Sacred Flowers from this culture

I am not saying who spoke these words, but you should be able to guess!
It is a gift beyond any length of imagination to state I was born in this culture.

Patanjali:
Yoga is pure science, and Patanjali is the greatest name as far as the world of yoga is concerned. This man is rare. There is no other name comparable to Patanjali. For the first time in the history of humanity, religion was brought to the state of a science. He made religion a science of bare laws. No belief is needed.

Patanjali is like an Einstein in the world of buddhas. He is a phenomenon. He has the same attitude, the same approach as a rigorous scientific mind. He is not a poet like Krishna. He is not a moralist like Mahavira. Patanjali is basically a scientist thinking in terms of laws. He has come to deduce the absolute laws of the human being, the ultimate working structure of the human mind and of reality.

If you follow Patanjali, you will come to know that he is as exact as any mathematical formula. Simply do what he says and the result will happen. The result is bound to happen; it is just like two plus two equals four. It is just like when you heat water up to one hundred degrees and it evaporates. No belief is needed. You simply do it and know. That is why I say that there is no comparison. On this earth, there has never existed another man like Patanjali.

Krishna:
Krishna is utterly incomparable. He is so unique, and his first uniqueness lies in the fact that although he happened in the distant past, he belongs to the future. He is really of the future. Man has yet to grow to the heights where he can be a contemporary of Krishna's...

The most important reason is that Krishna is the only great man in our whole history who reach the absolute height and depth of consciousness, and yet he is not at all serious, sad, in tears. By and large, the chief characteristic of a religious person has been that he is somber, serious and sad-looking, like someone defeated in the battle of life, like a runaway from life. In the long line of all the sages, it is Krishna alone who comes dancing, singing and laughing.

Religions of the past were all life-negative and masochistic, teaching that sorrow and suffering are great virtues.  A laughing religion, a religion that accepts life in its totality, is yet to be born. And it is good that the old religions are dead, and that along with them the old God, the God of our old concepts, is also dead. Up to now, every religion has divided life into two parts, and while the accept one part they deny the other. Krishna along accepts the whole of life. The acceptance of life in its totality has come to its peak in Krishna.