Top 15 Rukmini Devi Arundale Quotes

Why was India a world power? Because Sri Krishna had lived in this country, Sri Rama had lived here and so had Lord Buddha. It was their Teaching that made India a great world power.

Why does the story of Kumarasambhava please me? It is because of the symbolism. Finally what Parvati wins is not passion but the devotion and sublimation of herself. Parvati wins Siva and she becomes united with Him, because she has discovered the greater, indeed the only way of discovering God. This is very beautiful symbology. Siva burnt to ashes all that is physical. So must a dancer or musician burn to ashes all thought which is dross and bring out the gold which is within.

Some people say, 'I believe in universal religion', but when I ask them whether they know anything about Hinduism, they answer in negative. They know nothing about Christianity, nor about Buddhism or about any other religion either. In other words, universality is, knowing nothing of anything. . . . Real internationalism is truly the emergence of the best in each. . . . But, in India, when I say India, I mean the India of the sages and saints who gave the country its keynote, there arose the ideal of one life, and of the divinity that lives in all creatures; not merely in humanity.

All the songs we dance to are of Gods and Goddesses. You may ask, why so many Gods and Goddesses? The only reply I can give is, Why not so many Gods and Goddess ?

Many people have said many things. I can only say I did not consciously go after dance. It found me."

The demand for vegetarian food will increase our production of the right kind of plant foods. We shall cease to breed pigs and other animals for food, thereby ceasing to be responsible for the horror of slaughter houses where millions of creatures cry in vain because of man's selfishness. If such concentration camps for slaughtering continue, can peace ever come to earth? Can we escape the responsibility for misery when we are practicing killing every day of our lives by consciously or unconsciously supporting this trade of slaughter? Peace cannot come where Peace is not given.

Animals cannot speak, but can you and I not speak for them and represent them? Let us all feel their silent cry of agony and let us all help that cry to be heard in the world.

Women have everything to do with bringing culture into everyday life, with the expression of it, with the helping and influencing of a nation, not only because they are mothers but also because they themselves are an example as individuals. The modern world needs a new force for the revitalizing of its ideals. India’s art has always been unconscious, unconscious of its own beauty, unconscious of others’ admiration, unconscious of the physical though expressed in Form. India is now beginning to be conscious and we do not know how to express ourselves consciously. A great dancer’s art must depend first on the life he or she expresses, secondly upon the beauty of technique and lastly only, upon its arrangement, costume, and presentation....Though form, technique and skill are essential, great Art must have the impetus of genius, and inspiration. Then there is permanency.

We dance with our bodies, but we finally forget them and transform them.

Dance was really the art of the temple and that her temple theater was built with that purpose in mind. It has many features of the temple , and we have adopted as much as possible all the ideals enshrined in Natyashastra.

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.

That she learned ballet not with the idea of becoming a full-fledged dancer. It was just to train my body and more for the sheer joy of learning something beautiful.

To be truly Indian one had to be truly international, exhorting them to honour the best in all civilizations and to live it in their daily lives.

I was brought up on Music, and being near Tiruvaiyaru for sometime during childhood , I got several opportunities to listen to great Music.

It is the spirit of Purusha and Prakriti, an expression of evolution of movement, a truly creative force that is handed down the ages. This embodiment of sound and rhythm creating spiritual poetry is called dance or Natya. . . . The first glimpse of the dance comes to us from Siva Himself, a Yogi of Yogis. He shows us the Cosmic Dance and portrays to us he unity of Being. . . . The Cosmic Rhythm of His dance draws around Him ensouled matter, which manifests itself into the variety of this infinite and beautiful universe.