Glossary

adhar: support.

Adhi Yoga: [adhi, above, supreme + yoga] the Supreme Yoga.

ahimsa: nonviolence; abstaining from hurting others in thought, words or deed.

Akash: the void, an element of space, sky.

ananda: bliss, happiness.

anirvachaniya: inexpressible.

antahkarana: the psyche, mind. Mind in a collective sense, including intelligence (buddhi), ego (ahamkara) and mind (manas).

anubhava: direct perception, experience, cognition, feeling or thought. (In all experiences there is no experiencer other than “I”. Thus all anubhava leads to the I-principle — “I Am”.)

Atma, Atman: the Supreme Self, the individual soul. Atman is beyond all the three gunas of prakriti. It is not the atman that acts but only the prakriti.

Atma-bhakti: worship of the Supreme.

Atma-prakash: the light of the Self.

Atmaram: rejoicing in the Self.

avatara: incarnation.

avyakta: unmanifest. Opposite is vyakta.

bhajan: devotional singing, prayer.

bhakti: devotion, adoration. Hence bhakta, a devotee.

Bikkhu: a Bikkhu (Pali) or Bhikshu (sanskrit) is an ordained male Buddhist monastic.

bhoga: sense enjoyment, experience of worldly joys and sorrows.

bhogi: a bhogi is one involved in worldly joys and sorrows. Bhoga marga, is the path of worldly pursuits — joys and sorrows.

Brahma: one of the gods of the Hindu trinity: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; Shiva, the destroyer.

brahmacharya: continence, self-restraint from sexual activity, celibacy. Brahmacharya in its wider sense stands not only for abstinence from sexual indulgence, but also for freedom from craving for all sensual pleasures.

Brahman: the Absolute, the Ultimate Reality, whose characteristics are absolute existence (sat), absolute consciousness (chit) and absolute bliss (ananda). According to Shankaracharya, Brahman, the Absolute has five different phases: Hiranyagarbha, the Cosmic Self; Ishvara, the personal god in the form of an avatar; jiva, the individual soul; prakriti, the perishable nature and shakti, the creative power.

Brahmasmi: (Brahman, the Supreme + asmi, I am, as, to be] I am the Supreme. “I Am” (asmi) represents the pure awareness of self-existence and is therefore the expression of pure consciousness or the Purusha. When this pure consciousness gets involved in matter, the pure “I Am” changes into “I Am That”, “I am so-and-so”.

buddhi: intelligence, the reflection of the real in the mind (bodhati, to discern, to know). Buddhi is that faculty which enables the mind to perceive objects in the phenomenal world. As long as buddhi is functioning through the medium of the mind, it is not possible to know pure consciousness. (Budh, to wake up, observe).

chetana: consciousness, inner awakening.

chidakash: [chit, to perceive + akash, expanse, sky] Brahman in its aspect of limitless knowledge, the expanse of awareness. Variously used for consciousness, individual as well as universal.

chidananda: consciousness–bliss, the joy of spirit.

chidaram: joy of consciousness.

chit: universal consciousness.

chitta: individual consciousness. It may be described as a product of both consciousness and matter or purusha and prakriti. Chitta comprises all the levels of mind, the lowest of which is manas.

deha: physical body.

deha–buddhi: the intellect that makes one identify the self with the physical body.

digambara: naked, “sky-clad”.

gunas: attributes, qualities. In Samkhya philosophy the three attributes of the cosmic substance (prakriti) are: Illuminating (sattva), activating (rajas) and restraining (tamas).

guru: spiritual teacher, preceptor.

jagrat-sushupti: awakened-sleep, attentive sleep.

jiva, jivatman: [Atman + doership is jiva.] the individual soul. According to Vedanta, jiva comes into being as a result of the false identification of the atman with body, senses and mind.

jnana: knowledge, especially the higher knowledge derived from meditation; “closely related to the knowledge of Brahman”. (jna, to know; jnani, the knower).

jnani: the knower, especially of the higher knowledge derived from meditation; “closely related to the knowledge of Brahman”.

kalpana: imagination, fancy.

karana: cause, the primary cause invariably antecedent to a result, the unmanifested potential cause that in due course takes shape as the visible effect, the material cause of the universe. Karana is cosmic energy in potential form.

karma: action or “the fruits of action”. Karma is of three kinds: sanchita (accumulated from previous births), prarabdha (portion of the past karma to be worked out in the present life) and agami (the current karma the result of which will fructify in future).

lila: play, sport, the cosmos looked upon as the divine play; “effortless or playful relation between the Absolute,or Brahman, and the contingent world”.

mahadakash: the great expanse of existence, the universe of matter and energy.

