THIS theme requires a course of lectures, rather than one only. Our object is to distinguish what is essential from what is accidental in the field to be discussed, and it will appear that this can only be done by a resort to first principles, and not by discursive reasoning. We have first to demonstrate what is taken for granted in the title, that despite superficial differences and independence of development, Chinese and Indian civilizations are really commensurable (so far, equating civilization with style, art in the broadest sense); then to discuss some parallels in the aesthetic field more narrowly defined.
As to commensurability: Evidently, both Chinese and Indian civilizations are alike in that they live in and by tradition. And further, in that the tradition is metaphysical, that is, as to first principles, intellect being defined as the habit of first principles. On the other hand, Chinese and Indian civilizations are only accidentally religious, that is to say, emotional or ordered to edification, and only accidentally scientific, viz., to the degree that discursive knowledge has been necessary to the development of certain techniques.
The commensurability of Chinese and Indian culture can be demonstrated not only as immediate between themselves but also in their common incommensurability with respect to European culture. A comparison with Europe will be of use, because from what is known, there can be gained some notion of what is unknown and different. It must be emphasized, however: first, that a comparison with Europe means with Europe since the Renaissance—a comparison of the Orient with Europe of the thirteenth century would have had to be made in quite a different way, and would be less instructive from the present point of view; second, in saying "Oriental", I refer of course to the essential Orient, not to a quite modern Orient as affected more or less by European contacts.
As to a comparison of the Orient with late classical and post-Renaissance Europe—here there is no commensurability, but only contrast. No valid comparison of Taoism or Hinduism with Grecco-Roman religion or with Protestantism could be made, nor of Taoism or the Vedanta with modern philosophy. Oriental civilizations are based on universals, and argue by induction from the infinite to the particular, while Western civilizations, at least in their classical and modern aspects, are mainly concerned with the general, which is only an extension of the particular by deduction. For example, the Greeks had no conception of the infinite, but only of the indefinite (e.g., of the everlasting as distinct from the timeless); therefore to the Greek mentality the finite (that which is not indefinite) and the perfect are necessarily synonomous; whereas in the Orient, only the infinite and indefinable can be thought of as perfect. Hence while it is easy for the Orient to understand the West, the contrary is rarely possible; or at the least demands a movement of the will and an intellectual operation additional to the work of scholarship as ordinarily conceived.
Let us now compare China and India, and both with "Europe" in certain general respects, taking into account that specific similarities are usually in the nature of accidents, to be explained historically and by derivation, while specific dissimilarities often conceal true formal resemblances which need not be accounted for by historical contacts, and are only partially to be accounted for by a community of traditional origins in a pre-historic past.
The whole modern concept of absolute progress, or of evolution as anything more than a course of events, is ruled out, and we find in its place a concept of equilibrium: expressed in an ordering of life after the operation of the Universe, or if we prefer, conformably to the will of God. This is not in any sense a kind of fatalism, but a preeminent activity: it is in fact fundamental to Oriental metaphysics that knowledge, love, and art exist only in act. Where Europe is preoccupied with change, as it were of place, the Orient lives by an interior movement. Illustrating what we mean, and using the language of religion, "the spirit of God moved on the face of the waters". Now, it cannot be pretended that God, Who is without potentialities, but is all act, is not here conceived of as vitally existent, and "active"; yet the movement of the spirit is properly explained by St.Augustine as not a movement of place, that is to say not a change. In an analogous sense we speak of movement (Chinese yün, Sanskrit dhvanana, English "rhythm") in a work of art which in movement is not an alteration. Conservatism, then, will be the most necessary accident in a traditional culture, that is, whenever a social order has been successfully found in First Principles, or what we should now call a purely theoretical (which has nothing in common with "arbitrary") basis.
From the Oriental point of view, the ultimate object of all effort, man's true end, is the realization of that state of timeless perfection and invulnerable happiness which is always his virtually, but is obscured by his affections and mistaken ideologies. This goal, of the realization of the full potentiality of being, has very little in common with the Western conception of immortality and salvation, such ends being definitely limited and illustrating very well what we mean by the general as merely an extension of the particular. Accordingly, the Orient could not conceive of a science for science's sake or an art for art's sake, but only of science and art in so far as they can be used as means to the end of realization.
It is true that in so far as particular aspects of the truth may be explored at one time or another, a history of such developments in thought will be conceivable and may have a certain value. But the truth as a whole is an eternal, ever accessible, infinity, incapable as such of any improvement or advancement: the wise man is therefore not interested in the history of aspects, but only in the validity of a given statement as a means conducive to the realization of invulnerable happiness. So we must not be surprised that equally in India and China it would be an insult to a thinker to praise the novelty or originality of his ideas, or his independence of authority, nor surprised at his acceptance of anonymity or pseudonymity; or to observe that good form, in any and every sense of the word, consists in adherence to custom and precedent. The energies of the scholar are not expended in higher criticism, but in ensuring the accurate preservation of traditional wisdom, either by technical means such as mnemonic systems or codes of rules, or by exegesis. "Correction" of a tradition is only possible by the rejection of any statement found to be inconsistent with First Principles and is therefore "non-tradition" even though it may have crept into a canonized text: but such interpolation is rare, and "correction" by this absolute standard (Chinese chêng, Sanskrit pramana) means in practice exclusion from the canon of what is not consistent with First Principles. As to who was the author of a particular text, the date of the work, or any details of his biography, this can have only a curiosity value; and it is precisely or this reason that such inquiries which bulk so largely in Western scholarship have really their proper place only there, where the tradition itself is considered as a curiosity, and not as the map of life and a means to the attainment of higher and less limited planes of consciousness.
In the modern world I can illustrate this point of view only in the isolated field of religion, where, at least in the Roman church, a tradition survives: pointing out that for the Christian priest to propound a new theology, or expect to be praised for so doing, would be inherently absurd. But Oriental civilizations are not merely traditional in their religious aspects (such aspects being indeed secondary and accidental rather than primary and essential, and certainly not more significant than the aesthetic aspects), but throughout; hence it would be no less an aberration and extravagance for a Chinese to abandon filial piety, or for a Hindu by way of deliberate revolt to break the taboos of caste, than for the Christian priest to institute a heresy. It is then the major strength of Oriental cultures to have remained true to the first principles, which are those of their actual being: their major weakness, a slackening of concentration which has in modern times (under the almost irresistible pressure of barbarian contacts) conduced to a partial corruption of their purity. Even such a partial corruption can only be envisaged from the Oriental point of view as a disastrous extravagance. Nor could the idea of reform, from the Oriental point of view, have any other than its purely etymological significance: just as the soul is said to be the form of the body, so to re-form the state can only mean to impress again upon its substance the stamp of its own nature.
Again in their conception of nationality, or rather lack of this conception, China and India are alike. With the forced reactions of the present day, which can only be regarded as a necessary mechanism of defense against Western aggression, imperialistic and cultural, we are not now concerned. In place of patriotism we find a sense of ancestral solidarity, a conception of the past and even of the future as virtually present. Just as in Europe Christian scholasticism conceived an universal state, a City of God, so for such traditional cultures as India or China, no other conception was possible than that of a single sovereign state consisting of all those connected by pure descent, these alone being capable of initiation and conformity. Internationalism on the contrary is a generalization from nationalism, and means a sort of federation of incompatibles: in the Universal State all men are compatible, though not all "equal". The possible existence of such a state will depend, of course, on the traditional character of its internal order, not on ethnic or political unity. Whereas you may and perhaps must now be an American first and a Christian afterwards, the Oriental is Confucian or Hindu first, and a Chinese or Indian afterwards. For to be a Confucian or Hindu means from the Chinese or Indian point of view to be fully human, and thus represents a concept much less limited than that of national species. On the other hand, those external to the universal state can only be regarded collectively as "barbarians" or "pagans", individually to be well treated, but not as members of independent and potentially equal "nations". It is no more possible for an uncorrupted Chinese or Indian to regard an outsider as his equal than for a Jew to do so: the fact of birth beyond the pale is prima facie proof of spiritual and intellectual inferiority, and the Oriental theory may be said to have been fully demonstrated in respect to their experience of Europeans, whom they can recognize as men, but not as essentially human, of course with individual exceptions.
To resume: neither in China nor in India can an insult to the country or the flag be felt as such: but an insult to the ancestors, to symbols of truth, or any forced infringement of the traditional order, may readily provoke bloodshed, precisely because such things are felt to be, what indeed they are, a denial of essential humanity. Western nations have yet to learn what poison lurks in the phrases "nationality" and "patriotism", than which religious intolerance might well be regarded as more acceptable.
What we call religious tolerance, here and now, would be expressed in Asia as a due sense of the validity of other persuasions than one's own. Here again we meet with an illustration of the incommensurability of Oriental and European cultures, and the essential unity of the Chinese and Indian points of view. For whereas in Europe tolerance was only gradually and painfully achieved with the growth of scepticism, and then only as a negative concept, religious tolerance in Asia has prevailed ab initio, so far as we know, and arose directly and inevitably from the positive principle that, given the greatness of the infinite, and the diversity of human endowment, it is necessary that God should be understood and worshipped in many different ways. Nor could the same consistency be expected in religion as in pure metaphysics, inasmuch as religion in any case represents an accommodation to human limitations, and is in this sense accidental. With some minor exceptions, particularly in the case of Buddhism, which is a heterodox development, it may be asserted that no Oriental naturally feels any urge to convert any other person to his own point of view. According to Chuang Tzu, the Perfect Man, instead of trying to lead others to adopt his own views, agrees with theirs; he who tries to share his joys with others is by no means a Perfect Man, as he is perfect whose kindness has no root in natural affection. These ideas are not less Indian than Chinese.
