This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Primary matter is not apprehended on account of its extreme subtlety and not because of its non-existence, as it is perceived through its effects. Intellect (mahat) and the rest are effects which are both similar and dissimilar to primarymatter (prakriti).
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Just as people engage in action to gratify desire, so too the unmanifest, unevolved Nature functions for the emancipation of the Self.
Nature |
Hakuin, fully Hakuin Akaku NULL
Underlying great doubt there is great satori, where there is thorough questioning there will be thoroughgoing experience of awakening.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
The multiplicity of souls verily follows from the distributive allocation of birth, death and the instruments of causation, since occupations are not simultaneous, and since there are diverse modifications of the three gunas.
Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him - if he is a walking university.
Nature |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Just as a painting does not stand without a support, or a shadow cannot exist without a stake and the like, so too the cognitive apparatus cannot subsist without a support, without specific particles.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
The constituents (gunas) consist in the pleasant, the painful and the delusive; they serve the purpose of illumination, activity and restraint; they are mutually dominating, dependent, productive, cooperative and coexistent.
Nature | Perception | Self |
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
The eight attainments are reasoning, oral instruction, study, the prevention of pain of three sorts, acquisition of friends, and charity. The three mentioned before (obstruction, infirmity and complacency) are the curbs on attainment.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
From primary matter (prakriti) comes Intellect (mahat), thence egoism (ahankara), and from this the set of sixteen; from five among these come the five elements.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
The subjects treated in the seventy verses are those of the entire science of sixty themes (shashtitantra), exclusive of illustrative tales, and devoid of polemical consideration of rival doctrines.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
So through study of principles (tattvas) arises the ultimate, undistracted, pure knowledge that neither I am, nor is anything mine nor am I embodied.
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
When separation from the body takes place and Nature ceases to act, its purpose having been fulfilled, the Self attains to absolute and final emancipation (kaivalya).
Ishvarakrishna, aka Iśvarakṛṣṇa NULL
Like the visible means, the revealed mode is also tainted, destructive and excessive. Different from these and superior is that method consisting in discriminative knowledge of the manifest, the unmanifest and the knower.
You will not mind if I say that where there is unhappiness in a house and there is an impression of someone [i.e. a departed spirit] coming back, it is because you make for that spirit a Garden of Memory in which it can live and revive its sufferings. Unless you are, consciously or unconsciously, in a state of mind in which this impression can vivify itself, you will not be troubled. Haven't you discovered that these things only happen to you when you are in a bad emotional state, physically or mentally disturbed? Don't you realize that you yourself vivify this memory?
Change | Consciousness | Control | Harmony | Life | Life | Means | Nature | Peace | Present | Regard | Time | Work |
True sages are those who give what they have, without meanness and without secret!
When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be gained, he may say to them, not by subtlety and intrigue not by wire pulling and demagoguery not by the arts of popularity not by skill and shiftiness in following expediency but by being firm in devotion to the principles of manhood and the application of morals and the courage of righteousness in the public life of our country by being a man without guile and without fear, without selfishness, and with devotion to duty, devotion to his country.
Better | Character | Evil | Folly | Government | Ignorance | Indifference | Indolence | Knowledge | Law | Life | Life | Little | Mind | Nature | Responsibility | Suffering | Time | World | Wrong | Government |
A man who cries all night until destroyed, and the next morning continued the day with a smile called Woman.
I like to borrow a metaphor from the great poet and mystic Rumi who talks about living like a drawing compass. One leg of the compass is static. It is fixed and rooted in a certain spot. Meanwhile, the other leg draws a huge wide circle around the first one, constantly moving. Just like that, one part of my writing is based in Istanbul. It has strong local roots. Yet at the same time the other part travels the whole wide world, feeling connected to several cities, cultures, and peoples.