This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"We live in a community of people not so that we can suppress and dominate eachother or make each other miserable but so that we can better and more reliably satisfy all life's healthy needs." - Wilhelm Reich
"Print created a new sense of the private ownership of words. Persons in a primary oral culture can entertain some sense of proprietary rights to a poem, but such a sense is rare and ordinarily enfeebled by the common share of lore, formulas, and themes on which everyone draws. With writing, resentment at plagiarism begins to develop." - Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
"?What other people think of me is none of my business. One of the highest places you can get to is being independent of the good opinions of other people." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"When you become certain that nothing is impossible for you, you'll attain everything you desire." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"Illness comes from living too small a process or too large a process." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"The Heart Center is a transpersonal dimension or level. The Initiation forces are conducted in the dimension of Sacred Space, not in time and space, so we enter another dimension to access those forces. Through the daily attunement to the Heart Center there is a long-term transformation of the ego which then begins not only to orient to the Transcendent, to be responsive to the Transcendent, but there is also a birth into the dedicated ego, which is a transcendent kind of development which is neither the vast Deity itself, nor is it the ego-self – it is someplace in between, and has access to all the richness of compassion and healing." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"Usually pain is not how you imagine." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"This whole psychiatry is nothing else but a kind of microcosm of communism [...]. It would be better left to people their personal problems. For the question arises whether the problems are not the only thing in the world that people may have on the property?" - Vladimir Nabokov, fully Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
"Men appear to prefer to ruin one another's fortunes, and to cut each other's throats over a few miserable villages, than to extend the means of human happiness" - Voltaire, pen name of François-Marie Arouet NULL
"A new challenge awaits us at the beginning of the twenty-first century: to go beyond fragmentation, to go beyond the incompatible sets of values held even by serious-minded people, to mature beyond the self-righteousness of one’s accepted approaches and be open to total living and total revolution. In this era, to become a spiritual inquirer without social consciousness is a luxury that we can ill afford, and to be a social activist without a scientific understanding of the inner workings of the mind is the worst folly. Neither approach in isolation has had any significant success. There is no question now that an inquirer will have to make an effort to be socially conscious or that an activist will have to be persuaded of the moral crisis in the human psyche, the significance of being attentive to the inner life. The challenge awaiting us is to go much deeper as human beings, to abandon superficial prejudices and preferences, to expand understanding to a global scale, integrating the totality of living, and to become aware of the wholeness of which we are a manifestation." - Vimala Thakar
"If there is a willingness to face these unpleasant facts, and be with these facts, then we can proceed. If we enter into self-pity and depression, then negativity may lead to cynicism and bitterness against others and bitterness against the system. And releasing such negative energy does not help solve the problems. We have to stick with the facts as they are. Whether we like it or not, we are responsible participants in what is happening in the world." - Vimala Thakar
"Meditation is meeting eternity in the present moment. It is resolving every problem as it comes. It is resolving every tension as it creeps in. It is facing the challenges of life in a non-fearful way." - Vimala Thakar
"The thoughts cannot be suppressed nor can they be thrown away anywhere, you can only watch them, not naming them as good or bad. Then you are free from the roles of an experiencer and an actor, you enter into the state of an observer of non-reactional attention." - Vimala Thakar
"We have accepted the watertight compartments of society, the fragmentation of living as factual and necessary. We live in relationship to these fragments and accept the internalized divisions—the various roles we play, the contradictory value systems, the opposing motives and priorities—as reality. We are at odds with ourselves internally; we believe that the inner is fundamentally different from the outer, that what is me is quite separate from the not-me, that divisions among people and nations are necessary, and yet we wonder why there are tensions, conflicts, wars in the world. The conflicts begin with minds that believe in fragmentation and are ignorant of wholeness." - Vimala Thakar
"We have reached the point, however, where we no longer have the luxury to indulge in self-centered comfort and personal acquisition or to escape into religious pursuits at the cost of collective interests. For us there can be no escape, no withdrawal, no private arena in which we can turn our backs on the sorrows of humanity, saying, “I am not responsible. Others have created a mess; let them mend it.” The writing on the world’s wall is plain: “Learn to live together or in separateness you die!” The choice is ours." - Vimala Thakar
"When we come face-to-face with the actualities of human and planetary suffering, what does the powerful moment of truth do to us? Do we retreat into the comforts of theories and defense mechanisms, or are we awakened at the core of our being? Awareness of misery, without defense structures, will naturally lead to action. The heart cannot witness misery without calling the being to action, without activating the force of love. We may not act on a global or national scale; it may be only on a community or neighborhood scale—but act, respond, we must. Social responsibility flowers naturally when we perceive the world without the involvement of the ego-consciousness. When we relate directly to suffering, we are led to understanding and spontaneous action—but when we perceive the world through the ego, we are cut off from direct relationship, from communion that stirs the deepest level of our being." - Vimala Thakar
"Whether you try to influence the mind through ideas and concepts, or through discipline and vows, or through drugs, you are trying to stimulate artificially a state of silence. Perhaps if we are friendly with the mind, if we watch the mind, if we understand the mind, if we let it wander, let it roam about wherever it wants, let it exhaust its momentum by wandering, without scolding, without praising, without" - Vimala Thakar
"The delusion of having wisdom creates the dangerous delusion of having power, leading to disaster." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