The different systems are not even conceived to be contradictory in that any choice between them is imposed of necessity on any individual. It is well known that a Chinese may be at one and the same a Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist, and even also a Christian, and even practise the ritual of all these points of view, much in the same way that you might be a Republican and astronomer at the same time; while in India the so-called Six Systems, or Points of View, are no more mutually contradictory than are, let us say, chemistry and grammar. The Hindu may be at one and the same time meta-physician and worshipper, without confusion. An Oriental might even teach Christianity sincerely, without becoming a "Christian". The urge of the missionary to effect religious conversion, or of educators in general to educate the Orient in scientific, moral, or aesthetic respects, can only be conceived by a purely Oriental consciousness as the best amongst the variously deplorable impulses by which the conduct of Western barbarians is governed. That point of view which is naturally common to India and China I may illustrate as follows:. Were an Indian in discussion with a Christian, it would not be with a view to make him a Hindu by name, but to bring to the support of Christian theology the aid of Oriental metaphysics, in the sense that Aristotle proved an invaluable aid to the Schoolmen; being convinced that whereas differences of faith might exist, only identity could be demonstrated as between the metaphysical part of Christian theology, and the metaphysical tradition elsewhere. And in fact, the reluctance of Orientals to engage in propaganda without reference to the nature of the pupil would appear to be fully justified by the growth of such pseudo-religions as Theosophy and Neo-Vedantism; and equally clearly in the aesthetic field, inasmuch as one could not cite amongst numerous types of modern art under Oriental influence anything but curiosities and caricatures—merely to mention Oriental dancing as practiced in America will suffice.
As to the Chinese and Indian social systems, the differences are real, and yet more apparent than real, for both are ultimately founded in first principles. It would require a whole lecture to discuss this, but from our point of view it is only necessary to note that the art of life is in both cases ordered by a conception of types of conduct correct under given conditions, not on lines of individual self-assertion or competition. The individual is outwardly moulded to a pattern and thereby inwardly freed; rules, at least in their origin, being nothing more than the proper form assumed by freedom. The resulting order, as an aesthetic spectacle, is in sharp contrast with the conflict and disorder which result from the undisciplined expression of individual imperfection in a democracy, where every opinion amounts to a distinct law. Time does not permit us to discuss the Hindu concept of pramana, which in its relation to art means "norm of properly conceived form", correction du savoir-voir, and can be thought of as a kind of aesthetic conscience: Hsüan-Tsang's rendering is chêng.
If, then, China and India are alike in their conservatism, in their respect for antiquity, in their neglect of science and history, in their indifference to the idea of the nation, in their lack of patriotism, and in the formality (non-individualism) of their culture: and contrasted with Europe in all these respects, which are the characteristic marks of traditional orders, we may consider it established that Chinese and Indian civilizations are really incommensurable and comparable. Let us now undertake the comparison in the aesthetic field, more strictly defined.
All that is then required for present purposes is to demonstrate from pre-Ch'an sources the essential likeness of Tao (as "Way") and as the doctrine of the First Principle of Yoga and Vedânta in the same sense. A very few examples will suffice: Chuang Tzu (Giles, p. 240) gives an excellent account of the working of Yoga (though not so called) in connection with the carpenter making a wooden stand for musical instruments, and asked "What mystery is there in your art T' He replies: "No mystery, your Highness, and yet there is something. When I am about to make such a stand... I first reduce my mind to absolute quiescence... I become oblivious of any reward to be gained... of any fame to be acquired... un-conscious of my physical frame. Then, with no thought of the Court present to my mind, my skill becomes concentrated, and all disturbing elements from without are gone. I enter some mountain forest. I search for a suitable tree. It contains the form required, which is afterwards elaborated. I see the stand in my mind's eye, and then set to work".
There exist alike in India and China related symbols denoting the fundamental poles of being connected by opposite relation, and which by their unity and by their relation are the source of all procession, or in religious language, of creation. These fundamental poles of being are designated in China as Heaven, and Earth, Yang and Yin, in India as Purusa and Sakti, or religiously as Siva and Sakti, Laksmi-Nârâyana, etc. From these modalities of the first principle proceeds the breath of life, ch'i, Indian prima, or considered as by Mencius, as the principle of desire, the will to life, Indian kâma. These primary principles, and all the secondary principles proceeding from them, constitute the types of sentient being which are so to speak the cause of explanation of natural appearances in time and space, and so become the proper theme of art, which presumes to return phenomena from their sensible to their intelligible aspects. The consequences of this point of view extend even to portraiture, equally in China and India, as I have explained in the "Introduction".[1]
The development of Ch'an-Zen art presents us precisely with a transition from a formally symbolic art of this kind to an introsusceptive or imagist art in which the appearance and form of an object are so completely identified that the thing may be said to mean what it is, and to be what it means, in a simultaneous act of sense and intellect. The nature of the subject becomes here altogether indifferent; the representation of a caterpillar may be significant as that of a man or deity, and vice-versa, because all meaning and all being are omnipresent, though according to the mode of the individual reflection.
In art, the symbolic and introsusceptive points of view are to be seen side by side in the following extract from a twelfth century Chinese author writing on animal painting:
The horse is used as a symbol of the sky, its even pace prefiguring the even motion of the stars; the bull mildly sustaining its heavy yoke, is fit symbol of the earth's submissive tolerance. But tigers, leopards, deer, wild swine, fawns and hares—creatures that cannot be inured to the will of man—these the painter chooses for the sake of their skittish gambols and swift, shy evasions, loves them as things that seek the desolation of great plains and wintry snows, as creatures that will not be haltered with a bridle nor tethered by the foot. He would commit to brushwork the gallant splendor of their stride; this he would do and no more."
What now in classical Chinese aesthetic corresponds to the Ch'an-Zen concept of the identity of formal and representative elements in art, to art conceived as pure act? We had best undertake this enquiry by proceeding directly to a consideration of the Six Canons of Hsieh Ho, formulated in the fifth century. An attempt has been made to derive these from a list of the Six Limbs of Painting which occurs in an Indian commentary of the thirteenth century. The possibility of derivation is not excluded by the dates, because the Six Limbs are no more than a traditional summary of ideas that were already current in India in the fifth century. But the accidental correspondences are by no means so exact in detail as to suggest derivation, and I regard the Chinese canon as quite independent. On the other hand, the essential correspondences are such as might be expected from a common foundation of aesthetic theory in metaphysical bases.
From this point of view, let us examine the Canons in due order. The first and most important demands the operation or reverberation of the spirit in life movement. The word ch'i, spirit, means from the Taoist point of view life as it proceeds from Heaven and Earth, the two modalities of the Tao, or even if taken as by Mencius to be the "passion-nature" or "fiery nature", has the same meaning of life-principle, but conceived as the will to life, or desire. It is the same as Hindu prana, spiration, identified either directly with Brahman, or manifested as the wind by which the waters are stirred, so that a reflection of God appears in them, which is the world picture. The word ch'i is also to be used with literal accuracy as the proper Chinese rendering of the third member of the Christian Trinity. Ch'i is accordingly "form" in the sense that "the soul is the form of the body". Those who have studied theology will readily follow these identifications, which I mention here only to demonstrate more clearly the foundation of Chinese aesthetic in traditional metaphysic, and because in a similar way it can be shown that Indian aesthetic theory is purely Vedantic; and the likeness of Vedanta and Taoism is so immediate that some scholars have supposed a derivation, which, however, does not seem to be required. As to operation or reverberation, these shades of related meaning depend on which of two characters both pronounced yûn is written. In any case, but preferring the sense "reverberation", the statement is comparable in form with that of the dhvani theory of Hindu rhetoricians, who assert that neither the literal nor the allegorical sense of the sound convey its whole import, but that is is only as it were by an echoing of the sound and sense in the heart of the hearer that the suchness (tattva), anagogic or transcendental content can be tasted. Just as knowledge is neither subjective nor objective, but has its being only in the act of knowing, so art is neither subjective nor objective, but has its being only in the act of aesthetic "imitation". Nor is the work of art to be thought of as the art; the art is an act, originally in the artist and remaining in him, but also to be reproduced by the spectator in the act of criticism. As Confucius says: "Are bells and drums all that is meant by music?" In India it is constantly asserted that all art is intellectual, citta-samjna: the Lankâvatara Sûtra expresses it thus: "The real picture is not in the colour nor the surface nor the saucer". In many places it is pointed out that though the pictorial surface is flat, we speak of it as being in relief, and the subjectivity even of natural space is asserted when it is pointed out that all we see of natural forms by the eye's intrinsic faculty is a patchwork of coloured areas.
The distinction of art from the work of art is also to be found in Whitman, who says: "All music is what awakes in you when you are reminded of it by the instruments, all architecture is what you do to it when you look at it." The work of art then is simply a means of communication: its actual tangible aesthetic surfaces have no other value in themselves than as causes of sensation, pleasant or otherwise, and this is why from the Oriental point of view the modern study of aesthetics by psychological experiment has to be dismissed as altogether futile.
This last brings us back to Hsieh Ho. If we take the first and fourth canons together (as we are bound to do, because the canons cannot be mutually contradictory), we have (1) to express the reverberation of the spirit in the movement of life and (2) to make shape (hsing) according to natural species (wu). To put this in one statement amounts to saying that by means of the representative element express the spiritual conception. Which gives us our consonantia. As to consonantia in other Chinese writings on art, the fact is that they are always telling about it but do not give it a distinct name.
The second canon asserts that the vehicle of expression (as defined in the first canon) is the brush stroke or line, and it is self-evident that the brush stroke or line is in itself the most abstract and intelligible part of the work, since an outline, boundary, or limiting plane does not correspond to anything seen in Nature, but represents an interpretation of what we see; in other words, line is not representative, but symbolic. The same is implied by Indian authorities when they remind us that it is the line (rekhâ) that interests the master, while the public cares most about colour. The third and fourth canons, taken by themselves, point out that the pictorial or representative elements in a work of art are those of shape (mass or area), and colour, and this, too, becomes self-evident if we reflect that what the eye sees in Nature is nothing but a patchwork of colours, as was recognized early in the development of Indian psychology: coloured areas being thus the primary data of sense impression become in the work of art the primary means of recognition; and because the attempt at recognition is the first animal reaction of the naive spectator, it has been observed that colour is what interests the public.
