This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Shrimad Bhagavatam, or the Bhâgavata Purâna, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, or Bhāgavata NULL
Therefore we have to engage ourselves in occupational engagements that will evoke our divine consciousness. This is possible only by hearing and chanting the divine activities of the Supreme Lord…
Intelligence | Lord | Meditation | Mind | Progress |
The Self, smaller than the small, greater than the great, is hidden in the hearts of creatures. The wise, by the grace of the Creator, behold the Lord, majestic and desireless and become free from grief.
Lord | Meditation | Self |
Rudra is truly one; for the knowers of Brahman do not admit the existence of a second, He alone rules all the worlds by His powers. He dwells as the inner Self of every living being. After having created all the worlds, He, their Protector, takes them back into Himself at the end of time.
Illusion | Individual | Knowledge | Meditation | Self |
When there is no darkness of ignorance, there is no day or night, neither being nor non-being; the pure Brahman alone exists. That immutable Reality is the meaning of "That"; It is adored by the Sun. From It has proceeded the ancient wisdom.
Birth | Death | Lord | Meditation |
In the Immutable, infinite Supreme Brahman remain hidden the two: knowledge and ignorance. Ignorance leads to worldliness and knowledge, to Immortality. Brahman, who controls both knowledge and ignorance, is different from both.
Men ... ask nothing better, it would seem, than to leave their destiny, their life, and all their thoughts in the hands of a few men with a gift for the exclusive manipulation of this or that technique.
Chance | Father | Meditation | Mother |
Providence would seem to sleep unless faith and prayer awaken it. The disciples had but little faith in their Master's accounts, yet that little faith awakened him in a storm, and he relieved them. Unbelief doth only discourage God from showing his power in taking our parts.
Care | Doctrine | God | Humor | Little | Love | Means | Meditation | Men | Need | Reason | Revelation | Scripture | Study | Will | God |
A summer breeze can be very refreshing; but if we try to put it in a tin can so we can have it entirely to ourselves, the breeze will die. Our beloved is the same. He is like a breeze, a cloud, a flower. If you imprison him in a tin can, he will die. Yet many people do just that. They rob their loved one of his liberty, until he can no longer be himself. They live to satisfy themselves and use their loved one to help them fulfill that. That is not loving; it is destroying.
Meditation | Necessity | Time | Friends |
Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.
Meditation | World |
Mindful breathing is the vehicle that you use to go back to your true home where you meet the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Mindful breathing brings you home--it generates the energy of mindfulness in you. Mindfulness is the substance of a Buddha.
Means | Meditation | Right |
In modern society most of us don't want to be in touch with ourselves; we want to be in touch with other things like religion, sports, politics, a book - we want to forget ourselves. Anytime we have leisure, we want to invite something else to enter us, opening ourselves to the television and telling the television to come and colonize us.
To think in terms of either pessimism or optimism oversimplifies the truth. The problem is to see reality as it is. A pessimistic attitude can never create the calm and serene smile which blossoms on the lips of Bodhisattvas and all those who obtain the way.
We should be treated with great respect, great affection and compassion. It is very important to treat our bodies with the utmost respect, with understanding, with compassion. If you know how to treat your body and your feelings with such respect, you will also be able to treat another person with the same respect and that is how we build peace.
Leisure | Meditation | Need | Practice | Will |
Felicity is a continual progress of the desire from one object to another, the attaining of the former being still but the way to the latter. The cause whereof is that the object of man's desire is not to enjoy once only, and for one instant of time, but to assure forever the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions and inclinations of all men tend not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life, and differ only in the way, which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions in diverse men, and partly from the difference of the knowledge or opinion each one has of the causes which produce the effect desired.
Action | Consideration | Meditation | Precedent |
Wes Nisker, fully Wes "Scoop" Nisker
"Self-liberation" is what the Buddhist path is about; it's seeing through the illusion of a separate self and that, I think, attracted us a lot because we were burdened with too much self-the land of individual license plates and special little monads of selfhood buzzing around.
Art | Enough | Good | Learning | Life | Life | Meditation | Philosophy | Reading | Understanding | Art |
Will Durant, fully William James "Will" Durant
As flowing rivers disappear in the sea, losing their name and form, thus a wise man, freed from name and form, goes to the divine person who is beyond all." Such a theory of life and death will not please Western man, whose religion is as permeated with individualism as are his political and economic institutions. But it has satisfied the philosophical Hindu mind with astonishing continuity.
Old age think good quiet. Everything not concern heart. Self attend without great plan. Empty know return old forest. Pine wind blow undo belt. Hill moon light pluck qin. Gentleman ask end open reason. Fisherman song enter riverbank deep. Now in old age, I know the value of silence, the world's affairs no longer stir my heart. Turning to myself, I have no greater plan, all I can do is return to the forest of old. Wind from the pine trees blows my sash undone, the moon shines through the hills; I pluck the qin. You ask me why the world must rise and fall, fishermen sing on the steep banks of the river.
Control | Man | Meditation | Peace | Sound |
I dwell apart by the River Qi, where the Eastern wilds stretch far without hills. The sun darkens beyond the mulberry trees; the river glistens through the villages. Shepherd boys depart, gazing back to their hamlets; hunting dogs return following their men. When a man's at peace, what business does he have? I shut fast my rustic door throughout the day.
Meditation | Practice |