"You are really one note in the Cosmic Music, harmonizing with other notes to form a grand symphony." - Vernon Howard, fully Vernon Linwood Howard
"Come to me, O my Beloved Lord. Night and day, with each and every breath, I think of You. O Saints, give Him this message; I fall at Your Feet. Without You, how can I be saved?" - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"Just like the four main directions (North, South, East and West) the body also possess four openings or doors- the East door is Mouth, the West door is Rectum, the North door is Head while the South door is Private part." - Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda
"The important thing is not the finding, it is the seeking, it is the devotion with which one spins the wheel of prayer and scripture, discovering the truth little by little. If this machine gave you the truth immediately, you would not recognize it." - Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
"A modern philosopher once said: Only a God can save us now." - Václav Havel
"There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight." - Václav Havel
"Today's world, as we all know, is faced with multiple threats. From whichever angle I look at this menace, I always come to the conclusion that salvation can only come through a profound awakening of man to his own personal responsibility, which is at the same time a global responsibility. Thus, the only way to save our world, as I see it, lies in a democracy that recalls its ancient Greek roots: democracy based on an integral human personality personally answering for the fate of the community." - Václav Havel
"When a man has his heart in the right place and good taste, he can not only do well in politics but is even predetermined for it. If someone is modest and does not yearn for power, he is certainly not ill-equipped to engage in politics; on the contrary, he belongs there. What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things." - Václav Havel
"You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it." - Václav Havel
"To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate someone else’s type of thinking." - William James
"To be radical, an empiricism must neither admit into its constructions any element that is not directly experienced, nor exclude from them any element that is directly experienced." - William James
"That eagle that is flying high in the sky should not forget that if it should come down one day to see its shadow." - Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL
"When asked about the importance of receiving teachings on dedication, Gape Lama answered, "Whatever Dharma practice we engage in, large or small, we must dedicate the merit. If we fail to dedicate, then whatever merit we have accumulated can be lost very easily in a moment of anger, or in giving rise to any afflictive emotion or action."" - Padmasambhava, literally "Lotus-Born",aka "Second Buddha", better known as Guru Rinpoche (lit. "Precious Guru") or Lopon Rinpoche NULL
"As I focus on diligent joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once -- that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-'n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here’s how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man’s chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homonculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude." - Elizabeth Gilbert
"I have never taken myself for a being. A non-citizen, a marginal type, a nothing who exists only by the excess, by the superabundance of his nothingness." - Emil M. Cioran
"Mother nature is a brutal bitch, red in tooth and claw, who destroys what she creates." - Ernest Becker
""Excellence," besought Kai Lung, not without misgivings, "how many warriors, each having some actual existence, are there in your never-failing band?" "For all purposes save those of attack and defence there are fifteen score of the best and bravest, as their pay-sheets well attest," was the confident response. "In a strictly literal sense, however, there are no more than can be seen on a mist-enshrouded day with a resolutely closed eye."" - Ernest Bramah, born Ernest Brammah Smith
"You cannot receive vibrationally something that you are not a vibrational match to. And so, bless those who are finding abundance. And in your blessing of them and their abundance, you will become abundant too." - Ester and Jerry Hicks
"For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading." - Eudora Welty
"Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out! he exclaimed. The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise." - Eugen Herrigel
"This, then, is what counts: a lightning reaction which has no further need of conscious observation. In this respect at least the pupil makes himself independent of all conscious purpose." - Eugen Herrigel
"If we are going to live adequately and maturely as the people of God, we need more data to work from than our experience can give us. We need other experiences, the community of experience of brothers and sisters in the church, the centuries of experience provided by our biblical ancestors. A Christian who has David in his bones, Jeremiah in his bloodstream, Paul in his fingertips and Christ in his heart will know how much and how little value to put on his own momentary feelings and the experience of the past week." - Eugene Peterson
"When the danger is past God is cheated." - Italian Proverbs
"We live in a community of people not so that we can suppress and dominate eachother or make each other miserable but so that we can better and more reliably satisfy all life's healthy needs." - Wilhelm Reich
"Print created a new sense of the private ownership of words. Persons in a primary oral culture can entertain some sense of proprietary rights to a poem, but such a sense is rare and ordinarily enfeebled by the common share of lore, formulas, and themes on which everyone draws. With writing, resentment at plagiarism begins to develop." - Walter J. Ong, fully Walter Jackson Ong
"?What other people think of me is none of my business. One of the highest places you can get to is being independent of the good opinions of other people." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"When you become certain that nothing is impossible for you, you'll attain everything you desire." - Wayne Dyer, fully Wayne Walter Dyer
"Illness comes from living too small a process or too large a process." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"The Heart Center is a transpersonal dimension or level. The Initiation forces are conducted in the dimension of Sacred Space, not in time and space, so we enter another dimension to access those forces. Through the daily attunement to the Heart Center there is a long-term transformation of the ego which then begins not only to orient to the Transcendent, to be responsive to the Transcendent, but there is also a birth into the dedicated ego, which is a transcendent kind of development which is neither the vast Deity itself, nor is it the ego-self – it is someplace in between, and has access to all the richness of compassion and healing." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy
"Usually pain is not how you imagine." - W. Brugh Joy, fully William Brugh Joy