Abhimata: Desired; favorite; attractive; agreeable, appealing; object of choice.
Abhinivesha: Will to live; strong desire; false identification of the Self with the body or mind; an instinctive clinging to life and a dread of death.
Abhyantara: Internal; inward.
Abhyasa: Sustained spiritual practice.
Abhyasa Yoga: Yoga, or union with God, through sustained spiritual practice.
Adhyatma: The individual Self; the supreme Self; spirit.
Advaita: Non-dualism; non-duality; literally: not [a] two [dvaita].
Agami karma: The action that will be done by the individual in the future.
Ahimsa: Non-injury in thought, word, and deed; non-violence; non-killing; harmlessness.
Aishwarya: Dominion, power; lordship; divine glory; majesty; splendor; attribute(s) of Ishwara.
Akasha: Ether; space; sky; literally: “not visible.” The subtlest of the five elements (panchabhuta), from which the other four arise. It is all-pervading, and is sometimes identified with consciousness–chidakasha. It is the basis of sound (shabda), which is its particular property.
Aklishta: Unafflicted; non-afflicted; unmoved.
Alabdhabhumikatva: Non-achievement of a stage; inability to find a footing.
Alasya: Laziness; idleness; apathy; sloth.
Alinga: Without any attribute, characteristic or mark; Parabrahman; noumenal; undifferentiated prakriti.
Ananda: Bliss; happiness; joy. A fundamental attribute of Brahman, which is Satchidananda: Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.
Anandamaya kosha: “The sheath of bliss (ananda).” The causal body. The borderline of the Self (atman).
Anandamayi Ma: One of the major spiritual figures in twentieth-century India, first made known to the West by Paramhansa Yogananda in his Autobiography of a Yogi.
Ananta: Infinite; without end; endless; a name of Shesha, the chief of the Nagas, whose coils encircle the earth and who symbolizes eternity, and upon whom Vishnu reclines.
Anatma(n): Not-Self; insentient.
Anavashtitatvani: Unsteadiness; instability of mind; inability to find a footing; mental unsteadiness.
Angamejayatva: Shaking of the body; lack of control over the body.
Anitya: Impermanent; transient.
Anubhava: Perception; direct personal experience; spiritual experience; intuitive consciousness and knowledge.
Anukarah: Following; imitating.
Anumana: Inference.
Aparigraha: Non-possessiveness, non-greed, non-selfishness, non-acquisitiveness.
Apavarga: Liberation; release; escape from pain; release from the bondage of embodiment.
Apunya: Demerit; vice; non-meritorious acts; unvirtuous deeds; sinful. See Punya.
Arjuna: The great disciple of Krishna, who imparted to him the teachings found in the Bhagavad Gita. The third of the Pandava brothers who were major figures in the Mahabharata War. His name literally means “bright,” “white,” or “clear.”
Asamprajñata samadhi: Highest superconscious state where the mind and the ego-sense are completely annihilated.
Asamprayoga: Withdrawal of the senses from their objects; non-communication; non-interchange; withdrawal; disuniting; disconnecting.
Asana: Posture; seat; meditation posture; Hatha Yoga posture.
Ashaucha: Impurity; uncleanness.
Ashishah: Primordial will; drive-to-survive; will-to-live; desire to live; expectation. From a which means near to or toward, and shas which means to order or direct. It is the force within the individual that causes it to pass from the absolute into the conditioned, from the transcendent into the immanent condition, from eternity into time, into relative existence.
Asmita: I-ness; the sense of “I am;” “I exist;” sense of individuality.
Asteya: Non-stealing; honesty; non-misappropriativeness.
Atma(n): The individual spirit or Self that is one with Brahman. The true nature or identity.
Atmajnana: Knowledge of the Self.
Atmic: Having to do with the atma–spirit or self.
Aum: Alternate spelling of Om.
Avidya: Ignorance; nescience; unknowing; literally: “to know not.” Also called ajnana.
Avirati: Hankering after objects; non-dispassion; sensual indulgence; lack of control; non-restraint.
Bahya: External; outward.
Bandha: “Lock;” bond; bondage; tie or knot.
Bhagavad Gita: “The Song of God.” The sacred philosophical text often called “the Hindu Bible,” part of the epic Mahabharata by Vyasa; the most popular sacred text in Hinduism.
Bhakti: Devotion; dedication; love (of God).
Bhakti Marga: The path of devotion leading to union with God.
Bhakti Sutra: An aphoristic work on devotional Yoga authored by the sage Narada. Another text by the same title is ascribed to the sage Shandilya.
Bhakti Yoga: The yoga of attaining union with God through the prescribed spiritual discipline of the path of devotion.
Bhakti Yogi: One who practices Bhakti Yoga.
Bhava: Subjective state of being (existence); attitude of mind; mental attitude or feeling; state of realization in the heart or mind.
Bhavamukha: An exalted state of spiritual experience, in which the aspirant keeps his mind on the borderline between the Absolute and the Relative. From this position he can contemplate the ineffable and attributeless Brahman and also participate in the activities of the relative world, seeing in it the manifestation of God alone.
Bhavanam: Meditation. “Bhavanam is setting the heart on the Lord Who is designated by Om and brought into the mind by It” (Shankara, Commentary on the Yoga Sutras). It has the connotation of all the awareness becoming focused and absorbed in it.
Bhaya: Fear; terror.
Bhoga: Enjoyment, pleasure; experience; perception; also food (usually what has been offered to a deity).
