Banyan Quotes & Sayings

They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour's work as for a day's. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the lamb ... — Frederick Buechner

In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East
especially in India
I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving
it is not in the result of loving.
These words, taken from the book A Simple Path, are the words of one of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters, not of Mother Teresa. — Mother Teresa

The ego is like the root of a banyan tree, you think you have removed it all then one fine morning you see a sprout flourishing again. — Ramakrishna

The banyan tree does not mean awakening, nor does the hill, nor the saint, nor the European couple. The lotus is a symbol of regeneration. — Swami Vivekananda

The patron god of children born on Thursdays is Shiva the Destroyer, and that the day has two guiding animal spirits
the lion and the tiger. The official tree of children born on Thursday is the banyan. The official bird is the peacock. A person born on Thursday is always talking first, interrupting everyone else, can be a little aggressive, tends to be handsome ("a playboy or playgirl," in Ketut's words) but has a decent overall character, with an excellent memory and a desire to help other people. — Elizabeth Gilbert

desires," I mean things we feel that we need or want very strongly. There's an element of passion in the experience of desire — Calvin D. Banyan

Yesterday, I was collecting words.
One was up there, sitting in the bo tree,
Another was in the banyan.
One was wandering in my street,
Another was lying in the earthen jar.
A green word lay in the fields,
A black one was eating flesh.
A blue word was flying
With a grain of the sun in its beak.
Every single thing in this world looks like a word to me.
The words of eyes,
The words of hands.
But I do not understand words I hear from a mouth.
I can only read words.
I can only read words. — Shiv Kumar Batalvi

We found a smooth inviting boulder under a vast banyan tree, and sat in companionable silence. There unexpectedly, on that rock, I saw the secret of contentment. True happiness is only ever possible if you have been unhappy. And there, at that moment, I couldn't remember the last time I had felt so peaceful. It wouldn't have been possible for me to take in any more happiness.
Moti turned to me and smiled as if she knew. I realised then that this moment and this wonderful feeling would sustain me for a long, long time. — Jane Wilson-Howarth

I need to fight for the preservation of the Earth type planets and its coexistence with worlds after death.-Banyan — Carolina Cody Aldaz

The Bird of Paradise, it seemed, had beckoned us on and led us in, to stand here in this place high in the land of volcanoes. It was here in Bali, after returning from the Toraja Star Children, that I first recognized what they meant by us all being born half of heaven and half of earth. And after the mounted warsports of Sumba it was in Balinese ritual that I saw with new eyes the battle for balance between light and darkness. And after Borneo, returning to the sacred Banyan tree and its simian custodians, I had felt that all great trees, what's left of them, do indeed link heaven and earth in a single forest of life. — Lawrence Blair

Yet what each one does is by no means of little moment. The grass has to put forth all its energy to draw sustenance from the uttermost tips of its rootlets simply to grow where it is as grass; it does not vainly strive to become a banyan tree; and so the earth gains a lovely carpet of green. — Rabindranath Tagore

Perhaps it's natural for a father, for every parent, to see in his child all that's unspoiled and good. — Vaddey Ratner

My parents went through the dictionary looking for a beautiful name, nearly called me Banyan, flicked on a few pages and came to China, which is cockney rhyming slang for mate. — China Mieville

Growing up, Catholic church really was such an incubator for my imagination, because all of those mysteries felt embedded in this insanely green, tropical landscape: the ocean nearby, the giant banyan trees. It all felt part of one seamless mystery to me. — Karen Russell

I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated. — Vikram Seth

Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say, 'That is an oak tree', or 'that is a banyan tree', the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree? To come in contact with the tree you have to put your hand on it and the word will not help you to touch it. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Mitchell sanders was sitting under a banyan tree and using a thumbnail to pry off all the body lice, working slowly, carefully depositing them in a USO envelope. When he was done he sealed the envelope, wrote 'Free' in the right hand corner, and sent it to his draft board in ohio. — Tim O'Brien

