Quotes from Arvind Sharma

The original Confucian intention, as envisioned by Confucius and Mencius is, simply put, to cultivate ourselves and bring peace and comfort to others.

Confucius did not accept the status quo, which held that wealth and power spoke the loudest. He felt that virtue, both as a personal quality and as a requirement for leadership, was essential for individual dignity, communal solidarity, and political order.

unity is not uniformity.

Although moral truths are eternal, their actual application is subject to temporal modification.

Religion itself is a method of engaging the ultimate; the various religions are various methods of doing so; their histories are a record of the results of these efforts.

The concept of "the chosen people" is thus turned, in the plastic hands of Hinduism, into the "choosing people"—Hindus choose the gods they worship.

In America alone there are estimated to be nearly five hundred separate and distinct forms of Christianity.

in asking the question, Who was Jesus?, we must expect different answers because only part of the response can come from history. The other part comes from the heart of the person answering the question. The query is both historical and personal, so the answers will be both as well.

Since the New Testament in the form in which we now have it did not receive acceptance in the churches until the fifth century, it is well to remember that for nearly three hundred years Christians did not have it but considered the Old Testament their only scripture.

Mencius observes that the main cause of conflict in the political arena is the abandonment of righteousness as the raison d'être for the ruling minority to enjoy privilege and status without involving themselves in productive labor. Any attempt to profit unjustly or abuse their power in this way in fact makes their legitimate claim to leadership suspect. Their ability to govern is undermined and the public sphere over which they reign becomes privatized.