Mahatma: enlightened being.

maha-karta: the great doer. Mind is the great doer, for it is every busy, ever engaged in something or the other.

maha-mantra: the great incantation (see mantra).

maha-maya: the great illusion, unreality. Maya is the illusive power that veils the reality. Maya is the totality of all mental projections.

maha-mrityu: the final dissolution, the great death of all creation.

maha-sattva: the supreme harmony, harmonious existence.

maha-tattva: the great reality, supreme consciousness.

maha-vakya: the sublime pronouncement. Four Upanishadic declarations, expressing the highest Vedantic truths, are known as Mahavakyas. They are: Prajnanam Brahman (consciousness is Brahman), aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahman), tat tvam asi (That Thou Art) and ayam atma Brahma (the self is Brahman).

mana, manas: the mind, understanding (man, to think). Manas is the thinking faculty, the faculty of discrimination. In Nyaya philosophy, manas is regarded as a substance distinct from Atman, the soul.

manana: meditation, reflection.

mantra: incantation, hymn, an instrument of thought, ideal sounds visualised as letters and vocalised as syllables. A mantra is a group of words whose constant repetition produces specific results.

marga: path.

moksha: liberation from the endless cycle of death and rebirth.

moksha-sankalpa: determination to be free from the false.

mukmukshuttva: right desire, which consists of earnestness to know the Ultimate Principle to attain liberation. In Vedanta, one of the four qualifications of the seeker of the Truth: right discrimination (viveka), right passion (vairagya), right conduct (sat-sampat) and right desire (mumukshattva). Mumukshattva is intense longing for liberation.

neti-neti: not this; not this, the analytic process of progressively negating all names and forms (nama–rupa) of which the world is made in order to arrive at the eternal, Ultimate Truth.

nirguna: the unconditioned, without form, qualities and attributes.

nirvana: “a state of “ultimate” peace that is achieved with the uprooting and final dissolution of the volitional formations”. Liberation from matter and union with the Supreme Spirit (Brahman).

nirvikalpa: free of ideation, without modifications of the mind.

nisarga: natural, innate, inborn.

nivritti: liberation from worldly existence, renunciation.

Parabrahman: the Supreme Reality.

paramakash: the great expanse, the timeless and spaceless reality; the Absolute being.

paramartha: the sublime truth.

prajna: cognitive consciousness, pure awareness, higher consciousness.

prakriti: the cosmic substance, the original uncaused cause of phenomenal existence, which is formless, limitless, immobile, eternal and all-pervasive, also called avyakta.

pralaya: complete dissolution, merger of the cosmos with the unmanifested Absolute — the Supreme Reality.

prana: the breath of life, vital principle.

prarabdha: destiny, sanchita karma (karma of past lives) that has become the destiny in the present life.

pravritti: penchant, predilection towards worldly life.

premakash: Brahman in its aspect of limitless love. It is another name for chidakash, but it lays stress on the love aspect not on the knowledge aspect. Love is the expression of the Self through the heart.

puja: worship, adoration.

purna: full, complete, absolute, infinite.

purusha: the cosmic spirit, the eternal and efficient cause of the universe that gives appearance of consciousness to all manifestations of matter (prakriti). The bondage of purusha in matter is due to “I”-consciousness born of chitta–vrittis, which gives rise to innumerable desires.

rajas: motivity, activity, energy. One of the three gunas or qualities of matter: sattva, rajas and tamas. In yoga, egoism.

sad-chit: the transcendental condition of the universal potentiality.

sadashiva: the perpetual beatitude, ever prosperous.

sadanubhava: experience of the everlasting reality.