Bhranti: Delusion; wrong notion; false idea or impression.
Bhuta: What has come into being; an entity as opposed to the unmanifested; any of the five elementary constituents of the universe; element.
Bija: Seed; source.
Bija Mantra: A “seed” mantra from which realization grows as a tree from a seed; usually a single-syllable mantra.
Brahma: The Creator (Prajapati) of the three worlds of men, angels, and archangels (Bhur, Bhuwah, and Swah); the first of the created beings; Hiranyagarbha or cosmic intelligence.
Brahmachari: One who observes continence; a celibate student in the first stage of life (ashrama); a junior monk.
Brahmacharya: Continence; self-restraint on all levels; discipline; dwelling in Brahman.
Brahmajnana: Direct, transcendental knowledge of Brahman; Self-realization.
Brahman: The Absolute Reality; the Truth proclaimed in the Upanishads; the Supreme Reality that is one and indivisible, infinite, and eternal; all-pervading, changeless Existence; Existence-knowledge-bliss Absolute (Satchidananda); Absolute Consciousness; it is not only all-powerful but all-power itself; not only all-knowing and blissful but all-knowledge and all-bliss itself.
Brahmananda: The bliss of communion with Brahman.
Bhranti-darshana: Delusion; erroneous view.
Buddhi: Intellect; understanding; reason; the thinking mind; the higher mind, which is the seat of wisdom; the discriminating faculty.
Buddhi-sattwa: Experience of the buddhi in its most subtle level in which the buddhi and the Self are virtually indistinguishable; the experience of I-am (asmita/aham), experience of the Self through the buddhi.
Chaitanya: Consciousness; intelligence; awareness; the consciousness that knows itself and knows others; Pure Consciousness.
Chakra: Wheel. Plexus; center of psychic energy in the human system, particularly in the spine or head.
Chit: Consciousness (that is spirit or purusha); “to perceive, observe, think, be aware, know;” pure unitary Consciousness.
Chitshakti: Power of consciousness or intelligence.
Chitta: The subtle energy that is the substance of the mind, and therefore the mind itself; mind in all its aspects; the field of the mind; the field of consciousness; consciousness itself; the mind-stuff.
Chitta-vritti-nirodha: Cessation of the modifications of the mind; control of thoughts; Patanjali’s definition of Yoga.
Darshan: Literally “sight” or “seeing;” vision, literal and metaphysical; a system of philosophy (see Sad-darshanas). Darshan is the seeing of a holy being as well as the blessing received by seeing such a one.
Darshana: “Seeing” in the sense of a viewpoint or system of thought. The Sad-darshanas are the six orthodox systems of Indian philosophy: Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta.
Daurmanasya: Despair, depression etc., caused by mental sickness; feeling of wretchedness and miserableness.
Dayananda (Maharishi Swami): A leading reformer within Hinduism in the nineteenth century (1824-1883) and the founder of the Arya Samaj.
Desha: Place; locus; spot; space; country.
Deva: “A shining one,” a god–greater or lesser in the evolutionary hierarchy; a semi-divine or celestial being with great powers, and therefore a “god.” Sometimes called a demi-god. Devas are the demigods presiding over various powers of material and psychic nature. In many instances “devas” refer to the powers of the senses or the sense organs themselves.
Devata: Godhead; god; divinity; celestial being. See Deva.
Dharana: Concentration of mind; fixing the mind upon a single thing or point. “Dharana is the confining [fixing] of the mind within a point or area” (Yoga Sutras 3:1).
Dharma (1): The righteous way of living, as enjoined by the sacred scriptures and the spiritually illumined; characteristics; law; lawfulness; virtue; righteousness; norm.
Dharma (2): Attributes; natures; essential/visible characteristics; characteristic form; properties; qualifications.
Dharma-megha samadhi: The final state of one-pointedness, when an individual becomes disinterested even in omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. This state of superconsciousness or samadhi is called dharma-megha–cloud of virtue–inasmuch as it showers nectar drops of immortality through knowledge of Brahman, when all the hosts of vasanas are entirely destroyed.
Dharmi (1): One who follows dharma.
Dharmi (2): The substratum in which attributes or characteristics are seen to manifest or inhere.
Dhyana(m): Meditation; contemplation.
Dirgha: Long; prolonged; protracted.
Divya: Divine; divine nature; heavenly; celestial; sacred; luminous; supernatural.
Drashta (1): Seer; perceiver; a title of both the individual and the Supreme Selves or Purushas.
Drishyam: The seen; the object seen; the seeable; visible; perceptible; object of consciousness; nature.
Dukha(m): Pain; suffering; misery; sorrow; grief; unhappiness; stress; that which is unsatisfactory.
Dwandwa(s): The pairs of opposites in nature (prakriti) such as pleasure and pain, hot and cold, light and darkness, gain and loss, victory and defeat, love and hatred.
Dwesha: Aversion/avoidance for something, implying a dislike for it. This can be emotional (instinctual) or intellectual. It may range from simple nonpreference to intense repulsion, antipathy and even hatred. See Raga.
Ganga: See Ganges.
Ganges (Ganga): The sacred river–believed to be of divine origin–that flows from high up in the Himalayas, through the plains of Northern India, and empties into the Bay of Bengal. Hindus consider that bathing in the Ganges profoundly purifies both body and mind.
Gita: Song; The Bhagavad Gita.
Gorakhnath/Gorakshanath: A master yogi of the Nath Yogi (Siddha Yogi) tradition. His dates are not positively known, but he seems to have lived for many centuries and travelled throughout all of India, Bhutan, Tibet, and Ladakh teaching philosophy and yoga.
