This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
In deep meditation the flow of concentration is continuous like the flow of oil.
P. F. Strawson, fully Sir Peter Frederick Strawson
The distinction between identifying reference and uniquely existential assertion is something quite undeniable. The sense in which the existence of something answering to a definite description used for the purpose of identifying reference, and its distinguishability by an audience from anything else, is presupposed and not asserted in an utterance containing such an expression, so used, stands absolutely firm, whether or not one opts for the view that radical failure of the presupposition would deprive the statement of a truth-value. It remains a decisive objection to the theory of Descriptions … that … it amounts to a denial of these undeniable distinctions.
Assertion | Distinction | Existence | Failure | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Failure |
Those who have died, entered the paradise between births, are in a condition resembling meditation without an external object. But in the fullness of time, the seeds of desire in them will spring up, and they will be born again into this world.
Desire | Meditation | Paradise | Will |
The artist is a receptacle for emotions derived from anywhere: from the sky, from the earth, from a piece of paper, from a passing figure, from a spider’s web. This is ’s web. This is why one must not make a distinction between things. For them there are no aristocratic quarterings. One must take things where one finds them.
Distinction | Emotions |
Peace can be reached through meditation on the knowledge which dreams give. Peace can also be reached through concentration upon that which is dearest to the heart.
Dreams | Knowledge | Meditation | Peace |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
God has not be earned. He has only to be sought. Meditation is the only way. Beliefs, reading books — these cannot give you realization. ... Meditation brings proof of the existence of God. ... The more you meditate the more you will feel the endless joy of God.
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Ignorant devotees who have visions of lesser deities in meditation do not know that all those forms are merely temporary, meager manifestations of the essentially unmanifested Spirit. They concentrate on the finite forms of the Infinite God and thus, in their minds, limit Him... He who worships God merely as a finite form will not attain the transcendental divine union with His infinite nature.
God | Meditation | Will | God |
Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
The wise do not expect to reap everlasting happiness from friends, beloved family, or dear possessions! The forms of loved ones are snatched away by death. Material objects turn out to be meaningless when one becomes used to them; or when, in old age, the senses grow unappreciative, powerless. Concentrate on the immortal Spirit through meditation and find there a harvest of eternal, ever new peace!
Meditation | Spirit | Wise | Happiness | Old |
Among the values of meditation is that it carries consciousness down to a deeper level, thus letting man live from his center, not his surface alone. The result is that the physical sense-reactions do not dominate his outlook wholly, as they do an animal's. Mind begins to rule them. This leads more and more to self-control, self-knowledge, and self-pacification.
Consciousness | Man | Meditation | Mind | Rule |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we're feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.
Meditation | Pain | Relationship |
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
It is only when we begin to relax with ourselves that meditation becomes a transformative process. Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns.
Pema Chödrön, born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown
What's encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. We see very clearly that we're closing off. That in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance.
Darkness | Meditation |
The distinction between good and evil matters. Quality and standards are sources of pride and honor. These are not meaningless terms. These are not simply behaviors. These are feelings, emotions,passions, meanings, and sources of significance!
Distinction | Evil | Good | Pride |
Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams
Some people think that meditation takes time away from physical accomplishment. Taken to extremes, of course, that's true. Most people, however, find that meditation creates more time than it takes.
Meditation | People | Time | Think |
So far as this argument is concerned nonhuman animals and infants and retarded humans are in the same category; and if we use this argument to justify experiments on nonhuman animals we have to ask ourselves whether we are also prepared to allow experiments on human infants and retarded adults; and if we make a distinction between animals and these humans, on what basis can we do it, other than a bare-faced - and morally indefensible - preference for members of our own species?
Argument | Distinction | Justify | Preference |
Piet Mondrian, fully Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian
The laws which in the culture of art have become more and more determinate are the great hidden laws of nature which art establishes in its own fashion. It is necessary to stress the facts that these laws are more or less hidden behind the superficial aspects of nature. Abstract art is therefore opposed to a natural representation of things. But it is not opposed to nature as is generally thought. It is opposed to the raw primitive animal nature of man, but is one with true human nature. It is opposed to the conventional laws created during the culture of the particular form but it is one with the laws of the culture of pure relationships. First and foremost there is the fundamental law of dynamic equilibrium which is opposed to the static equilibrium necessitated by the particular form. The important task then of all art is to destroy the static equilibrium by establishing a dynamic one. Non-figurative art demands an attempt of what is a consequence of this task, the destruction of particular form and the construction of a rhythm of mutual relations, of mutual forms or free lines. We must bear in mind, however, a distinction between these two forms of equilibrium in order to avoid confusion; for when we speak of equilibrium pure and simple we may be for, and at the same time against, a balance in the work of art.
Abstract | Art | Balance | Culture | Destroy | Distinction | Dynamic | Important | Law | Nature | Order | Time | Work | Art |
Pitirim A. Sorokin, fully Pitirim Alexandrovich (Alexander) Sorokin
Millions of singular sociocultural phenomena that make the superorganic world of reality appear to us in the form of the integrated systems and unintegrated congeries. If two or more singular superorganic phenomena are related to one another only by chance (by mere spatial or time adjacency) they are congeries having no real unity and interdependence between them. If two or more singular sociocultural facts are tied together meaningfully and causally in such a way that they articulate consistently the same set of meanings (values, norms) and empirically-in their vehicles and human members-show tangible (causal) interdependence of its important parts, such combination of any number of singular sociocultural phenomena makes an integrated cultural system or organized social system (Ganzbuten). Though overlooked by the majority of sociologists, the distinction between the systems and congeries is basic and important in many respects and especially for the purposes of adequate study of the sociocultural phenomena.
Chance | Distinction | Important | Majority | Phenomena | Reality | Study | System | Time | Unity | World |
Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by just a little. That doesn't mean anything. For us convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, albeit a persistent one.
Distinction | Future | World |
Ravi Shankar, born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury, aka Pandit
Love is seeing God in the person next to us, and meditation is seeing God within us.
God | Meditation | God |