If the many and the One be indeed the same Reality, then it is not all modes of worship alone, but equally all modes of work, all modes of struggle, all modes of creation, which are paths of realization. No distinction, henceforth, between sacred and secular. To labour is to pray. To conquer is to renounce. Life is itself religion. To have and to hold is as stern a trust as to quit and to avoid.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the unity of all actions and the sacredness of both work and worship.
Sister Nivedita's quote expresses the profound idea that all forms of human effort, whether they are considered sacred or secular, are equally valid paths to spiritual realization. It breaks down the barriers separating religious practice from daily life, asserting that work, struggle, creation, and even the act of living itself are forms of worship and integral to one's spiritual journey.
In practice
In a discussion on the importance of finding purpose in work, this quote can inspire individuals to view their jobs as a form of spiritual practice.
Agriculture is now a motorized food industry, the same thing in its essence as the production of corpses in the gas chambers and the extermination camps, the same thing as blockades and the reduction of countries to famine, the same thing as the manufacture of hydrogen bombs.
He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means "I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve". It's easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
My airplane is quiet, and for a moment still an alien, still a stranger to the ground, I am home.
A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare.
Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.
Some racists still reject the plain testimony written in the DNA that all the races are not only human but nearly indistinguishable. . . .
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