Guna: Quality, attribute, or characteristic arising from nature (Prakriti) itself; a mode of energy behavior. As a rule, when “guna” is used it is in reference to the three qualities of Prakriti, the three modes of energy behavior that are the basic qualities of nature, and which determine the inherent characteristics of all created things. They are: 1) sattwa–purity, light, harmony; 2) rajas–activity, passion; and 3) tamas–dullness, inertia, and ignorance.
Himsa: Injury, violence; killing.
Hridaya: Heart; center or core of something; essence; the Self.
Indra: King of the lesser “gods” (demigods).
Indriya: Organ. The five organs of perception (jnanendriyas) are the ear, skin, eye, tongue, and nose. The five organs of action (karmendriyas) are the voice, hand, foot, organ of excretion, and the organ of generation.
Ishta-devata: Beloved deity. The deity preferred above all others by an individual. “Chosen ideal” is the usual English translation.
Ishta mantra: The mantra of the divine form specially beloved by an individual (ishta devata).
Ishwara: “God” or “Lord” in the sense of the Supreme Power, Ruler, Master, or Controller of the cosmos. “Ishwara” implies the powers of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience.
Ishwarapranidhana: Offering of one’s life to God (Ishwara).
Jada: Inert; unconscious; matter.
Jagadguru: “World guru;” world teacher.
Jagat: World; cosmos.
Janma: Birth; coming into being.
Japa: Repetition of a mantra.
Jati: Birth.
Jiva: Individual spirit.
Jivanmukta: One who is liberated here and now in this present life.
Jivanmukti: Liberation in this life.
Jivatma(n): Individual spirit; individual consciousness.
Jnana: Knowledge; knowledge of Reality–of Brahman, the Absolute; also denotes the process of reasoning by which the Ultimate Truth is attained. The word is generally used to denote the knowledge by which one is aware of one’s identity with Brahman.
Jnanamaya kosha: “The sheath of intellect (buddhi).” The level of intelligent thought and conceptualization. Sometimes called the Vijnanamaya kosha. The astral-causal body.
Jnanendriya: The five organs of perception: ear, skin, eye, tongue, and nose.
Jnani: A follower of the path of knowledge (jnana); one who has realized–who knows–the Truth (Brahman).
Jnanopadesha: Instruction in wisdom (jnana).
Jyoti(h): Light; flame; illumination; luminosity; effulgence.
Jyotishmati: Effulgence; full of light.
Kala: Time measure, as in the time required to recite a mantra. It also sometimes means levels of creation or manifested beings.
Kailash(a): “Crystalline;” the name of the mountain home of Siva–a mountain peak in the Himalayas (in present-day Tibet) revered as the abode of Shiva, that is a famous place of pilgrimage.
Kaivalya: Transcendental state of Absolute Independence; state of absolute freedom from conditioned existence; moksha; isolation; final beatitude; emancipation.
Kaivalya-mukti: Liberation.
Kala: Time; a unit of time; part; aspect; bit; death (or Yama); fate; black.
Kapila: The great sage who formulated the Sankhya philosophy which is endorsed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. (See the entry under Sankhya.)
Karana: “Instrument;” cause; instrumental cause; means of accomplishing something; reason. The means of knowledge and action. The inner and outer instruments (sense organs). The unmanifested potential cause that, in due time, takes shape as the visible effect; the material cause of the universe in such a state during the period of dissolution, i.e., cosmic energy in a potential condition.
Karana sharira: The causal body (where the individual rests during sound, deep, dreamless sleep, the intellect, mind and senses being reduced to an unmanifested potential condition), also known as the anandamaya kosha, the “sheath of bliss.”
Karika: Commentary; treatise.
Karmashaya: The receptacle or mass of karmas; aggregate of works done; latent impressions of action which will eventually fructify.
Karmendriya: The five organs of action: voice, hand, foot, organ of excretion, and the organ of generation.
Karmic: Having to do with karma.
Karuna: Mercy; compassion; kindness.
Kaupina: A small strip of cloth used to cover one’s private parts. Also called a langoti.
Khyati: Apprehension; discernment; knowledge; vision.
Klesha: Literally, taints or afflictions. The kleshas are: ignorance, egotism, attractions and repulsions towards objects, and desperate clinging to physical life from the fear of death. (See Yoga Sutras 2:2-9.)
Klishta: Afflicted, painful or pain-bearing.
Kosha: Sheath; bag; scabbard; a sheath enclosing the soul; body. There are five such concentric sheaths or bodies: the sheaths of bliss, intellect, mind, life-force and the physical body–the anandamaya, jnanamaya, manomaya, pranamaya and annamaya bodies respectively.
Krama: Order; sequence; sequential order or progression; stage; underlying process; natural law–all these are inherent in their substratum or dharmi.
Krama-mukti: Attainment of liberation in stages; gradual liberation; passing from this world to a higher world beyond rebirth and from there attaining liberation.
Krishna: A Divine Incarnation born in India about three thousand years ago, Whose teachings to His disciple Arjuna on the eve of the Great India (Mahabharata) War comprise the Bhagavad Gita.
Kriya: Purificatory action, practice, exercise, or rite; action; activity; movement; function; skill. Kriyas purify the body and nervous system as well as the subtle bodies to enable the yogi to reach and hold on to higher levels of consciousness and being.
