Quotes About Rituals

In foreign countries I am drawn into grocery shops, supermarkets and kitchen supply houses. I explain this by reminding my friends that, as I was taught in my Introduction to Anthropology, it is not just the Great Works of mankind that make a culture. It is the daily things, like what people eat and how they serve it.

Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to import them to the profane until they have been initiated in the mysteries of the science.

During my senior year I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society, so secret I can't say anything more.

When a culture feels that its end has come, it sends for a priest.

In our society many of the old rituals have lost much of their power. New ones have not arisen.

We often feel how poor the edifice would be were it built exclusively of our rituals and deeds which are so awkward and often so obtrusive. How else express glory in the presence of eternity, if not by the silence of abstaining from noisy acts?

To Lancelot Andrewes, always insistent on the value of ceremony, this was absurd. Did Protestants pretend, he asked, that God 'will have us worship him like elephants, as if we had no joints in our knees?

In a world beset by fundamentalists of both believing and secular varieties, it must be possible to balance a rejection of religious faith with a selective reverence for religious rituals and concepts.

The challenge facing atheists is how to reverse the process of religious colonization: how to separate ideas and rituals from the religious institutions which have laid claim to them but don't truly own them.

I think the genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

I recognized that my continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife or of heavenly residents was no justification for giving up on the music, buildings, prayers, rituals, feasts, shrines, pilgrimages, communal meals, and illuminated manuscripts of the faiths.

the most probable of all my theorems, is that life is ordered by the principles of some religion so peculiar and obscure it has no followers, and none may fathom it, nor know the rituals by which to court its favour.

The third and, given due consideration, most probable of all my theorems, is that life is ordered by the principles of some religion so peculiar and obscure it has no followers, and none may fathom it, nor know the rituals by which to court its favor.

As per some Vedic marriage rites, a woman is first given in marriage to the romantic moon-god, Chandra, then to the highly sensual Gandharva named Vishwavasu, then to the fire-god, Agni, who cleanses and purifies all things, and finally to her human husband. Thus, the 'four men' quota is exhausted. Clearly this was an attempt of society to prevent Hindu women from remarrying.

All Hindu rituals end with the chant 'Shanti, shanti, shanti' because the quest for peace is the ultimate goal of all existence. This peace is not external but internal. It is not about making the world a peaceful place; it is about us being at peace with the world.

Brahmins were essentially transmitters and stewards of Vedic hymns and rituals, not its interpreters or owners. Over time, however, they used their exalted position to dominate society and claim entitlements. It was an irony of history that those who carried knowledge of how to expand the mind failed to expand their own minds, and chose the common path of domination instead.

Vratas are not concerned with lofty spiritual goals like moksha. They are concerned with ordinary household material aspirations: marriage, children, health and prosperity.

Serpents are worshipped across India to ensure the fertility of land, as well as for children.

The throw of dice in a gambling match indicates fate while the movement of coins on the board indicates free will. Thus the Vedic game of dice was not just a game but a representation of life controlled by fate and free will. It was a part of fertility rituals. It was said that in the game of life, Yama, god of death and destiny, threw the die while humans guided by Kama, god of life and desire, had the power to move the coins.

both mythology and philosophy present the same idea: the former communicates through a story, along with symbols and rituals, while the latter uses precise language. Mythology creates a more visceral experience, and so appeals to everyone, not just the intellectual.

Christian church, a Muslim mosque, a Buddhist monastery or a Sikh gurudwara are spaces designed to bring the community together and focus on a common goal—confess sins, reaffirm submission, awaken to desires and delusions and learn from the songs of the sages, as the case may be. But a Hindu temple is the house of a deity. We go to see them and be seen by them,

You want to wake the Old Gods, don't you?" "Yes." "Well then, go where the Old Gods are accustomed to be worshipped.

My mother believed in all superstitions, plus she made some up.

A culture is a total way of life. It embraces what people ate and what they wore; the way they walked and the way they talked; the manner in which they treated death and greeted the newborn.