This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
Be firm in one ideal-either in God with form or in the formless God. Then alone will you realize God; otherwise not. With firm and unwavering belief the followers of God with form will realize Him, as will those who speak of Him as formless. You may eat a cake with icing either straight or sidewise; it will taste sweet either way.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
People talk about leading a religious life in the world. But if they once taste the bliss of God they will not enjoy anything else. Their attachment to worldly duties declines. As their spiritual joy becomes deeper, they simply cannot perform their worldly duties. More and more they seek that joy. Can worldly pleasures and sex pleasures be compared to the bliss of God? If a man once tastes that bliss he runs after it ever afterwards. It matters very little to him then whether the world remains or disappears.
God | Joy | Life | Life | Little | Man | Taste | Will | World | God |
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
The whole thing is to love God and taste His sweetness. He is sweetness and the devotee is its enjoyer. The devotee drinks the sweet Bliss of God. Further, God is the lotus and the devotee the bee. The devotee sips the honey of the lotus.
Ramakrishna, aka Ramakrishna Paramhamsa or Sri Ramakrishna, born Gadadhar Chattopadhyay NULL
'Woman and gold' alone is the world; that alone is m?y?. Because of it you cannot see or think of God. After the birth of one or two children, husband and wife should live as brother and sister and talk only of God. Then both their minds will be drawn to God, and the wife will be a help to the husband on the path of spirituality. None can taste divine bliss without giving up his animal feeling. A devotee should pray to God to help him get rid of this feeling. It must be a sincere prayer. God is our Inner Controller; He will certainly listen to our prayer if it is sincere.
Birth | Giving | God | Husband | Prayer | Taste | Wife | Will | God | Think |
Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury
I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.
There is a manifest want of spiritual influence on the ministry of the present day. I feel it in my own case and I see it in that of others. I am afraid there is too much of a low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us. We are laying ourselves out more than is expedient to meet one man's taste and another man's prejudices. The ministry is a grand and holy affair, and it should find in us a simple habit of spirit and a holy but humble indifference to all consequences. A leading defect in Christian ministers is want of a devotional habit.
Habit | Indifference | Influence | Mind | Present | Spirit | Taste | Temper | Afraid |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
Behold the father is his daughter's son, The bird that built the nest is hatched therein, The old of years an hour hath not outrun, Eternal life to live doth now begin, The Word is dumb, the mirth of heaven doth weep, Might feeble is, and force doth faintly creep. O dying souls, behold your living spring; O dazzled eyes, behold your sun of grace; Dull ears, attend what word this Word doth bring; Up, heavy hearts, with joy your joy embrace. From death, from dark, from deafness, from despairs This life, this light, this Word, this joy repairs. Gift better than himself God doth not know; Gift better than his God no man can see. This gift doth here the giver given bestow; Gift to this gift let each receiver be. God is my gift, himself he freely gave me; God's gift am I, and none but God shall have me. Man altered was by sin from man to beast; Beast's food is hay, hay is all mortal flesh. Now God is flesh and lies in manger pressed As hay, the brutest sinner to refresh. O happy field wherein that fodder grew, Whose taste doth us from beasts to men renew.
Better | Father | Force | God | Happy | Heaven | Joy | Life | Life | Man | Men | Mirth | Mortal | Sin | Taste | God | Old |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
MAN'S CIVIL WAR - MY hovering thoughts would fly to heaven And quiet nestle in the sky, Fain would my ship in Virtue's shore Without remove at anchor lie. But mounting thoughts are halèd down With heavy poise of mortal load, And blustring storms deny my ship In Virtue's haven secure abode. When inward eye to heavenly sights Doth draw my longing heart's desire, The world with jesses of delights Would to her perch my thoughts retire, Fon Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure, Though Reason stiffly do repine ; Though Wisdom woo me to the saint, Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. Where Reason loathes, there Fancy loves, And overrules the captive will ; Foes senses are to Virtue's lore, They draw the wit their wish to fill. Need craves consent of soul to sense, Yet divers bents breed civil fray ; Hard hap where halves must disagree, Or truce halves the whole betray ! O cruel fight ! where fighting friend With love doth kill a favoring foe, Where peace with sense is war with God, And self-delight the seed of woe ! Dame Pleasure's drugs are steeped in sin, Their sugared taste doth breed annoy ; O fickle sense ! beware her gin, Sell not thy soul to brittle joy !
Fighting | Joy | Kill | Longing | Love | Mortal | Peace | Quiet | Reason | Sense | Soul | Taste | War | Will | Wisdom | Wit | Woe | World |
Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell
Repentant eyes are the cellars of angels, and penitent tears their sweetest wines, which the savor of life perfumeth, the taste of grace sweeteneth, and the purest colors of returning innocency highly beautifieth. This dew of devotion never falleth, but the sun of justice draweth it up, and upon what face soever it droppeth it maketh it amiable in God's eye.... No, no, the angels must still bathe themselves in the pure streams of thy eyes, and thy face shall still be set with this liquid pearl, that as out of thy tears were stroken the first sparks of thy Lord's love, so thy tears may be the oil, to nourish and feed his flame. Till death dam up the springs, they shall never cease running: and then shall thy soul be ferried in them to the harbor of life, that as by them it was first passed from sin to grace, so in them it may be wafted from grace to glory.
Angels | Death | Devotion | Grace | Justice | Life | Life | Sin | Soul | Taste | Tears |
Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron
Like a bridegroom the sun Dons his robe that is spun Of light, Which from Thee emanated Yet in no wise abated Thy light. Taught to go westward round With obeisance profound To his Lord, He by service so loyal To a master so royal Is a lord. While his homage each day Serves to mark and display Thy glory, ’Tis Thy hand that investeth The robe on which resteth His glory.
Day | Friend | Joy | Marriage | Taste | Will | Youth | Youth | Torah |
John Harington, fully Sir John Harington, also Harrington
A tailor, though a man of upright dealing,-- True but for lying,--honest but for stealing,-- Did fall one day extremely sick by chance And on the sudden was in wondrous trance.
Taste |
The kinds of spiritual practices we can undertake are limitless. However, ultimately the form is less important than these factors: the commitment to practice, the ability to keep returning to the intention, the attitude one brings to the uncontrollable and the ability to transfer the benefits of the practice into how we live our lives, how we relate to ourselves and others, how free we become to embody the values and ideals we embrace in our minds, how we deal with temptations of all sorts. In other words we practice to live with the wisdom and compassion, which we already possess. We practice to actualize the pure soul, which God has planted with us.
Ability | Action | Anxiety | Anxiety | Attention | Body | Change | Character | Consciousness | Consequences | Desire | Focus | Forgetfulness | Generosity | Habit | Intention | Language | Meditation | Mind | Nature | Object | Order | Pain | Power | Practice | Prayer | Promise | Reality | Sabbath | Speech | Taste | Temptation | Time | Training | Unconsciousness | Torah | Temptation |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Every object and being in the universe is a jar overflowing with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth more shining, as though covered in satin... Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
I cannot unveil the Mystery. I cannot reveal what you know perfectly - in my heart the most secret
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
There are lovers content with longing. I’m not one of them.
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
Taste |
Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL
Who says words with my mouth? All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This poetry, I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
Russell Lynes, fully Joseph Russell Lynes, Jr.
The true snob never rests: there is always a higher goal to attain, and there are, by the same token, always more and more people to look down upon.