Kriya Yoga: The Yoga of Purification: “Austerity (tapasya), self-study (swadhyaya), and offering of the life to God (Ishwara pranidhana) are Kriya Yoga” (Yoga Sutras 2:1).
Krodha: Anger, wrath; fury.
Karma: Karma, derived from the Sanskrit root kri, which means to act, do, or make, means any kind of action, including thought and feeling. It also means the effects of action. Karma is both action and reaction, the metaphysical equivalent of the principle: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). It is karma operating through the law of cause and effect that binds the jiva or the individual soul to the wheel of birth and death. There are three forms of karma: sanchita, agami, and prarabdha. Sanchita karma is the vast store of accumulated actions done in the past, the fruits of which have not yet been reaped. Agami karma is the action that will be done by the individual in the future. Prarabdha karma is the action that has begun to fructify, the fruit of which is being reaped in this life.
Kumbhaka: Retention of breath; suspension of breath.
Lahiri Mahasaya: Shyama Charan Lahiri, one of the greatest yogis of nineteenth-century India, written about extensively in Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda.
Lila: Play; sport; divine play; the cosmic play. The concept that creation is a play of the divine, existing for no other reason than for the mere joy of it. The life of an avatar is often spoken of as lila.
Linga: Mark; gender; sign; symbol.
Lobha: Greed; covetousness.
Loka: World or realm; sphere, level, or plane of existence, whether physical, astral, or causal.
Mahapralaya: The final cosmic dissolution; the dissolution of all the worlds of relativity (Bhuloka, Bhuvaloka, Swaloka, Mahaloka, Janaloka, Tapaloka, and Satyaloka), until nothing but the Absolute remains. There are lesser dissolutions, known simply as pralayas, when only the first five worlds (lokas) are dissolved.
Maharshi: Maha-rishi–great sage.
Manas(a): The sensory mind; the perceiving faculty that receives the messages of the senses.
Mantra(m): Sacred syllable or word or set of words through the repetition and reflection of which one attains perfection or realization of the Self. Literally, “a transforming thought” (manat trayate). A mantra, then is a sound formula that transforms the consciousness.
Mantric: Having to do with mantra(s)–their sound or their power.
Manu: The ancient lawgiver, whose code, The Laws of Manu (Manu Smriti) is the foundation of Hindu religious and social conduct.
Marga: Way; path; street; approach to God-realization (bhakti marga, jnana marga, karma marga, yoga marga, etc.).
Maya: The illusive power of Brahman; the veiling and the projecting power of the universe, the power of Cosmic Illusion. “The Measurer”–a reference to the two delusive “measures,” Time and Space.
Moha: Delusion–in relation to something, usually producing delusive attachment or infatuation based on a completely false perception and evaluation of the object.
Moksha: Release; liberation; the term is particularly applied to the liberation from the bondage of karma and the wheel of birth and death; Absolute Experience.
Mudita: Complacency; joy; happiness.
Mukta: One who is liberated–freed–usually in the sense of one who has attained moksha or spiritual liberation.
Mukti: Moksha; liberation.
Muni: “Silent one” ( one observing the vow of silence (mauna); sage; ascetic.
Nadi: A channel in the subtle (astral) body through which subtle prana (psychic energy) flows; a physical nerve. Yoga treatises say that there are seventy-two thousand nadis in the energy system of the human being.
Nath(a): Lord; ruler; protector.
Nath Yogis: An ancient order of yogis, sometimes called Siddha Yogis, claiming Patanjali and Jesus (Isha Nath) among their master teachers.
Neem Karoli Baba: One of India’s most amazing and mysterious spiritual figures. The life of this great miracle-worker and master spanned from two to four centuries (at the least), including most of the twentieth century.
Nidra: Sleep; either dreaming or deep sleep state.
Nirbija: “Without seed;” without attributes; without the production of samskaras or subtle karmas.
Nirbija samadhi: Nirvikalpa samadhi wherein the seeds of samskaras or karmas are destroyed (“fried” or “roasted”) by Jnana, and which produces no samskaras or karmas.
Nirodha: Restraint; restriction; suppression; dissolving/dissolution; cessation; disappearance; control inhibition; annihilation; process of ending.
Nirvana: Liberation; final emancipation; the term is particularly applied to the liberation from the bondage of karma and the wheel of birth and death that comes from knowing Brahman; Absolute Experience. See Moksha.
Nirvichara samadhi: A stage in samadhi wherein the mind (chitta) no longer identified with a subtle object or assumes its form, simply resting in perception without analytical awareness of its nature by means of the buddhi, whose operation has become completely suspended so that only pure awareness remains; without deliberation and reasoning or inquiry.
Nirvikalpa: Indeterminate; non-conceptual; without the modifications of the mind; beyond all duality.
Nirvikalpa samadhi: Samadhi in which there is no objective experience or experience of “qualities” whatsoever, and in which the triad of knower, knowledge and known does not exist; purely subjective experience of the formless and qualitiless and unconditioned Absolute. The highest state of samadhi, beyond all thought, attribute, and description.
Nirvitarka samadhi: Union with an object in which remembrance of their names and qualities is not present. (See Vitarka.)
Nitya: Eternal; permanent; unchanging; the ultimate Reality; the eternal Absolute. Secondarily: daily or obligatory (nitya karma–that which must be done every day).
Nityananda (Paramhansa): A great Master of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the most renowned So’ham yogi of our times. His Chidakasha Gita contains some of the most profound statements on philosophy and yoga.
Nivritti: Negation; the path of turning away from activity; withdrawal. Literally, “to turn back.” The path of renunciation.