Desire may be compared to a minute seed. It is like a big banyan tree growing out of a seed, which is no bigger than a dot. — Sarada Devi

Mother's estate - our estate - a thousand acres centered in a million more. Lawns the size of small prairies with grass so perfect it beckoned a body to lie on it, to nap on its soft perfection. Noble shade trees making sundials of the Earth, their shadows circling in stately procession; now mingling, now contracting to midday, finally stretching eastward with the dying of the day. Royal oak. Giant elms. Cottonwood and cypress and redwood and bonsai. Banyan trees lowering new trunks like smooth-sided columns in a temple roofed by sky. Willows lining carefully laid canals and haphazard streams, their hanging branches singing ancient dirges to the wind. — Dan Simmons

Soon after [George Yeo] became a politician, he made a famous speech, and for the first time, the term "OB markers" was used in political discourse. He was using golfing language to vividly make the point that Singapore needed OB markers to demarcate areas of public life that should remain out of bounds to social activism and the media. Otherwise, society paid an unacceptably high price. His essential point was that Singaporeans worked better if the cover of the banyan tree did not remain so broad. He was signalling that the state should pull back and give the people more free play. — Cheong Yip Seng

I remember Mitchell Sanders sitting quietly in the shade of an old banyan tree. He was using a thumbnail to pry off the body lice, working slowly, carefully depositing the lice in a blue USO envelope. His eyes were tired. It had been a long two weeks in the bush. After an hour or so he sealed up the envelope, wrote FREE in the upper right-hand corner, and addressed it to his draft board in Ohio. — Tim O'Brien

It only takes one mistake,' the Dan Banyan guy says, 'and nothing else you ever do will matter.' With his empty hand, he takes one of my hands. His fingers feel hot, fever-hot, and pounding with his heartbeats. He turns my hand palm-up saying, 'No matter how hard you work or how smart you become, you'll always be known for that one poor choice.' He sets the blue pill on my palm, saying, 'Do that one wrong thing- and you'll be dead for the rest of your life. — Chuck Palahniuk

What do you want?" There was silence, broken only by a faint rustling. When he opened his eyes she was buttoning his banyan over her chemise. "Nothing, I think," she said to her hands. Then, "My freedom, perhaps." Freedom. He stared. What did freedom mean to such a wild creature? Did she want to be entirely quit of him? "I'll not let you go," he snapped. She glanced up at him and her look was sardonic. "Did I ask you to?" "Artemis - — Elizabeth Hoyt

My parents were hippies, and the story is that they went through a dictionary looking for a beautiful word to name me. They nearly called me Banyan, but flipped a few pages on and reached "China," thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that "china" is Cockney rhyming slang for "mate." People say "my old china," meaning "my old mate," because "china plate" rhymes with "mate. — China Mieville

Also, on account of the odd relationship between time and space, the people who do manage to time-jump sometimes space-jump at the same time and end up in places where they simply don't belong. Over there, for example," he said as a raucous DeLorean sports car rared into view from nowhere, "is that crazy American professorwho can't seem to stay put in one time, and, I must say, there is an absolute plague of of killer robots from the future being sent to change the past. Sleeping there under that banyan tree is a certain Hank Morgan of Hartford, Connecticut, who was accidentally transported one day back to King Arthur's Court, and stayed there until Merlin put him to sleep for 1300 thirteen hundred years. He was suppsoed to wake up back in his own time, but look at this lazy fellow! He's still snoring away, and has missed his slot. — Salman Rushdie

Murali observed that the lazy breath of air that half-tried to wake up the leaves of the giant banyan tree was no less significant than a comet blazing across the skies. It was the same great cosmic intent that drove both. Apart — Manu Bhattathiri

I think I have learnt something of the value of stillness. I don't fret so much; I laugh at myself more often; I don't laugh at others. I live life at my own pace. Like a banyan tree. Is this wisdom, or is it just old age? — Ruskin Bond