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:
“We think of religion as the symbolic expression of our highest moral ideals; we think of magic as a crude aggregate of superstitions. Religious belief seems to become mere superstitious credulity if we admit any relationship with magic. On the other hand our anthropological and ethnographical material makes it extremely difficult to separate the two fields.”
—Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)
“The Civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, be infringed.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)