Niyama: Observance; the five Do’s of Yoga: 1) shaucha–purity, cleanliness; 2) santosha–contentment, peacefulness; 3) tapas–austerity, practical (i.e., result-producing) spiritual discipline; 4) swadhyaya–self-study, spiritual study; 5) Ishwarapranidhana–offering of one’s life to God.
Om: The Pranava or the sacred syllable symbolizing and embodying Brahman.
Omkara: Om.
Para(m): Highest; universal; transcendent; supreme.
Parabrahman: Supreme Brahman.
Paramatma(n): The Supreme Self, God.
Paramahan[m]sa/Paramhan[m]sa: Literally: Supreme Swan, a person of the highest spiritual realization, from the fact that a swan can separate milk from water and is therefore an apt symbol for one who has discarded the unreal for the Real, the darkness for the Light, and mortality for the Immortal, having separated himself fully from all that is not God and joined himself totally to the Divine, becoming a veritable embodiment of Divinity manifested in humanity.
Paramhansa Yogananda: The most influential yogi of the twentieth century in the West, author of Autobiography of a Yogi and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship in America.
Parashakti: Supreme Power.
Parinama: Change; modification; transformation; evolution; development; effect; result; ripening; altering/changing.
Patanjali: A yogi of ancient India, the author of the Yoga Sutras.
Pinda: Part of the whole; individual; the body–either of the individual jiva or the cosmic body of Ishwara. It can also mean an organized whole or a unity of diversities.
Pitri: A departed ancestor, a forefather.
Pradhana: Prakriti; causal matter.
Prajapati: Progenitor; the Creator; a title of Brahma the Creator.
Prajna: Consciousness; awareness; wisdom; intelligence.
Prajapati: Progenitor; the Creator; a title of Brahma the Creator.
Prakash(a): Shining; luminous; effulgence; illumination; luminosity; light; brightness. Pure Consciousness, from the root kash (to shine) and pra (forth); cognition.
Prakriti: Causal matter; the fundamental power (shakti) of God from which the entire cosmos is formed; the root base of all elements; undifferentiated matter; the material cause of the world. Also known as Pradhana. Prakriti can also mean the entire range of vibratory existence (energy).
Prakritilaya: Absorbed or merged in Prakriti; the state of yogis who have so identified with the cosmic energy that they are trapped in it as though in a net and cannot separate themselves from it and evolve onwards until the cosmic dissolution (pralaya) occurs in which the lower worlds of men, angels, and archangels (bhur, bhuwah and swar lokas) are dissolved.
Pramada: Carelessness; fault; guilt.
Pramana: Means of valid knowledge; logical proof; authority (of knowledge); means of cognition (from the verb root ma–to measure and pra–before or forward.
Prana: Life; vital energy; life-breath; life-force; inhalation. In the human body the prana is divided into five forms: 1) Prana, the prana that moves upward; 2) Apana: The prana that moves downward, producing the excretory functions in general. 3) Vyana: The prana that holds prana and apana together and produces circulation in the body. 4) Samana: The prana that carries the grosser material of food to the apana and brings the subtler material to each limb; the general force of digestion. 5) Udana: The prana which brings up or carries down what has been drunk or eaten; the general force of assimilation.
Pranamaya kosha: “The sheath of vital air (prana).” The sheath consisting of vital forces and the (psychic) nervous system.
Pranava: A title of Om, meaning “Life-ness” or “Life-Giver.” Om is the expression or controller of prana–the life force within the individual being and the cosmos.
Pranayama: Control of the subtle life forces, often by means of special modes of breathing. Therefore breath control or breathing exercises are usually mistaken for pranayama. It also means the refining (making subtle) of the breath, and its lengthening through spontaneous slowing down of the respiratory rate.
Prarabdha: Karma that has become activated and begun to manifest and bear fruit in this life; karmic “seeds” that have begun to “sprout.”
Prasad(am): Grace; food or any gift that has been first offered in worship or to a saint; that which is given by a saint. It also means tranquility, particularly in the Bhagavad Gita.
Pratibha: Special mental power; imaginative insight; intelligence; splendor of knowledge; intuition; ever-creative activity or consciousness; the spontaneous supreme “I”-consciousness; Parashakti.
Pratipaksha bhavana(m): The method of substituting the opposite through imagination; thus, fear is overcome by dwelling strongly upon its opposite, viz., courage. Reflecting on and cultivating those traits which are opposed to spiritual obstructions.
Pratyahara: Abstraction or withdrawal of the senses from their objects, the fifth limb of Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga.
Pratyaksha: Perception; direct perception; intuition.
Pravritti: Action; endeavor. Literally: “to turn forth.”
Pratyayau: Content of the mind-field; presented idea; cognition principle; cognition; causal/awareness principle; awareness perceiving [through the mind]; buddhi; discriminatory intelligence; immediate arising thought directed to an object; cause; mental effort; imagination; idea of distinction.
Punya: Merit; virtue; meritorious acts; virtuous deeds. See Apunya.
Puraka: Inhalation.
Purusha: “Person” in the sense of a conscious spirit. Both God and the individual spirits are purushas, but God is the Adi (Original, Archetypal) Purusha, Parama (Highest) Purusha, and the Purushottama (Highest or Best of the Purushas).
Purushottama: The Supreme Person; Supreme Purusha. (See Purusha.)
