This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Man becomes aware of the sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the profane. To designate the act of manifestation of the sacred, we have proposed the term hierophany. It is a fitting term, because it does not imply anything further; it expresses no more than is implicit in its etymological content, i.e., that something sacred shows itself to us. It could be said that the history of religions — from the most primitive to the most highly developed — is constituted by a great number of hierophanies, by manifestations of sacred realities. From the most elementary hierophany — e.g. manifestation of the sacred in some ordinary object, a stone or a tree — to the supreme hierophany (which, for a Christian, is the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ) there is no solution of continuity. In each case we are confronted by the same mysterious act — the manifestation of something of a wholly different order, a reality that does not belong to our world, in objects that are an integral part of our natural "profane" world.
Milarepa, fully Jetsun Milarepa NULL
When I realize everything’s equality I forget all about my close friends and my relatives It’s OK to forget the objects of your attachment. When I realize wisdom beyond thought I forget everything included in perceiver and perceived It’s OK to forget these causes of happiness and pain. Beyond memory, beyond feelings I forget all about experiences, the good ones and the bad It’s OK to forget them, they just go up and down
Milarepa, fully Jetsun Milarepa NULL
When I realize everything’s equality I forget all about my close friends and my relatives It’s OK to forget the objects of your attachment. When I realize wisdom beyond thought I forget everything included in perceiver and perceived It’s OK to forget these causes of happiness and pain. Beyond memory, beyond feelings I forget all about experiences, the good ones and the bad It’s OK to forget them, they just go up and down. When I know the three kayas are present naturally I forget all about the deity’s generation stage practice It’s OK to forget the Dharma made of concepts. When I realize the result’s inside of me I forget all about the results you have to strive and strain to get It’s OK to forget the Dharma of the relative truth. Meditating on the key instructions I forget all other explanations and their conventional terms It’s OK to forget the Dharma that makes you arrogant. When I realize appearances are my texts I forget all about those big books with their letters in black It’s OK to forget the Dharma that’s just a heavy load.
Books | Equality | Feelings | Good | Practice | Present | Thought | Wisdom | Friends | Happiness | Thought |
It seemed to me an error in reasoning for a man to isolate a woman he loves from all the circumstances in which he met her and in which she lives, to try, with dogged inner concentration, to purify her of everything that is not her self, which is to say also of the story that they lived through together and that gives their ove its shape. After all, what I love in a woman is not what she is in and for herself, but the side of herself she turns toward me, what she is for me. I love her as a character in our common love story.
Character | Circumstances | Error | Love | Man | Story | Woman |
Mortimer J. Adler, fully Mortimer Jerome Adler
Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgement if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason if they agree or disagree?
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered, in the earliest stages, that pursuit of Truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For, what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of Truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent but one's own self.
Mahatma Gandhi, fully Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, aka Bapu
It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world’s progress toward peace … Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man?
Muriel James and Dorothy Jongeward
Children are born capable of all feelings, ranging from affection to rage. In the beginning they respond genuinely with how they feel -- screaming, cooing, cuddling. In due time, however, children adapt their feelings according to their experiences. For example, children are naturally cuddly, yet can learn to become rigid and to withdraw in fear when someone approaches the crib. Children naturally seek pleasure over pain, yet can adapt to seek pain, even death. Children are naturally self-centered, yet can learn to feel guilty about wanting anything for themselves. Children are not born with their feelings already programmed toward objects and people. Each child learns toward whom and what to show affection. Each learns toward whom and about what to feel guilty. Each learns whom and what to fear. Each learns whom and what to hate.
Beginning | Children | Fear | Feelings | Child | Guilty | Learn |
Cost more hatred of love .. Because they are feeling is normal .. Sense the movement of objects such as reverse against Earth's gravity .. Require additional power and consume more fuel.
One principal reason why men are so often useless is, that they divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits.
Niccolò Machiavelli, formally Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli
And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.
Nelson Mandela, fully Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.
Freedom |
Otto von Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg
Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.
P. F. Strawson, fully Sir Peter Frederick Strawson
Since the objects related by the explaining relation are not found in nature, the relation between them is not found in nature either: the relevant relation is between events in our minds...' Is Strawson taking the Humean approach to causation whereby its simply understood as constant conjunction and the ACTUAL causal relation isn't important?!
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Desire is produced by indiscriminate contact with the objects of the senses. Expressing as the likes and dislikes of the ego, desire creeps into the consciousness of one who is not watchful enough in governing the reaction of his feelings to his various experiences in the world. It is a condition the ego imposes on itself, and is therefore detrimental to man's evenmindedness. Whatever has its origin in desire is a disturbing element, for desires are like stones pelted into the calm lake of consciousness. Attachment to pleasure or aversion to pain both destroy the equilibrium of the inner nature.
Consciousness | Desire | Destroy | Ego | Enough | Feelings | Pain | Pleasure |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Making others happy, through kindness of speech and sincerity of right advice, is a sign of true greatness. To hurt another soul by sarcastic words, looks, or suggestions, is despicable. Sarcasm draws out the rebellious spirit and anger in the wrongdoer. Loving suggestions bring out the repentence in him. Repentence consists in thoroughly understanding one's own error and in abandoning it. Friendship is pure by nature. When you have a lilly in your hands, how can you crush it? When you love a person dearly, how can you hurt him, even though he may be wrong? Divine love is unlimited and infinite. When two or more persons are friends always, no matter what happens, that is an expression of divine love, of divine friendship.
Anger | Error | Kindness | Love | Right | Sarcasm | Sincerity | Soul | Speech | Spirit | Understanding | Friendship | Friends |
It is not the objects of conscious attention which are to be allowed to trap the mind forever and divert the man from his higher duty. It is the consciousness itself which ought to engage his interest and hold his deepest concentration.
Attention | Consciousness | Man | Mind |