahma is the object of the most ancient adoration of the Brahmins; he is considered the intelligence who existed before time, and will continue throughout eternity: he watches over the events of each age and revolution of the universe; he is the power by which everything was created, and everything is sustained; he is the invisible head of the Brahmins, and as such, is worshipped by them with devoted respect. ”

“ By that time I had grown into an adult woman, and so I embraced the wind, which impregnated me, and, after nine gadhis, Brahma was born. He grew into a young man, and I asked him to embrace me, but he refused, and, as a curse, I caused him to become a stone. ”

“ Obtaining knowledge from a Brahmana or a Kshatriya or Vaisya or even a Sudra who is of low birth, one endued with faith should always show reverence for such knowledge. Birth and death cannot assail one that is endued with faith. All orders of men are Brahmanas. All are sprung from Brahma. All men utter Brahma. [1674] Aided by an understanding that is derived from and directed to Brahma, I inculcated this science treating of Prakriti and Purusha. Indeed, this whole universe is Brahma. ”

“ Between these two ages, however, of the Vedic gods on the one hand, and the theological systems of Vishnu and Shiva on the other, there is in the Mahabharata and also in the Puranas to a less extent one anomalous figure. It is that of Brahma the Creator, the benevolent four-headed Grandsire. Who was this Brahma? What is his exact significance? It might almost be stated as a law that in India there has never been a deity or a religious idea without some social formation behind it. ”

“ In course of time this nature-worship of the Vedic period developed into a sort of pantheism, that is, a system which identifies God with the universe. This form of the Indian religion is known as Brahmanism. Brahma, an impersonal essence, is conceived as the primal existence. Forth from Brahma emanated, as heat and light emanate from the sun, all things and all life. Banish a personal God from the universe, as some modern scientists would do, leaving nothing but nature with her original nebula, her endless cycles, her unconscious evolutions, and we have something very like Brahmanism. ”

“ The inherent powers of Brahma, evolve themselves as shining sparks of fire; and some of these assume the forms of the luminous worlds; while others appear in the shapes of living souls.
14. Others again take many other forms, which compose this universe; and there is nothing as bondage or liberation here, except that the undecaying Brahma is all in all; nor is there any unity or duality in nature, except the diversity displayed by the Divine Mind, from the essence of his own consciousness (samvid) . ”

“ The Brahman, or Parabrahm, the absolute of the Vedantins, is neuter and unconscious, and has no connection with the masculine Brahma of the Hindu Triad, or Trimurti. Some Orientalists rightly believe the name derived from the verb "Brih," to grow or increase, and to be in this sense the universal expansive force of Nature, the vivifying and spiritual principle or power spread throughout the universe, and which, in its collectivity, is the one Absoluteness, the one Life and the only Reality. ”

“ The supreme deity is no longer one of the powers of Nature, like Mitra or Indra, but according to Menu he is Brahm, or Brahma,--"an eternal, unchangeable, absolute being, the soul of all beings, who, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, created the waters and placed in them a productive seed. ”

“ The belief is that Brahma, waking from the slumber of his self absorbed solitude, feels his loneliness, and his thoughts and emotions go forth in creative forms, composing the immense scheme of worlds and creatures. ”

“ Is it possible you believe that God can be carried under a man’s girdle? There is one God—Brahma, and he is greater than the whole world, for he created it. Brahma is the One, the mighty God, and in His honour are built the temples on the Ganges’ banks, where his true priests, the Brahmins, worship him. They know the true God, and none but they. ”