Raga: Attachment/affinity for something, implying a desire for it. This can be emotional (instinctual) or intellectual. It may range from simple liking or preference to intense desire and attraction. Greed; passion. See Dwesha.
Rajas: Activity, passion, desire for an object or goal.
Rajasic: Possessed of the qualities of the raja guna (rajas). Passionate; active; restless.
Ramakrishna, Sri: Sri Ramakrishna lived in India in the second half of the nineteenth century, and is regarded by all India as a perfectly enlightened person–and by many as an Incarnation of God.
Ramana Maharshi: A great sage of the twentieth century who lived in Arunachala in South India. He taught the path of Self-Inquiry (Atma Vichara) wherein the person simply turns his awareness within with the unspoken question–the attitude–of “Who am I?” until the self (atma) is revealed.
Rechaka: Exhalation of breath.
Rishi: Sage; seer of the Truth.
Rita(m): Truth; Law; Right; Order. The natural order of things, or Cosmic Order/Law. Its root is ri, which means “to rise, to tend upward.” It is said to be the basis for the Law of Karma.
Rupa: Form; body.
Sabija: “With seed;” with attributes; producing samskaras or subtle karmas.
Sabija samadhi: Savikalpa samadhi wherein the seeds of samskaras or karmas are not destroyed, and which produces the highest and subtlest of samskaras or karmas.
Sadguru: True guru, or the guru who reveals the Real (Sat–God).
Sadhaka: One who practices spiritual discipline–sadhana–particularly meditation.
Sadhana: Spiritual practice.
Sadhu: Seeker for truth (sat); a person who is practicing spiritual disciplines. Usually this term is applied only to monastics.
Sahasrara: The “thousand-petalled lotus” of the brain. The highest center of consciousness, the point at which the spirit (atma) and the bodies (koshas) are integrated and from which they are disengaged.
Samadhana: Equal fixing; proper concentration; complete concentration; the root word of samadhi.
Samadhi: The state of superconsciousness where Absoluteness is experienced attended with all-knowledge and joy; Oneness; here the mind becomes identified with the object of meditation; the meditator and the meditated, thinker and thought become one in perfect absorption o.f the mind. See Samprajñata Samadhi, Asamprajñata Samadhi, Savikalpa Samadhi, and Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
Samana: The prana the carries the grosser material of food to the apana and brings the subtler material to each limb; the general force of digestion.
Samarasya: Homogeneity; oneness–especially of essence–which results from the elimination of all differences; equilibrium; the process of bringing the body into a harmonious resonance with the Divine.
Samprajñata samadhi: State of superconsciousness, with the triad of meditator, meditation and the meditated; lesser samadhi; cognitive samadhi; samadhi of wisdom; meditation with limited external awareness. Savikalpa samadhi.
Samsara: Life through repeated births and deaths; the wheel of birth and death; the process of earthly life.
Samshaya: Doubt; suspicion.
Samskara: Impression in the mind, either conscious or subconscious, produced by previous action or experience in this or previous lives; propensities of the mental residue of impressions; subliminal activators; prenatal tendency. See Vasana.
Samvega: Intense ardor derived from long practice.
Samvit: Knowledge; consciousness; awareness; intelligence; supreme consciousness.
Samyama: Self-control; perfect restraint; an all-complete condition of balance and repose. The combined practice of the last three steps in Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga: concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and union (samadhi). See the Vibhuti Pada of the Yoga Sutras.
Samyoga: Conjunction; contact.
Sanatana Dharma: “The Eternal Religion,” also known as “Arya Dharma,” “the religion of those who strive upward [Aryas].” Hinduism.
Sanchita karma: The vast store of accumulated actions done in the past, the fruits of which have not yet been reaped.
Sankhya: One of the six orthodox systems of Hindu philosophy whose originator was the sage Kapila, Sankhya is the original Vedic philosophy, endorsed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (Gita 2:39; 3:3,5; 18:13,19), the second chapter of which is entitled “Sankhya Yoga.” A Ramakrishna-Vedanta Wordbook says: “Sankhya postulates two ultimate realities, Purusha and Prakriti. Declaring that the cause of suffering is man’s identification of Purusha with Prakriti and its products, Sankhya teaches that liberation and true knowledge are attained in the supreme consciousness, where such identification ceases and Purusha is realized as existing independently in its transcendental nature.” Not surprisingly, then, Yoga is based on the Sankhya philosophy.
Sankhyabhih: Numbers.
Sanskrit: The language of the ancient sages of India and therefore of the Indian scriptures and yoga treatises.
Santosha: Contentment; peacefulness.
Sarva(m): All; everything; complete.
Sarvajña(twa): Knowing everything; omniscience.
Sat: Existence; reality; truth; being; a title of Brahman, the Absolute or Pure Being.
Satchidananda: Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute; Brahman.
Satya(m): Truth; the Real; Brahman, or the Absolute; truthfulness; honesty.
Satya Loka: “True World,” “World of the True [Sat]”, or “World of Truth [Satya].” This highest realm of relative existence where liberated beings live who have not entered back into the Transcendent Absolute where there are no “worlds” (lokas). From that world they can descend and return to other worlds for the spiritual welfare of others, as can those that have chosen to return to the Transcendent.
Sattwa: Light; purity; harmony, goodness, reality.
Sattwa Guna: Quality of light, purity, harmony, and goodness.
Sattwic: Partaking of the quality of Sattwa.
Savichara samadhi: A stage in samadhi wherein the mind (chittta) is identified with some subtle object and assumes its form, being aware of what it is and capable of analyzing it by means of the purified buddhi; with deliberation and reasoning or inquiry.