Let us now turn to the San P'ing, a well known Chinese classification of painting according to intrinsic virtue. The threefold division is as divine (shên), profound (miao), and accomplished (nêng), the first representing absolute perfection, the goal rather than the attainable in human art, the second is such true mastery as approaches perfection, the third is mere dexterity. A striking parallel to this occurs in the discussion of the poetic imagination by Indian rhetoricians, especially in the second chapter of Kâvyagekhara's Kâvya-Mimâmsa. Here the creative faculty, kârayitri pratibhâ, is considered as of three kinds: spontaneous (sahaja), or sârasvata (from Sarasvati, goddess of music); acquired (âhârya) or acquired by constant exercise (abhyasika); and the product of instruction (âupadesikâ). The first of these does not mean (nor does Chinese shên) divinely inspired, but rather denotes a degree of facility divine in kind, a "perfection" or "grace". Indeed, the perfected being, for example the Buddha or Bodhisattva, is said precisely to possess a perfect virtuosity (kusala) in creative (nairmànika) and executive (sailpasthanika) power, and likewise to be possessed of an absolute pramana, of which we have seen that the aesthetic conscience is a special mode. One is reminded of the angels, who are said to have fewer ideas and to use less means than men. The Chinese also have an independent class, the Extraordinary (ī taken with reference to the Tao) applied to a more personal kind of philosophical or literary painting, great in achievement, though not the work of professional artists, nor governed by traditional rules, ch'uan. This comes nearer to the modern conception of genius than does any qualifying term already mentioned. The Indian conception of the poetic imagination as power (Sakti) offers a partial equivalent. But none of these latter terms can be forced to imply that there can be made any real comparison of the Oriental "perfect artist" with the occidental "genius". In the Orient, perfection may be obtainable from an unorthodox position, but if such a thing can happen, it is really as an abnormality and accident; in any case, perfection could never be thought of as achieved because of a neglect of or emancipation from rule, but only in spite of such a taking of liberties. It is very possible Chinese i applied to painting ought to be rendered "flair" rather than "genius". Much more work needs to be done in translating Chinese writings about art and works of art.
Chinese and Indian technique in various arts, though not in all, can be profitably compared. For example, as to painting, the essential medium in both is that of the brush outline, colour being secondary. The second canon of Hsieh Ho alludes to the rendering of structure by the brush, and Indian writers are never tired of asserting that master painters and competent critics are interested in the purity of the line, while what the public likes is richness of colour. Other parallels can be drawn between Chinese and Indian perspective, defined simply as "means of suggesting the third dimension"; some work in this field has already been done. Indian and Chinese music, and still more dramatic technique, present many remarkable parallels; here the essential and accidental have to be disentangled.
Finally, I want to call your attention to the significance of certain Chinese fairy tales, as they would generally be called, though they are really myths. Everyone will have heard of the Taoist legends of the disappearance of a supreme artist, or of the coming to life and disappearance of his work: I allude particularly to the legends of Wu Tao Tzu, and that of the "Flight of the Dragon", first preserved to us from the Liang Dynasty; the latter has provided the title of a charming booklet written by Binyon on Far Eastern Art. The notion of the disappearance, or rather transformation, of the perfected being is in itself necessarily common to all metaphysical traditions; it occurs, for example, in Christianity as Ascension (it is interpreted by the schoolmen that the material part of the body is disintegrated in the air, only the being of the body returning to God), and in the Vedanta Transformation (abhisambhava), thus Sariramakrtam akrtam krtâtmä brahma-lokam abhisambhavyämi, "Having unmade the body, as a self made perfect, I am transformed to the unmade (uncreated) world of Brahman", Chändogya Upanif ad, VIII, 13. The disappearance of the poet-saint Mânikka Vâcagar in the Indian, of Moses, Enoch, and Elias in the Hebrew, and of the latter as al-khizr (who is said to have partaken of the Water of Life) in the Islamic tradition, are cases in point. Need I say that transformation has nothing in common with death or immortality, except as to the accident of disappearance?
So then the perfected man, in his aspect as artist, or in any aspect, who attains partial realization (and therewith the intelligible world), or a fortiori who attains to complete realization (and therewith the non-manifested world, which is not merely invisible but super-rational or alogical) must be thought of as transformed and invisible from our point of view, there remaining nothing by which his existence can be sensibly registered. At the same time, his art can now only be described as a mental creation or manifestation, existing only and immediately as natural species, the phenomenal world, the unknowable as we know it. The perfected artist then shares in God's eternal and timeless creation, seeing the universe, not as we see it, but as the world picture, the totality of forms reflected in a single image, Chuang Tzu's "mirror of the Universe"—"painted by the Self on the canvas of the Self", as Sankara says. "When painting has reached divinity (shên) there is an end of the matter."
I must now conclude, and would like to repeat that my real theses have been (1) the distinction of what is essential from what is accidental in Chinese-Indian parallels, and (2) to point out that however much your mentality may be opposed to the method of induction from First Principles, there is no other method by which Oriental civilizations, which are founded in First Principles, can be made intelligible. The method of deduction from observed fact, to which no doubt you are irrevocably attached, leads only to description and classification, which may be "accurate", but need not imply any comprehension of or assimilation to the thing described and classified. Description and classification are acts of the mind; comprehension an act of the pure intellect.
Om the most sacred syllable in Hinduism, containing all origination and dissolution; regarded as the "seed" of all
mantras, its three
mātrās or letters are taken to be symbolical of the
Trimūrti, while the silence at its conclusion is seen as expressing the attainment of
Brahma.
(more..) Ave Maria "Hail, Mary"; traditional prayer to the Blessed Virgin, also known as the Angelic Salutation, based on the words of the Archangel Gabriel and Saint Elizabeth in Luke 1:28 and Luke 1:42.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) mathThe dwelling of an ascetic. The term refers in general to any ascetic or monastic community, but particularly to any of the monastic institutions established by Ādi Śankara; for example, the Kānci Matha.
(more..) Pater nosterIn Latin, “Our Father”. In Christianity, it refers to the Lord’s Prayer, consisting of the words: “Our Father who art inHeaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Matt. 6:9-13).
(more..) RamaIn Hinduism, one of the names by which to call God. In sacred history, Rama was the hero king of the epic Ramayana, and is one of the ten avatars of Vishnu. The term is also a form of address among
sadhus(more..) RamaThe seventh incarnation (
avatāra) of Vishnu and the hero of the epic tale,
Rāmāyaṇa.
(more..) Rumi Founder of the Mevlevī (Arabic: Mawlawīyyah) order of “whirling dervishes”; author of the famous mystical poem the
Mathnawī, composed in Persian and which contains his whole doctrine.
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) dhikr "remembrance" of God, based upon the repeated invocation of His Name; central to Sufi practice, where the remembrance often consists of the single word
Allāh.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) sufi In its strictest sense designates one who has arrived at effective knowledge of Divine Reality (
Ḥaqīqah); hence it is said:
aṣ-Ṣūfī lam yukhlaq (“the Sufi is not created”).
(more..) wahm The conjectural faculty, suspicion, illusion.
(more..) HonenFounder of the independent school of Pure Land (
Jodo) Buddhism in Japan. He maintained that the traditional monastic practices were not effective in the Last Age (
mappo) nor universal for all people, as intended by Amida’s Vow. He incurred opposition from the establishment Buddhism and went into exile with several disciples, including Shinran. His major treatise, which was a manifesto of his teaching, was
Senchaku hongan nembutsu shu (
Treatise on the Nembutsu of the Select Primal Vow, abbreviated to
Senchakushu).
(more..) Original VowA term referring to the Vows of Amida, which indicate that he worked for aeons and aeons in the past. "Original" is also translated as "Primal," or "Primordial" to suggest an event in the timeless past of eternity.
(more..) Amida BuddhaThe Buddha of Eternal Life and Infinite Light; according to the Pure Land teaching the Buddha who has established the way to Enlightenment for ordinary people; based on his forty-eight Vows and the recitation of his name
Namu-Amida-Butsu one expresses devotion and gratitude.
(more..) birth in the Pure Land"Symbolic expression for the transcendence of delusion. While such a birth was thought to come after death in traditional Pure Land thought, Shinran spoke of its realization here and now; for example he states, ‘although my defiled body remains in
samsara, my mind and heart play in the Pure Land.’" ( Taitetsu Unno, taken from his Key Terms of Shin Buddhism, in the essay (contained in this volume) entitled, "The Practice of Jodo-shinshu.")
(more..) BodhisattvaLiterally, "enlightenment-being;" in
Mahāyāna Buddhism, one who postpones his own final enlightenment and entry into
Nirvāṇa in order to aid all other sentient beings in their quest for Buddhahood.
(more..) cit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) cittaThe consciousness, the mind
(more..) dharmaTruth, Reality, cosmic law, righteousness, virtue.
(more..) GenshinGenshin (942-1017) was a major figure in the Japanese development of Pure Land teaching, author of the Essentials of Rebirth [in the Pure Land] (Ōjōyōshū), a manual which popularized the teaching and illustrated the path to salvation. His writing was instrumental in Hōnen’s discovery of Shan-tao’s teaching of
nembutsu. In Shinran’s lineage he was the sixth great teacher.
(more..) HonenFounder of the independent school of Pure Land (
Jodo) Buddhism in Japan. He maintained that the traditional monastic practices were not effective in the Last Age (
mappo) nor universal for all people, as intended by Amida’s Vow. He incurred opposition from the establishment Buddhism and went into exile with several disciples, including Shinran. His major treatise, which was a manifesto of his teaching, was
Senchaku hongan nembutsu shu (
Treatise on the Nembutsu of the Select Primal Vow, abbreviated to
Senchakushu).
(more..) honganPrimal or Original Vow, particularly the Eighteenth Vow of Amida Buddha.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) jiriki(A)Self power; the consciousness that one achieves Enlightenment through one’s own effort. In Pure Land Buddhism it is considered a delusory understanding of the true nature of practice and faith, which are supported and enabled through Amida’s compassion.
