This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
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 |
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.
I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation. I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science.
The one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life.
The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion.
The popular tendency is to listen approvingly to the most extreme statements and claims of politicians and orators who seek popularity by declaring their own country right in everything and other countries wrong in everything.
Human nature | Nature | Peace | War |
Elizabeth Bowen, Full name Elizabeth Dorothea Cole Bowen
A fragrant, faint impropriety, orris-dust of a century, still hangs over parts of this neighbourhood; glass passages lead in from high green gates, garden walls are mysterious, laburnums falling between the windows and walls have their own secrets. Acacias whisper at night round airy, ornate little houses in which pretty women lived singly but were not always alone. In the unreal late moonlight you might hear a ghostly hansom click up the empty road, or see on a pale wall the shadow of an opera cloak… Nowadays things are much tamer: Lady Waters could put up no reasoned objection to St. John’s Wood.
In responding to this poignant cry for help, Einstein offered no easy solace, and this very fact must have heartened the student and lightened the lonely burden of his doubts. Here is Einstein's response. It was written in English and sent from Princeton on 3 December 1950, within days of receiving the letter:
Individual | Meaning | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Question | Society | Society |