Savikalpa Samadhi: Samadhi in which there is objective experience or experience of “qualities” and with the triad of knower, knowledge and known; lesser samadhi; cognitive samadhi; samadhi of wisdom; meditation with limited external awareness. Samprajñata samadhi.
Savitarka Samadhi: The union (samadhi) in which the mind concentrates on objects, remembering their names and qualities. (See Vitarka.)
Shabda: Sound; word.
Shakti: Power; energy; force; the Divine Power of becoming; the apparent dynamic aspect of Eternal Being; the Absolute Power or Cosmic Energy; the Divine Feminine.
Shankara: Shankaracharya; Adi (the first) Shankaracharya: The great reformer and re-establisher of Vedic Religion in India around 500 B.C. He is the unparalleled exponent of Advaita (Non-Dual) Vedanta. He also reformed the mode of monastic life and founded (or regenerated) the ancient Swami Order.
Shanta: One who possesses shanti.
Sharira: Body; sheath; literally: “that which perishes,” from the root shri which means “to waste away.”
Shastra: Scripture; spiritual treatise.
Shaucha: Purity; cleanliness.
Shiva: A name of God meaning “One Who is all Bliss and the giver of happiness to all.” Although classically applied to the Absolute Brahman, Shiva can also refer to God (Ishwara) in His aspect of Dissolver and Liberator (often mistakenly thought of as “destroyer”).
Shraddha: Faith; confidence or assurance that arises from personal experience.
Shravana: Hearing; study; listening to reading of the scriptures or instruction in spiritual life.
Shrotra: Ear; the sense or faculty of hearing
Shuddha: Pure; clear; clean; untainted.
Shuddhi: The state of purity (shuddha); purification.
Shunya: Void; no-thing; emptiness.
Shvasa-prashvasa: Hard breathing; inspiration and expiration.
Shyama Charan Lahiri: See Lahiri Mahasaya.
Siddha: A perfected–liberated–being, an adept, a seer, a perfect yogi.
Siddhi: Spiritual perfection; psychic power; power; modes of success; attainment; accomplishment; achievement; mastery; supernatural power attained through mantra, meditation, or other yogic practices. From the verb root sidh–to attain.
Sivananda (Swami): A great twentieth-century Master, founder of the world-wide Divine Life Society, whose books on spiritual life and religion are widely circulated in the West as well as in India.
Smriti: Memory; recollection; “that which is remembered.” In this latter sense, Smriti is used to designate all scriptures except the Vedas and Upanishads (which are considered of greater authority).
Soham: “That am I;” the ultimate Atma mantra, the mantra of the Self; the Ajapa Gayatri formula of meditation in which “So” is intoned mentally during natural inhalation and “Ham” is intoned mentally during natural exhalation. Soham is pronounced “Sohum,” as the short “a” in Sanskrit is pronounced like the American “u” in “up.”
Soham Bhava: The state of being and awareness: “THAT I am.” Gorakhnath says that So’ham Bhava includes total Self-comprehension (ahamta), total Self-mastery (akhanda aishwarya), unbroken awareness of the unity of the Self (swatmata), awareness of the unity of the Self with all phenomenal existence–as the Self (vishwanubhava), knowledge of all within and without the Self–united in the Self (sarvajñatwa).
Sthiti: Steadiness; condition or state; existence; being; subsistence; preservation.
Sukha(m): Happiness; ease; joy; happy; pleasant; agreeable.
Sukshma: Subtle; fine.
Sukshma sharira: Subtle body; astral body (also called linga sharira).
Sushupti: The dreamless sleep state.
Sutra: Literally: a thread; an aphorism with minimum words and maximum sense; a terse sentence; in Buddhism, an entire scripture.
Swadhyaya: Introspective self-study or self-analysis leading to self-understanding. Study of spiritual texts regarding the Self.
Swapna: The dream state; a dream.
Swarupa: “Form of the Self.” Natural–true–form; actual or essential nature; essence. A revelatory appearance that makes clear the true nature of some thing.
Taimni, I. K.: A professor of chemistry in India. He wrote many excellent books on philosophy and spiritual practice, including The Science of Yoga, a commentary on the Yoga Sutras. For many years he was the spiritual head of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society headquartered in Adyar, Madras (Tamilnadu), and traveled the world without publicity or notoriety, quietly instructing many sincere aspirants in the path to supreme consciousness.
Tamas: Dullness, darkness, inertia, folly, and ignorance.
Tamasic: Possessed of the qualities of the tamo guna (tamas). Ignorant; dull; inert; and dark.
Tapas: See tapasya.
Tapasya: Austerity; practical (i.e., result-producing) spiritual discipline; spiritual force. Literally it means the generation of heat or energy, but is always used in a symbolic manner, referring to spiritual practice and its effect, especially the roasting of karmic seeds, the burning up of karma.
Taraka: Deliverer.
Trigunatita: Beyond the three gunas.
Tukaram: A poet-saint of seventeenth century India (Maharashtra) devoted to Krishna in his form of Panduranga (Vittala).
Turiya: The state of pure consciousness. A Ramakrishna-Vedanta Wordbook defines it as: “The superconscious; lit., ‘the Fourth,’ in relation to the three ordinary states of consciousness–waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep–which it transcends.”
Udana: The prana which brings up or carries down what has been drunk or eaten; the general force of assimilation.