sadchitananda: the ultimate principle with the three attributes in absolute perfection (sat, being + chit, consciousness + ananda, bliss).

sadguru: the true spiritual teacher.

sadhaka: spiritual aspirant.

sadhana: the practice which produces success, siddhi.

sadhu: an ascetic.

saguna: manifested condition with the three gunas, qualities — sattva, rajas and tamas. The Supreme Absolute conceived of as possessing qualities like love, mercy and so forth, as distinguished from the undifferentiated Absolute of the Advaita Vedanta.

samadhi: superconscious state, profound meditation, trance, rapturous absorption. A practice of yoga in which the seeker (sadhaka) becomes one with the object of his meditation (sadhya), thus attaining unqualified bliss. “Samadhi is a state in which you transcend the bounds of your body, mind and self-identity, and merge into an undifferentiated unity with all that is”.

samskara: “imprints left on the subconscious by experiences in past lives or the present life and which determine and condition one’s desires and actions”. Mental impression, memory. Also called vasana, residual impression.

samvid: true Awareness.

sat: “the ideal; pure and true essence (nature)” of an entity or existence. It can thus be concluded as “the self-existent or universal spirit, Brahman”. Opposite is “asat”.

satsang: association with the true and the wise people.

sattva: being, existence, true essence. In yoga the quality of purity or goodness; sattvic — pure, true.

sattvanubhava: experience (anubhava) of the true harmony of the universe (sattva, being).

satyakama: he who longs for the sublime truth.

satyam–shivam–sundaram: the true, the good, the beautiful.

Shiva: one of the gods of the Hindu trinity — Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer. Shiva actually means auspicious, propitious. Destruction of the cosmos by the god Shiva is a propitious act, for destruction precedes creation. Shiva is absolute love of the “I-principle” in a man. As a destroyer, he brings about the total annihilation of the human ego.

shravana: hearing of the scriptures, the act of hearing.

siddha: the realised person, one who has attained perfection.

smarana: remembrance, mental recitation.

soham: “I Am He”.

sutratma: the connecting link between all beings. The string-like supporter of the manifested worlds, hence the pure consciousness which is the substratum of all beings. Maharaj uses the word for the accumulated karma from life to life.

svarga: the celestial regions.

svarupa: one’s own form, nature, character.

tamas: darkness, inertia, passivity. One of the three constituents (gunas) of the cosmic substance: sattva, rajas and tamas.

tat–sat: [tat, that + sat, truth, being, reality] that is the truth. The sacred text is “Om Tat Sat” in which Brahman is identified by each of the three words.

tattva: the true essence, reality.

turiya: the superconscious state of samadhi, (turiya, fourth), the fourth state of soul in which it becomes one with Brahman, the highest awareness.

turiyatita: beyond the highest awareness.

tyaga: renunciation. Tyaga is the renunciation of the fruits of all works: i.e., the tyagi should perform karma with detachment and with no desire for results.

uparati: rest, repose, tolerance and renunciation of all sectarian observances. In Vedanta one of the six acquirements (sat-sampat): sama, tranquillity; dama, self-restraint; uprati, tolerance; titiksha, endurance; sraddha, faith; and samadhana, equipoise.

vairagya: dispassion, indifference to the pains and pleasures of the material world.

Vishnu: one of the Gods of the Hindu trinity — Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver and Shiva, the destroyer.

viveka: discrimination; discrimination between the true and the false, the real and the unreal. Viveka is an expression of the spiritual consciousness hidden behind the mind. It leads to vairagya.

vyakta: manifest matter, the evolved nature. Opposite is avyakta.

vyakti: person, the outer self.

vyaktitva: personality, limited self-identification with the body.

yoga: one of the six systems of the Hindu philosophy (from yoj, to yoke or join). Yoga teaches the means by which the individual spirit (jivatma) can be joined or united with the universal spirit (Paramatma).

yoga-bhrashta: one who has fallen from the high state of yoga.

yoga-kshetra: the field for yoga, the physical body in a philosophical sense (kshetra, field).

yoga-sadhana: spiritual practices of yoga.

yogi: one who practices yoga.