(B) One who is "liberated" while still in this "life"; a person who has attained to a state of spiritual perfection or self-realization before death; in contrast to
videha-muktav, one who is liberated at the moment of death..
(more..) MahayanaThe Larger Vehicle in contrast to the Hinayana, or Smaller Vehicle. It claimed to be more universal in opening Enlightenment to all beings, and inspired the emergence of the Pure Land teaching directed to ordinary beings—denoted as all beings in the ten directions. This tradition is characterized by a more complex philosophical development, an elaborate mythic and symbolic expression which emphasizes the cosmic character of the Buddha nature, and its inclusion of the key virtues of compassion and wisdom.
(more..) moksaliberation or release from the round of birth and death (
samsāra); deliverance from ignorance (
avidyā). According to Hindu teaching,
moksha is the most important aim of life, and it is attained by following one of the principal
mārgas or spiritual paths (see
bhakti, jnāna, and
karma).
(more..) nembutsu(A) "The practice of reciting
Namu-Amida-Butsu (the Name of Amida) is known as recitative
nembutsu. There is also meditative
nembutsu, which is a method of contemplation.
Nembutsu is used synonymously with
myogo, or the Name." (Unno)
(B) "remembrance or mindfulness of the Buddha," based upon the repeated invocation of his Name; same as
buddhānusmriti in Sanskrit and
nien-fo in Chinese.
(more..) Original VowA term referring to the Vows of Amida, which indicate that he worked for aeons and aeons in the past. "Original" is also translated as "Primal," or "Primordial" to suggest an event in the timeless past of eternity.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) Pure Land"Translation from the Chinese
ching-t’u (
jodo in Japanese). The term as such is not found in Sanskrit, the closest being the phrase ‘purification of the Buddha Land.’ Shinran describes it as the ‘Land of Immeasurable Light,’ referring not to a place that emanates light, but a realization whenever one is illumined by the light of compassion." (Unno)
(more..) sat"Being;" one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
cit, "consciousness," and ananda (
ānanda), "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) satoria Japanese term used to describe the enlightenment experience central to Zen. It is sometimes described as a flash of intuitive awareness, which is real but often incommunicable.
(more..) Shan-taoShan-tao (613-681) was an important scholar of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism whose teaching greatly affected Hōnen and Shinran through his commentary on the Sutra of Contemplation and systematization of Pure Land doctrine. He is credited with stressing the recitation of the
nembutsu as the central act of Amida’s Vow and Pure Land devotion.
(more..) Shan-taoAn important scholar of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism whose teaching greatly affected Honen and Shinran through his commentary on the
Sutra of Contemplation and systematization of Pure Land doctrine. He is credited with stressing the recitation of the
nembutsu as the central act of Amida’s Vow and Pure Land devotion.
(more..) ShinranShinran (1173-1262): attributed founder of the Jodo Shin school of Buddhism.
(more..) sutraLiterally, "thread;" a Hindu or Buddhist sacred text; in Hinduism, any short, aphoristic verse or collection of verses, often elliptical in style; in Buddhism, a collection of the discourses of the Buddha.
(more..) tariki(A) literally, "power of the other"; a Buddhist term for forms of spirituality that emphasize the importance of grace or celestial assistance, especially that of the Buddha Amida, as in the Pure Land schools; in contrast to
jiriki.
(B) Other Power; "The working of the boundless compassion of Amida Buddha, which nullifies all dualistic notions, including constructs of self and other. According to Shinran, ‘Other Power means to be free of any form of calculations (
hakarai).’" (Unno)
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) VasubandhuIn Shin Buddhism, the second great teacher in Shinran’s lineage. A major Mahayana teacher who laid the foundation of the Consciousness-Only school. In Pure Land tradition his commentary to the Larger Pure Land Sutra is a central text. To Zen Buddhism, he is the 21st Patriarch. Vasubandhu lived in fourth or fifth century (C.E.) India.
(more..) yamabushiJapanese Buddhist ascetics who lived in the mountains. They cultivated spiritual power for healings and exorcisms, and worked among the village people. In current usage, the term generally refers to those who follow Shugendō, an ascetic religion that incorporates elements of Shinto, Buddhism, and animism.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) imam In relation to ritual: he who presides when a number pray together; head of a religious community.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) sophia(A)wisdom; the term covers all spheres of human activity – all ingenious invention aimed at satisfying one’s material, political and religious needs; Hephaistos (like his prototypes – the Ugaritian Kothar-wa-Hasis and the Egyptian Ptah) is
poluphronos, very wise,
klutometis, renowned in wisdom – here ‘wisdom’ means not simply some divine quality, but wondrous skill, cleverness, technical ability, magic power; in Egypt all sacred wisdom (especially, knowledge of the secret divine names and words of power,
hekau, or demiurgic and theurgic mantras, which are able to restore one’s true divine identity) was under the patronage of Thoth; in classical Greece, the inspird poet, the lawgiver, the polititian, the magician, the natural philosopher and sophist – all claimed to wisdom, and indeed ‘philosophy’ is the love of wisdom,
philo-sophia, i.e. a way of life in effort to achieve wisdom as its goal; the ideal of
sophos (sage) in the newly established Platonic paideia is exemplified by Socrates; in Neoplatonism, the theoretical wisdom (though the term
sophia is rarely used) means contemplation of the eternal Forms and becoming like
nous, or a god; there are the characteristic properties which constitute the divine nature and which spread to all the divine classes: good (
agathotes), wisdom (
sophia) and beauty (
kallos).
(B) "wisdom"; in Jewish and Christian tradition, the Wisdom of God, often conceived as feminine (
cf. Prov. 8).
(more..) sufi In its strictest sense designates one who has arrived at effective knowledge of Divine Reality (
Ḥaqīqah); hence it is said:
aṣ-Ṣūfī lam yukhlaq (“the Sufi is not created”).
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) ayahin Islam, a “sign” or “mark” of Allah’s existence or power, especially a miracle; also refers to a "verse" of the Koran
(more..) sephirothliterally, "numbers"; in Jewish Kabbalah, the ten emanations of
Ein Sof or divine Infinitude, each comprising a different aspect of creative energy.
(more..) TalmudLiterally, “learning, study.” In Judaism, the Talmud is a body of writings and traditional commentaries based on the oral law given to Moses on Sinai. It is the foundation of Jewish civil and religious law, second in authority only to the Torah.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) darshanLiterally, “seeing” or “perceiving.” In Hinduism
darshan refers to the perception of the ultimate Truth perhaps through one’s own experience or perhaps through such secondary means as seeing (thus experiencing the spiritual essence of) a
guru, a saint , a holy site, or a sacred effigy. For example, Hindus speak of "having a
darshan" when they are in the presence of a holy person and experience a state of interiorizing contemplation brought about by the presence of that person. Another meaning involves the various “points of view” or philosophical systems represented by the six main orthodox or classical schools of Hindu philosophy: (1)
Nyāya (logic); (2)
Vaisheshika (natural philosophy, or science); (3)
Sānkhya (cosmology); (4) Yoga (science of union); (5)
Pûrva-Mîmāmsā (meditation); and (6)
Uttara-Mîmāmsā (Vedānta, or metaphysics); also the blessing derived from beholding a saint.
(more..) darshanLiterally, “seeing” or “perceiving.” In Hinduism
darshan refers to the perception of the ultimate Truth perhaps through one’s own experience or perhaps through such secondary means as seeing (thus experiencing the spiritual essence of) a
guru, a saint , a holy site, or a sacred effigy. For example, Hindus speak of "having a
darshan" when they are in the presence of a holy person and experience a state of interiorizing contemplation brought about by the presence of that person. Another meaning involves the various “points of view” or philosophical systems represented by the six main orthodox or classical schools of Hindu philosophy: (1)
Nyāya (logic); (2)
Vaisheshika (natural philosophy, or science); (3)
Sānkhya (cosmology); (4) Yoga (science of union); (5)
Pûrva-Mîmāmsā (meditation); and (6)
Uttara-Mîmāmsā (Vedānta, or metaphysics); also the blessing derived from beholding a saint.
(more..) darshanLiterally, “seeing” or “perceiving.” In Hinduism
darshan refers to the perception of the ultimate Truth perhaps through one’s own experience or perhaps through such secondary means as seeing (thus experiencing the spiritual essence of) a
guru, a saint , a holy site, or a sacred effigy. For example, Hindus speak of "having a
darshan" when they are in the presence of a holy person and experience a state of interiorizing contemplation brought about by the presence of that person. Another meaning involves the various “points of view” or philosophical systems represented by the six main orthodox or classical schools of Hindu philosophy: (1)
Nyāya (logic); (2)
Vaisheshika (natural philosophy, or science); (3)
Sānkhya (cosmology); (4) Yoga (science of union); (5)
Pûrva-Mîmāmsā (meditation); and (6)
Uttara-Mîmāmsā (Vedānta, or metaphysics); also the blessing derived from beholding a saint.
(more..) darshanLiterally, “seeing” or “perceiving.” In Hinduism
darshan refers to the perception of the ultimate Truth perhaps through one’s own experience or perhaps through such secondary means as seeing (thus experiencing the spiritual essence of) a
guru, a saint , a holy site, or a sacred effigy. For example, Hindus speak of "having a
darshan" when they are in the presence of a holy person and experience a state of interiorizing contemplation brought about by the presence of that person. Another meaning involves the various “points of view” or philosophical systems represented by the six main orthodox or classical schools of Hindu philosophy: (1)
Nyāya (logic); (2)
Vaisheshika (natural philosophy, or science); (3)
Sānkhya (cosmology); (4) Yoga (science of union); (5)
Pûrva-Mîmāmsā (meditation); and (6)
Uttara-Mîmāmsā (Vedānta, or metaphysics); also the blessing derived from beholding a saint.
