This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
We hear in these days of scientific enlightenment a great deal of discussion about the efficacy of Prayer. Many reasons are given why we should not pray. Others give reasons why we should pray. Very little is said of the reason why we do pray. The reason is simple: We pray because we cannot help praying.
Discussion | Enlightenment | Little | Prayer | Reason |
Not many men may be willing to die for love these days. But you can’t escape the fact that millions are dying daily for the very lack of it.
As painful as shame is, it does seem to be the guardian of many of the secret, unexplored aspects of our beings. Repressed shame must be experienced if we are to come to terms with the good, the bad, and the unique of what we are.
Sick or well, blind or seeing, bond or free, we are here for a purpose and however we are situated, we please God better with useful deeds than with many prayers or pious resignation. The temple or church is empty unless the good life fill it. The altar is holy if only it represents the altar of our heart upon which we offer the only sacrifices ever commanded – the love that is stronger than hate and the faith that overcometh doubt.
Better | Church | Deeds | Doubt | Faith | God | Good | Hate | Heart | Life | Life | Love | Pious | Purpose | Purpose | Resignation | Deeds | God |
Enough of us praying often enough could make everybody in the world look up and listen to God. We could transform the world... Prayer is powerful, but it is not the power of a sledge hammer that crushes with one blow. It is the power of sunrays and raindrops which bless, because there are so many of them... When you fill a swamp with stones, a hundred loads may disappear under water before a stone appears on the surface, but all of them are necessary.
He who regards many things easy will find many things difficult. Therefore the sage regards things difficult, an consequently never has difficulties.
Will |
Although the tongue of God is busy speaking through all things, yet in order to speak to the deaf ears of many among us, it is necessary for Him to speak through the lips of man. He has done this all through the history of man, every great teacher of the past having been this guiding Spirit living the life of God in human guise. In other words, their human guise consists of various coats worn by the same person, who appeared to be different in each. Shiva, Buddha, Rama, Krishna, on the other side, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammad on the other; and many more, known or unknown to history, always one and the same person.
God | History | Life | Life | Man | Order | Past | Spirit | Words | God | Teacher |
Corporations that do a better-than-average job of developing leaders put an emphasis on creating challenging opportunities for relatively young employees. In many businesses, decentralization is the key. By definition, it pushes responsibility lower in an organization and in the process creates more challenging jobs at lower levels.
Better | Organization | Responsibility |
No loss by flood and lightning, no destruction of cities and temples by the hostile forces of nature has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those which his intolerance has destroyed.
Intolerance | Man | Nature | Loss |
One great Reason why many Children abandon themselves wholly to silly sports and trifle away all their time insipidly is because they found their Curiosity baulk’d and their Enquiries neglected. But had they been treated with more kindness and Respect and their Questions answered, as they should, to their Satisfaction, I doubt not but they would have taken more Pleasure in Learning and improving their Knowledge, wherein there would be still Newness and Variety, which is what they are delighted with, than in returning over and over to the same Play and Playthings.
Children | Curiosity | Doubt | Kindness | Knowledge | Learning | Play | Pleasure | Reason | Respect | Time | Respect |
Virtues transcend time and culture (although their cultural expression may vary); justice and kindness, for example, will always and everywhere be virtues, regardless of how many people exhibit them.
Culture | Example | Justice | Kindness | People | Time | Will |
Only by being permitted to experience the consequences of his actions will the child acquire a sense of responsibility; and within the limits marked by the demands of his safety this must be done. From such training we can expect many benefits to the person, one of which will certainly be the development of a natural rather than an imposed control over [himself].
Consequences | Control | Experience | Responsibility | Sense | Training | Will | Child |
Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim.
Existence | Life | Life | Mission | Philosophy | Religion | Science |
When one has too many answers, and when on ejoins a chorus of others chanting the same slogans, there is, it seems to me, a danger that one is trying to evade the loneliness of a conscience that realizes itself to be in an inescapably evil situation. We are under judgment.
Conscience | Danger | Evil | Judgment | Loneliness | Danger |
A man can make what he wants of himself if he truly believes that he must be ready for hard work and many heartbreaks along the way.
He who studies the Torah in order to learn and to do God’s will acquire many merits; and not only that, but the whole world is indebted to him. He is cherished as a friend, a lover of God and of his fellow man.
Friend | God | Man | Order | Will | World | God | Torah | Learn |
Proximity to death wakes us up. Death dispels the most potent illusion about life – that it belongs to us, and that we have all the time to we need to arrange it the way we want. But in many ways it is a gift that our life is limited, impermanent. We hold it more dear because this is so.