Prayer alone will not make a happy life. A happy life must be built. You must act.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

If you don't love yourself, you cannot love others. You will not be able to love others. If you have no compassion for yourself then you are not able of developing compassion for others.

I'm nothing special, just an ordinary human being. That's why I always describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk.

We need to employ a secular approach to ethics, secular in the Indian sense of respecting all religious traditions and even the views of non-believers in an unbiased way. Secular ethics rooted in scientific findings, common experience and common sense can easily be introduced into the secular education system. If we can do that there is a real prospect of making this 21st century an era of peace and compassion.

Whenever I visit a market and see the chickens crowded together in tiny cages that give them no room to move around and spread their wings and the fish slowly drowning in the air, my heart goes out to them. People have to learn to think about animals in a different way, as sentient beings who love life and fear death. I urge everyone who can to adopt a compassionate vegetarian diet.

In my childhood, and particularly when I take the responsibility, I already have sort of keen desire, we must change our system. Then as soon as we reach India, 1959, at once we start working for democratization. Now here if remain in a political sort of field, supreme leader, at the same time religious leader, that may become hindrance of proper democracy.