(more..) humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) Mutatis mutandismore or less literally, "with necessary changes being made" or "with necessary changes being taken into consideration". This adverbial phrase is used in philosophy and logic to point out that although two conditions or statements may seem to be very analagous or similar, the reader should not lose sight of the differences between the two. Perhaps an even more easily understood translation might be "with obvious differences taken into consideration…"
(more..) abd(A) In religious language, designates the worshiper, and, more generally, the creature as dependent on his Lord (
rabb. (B) "servant" or "slave"; as used in Islam, the servant or worshiper of God in His aspect of
Rabb or "Lord".
(more..) barzakh Symbol of an intermediate state or of a mediating principle.
(more..) cit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) fayd Al-fayḍ al-aqdas (“the most holy outpouring”) refers to principial manifestation.
(more..) Ghazzali Author of the famous
Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm ad-Dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”); ardent defender of Sufi mysticism as the true heart of Islam.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.
(more..) Jili An illustrious Sufi and commentator on the metaphysics of Ibn ‘Arabī. Amongst his writings is the well-known Sufi treatise
Al-Insān al-Kāmil (“Universal Man”).
(more..) kalamDialectical theology based upon reason and rational investigation.
Kalām seeks to define the articles of faith, but is mostly a polemical and at times apologetic discipline.
(more..) mua Japanese term used to describe a non-ego self. The goal in Zen is to become
mu-no-hito, a person without ego.
(more..) nousintelligence, immediate awareness, intuition, intuitive intellect; Plato distinguished
nous from
dianoia – discursive reason;
Nous is the second hupostasis of Plotinus; every intelligence is its own object, therefore the act of intellection always involves self-consciousness: the substance of intelligence is its noetic content (
noeton), its power of intellection (
nous), and its activity – the act of
noesis; in a macrocosmic sense,
Nous is the divine Intellct, the Second God, who embraces and personifies the entire noetic cosmos (Being-Life-Intelligence), the Demiurge of the manifested universe; such
Nous may be compared to Hindu
Ishvara and be represented by such solar gods as the Egyptian Ra;
nous is independent of body and thus immune from destruction – it is the unitary and divine element, or the spark of divine light, which is present in men and through which the ascent to the divine Sun is made possible.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) Qutb In Sufism: the pole of a spiritual hierarchy. The “pole of a period” is also spoken of. This pole is often unknown to most spiritual men.
(more..) rationalismThe philosophical position that sees reason as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Its origin lies in Descartes’ famous cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am."
(more..) sufi In its strictest sense designates one who has arrived at effective knowledge of Divine Reality (
Ḥaqīqah); hence it is said:
aṣ-Ṣūfī lam yukhlaq (“the Sufi is not created”).
(more..) Sunnism(Derived from the Arabic word
sunna.) The larger of the two main branches of Islam, comprising about eighty-five percent of Muslims, as contrasted with Shī’ism.
(more..) tawhid In common usage means the saying of the Muslim credo, the recognition of the Divine Unity. In Sufism it sums up all levels of the knowledge of Unity.
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) theosis "deification," participation in the nature of God (
cf. 2 Pet. 1:4); in Eastern Christian theology, the supreme goal of human life.
(more..) theurgytheurgy; the rites understood as divine acts (
theia erga) or the working of the gods (
theon erga); theurgy is not intellectual theorizing about God
(theologia), but elevation to God; the term is coined by he editors of the
Chaldean Oracles, but the ancient practice of contacting the gods and ascent to the divine goes back to the Mesopotamian and Egyptian hieratic traditions; the Neoplatonic theurgy is based both on the Chaldean patterns and the
exegesis of Plato’s
Phaedrus, Timaeus,
Symposium, and other dialogues, and thus regarded as an outgrowth of the Platonic philosophy and the Pythagorean negative theology; therefore the theurgical
praxis do not contradict the dialectic of Plato; theurgy deifies the soul through the series of ontological symbols and
sunthemata that cover the entire hierarchy of being and lead to the unification and ineffable unity with the gods; theurgy is based on the laws of cosmogony in their ritual expression and imitates the orders of the gods; for Iamblichus, it transcends all rational philosophy (or intellectual understanding) and transforms man into a divine being
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) ananda "bliss, beatitude, joy"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
chit, "consciousness."
(more..) apatheiaimpassivity or freedom from emotions, understood as a philosophical virtue;
apatheia means not being affected in any way and is applied both to the sages and transcendent entities by the Neoplatonists.
(more..) daimonin the ancient Greek religion,
daimon designates not a specific class of divine beings, but a peculiar mode of activity: it is an occult power that drives man forward or acts against him: since
daimon is the veiled countenance of divine activity, every god can act as
daimon; a special knowledge of
daimones is claimed by Pythagoreans; for Plato,
daimon, is a spiritual being who watches over each individual, and is tantamount to his higher self, or an angel; whereas Plato is called ‘divine’ by Neoplatonists, Aristotle is regarded as
daimonios, meaning ‘an intermediary to god" – therefore Arisotle stands to Plato as an angel to a god; for Proclus,
daimones are the intermediary beings located between the celestial objects and the terrestrial inhabitants.
(more..) eroslove, sometimes personified as a deity, daimon, or cosmogonical, pedagogical and soteriological force, manifested in the process of demiurgy and within domain of providence; for Plato, philosophy is a sort of erotic madness (
mania), because Eros, though implying need, can inspire us with the love of wisdom; Diotima in Plato’s
Symposium describes education in erotics as an upward journey or ascent towards the perfect noetic Beauty; Plotinus uses the union of lowers as a symbol of the soul’s union with the One (
Enn.VI.7.34.14-16); Proclus distinguishes two forms of love: 1) ascending love which urges lower principles to aspire towards their superiors, 2) descending or providential love (
eros pronoetikos) which obligates the superiors to care for their procucts and transmit divine grace (
In Alcib.54-56); for Dionysius the Areopagite, who follows Proclus, the
eros ekstatikos becomes the unifying factor of the cosmos.
(more..) ex cathedra literally, "from the throne"; in Roman Catholicism, authoritative teaching issued by the pope and regarded as infallible.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) guruspiritual guide or Master. Also, a preceptor, any person worthy of veneration; weighty; Jupiter. The true function of a guru is explained in
The Guru Tradition. Gurukula is the household or residence of a preceptor. A brahmacārin stays with his guru to be taught the Vedas, the Vedāngas and other subjects this is
gurukulavāsa.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) integritas sive perfectiointegrity (accuracy) and perfection.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) katharsispurification, purgation of passions; the term occurs in Aristotle’s definition of tragedy (
Poetics 1449b 24) and seems to be borrowed from medicine, religious initiations and magic.
(more..) le symbolisme qui cherchea symbolism that is seeking.
(more..) le symbolisme qui saita symbolism that knows
(more..) natura naturansLiterally, “nature naturing”; the active power that constitutes and governs the phenomena of the physical world.
(more..) nousintelligence, immediate awareness, intuition, intuitive intellect; Plato distinguished
nous from
dianoia – discursive reason;
Nous is the second hupostasis of Plotinus; every intelligence is its own object, therefore the act of intellection always involves self-consciousness: the substance of intelligence is its noetic content (
noeton), its power of intellection (
nous), and its activity – the act of
noesis; in a macrocosmic sense,
Nous is the divine Intellct, the Second God, who embraces and personifies the entire noetic cosmos (Being-Life-Intelligence), the Demiurge of the manifested universe; such
Nous may be compared to Hindu
Ishvara and be represented by such solar gods as the Egyptian Ra;
nous is independent of body and thus immune from destruction – it is the unitary and divine element, or the spark of divine light, which is present in men and through which the ascent to the divine Sun is made possible.
(more..) paradeigmaexemplar, paradigm, archetype, pattern, model; according to Plato, a paradigm of his perfect state is laid up in Heaven (
Rep.592b); the noetic Paradigm is regarded as the model for the creation: the visible world is a living creature made after the likeness of an eternal original, i.e. the ideal Living Animal in the world of Forms; thus the world is an image of the eternal paradigms (
paradeigmata); therefore the Demiurge makes cosmos as an
agalma (hieratic statue, cultic image, ornament) and sets up within it the
agalmata of the individual gods.
(more..) philosophialove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) ratio literally, "calculation"; the faculty of discursive thinking, to be distinguished from
intellectus, "Intellect."
(more..) sophia(A)wisdom; the term covers all spheres of human activity – all ingenious invention aimed at satisfying one’s material, political and religious needs; Hephaistos (like his prototypes – the Ugaritian Kothar-wa-Hasis and the Egyptian Ptah) is
poluphronos, very wise,
klutometis, renowned in wisdom – here ‘wisdom’ means not simply some divine quality, but wondrous skill, cleverness, technical ability, magic power; in Egypt all sacred wisdom (especially, knowledge of the secret divine names and words of power,
hekau, or demiurgic and theurgic mantras, which are able to restore one’s true divine identity) was under the patronage of Thoth; in classical Greece, the inspird poet, the lawgiver, the polititian, the magician, the natural philosopher and sophist – all claimed to wisdom, and indeed ‘philosophy’ is the love of wisdom,
philo-sophia, i.e. a way of life in effort to achieve wisdom as its goal; the ideal of
sophos (sage) in the newly established Platonic paideia is exemplified by Socrates; in Neoplatonism, the theoretical wisdom (though the term
sophia is rarely used) means contemplation of the eternal Forms and becoming like
nous, or a god; there are the characteristic properties which constitute the divine nature and which spread to all the divine classes: good (
agathotes), wisdom (
sophia) and beauty (
kallos).
(B) "wisdom"; in Jewish and Christian tradition, the Wisdom of God, often conceived as feminine (
cf. Prov. 8).
(more..) svadharmaLiterally, "own-law;" one’s vocation.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) adam In Sufism this expression includes on the one hand the positive sense of non-manifestation, of a principial state beyond existence or even beyond Being, and on the other hand a negative sense of privation, of relative nothingness.
(more..) ananda "bliss, beatitude, joy"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
chit, "consciousness."
(more..) Brahma God in the aspect of Creator, the first divine "person" of the
Trimūrti; to be distinguished from
Brahma, the Supreme Reality.
