Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else.

Bharathi was a Hindu. But his spirituality was not limited. He sang to the Hindu deities, and at the same time he wrote songs of devotion to Jesus Christ and Allah.

[http://www.spiritsite.com/writing/thihan/ SpiritSight.com - Excerpts from selected Thich Nhat Hanh books]

Spiritual teachers

Dwell in the place where your companions are spiritual heroes,
So that they may wash the foul soot from your [heart]
Don't think about their faults, for they
Will know about it before you think.

The seers of old had fully restrained selves, and were austere. Having abandoned the five strands of sensual pleasures, they practiced their own welfare. The brahmans had no cattle, no gold, no wealth. They had study as their wealth and grain. They guarded the holy life as their treasure.

Velvet Glove,
that you love, obey, and trust,
then an Iron Fist
comes along and then you're crushed
into reality.
Why's it you felt deceived?
That they got you – spiritually, mentally, and physically.

I feel a spiritual sense, and that sense is a connection between generations. Some of the lyrics are about connecting intuitively with Mother Earth, sometimes with our evil nature, sometimes with our goodness. I love to connect with my ancestors. Also, I need to express these concerns that are a part of my generation.

To recreate the temple atmosphere on the urban stage, and thus to facilitate a new kind of seeing that would enable the spiritual revival of the dance.

My spirituality has always been linked to my feminism. Feminism is about challenging unequal power structures.

But the innermost and actually religious level of Hindu culture is an individual affair. And it could not have been otherwise. Action and ritual may be community affairs, but the basis of real religion is a culture of consciousness, and consciousness is individual.

The distinction between private and public undermines the unity of spiritual strength, draining the public of the transcendent energies while trivializing them because the merely private life provides no proper stage for their action.

Women’s loyalty has to be earned with trust and affection, rather than barbaric rituals. The time has come to leave the old ways of suffering behind.

Any serious attempt to try to do something worthwhile is ritualistic.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20051124140305/http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog49/hsinhsinmingtranslations.htm Hsin Hsin Ming — side by side translations of Richard B. Clarke and D. T. Suzuki]

O man competing with the dog, you know not God, and so have turned to the imitation of an irrational animal.