Ramesh Menon > Quotes

“He lit the night he brought with the fire that puts out the planets when time ends.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“She had lost her heart the moment she set eyes on him: it was this prince she had always dreamed of and waited for. She knew him from long ago, from countless lives before. They had belonged together since time began.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“Brahma emerged from the right side of Mahesa, Vishnu from the left and Nilarudra from his heart. In the beginning, intoning AUM, Sadasiva created the universe. Siva is Pranava and Pranava is Siva.”
― Ramesh Menon, SIVA PURANA

“Whatever a man does, good or evil, comes back to him someday. And he pays for everything.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“Those that say the kali yuga is an age of evil forget that this wonderful age is the yuga when moksha is nearest. I say to you, Bhakti, this is the most wonderful of all the ages of men!”
― Ramesh Menon, Bhagavata Purana

“Don’t grieve too much. This hour of parting is the hardest; the years will pass before you know they have come and gone. They will pass as night does in sleep, and I will return to you.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“It is not that mother Kaikeyi is evil, or that she hates me; only that destiny uses her, even against her own nature.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“Great gifts are not given easily and I waited years before I had you.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“One's longing is not so much there for sense-gratification, profit and self-preservation, instead one's karma is there for no other purpose than inquiring after the Absolute Truth.”
― Ramesh Menon, Bhagavata Purana

“I want you to remember, always, that no man who sits upon a throne likes to hear another man being praised. Never praise me in Bharata’s presence or show how much you miss me. Don’t speak of me at all before him.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“The Shastras say that a son who does not obey his father has no place in heaven.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“Rud’ means misery and ‘dravayati’ means to root out. Rudra is the destroyer of our misery.”
― Ramesh Menon, SIVA PURANA

“The wise never harbor hostility. The good man forgets the faults of others; the best man forgives them, even when he himself has borne their brunt. In the purity of his heart, the virtuous man only sees the virtue in everyone else.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Mahabharata: a Modern Rendering

“Calm yourself. Think with your intellect, not your burning heart, and you will see what I must do.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“Weaving his tale into the river’s drift, Narada began the legend of Rama, prince of Ayodhya, who was as noble as the sea is deep, as powerful as Mahavishnu, whose Avatara he was when the treta yuga was upon the world, as steadfast as the Himalaya, handsome as Soma the Moon God, patient as the Earth, generous as Kubera, just as Dharma; but his rage if roused like the fire at the end of time.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“But then, he was a wise prince and realized that kingship was always more a burden than a privilege. But he had been raised to be a king since he was born, and it was not only this thought that now worried him. Another, deeper anxiety stirred in his heart, for no reason he could name. Something malignant seemed to mock him, from far away, but quite clearly.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“Karma once done is never wasted in a crore of kalpas and one must enjoy or suffer the fruit of every deed. Evil karma gets one to hell, karma that is only good, to heaven. Mixed karma results in a human birth and the birth is good or evil according to the proportion of the mixture.”
― Ramesh Menon, SIVA PURANA

“Dharma is a subtle thing. One can be true to it only if one’s mind is entirely without desire”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“waters. When he was full-grown, Heti had him married to Sandhya Devi’s daughter, Salakatankata, and Vidyutkesa enjoyed his bride as Indra does Paulomi.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“Siva who is known as Kaalatman, the Soul of Time. Kaala is inscrutable; only Siva is beyond Prakriti, Purusha and Kaala.”
― Ramesh Menon, SIVA PURANA

“Valmiki sat in the lotus posture with his eyes shut, to listen to the tale of a human prince who was as immaculate as the stars.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“To whom does this body belong? To the one that feeds it, the mother and father who bring it into being, to the master that buys its services, to the fire that consumes it finally, or to the dogs that gnaw its bones after the fire has done its work?”
― Ramesh Menon, Bhagavata Purana

“Until a bhakta has not abandoned himself and his life to you, so that he is yours and you his, the passions of his heart are his enemies, his home is a prison, and all his attachments are bondage. Once the surrender is effected, and all these old enemies turned over to you, they transform themselves into the most potent gifts for the life of devotion. When the Lord becomes one’s own! With such bhakti, a man becomes a natural Sannyasi.”
― Ramesh Menon, Bhagavata Purana

“The sources of great rivers, like those of great men, are often obscure – some hidden crevice high on a mountain. But in the fullness of time, the world sees their glory. So, too, shall it be with us.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Mahabharata: a Modern Rendering

“But, Narada, this Purana can save a lost man, fetch him back to the path of light and truth: because it has deep enchantment in it, for the Lord Vishnu dwells in this arcane Purana, he speaks through it. He who describes the maya of the Lord Vishnu, the Antaryamin, transcends that maya. Why, even he who listens with devotion to the Bhagavatam is purified of his sins, and finds his way back to the Lord,’ said Brahma,” Suka said to the king.”
― Ramesh Menon, Bhagavata Purana

“Parikshita asked, “I have heard there are a great many regions that souls of the earth attain after they die. Is this true, my lord?’ Suka said, “There are, O Kshatriya, as many hells as there heavens, and those that sin surely do find these narakas for themselves, until they are purified and rise to the higher realms again. The hells, like all conditions are states of mind, too, resulting from ignorance, avidya, and from violence.” Parikshita wanted to know, “Where are these hells situated?” “They are deep inside the three worlds, in the southern direction, below the earth and above the waters. Here, the manes called the Agnisvattas dwell. They worship the great Gods with deep bhakti and ask them to bless their descendants. Here, too, Surya Deva’s son, Yama, the Lord Death, dwells with his retinue. And those souls that his dutas bring to him, he punishes according to their crimes,”
― Ramesh Menon, Bhagavata Purana

“Siva laughed, and said, ‘Let any man who enters this forest be turned into a woman,”
― Ramesh Menon, DEVI: THE DEVI BHAGAVATAM RETOLD

“Did you know Radha still waits, impatient for you, in Vrindavana? Like a wraith beneath the trees, since you didn't say farewell.”
― Ramesh Menon, FLUTE-SONG: Krishna in verse

“On they fought, untiringly, on the threshold of death where this world and the next seem like one realm; where darkness and light, time and timelessness are the same.”
― Ramesh Menon, The Ramayana: A Modern Retelling of the Great Indian Epic

“The beings we meet in the Puranas are godlike, grandly demonical and incomprehensible when we compare them to ourselves. They live for thousands of years, fly in sky chariots – vimanas fleet as thought – command great astras: weapons that consume whole cities in a wink. This book is the Siva Parana condensed, rearranged and retold, I hope in more contemporary and imaginative style than is generally available in English. Much of it deals with characters and events that are incredible by our humdrum perspective. But is it possible that beginningless Siva, of the eight cosmic bodies, the fire from whose third eye ends the universe, Brahma, the four-headed Creator and four-armed Vishnu, who sleeps on an infinite sea, are not imaginary beings, but inconceivable Masters of the stars?”
― Ramesh Menon, Shiva: The Siva Purana Retold