(more..) daimonin the ancient Greek religion,
daimon designates not a specific class of divine beings, but a peculiar mode of activity: it is an occult power that drives man forward or acts against him: since
daimon is the veiled countenance of divine activity, every god can act as
daimon; a special knowledge of
daimones is claimed by Pythagoreans; for Plato,
daimon, is a spiritual being who watches over each individual, and is tantamount to his higher self, or an angel; whereas Plato is called ‘divine’ by Neoplatonists, Aristotle is regarded as
daimonios, meaning ‘an intermediary to god" – therefore Arisotle stands to Plato as an angel to a god; for Proclus,
daimones are the intermediary beings located between the celestial objects and the terrestrial inhabitants.
(more..) eroslove, sometimes personified as a deity, daimon, or cosmogonical, pedagogical and soteriological force, manifested in the process of demiurgy and within domain of providence; for Plato, philosophy is a sort of erotic madness (
mania), because Eros, though implying need, can inspire us with the love of wisdom; Diotima in Plato’s
Symposium describes education in erotics as an upward journey or ascent towards the perfect noetic Beauty; Plotinus uses the union of lowers as a symbol of the soul’s union with the One (
Enn.VI.7.34.14-16); Proclus distinguishes two forms of love: 1) ascending love which urges lower principles to aspire towards their superiors, 2) descending or providential love (
eros pronoetikos) which obligates the superiors to care for their procucts and transmit divine grace (
In Alcib.54-56); for Dionysius the Areopagite, who follows Proclus, the
eros ekstatikos becomes the unifying factor of the cosmos.
(more..) GandharvaCelestial musician; one of a class of demigods. The art or science of music is called Gāndharva-veda. Gāndharva-vivaha is one of the eight forms of marriage.
(more..) katharsispurification, purgation of passions; the term occurs in Aristotle’s definition of tragedy (
Poetics 1449b 24) and seems to be borrowed from medicine, religious initiations and magic.
(more..) logismosnumerical calculation, the power of reasoning, reason.
(more..) logos(A) "word, reason"; in Christian theology, the divine, uncreated Word of God (
cf. John 1:1); the transcendent Principle of creation and revelation.
(B) the basic meaning is ‘something said’, ‘account’; the term is used in explanation and definition of some kind of thing, but also means reason, measure, proportion, analogy, word, speech, discourse, discursive reasoning, noetic apprehension of the first principles; the demiurgic
Logos (like the Egyptian
Hu, equated with Thoth, the tongue of Ra, who transforms the Thoughts of the Heart into spoken and written Language, thus creating and articulating the world as a script and icon of the gods) is the intermediary divine power: as an image of the noetic cosmos, the physical cosmos is regarded as a multiple
Logos containing a plurality of individual
logoi (
Enn.IV.3.8.17-22); in Plotinus,
Logos is not a separate
hupostasis, but determines the relation of any
hupostasis to its source and its products, serving as the formative principle from which the lower realities evolve; the external spech (
logos prophorikos) constitutes the external expression of internal thought (
logos endiathetos).(more..) manas mind; all of the mental powers
(more..) mua Japanese term used to describe a non-ego self. The goal in Zen is to become
mu-no-hito, a person without ego.
(more..) nousintelligence, immediate awareness, intuition, intuitive intellect; Plato distinguished
nous from
dianoia – discursive reason;
Nous is the second hupostasis of Plotinus; every intelligence is its own object, therefore the act of intellection always involves self-consciousness: the substance of intelligence is its noetic content (
noeton), its power of intellection (
nous), and its activity – the act of
noesis; in a macrocosmic sense,
Nous is the divine Intellct, the Second God, who embraces and personifies the entire noetic cosmos (Being-Life-Intelligence), the Demiurge of the manifested universe; such
Nous may be compared to Hindu
Ishvara and be represented by such solar gods as the Egyptian Ra;
nous is independent of body and thus immune from destruction – it is the unitary and divine element, or the spark of divine light, which is present in men and through which the ascent to the divine Sun is made possible.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) Rumi Founder of the Mevlevī (Arabic: Mawlawīyyah) order of “whirling dervishes”; author of the famous mystical poem the
Mathnawī, composed in Persian and which contains his whole doctrine.
(more..) sophia(A)wisdom; the term covers all spheres of human activity – all ingenious invention aimed at satisfying one’s material, political and religious needs; Hephaistos (like his prototypes – the Ugaritian Kothar-wa-Hasis and the Egyptian Ptah) is
poluphronos, very wise,
klutometis, renowned in wisdom – here ‘wisdom’ means not simply some divine quality, but wondrous skill, cleverness, technical ability, magic power; in Egypt all sacred wisdom (especially, knowledge of the secret divine names and words of power,
hekau, or demiurgic and theurgic mantras, which are able to restore one’s true divine identity) was under the patronage of Thoth; in classical Greece, the inspird poet, the lawgiver, the polititian, the magician, the natural philosopher and sophist – all claimed to wisdom, and indeed ‘philosophy’ is the love of wisdom,
philo-sophia, i.e. a way of life in effort to achieve wisdom as its goal; the ideal of
sophos (sage) in the newly established Platonic paideia is exemplified by Socrates; in Neoplatonism, the theoretical wisdom (though the term
sophia is rarely used) means contemplation of the eternal Forms and becoming like
nous, or a god; there are the characteristic properties which constitute the divine nature and which spread to all the divine classes: good (
agathotes), wisdom (
sophia) and beauty (
kallos).
(B) "wisdom"; in Jewish and Christian tradition, the Wisdom of God, often conceived as feminine (
cf. Prov. 8).
(more..) splendor Veritatissplendor of the True.
(more..) theologiadivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) theosgod; the term sometimes is used in a wide and loose sense; ‘everything if full of gods’
(panta plere theon), according to Thales; the cosmos may be regarded as a theophany – the manifestation of the One (likened to the supreme transcendent Sun) and the divine
Nous that constitute the different levels of divine presence concealed by the screens or veils (
parapetasmata); in ancient Greece, speaking of
theos or
theoi, one posits an absolute point of reference for everything that has impact, validity, and permanence, while indistinct influences which affect man directly can be called
daimon; for Plato and Plotinus,
nous, the universal soul, the stars, and also the human soul are divine; thus there are invisible and visible gods, arranged in a hierarchy of henads which follows the arrangement of nine hypothesis of Plato’s
Parmenides; theoi are the first principles, henads (as
protos theoi), intellects and divine souls, but the supreme God is the ineffable One, or the Good; in some respects,
theos is an equivalent of the Egyptian
neter; neteru are the gods, the first principles, divine powers, manifestations – both transcendent and immanent.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) yogaunion of the jiva with God; method of God-realization (in Hinduism)
(more..) alter the "other," in contrast to the
ego or individual self.
(more..) dharmaTruth, Reality, cosmic law, righteousness, virtue.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) sat"Being;" one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
cit, "consciousness," and ananda (
ānanda), "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) satoria Japanese term used to describe the enlightenment experience central to Zen. It is sometimes described as a flash of intuitive awareness, which is real but often incommunicable.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) Māyā "artifice, illusion"; in
Advaita Vedānta, the beguiling concealment of
Brahma in the form or under the appearance of a lower reality.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) abd(A) In religious language, designates the worshiper, and, more generally, the creature as dependent on his Lord (
rabb. (B) "servant" or "slave"; as used in Islam, the servant or worshiper of God in His aspect of
Rabb or "Lord".
(more..) bathe ancient Egyptian term which means ‘manifestation’ of certain divine qualities, arranged in the descending and ascending hierarchy; in the eschatological and soteriological context, it may be understood as ‘soul’ moving up and down, as an individual in an out-of-body state which is attained through initiation or death, when the physical body (
khat, soma) is experienced as a corpse;
ba is the vehicle of ascent, pictured as a human-headed bird which flies into the spheres of light and finally becomes aware of oneself as an
akh; the concept of
ba influenced the Pythagorean and Platonic concept of soul (
psuche) who tries to restore her wings through
anamnesis, initiation into philosophy, and when ascends to the divine realm.
(more..) cit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) Haqq In Sufism designates the Divinity as distinguished from the creature (
al-khalq).
(more..) murshid Literally, “he who leads straight.”
(more..) shaykh(1) In Islam, a Sufi or other spiritual leader or master. (2) The term is also used more generally as an honorific title for a chief or elder of a group.
(more..) shaykh(1) In Islam, a Sufi or other spiritual leader or master. (2) The term is also used more generally as an honorific title for a chief or elder of a group.
(more..) shaykh(1) In Islam, a Sufi or other spiritual leader or master. (2) The term is also used more generally as an honorific title for a chief or elder of a group.
(more..) sriLiterally, "splendor, beauty, venerable one;" an honorific title set before the name of a deity or eminent human being; also a name of Lakshmi (
Lakṣmī), the consort of Vishnu (
Viṣṇu) and the goddess of beauty and good fortune.
(more..) Sria prefix meaning “sacred” or “holy” (in Hinduism)
(more..) sunna(A) Wont; the model established by the Prophet Muḥammad, as transmitted in the
ḥadīth.
(B) "custom, way of acting"; in Islam, the norm established by the Prophet Muhammad, including his actions and sayings (see
hadīth) and serving as a precedent and standard for the behavior of Muslims.
(more..) Tasawwuf Designates the whole of the contemplative ways founded on the sacred forms of Islam. By transposition an Arab might speak of “Christian
taṣawwuf” or “Jewish
taṣawwuf” to indicate the esotericism of the respective traditions.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) BodhisattvaLiterally, "enlightenment-being;" in
Mahāyāna Buddhism, one who postpones his own final enlightenment and entry into
Nirvāṇa in order to aid all other sentient beings in their quest for Buddhahood.
