This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
People who lead fulfilling lives generally have found a sense of “home” in what they do. They have a philosophy of life that connects them to a larger vision. They accept that life is a continuing challenge. More often than not, they are able to live according to their own schedules, choosing work that is interesting and complex enough to keep them engaged. They get excited about being effective and about being stretched to learn new things. They have a few good friends who understand their vision and perhaps even share common aspirations. They are not driven by urgency, competition, or the demands of the ego.
Challenge | Competition | Ego | Enough | Good | Life | Life | People | Philosophy | Sense | Vision | Work | Friends | Learn | Understand |
The mystic vision of God, or ecstasy of felt union with Him, is, to those who attain it, an affair of ravishing emotional intensity, of vivid intellectual illumination, and on both of these counts of supreme value.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
Man’s ultimate aim is the realization of God, and all his activities, - social, religious – have to be guided by the ultimate aim of the vision of God. The immediate service of all human beings becomes a necessary part of the endeavor simply because the only way to god is to see Him in His creation and be one with it.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
If we had attained the full vision of Truth, we would no longer be mere seekers, would have become one with God, for Truth is God. But being only seekers we prosecute our quest and are conscious of our imperfection.
God | Imperfection | Truth | Vision |
If no charismatic emerges, people may be truly bereft and lost in a sea of forces and pressures beyond their adaptive capacity. The society may die. If someone does emerge, the people may understandably attribute his rise to “divine grace.” Indeed, if he exercises leadership, he may well save his community and help it to renew itself. First, he binds people together by powerfully articulating their values, hopes, and pains. Second, he weaves their hopes into some image of the future. And third, he provides energy, strategy, and faith that the vision can be realized.
Capacity | Energy | Faith | Future | Grace | People | Society | Vision | Society |
Philosophy is only a matter of passionate vision rather than of logic - logic only finding reasons for the vision afterwards.
Logic | Philosophy | Vision |
John Hick, fully John Harwood Hick
To see the world as being ruled by a divine love which sets infinite value upon each individual and includes all men in its scope, and yet to live as though the world were a realm of chance in which each must fight for his own interests against the rest, argues a very dim and wavering vision of God’s rule.
Chance | God | Individual | Love | Men | Rest | Rule | Vision | Wavering | World | Value |
Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
To be constantly without desire is the way to have a vision of the mystery of heaven and earth, for constantly to have desire is the means by which their limitations are seen.
Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
Because Release is a gift – a reality not earned, not merited, not attained in any way – there flows naturally from the experience of release, the experience of Gratitude. Gratitude can best be defined and understood as the only possible response to a gift, to something recognized as utterly, freely given. Gratitude is the vision – the way of seeing – that recognizes “gift.”
Experience | Gratitude | Reality | Vision |
Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
Happiness – the joy of living – comes in the experience of gratitude that flows forma vision of one’s life as a reality received, a gift given freely and spontaneously. Such a vision removes self from the center, thus healing self-centeredness by revealing the folly of the illusion of control.
Control | Experience | Folly | Gratitude | Illusion | Joy | Life | Life | Reality | Self | Vision |