Upanishads: Books (of varying lengths) of the philosophical teachings of the ancient sages of India on the knowledge of Absolute Reality. The upanishads contain two major themes: (1) the individual self (atman) and the Supreme Self (Paramatman) are one in essence, and (2) the goal of life is the realization/manifestation of this unity, the realization of God (Brahman). There are eleven principal upanishads: Isha, Kena, Katha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Chandogya, Brihadaranyaka, and Shvetashvatara, all of which were commented on by Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhavacharya, thus setting the seal of authenticity on them.
Upeksha[nam]: Indifference; equanimity resulting from disinterestedness.
Vachaka: That which is denoted by speech.
Vairagya: Non-attachment; detachment; dispassion; absence of desire; disinterest; or indifference. Indifference towards and disgust for all worldly things and enjoyments.
Vak: Speech.
Vasana: Subtle desire; a tendency created in a person by the doing of an action or by enjoyment; it induces the person to repeat the action or to seek a repetition of the enjoyment; the subtle impression in the mind capable of developing itself into action; it is the cause of birth and experience in general; the impression of actions that remains unconsciously in the mind. Vasana(s): A bundle or aggregate of such samskaras.
Vasyata: Mastery; control; obedience.
Veda: Knowledge, wisdom, revealed scripture. See Vedas.
Vedanta: Literally, “the end of the Vedas;” the Upanishads; the school of Hindu thought, based primarily on the Upanishads, upholding the doctrine of either pure non-dualism or conditional non-dualism. The original text of this school is Vedanta-darshana, the Brahma Sutras compiled by the sage Vyasa.
Vedas: The oldest scriptures of India, considered the oldest scriptures of the world, that were revealed in meditation to the Vedic Rishis (seers). Although in modern times there are said to be four Vedas (Rig, Sama, Yajur, and Atharva), in the upanishads only three are listed (Rig, Sama, and Yajur). In actuality, there is only one Veda: the Rig Veda. The Sama Veda is only a collection of Rig Veda hymns that are marked (pointed) for singing. The Yajur Veda is a small book giving directions on just one form of Vedic sacrifice. The Atharva Veda is only a collection of theurgical mantras to be recited for the cure of various afflictions or to be recited over the herbs to be taken as medicine for those afflictions.
Vedic: Having to do with the Vedas.
Vibhuti: Manifestations of divine power or glory; might; prosperity; welfare; splendor; exalted rank; greatness; miraculous powers; superhuman power resembling that of God (Ishwara). The quality of all-pervasiveness (omnipresence).
Vichara: Subtle thought; reflection; enquiry; introspection; investigation; enquiry/investigation into the nature of the Self, Brahman or Truth; ever-present reflection on the why and wherefore of things; enquiry into the real meaning of the Mahavakya Tat-twam-asi: Thou art That; discrimination between the Real and the unreal; enquiry of Self.
Vidya: Knowledge; both spiritual knowledge and mundane knowledge.
Vijnana: The highest knowledge, beyond mere theoretical knowledge (jnana); transcendental knowledge or knowing; experiential knowledge; a high state of spiritual realization–intimate knowledge of God in which all is seen as manifestations of Brahman; knowledge of the Self.
Vikalpa: Imagination; fantasy; mental construct; abstraction; conceptualization; hallucination; distinction; experience; thought; oscillation of the mind.
Vikshepa: The projecting power of the mind, causing external involvement; the movement of pushing outward or away; the projecting power of ignorance; mental restlessness resulting from the awareness moving out from the center that is the Self; Distractions; causes of distractions; projection; false projection; the tossing of the mind which obstructs concentration.
Virya: Strength; power; energy; courage.
Vishuddha: Supremely pure; totally pure.
Vishuddha chakra: “Supreme purity.” Energy center located in the spine opposite the hollow of the throat. Seat of the Ether element.
Vishwaprana: The universal life force (prana).
Vitarka: Thought; reasoning; cogitation with sense perception; discussion; debate; logical argument.
Viveka: Discrimination between the Real and the unreal, between the Self and the non-Self, between the permanent and the impermanent; right intuitive discrimination.
Vivekananda (Swami): The chief disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who brought the message of Vedanta to the West at the end of the nineteenth century.
Vritti: Thought-wave; mental modification; mental whirlpool; a ripple in the chitta (mind substance).
Yantra: Geometrical designs of the energy patterns made by mantras when they are recited or which, when concentrated on produce the effects of the corresponding mantras. Though often attributed to deities, they are really the diagrams of the energy movements of those deities’ mantras.
Yoga: Literally, “joining” or “union” from the Sanskrit root yuj. Union with the Supreme Being, or any practice that makes for such union. Meditation that unites the individual spirit with God, the Supreme Spirit. The name of the philosophy expounded by the sage Patanjali, teaching the process of union of the individual with the Universal Soul.
Yoga Darshana: See Yoga Sutras.
Yoga Sutras: The oldest known writing on the subject of yoga, written by the sage Patanjali, a yogi of ancient India, and considered the most authoritative text on yoga. Also known as Yoga Darshana, it is the basis of the Yoga Philosophy which is based on the philosophical system known as Sankhya.
Yogananda (Paramhansa): The most influential yogi of the twentieth century in the West, author of Autobiography of a Yogi and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship in America.
Yogi: One who practices Yoga; one who strives earnestly for union with God; an aspirant going through any course of spiritual discipline.
Yogic: Having to do with Yoga.
Yogiraj: “King of Yogis,” a title often given to an advanced yogi, especially a teacher of yogi.
Yathartha: Real; a things as it really is.