(more..) dharmaTruth, Reality, cosmic law, righteousness, virtue.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) guruspiritual guide or Master. Also, a preceptor, any person worthy of veneration; weighty; Jupiter. The true function of a guru is explained in
The Guru Tradition. Gurukula is the household or residence of a preceptor. A brahmacārin stays with his guru to be taught the Vedas, the Vedāngas and other subjects this is
gurukulavāsa.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) japa "repetition" of a
mantra or sacred formula, often containing one of the Names of God; see
buddhānusmriti,
dhikr.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) koana Japanese word used to describe a phrase or a statement that cannot be solved by the intellect. In Rinzai Zen tradition,
koans are used to awaken the intuitive mind.
(more..) mantra literally, "instrument of thought"; a word or phrase of divine origin, often including a Name of God, repeated by those initiated into its proper use as a means of salvation or liberation; see
japa.
(more..) padmaLotus; in Buddhism, an image of non-attachment and of primordial openness to enlightenment, serving symbolically as the throne of the Buddhas; see
Oṃ maṇi padme hum.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) yin-yang in Chinese tradition, two opposite but complementary forces or qualities, from whose interpenetration the universe and all its diverse forms emerge;
yin corresponds to the feminine, the yielding, the moon, and liquidity;
yang corresponds to the masculine, the resisting, the sun, and solidity.
(more..) yogia practitioner of yoga (in Hinduism)
(more..) Amida BuddhaThe Buddha of Eternal Life and Infinite Light; according to the Pure Land teaching the Buddha who has established the way to Enlightenment for ordinary people; based on his forty-eight Vows and the recitation of his name
Namu-Amida-Butsu one expresses devotion and gratitude.
(more..) BodhisattvaLiterally, "enlightenment-being;" in
Mahāyāna Buddhism, one who postpones his own final enlightenment and entry into
Nirvāṇa in order to aid all other sentient beings in their quest for Buddhahood.
(more..) dharmaTruth, Reality, cosmic law, righteousness, virtue.
(more..) HonenFounder of the independent school of Pure Land (
Jodo) Buddhism in Japan. He maintained that the traditional monastic practices were not effective in the Last Age (
mappo) nor universal for all people, as intended by Amida’s Vow. He incurred opposition from the establishment Buddhism and went into exile with several disciples, including Shinran. His major treatise, which was a manifesto of his teaching, was
Senchaku hongan nembutsu shu (
Treatise on the Nembutsu of the Select Primal Vow, abbreviated to
Senchakushu).
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) Jodo(A) Japanese term for "Pure Land." Though all Buddhas have their Pure Lands, the Land of Amida Buddha became the most well-known and desired in China and Japan because of its comprehensive nature, its popular propagation, and its ease of entry through recitation of his Name.
(B) "pure land"; the untainted, transcendent realm created by the Buddha Amida (
Amitabha in Sanskrit), into which his devotees aspire to be born in their next life.
(more..) mappoA theory of the progressive degeneration of Buddhism after the passing of the Buddha. In the Pure Land tradition it was believed that Amida gave his teaching primarily for beings of the last age, who were spiritually decadent.
(more..) nembutsu(A) "The practice of reciting
Namu-Amida-Butsu (the Name of Amida) is known as recitative
nembutsu. There is also meditative
nembutsu, which is a method of contemplation.
Nembutsu is used synonymously with
myogo, or the Name." (Unno)
(B) "remembrance or mindfulness of the Buddha," based upon the repeated invocation of his Name; same as
buddhānusmriti in Sanskrit and
nien-fo in Chinese.
(more..) NyoraiJapanese for
Tathāgata (the term by which the Buddha referred to himself).
(more..) Original VowA term referring to the Vows of Amida, which indicate that he worked for aeons and aeons in the past. "Original" is also translated as "Primal," or "Primordial" to suggest an event in the timeless past of eternity.
(more..) parinirvanaComplete Nirvana, final Nirvana, contrasts with Nirvana with residue when Buddha decided to remain in the world to share the teaching with others.
(more..) Pure Land"Translation from the Chinese
ching-t’u (
jodo in Japanese). The term as such is not found in Sanskrit, the closest being the phrase ‘purification of the Buddha Land.’ Shinran describes it as the ‘Land of Immeasurable Light,’ referring not to a place that emanates light, but a realization whenever one is illumined by the light of compassion." (Unno)
(more..) Rinzai(d. 867 C.E.), renowned Chinese Zen master and founder of the Rinzai sect. His teachings are contained in the
Lin-chi Records.
(more..) satoria Japanese term used to describe the enlightenment experience central to Zen. It is sometimes described as a flash of intuitive awareness, which is real but often incommunicable.
(more..) ShinranShinran (1173-1262): attributed founder of the Jodo Shin school of Buddhism.
(more..) sriLiterally, "splendor, beauty, venerable one;" an honorific title set before the name of a deity or eminent human being; also a name of Lakshmi (
Lakṣmī), the consort of Vishnu (
Viṣṇu) and the goddess of beauty and good fortune.
(more..) Sria prefix meaning “sacred” or “holy” (in Hinduism)
(more..) Theravadaan early form of Indian Buddhism translated as "The Teachings (or "way") of the Elders." As a historical religious tradition, it was formed soon after the death of the Sakyamuni Buddha. (This form of Buddhism is still practiced in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia.)
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) VasubandhuIn Shin Buddhism, the second great teacher in Shinran’s lineage. A major Mahayana teacher who laid the foundation of the Consciousness-Only school. In Pure Land tradition his commentary to the Larger Pure Land Sutra is a central text. To Zen Buddhism, he is the 21st Patriarch. Vasubandhu lived in fourth or fifth century (C.E.) India.
(more..) zazena Japanese word used to describe sitting meditation practiced in Zen Buddhism.
(more..) alter the "other," in contrast to the
ego or individual self.
(more..) BodhisattvaLiterally, "enlightenment-being;" in
Mahāyāna Buddhism, one who postpones his own final enlightenment and entry into
Nirvāṇa in order to aid all other sentient beings in their quest for Buddhahood.
(more..) Brahman Brahma considered as transcending all "qualities," attributes, or predicates; God as He is in Himself; also called
Para-Brahma.
(more..) chit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) chit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) Chit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) dharmaTruth, Reality, cosmic law, righteousness, virtue.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) hypostases literally, "substances" (singular,
hypostasis); in Eastern Christian theology, a technical term for the three "Persons" of the Trinity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct
hypostases sharing a single
ousia, or essence.
(more..) Ibn Mashish A famous Sufi who lived in the Jabala mountains of Morocco; the spiritual master of Abu’l-Ḥasan ash-Shādhilī.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) in divinisliterally, "in or among divine things"; within the divine Principle; the plural form is used insofar as the Principle comprises both
Para-Brahma, Beyond-Being or the Absolute, and
Apara-Brahma, Being or the relative Absolute.
(more..) jinn Subtle beings belonging to the world of forms.
(more..) kashf Literally, “the raising of a curtain or veil.”
(more..) logos(A) "word, reason"; in Christian theology, the divine, uncreated Word of God (
cf. John 1:1); the transcendent Principle of creation and revelation.
(B) the basic meaning is ‘something said’, ‘account’; the term is used in explanation and definition of some kind of thing, but also means reason, measure, proportion, analogy, word, speech, discourse, discursive reasoning, noetic apprehension of the first principles; the demiurgic
Logos (like the Egyptian
Hu, equated with Thoth, the tongue of Ra, who transforms the Thoughts of the Heart into spoken and written Language, thus creating and articulating the world as a script and icon of the gods) is the intermediary divine power: as an image of the noetic cosmos, the physical cosmos is regarded as a multiple
Logos containing a plurality of individual
logoi (
Enn.IV.3.8.17-22); in Plotinus,
Logos is not a separate
hupostasis, but determines the relation of any
hupostasis to its source and its products, serving as the formative principle from which the lower realities evolve; the external spech (
logos prophorikos) constitutes the external expression of internal thought (
logos endiathetos).(more..) mokshaliberation or release from the round of birth and death (
samsāra); deliverance from ignorance (
avidyā). According to Hindu teaching,
moksha is the most important aim of life, and it is attained by following one of the principal
mārgas or spiritual paths (see
bhakti, jnāna, and
karma).
(more..) muktaIn Hinduism, one who has attained
moksha or “liberation” from the round of continual rebirth. See
jivan-mukta.
(more..) Qashani A Sufi commentator on Ibn ‘Arabī’s
Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam.
(more..) sat"Being;" one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
cit, "consciousness," and ananda (
ānanda), "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) Spiritus Sanctus the "Holy Spirit"; in Christian theology, the third Person of the Trinity.
(more..) sufi In its strictest sense designates one who has arrived at effective knowledge of Divine Reality (
Ḥaqīqah); hence it is said:
aṣ-Ṣūfī lam yukhlaq (“the Sufi is not created”).
(more..) sunnah(A) Wont; the model established by the Prophet Muḥammad, as transmitted in the
ḥadīth.
(B) "custom, way of acting"; in Islam, the norm established by the Prophet Muhammad, including his actions and sayings (see
hadīth) and serving as a precedent and standard for the behavior of Muslims.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) yin-yang in Chinese tradition, two opposite but complementary forces or qualities, from whose interpenetration the universe and all its diverse forms emerge;
yin corresponds to the feminine, the yielding, the moon, and liquidity;
yang corresponds to the masculine, the resisting, the sun, and solidity.
(more..) abd(A) In religious language, designates the worshiper, and, more generally, the creature as dependent on his Lord (
rabb. (B) "servant" or "slave"; as used in Islam, the servant or worshiper of God in His aspect of
Rabb or "Lord".
(more..) fayd Al-fayḍ al-aqdas (“the most holy outpouring”) refers to principial manifestation.
(more..) Ghazzali Author of the famous
Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm ad-Dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”); ardent defender of Sufi mysticism as the true heart of Islam.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) Ibn Arabi Ash-Shaikh al-Akbar (“The greatest master”). Wrote numerous Sufi treatises of which the most famous is his
Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam and the most rich in content his
Futūḥāt al-Makkiyah.
(more..) Jami Author of the treatise
Lawā’iḥ (“Flashes”).
