Religion
In the ancient scriptures of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism holy men, women and heroes undertake tapas to obtain a spiritual goal of realization, or salvation. Often tapas is undertaken to win a boon by pleasing a God, and many other times it is undertaken to increase one's pious characteristics.
Read more about this topic: Tapas (Sanskrit)
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“There is more religion in men’s science than there is science in their religion.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“As, therefore, we can have no dependence upon morality without religion;Mso, on the other hand, there is nothing better to be expected from religion without morality;Mnevertheless, ‘tis no prodigy to see a man whose real moral character stands very low, who yet entertains the highest notion of himself, in the light of a religious man.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)