(more..) kashf Literally, “the raising of a curtain or veil.”
(more..) Nur Particularly the uncreated Divine Light, which includes all manifestation and is identified with Existence, considered as a principle. “God is the Light (
Nūr) of the heavens and the earth…” (Qur’ān 24:35).
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) Qutb In Sufism: the pole of a spiritual hierarchy. The “pole of a period” is also spoken of. This pole is often unknown to most spiritual men.
(more..) rationalismThe philosophical position that sees reason as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Its origin lies in Descartes’ famous cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore I am."
(more..) Shadhili A renowned Sufi master. Founder of the north African Shādhiliyah spiritual order.
(more..) shaykh(1) In Islam, a Sufi or other spiritual leader or master. (2) The term is also used more generally as an honorific title for a chief or elder of a group.
(more..) shaykh(1) In Islam, a Sufi or other spiritual leader or master. (2) The term is also used more generally as an honorific title for a chief or elder of a group.
(more..) shaykh(1) In Islam, a Sufi or other spiritual leader or master. (2) The term is also used more generally as an honorific title for a chief or elder of a group.
(more..) sufi In its strictest sense designates one who has arrived at effective knowledge of Divine Reality (
Ḥaqīqah); hence it is said:
aṣ-Ṣūfī lam yukhlaq (“the Sufi is not created”).
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) adam In Sufism this expression includes on the one hand the positive sense of non-manifestation, of a principial state beyond existence or even beyond Being, and on the other hand a negative sense of privation, of relative nothingness.
(more..) Brahman Brahma considered as transcending all "qualities," attributes, or predicates; God as He is in Himself; also called
Para-Brahma.
(more..) cit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) logos(A) "word, reason"; in Christian theology, the divine, uncreated Word of God (
cf. John 1:1); the transcendent Principle of creation and revelation.
(B) the basic meaning is ‘something said’, ‘account’; the term is used in explanation and definition of some kind of thing, but also means reason, measure, proportion, analogy, word, speech, discourse, discursive reasoning, noetic apprehension of the first principles; the demiurgic
Logos (like the Egyptian
Hu, equated with Thoth, the tongue of Ra, who transforms the Thoughts of the Heart into spoken and written Language, thus creating and articulating the world as a script and icon of the gods) is the intermediary divine power: as an image of the noetic cosmos, the physical cosmos is regarded as a multiple
Logos containing a plurality of individual
logoi (
Enn.IV.3.8.17-22); in Plotinus,
Logos is not a separate
hupostasis, but determines the relation of any
hupostasis to its source and its products, serving as the formative principle from which the lower realities evolve; the external spech (
logos prophorikos) constitutes the external expression of internal thought (
logos endiathetos).(more..) MahayanaThe Larger Vehicle in contrast to the Hinayana, or Smaller Vehicle. It claimed to be more universal in opening Enlightenment to all beings, and inspired the emergence of the Pure Land teaching directed to ordinary beings—denoted as all beings in the ten directions. This tradition is characterized by a more complex philosophical development, an elaborate mythic and symbolic expression which emphasizes the cosmic character of the Buddha nature, and its inclusion of the key virtues of compassion and wisdom.
(more..) Maya "artifice, illusion"; in
Advaita Vedānta, the beguiling concealment of
Brahma in the form or under the appearance of a lower reality.
(more..) nirvanaIn Buddhism (and Hinduism), ultimate liberation from
samsara (the cycles of rebirths or the flow of cosmic manifestation), resulting in absorption in the Absolute; the extinction of the fires of passion and the resulting, supremely blissful state of liberation from attachment and egoism.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) Pure Land"Translation from the Chinese
ching-t’u (
jodo in Japanese). The term as such is not found in Sanskrit, the closest being the phrase ‘purification of the Buddha Land.’ Shinran describes it as the ‘Land of Immeasurable Light,’ referring not to a place that emanates light, but a realization whenever one is illumined by the light of compassion." (Unno)
(more..) sat"Being;" one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
cit, "consciousness," and ananda (
ānanda), "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) swamiA title of respect set before the names of monks and spiritual teachers.
(more..) swamiA title of respect set before the names of monks and spiritual teachers.
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) Advaita "non-dualist" interpretation of the
Vedānta; Hindu doctrine according to which the seeming multiplicity of things is regarded as the product of ignorance, the only true reality being
Brahman, the One, the Absolute, the Infinite, which is the unchanging ground of appearance.
(more..) ascesis(A) "exercise, practice, training," as of an athlete; a regimen of self-denial, especially one involving fasting, prostrations, and other bodily disciplines. (B) in ancient philosophy, this term designates not an ‘asceticism’, but spiritual exercises, therefore
philosophia is understood not as a theory of knowledge but as a lived wisdom, a way of living according to intellect (
nous); an
askesis includes remembrance of God, the ‘watch of the heart’, or vigilance (
nepsis), prosoche, or attention to the beauty of the soul, the examination of our conscience and knowledge of ourselves.
(more..) ashramthe four stages of life for a Hindu:
brahmacharya (life as a student),
grihastha (life as a householder),
vānaprastha (life as a forest-dweller), and
sannyāsa (life as a renunciate); also a retreat, private home, or monastery where spiritual seekers reside.
(more..) Atman the real or true "Self," underlying the ego and its manifestations; in the perspective of
Advaita Vedānta, identical with
Brahma.
(more..) Aum the most sacred syllable in Hinduism, containing all origination and dissolution; regarded as the "seed" of all
mantras, its three
mātrās or letters are taken to be symbolical of the
Trimūrti, while the silence at its conclusion is seen as expressing the attainment of
Brahma.
(more..) avatara the earthly "descent," incarnation, or manifestation of God, especially of Vishnu in the Hindu tradition.
(more..) guruspiritual guide or Master. Also, a preceptor, any person worthy of veneration; weighty; Jupiter. The true function of a guru is explained in
The Guru Tradition. Gurukula is the household or residence of a preceptor. A brahmacārin stays with his guru to be taught the Vedas, the Vedāngas and other subjects this is
gurukulavāsa.
(more..) humanismThe intellectual viewpoint increasingly prevalent in the West since the time of the Renaissance; it replaced the traditional Christian view of God as the center of all things by a belief in man as the measure of all things.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) Maitreyathe Buddha of the future who will inaugurate a reign of peace and harmony in the midst of suffering. In the Far East, he is depicted as the potbellied Buddha.
(more..) Maya "artifice, illusion"; in
Advaita Vedānta, the beguiling concealment of
Brahma in the form or under the appearance of a lower reality.
(more..) philosophialove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) sriLiterally, "splendor, beauty, venerable one;" an honorific title set before the name of a deity or eminent human being; also a name of Lakshmi (
Lakṣmī), the consort of Vishnu (
Viṣṇu) and the goddess of beauty and good fortune.
(more..) Sria prefix meaning “sacred” or “holy” (in Hinduism)
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) yogaunion of the jiva with God; method of God-realization (in Hinduism)
(more..) ahamkarathe ego; the "I"-consciousness. (This is the sense of being an individual, separate from others; identifying oneself, subjectively, as a distinct ego.)
(more..) ananda "bliss, beatitude, joy"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
chit, "consciousness."
(more..) cit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) Cogito ergo sum"I think therefore I am"; a saying of the French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650).
(more..) dhyanaa Sanskrit term meaning "meditation." In China it was pronounced as "Ch’an," and in Japan it became "Zen."
(more..) guruspiritual guide or Master. Also, a preceptor, any person worthy of veneration; weighty; Jupiter. The true function of a guru is explained in
The Guru Tradition. Gurukula is the household or residence of a preceptor. A brahmacārin stays with his guru to be taught the Vedas, the Vedāngas and other subjects this is
gurukulavāsa.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) in divinisliterally, "in or among divine things"; within the divine Principle; the plural form is used insofar as the Principle comprises both
Para-Brahma, Beyond-Being or the Absolute, and
Apara-Brahma, Being or the relative Absolute.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) pneuma "wind, breath, spirit"; in Christian theology, either the third Person of the Trinity or the highest of the three parts or aspects of the human self (
cf. 1 Thess. 5:23); see
rūh.
(more..) psyche(usually transcribed as
psyche): soul; breath of life, life-stuff; Homer distinguishes between a free soul as a soul of the dead, corresponding with
psuche (and still regarded as an
eidolon), and body souls, corresponding with
thumos,
noos and
menos: following the Egyptian theological patterns, the Pythagoreans constituted the
psuche as the reflection of the unchanging and immortal principles; from Plato onwards,
psuchai are no longer regarded as
eidola, phantoms or doubles of the body, but rather the human body is viewed as the perishable
simulacrum of an immaterial and immortal soul; there are different degrees of soul (or different souls), therefore anything that is alive has a soul (Aristotle
De anima 414b32); in
Phaedrus 248b the soul is regarded as something to be a separate, self-moving and immortal entity (cf.Proclus
Elements of Theology 186);
Psuche is the third
hupostasis of Plotinus.
(more..) Rumi Founder of the Mevlevī (Arabic: Mawlawīyyah) order of “whirling dervishes”; author of the famous mystical poem the
Mathnawī, composed in Persian and which contains his whole doctrine.
(more..) samadhiThe final step in yogic practice; the mystical experience or ecstasy of deep meditative absorption in
Brahman or other form of transcendent Reality; some call it super-consciousness.
(more..) sattvathe quality of harmony, purity, serenity
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) VedaThe sacred scriptures of Hinduism; regarded by the orthodox (
āstika) as divine revelation (
śruti) and comprising: (1) the
Ṛg,
Sāma, Yajur, and
Atharva Saṃhitās (collections of hymns); (2) the
Brāhmanas (priestly treatises); (3) the
Āranyakas (forest treatises); and (4) the
Upaniṣāds (philosophical and mystical treatises); they are divided into a
karma-kāṇḍa portion dealing with ritual action and a
jñāna-kāṇḍa portion dealing with knowledge.
(more..) Amida BuddhaThe Buddha of Eternal Life and Infinite Light; according to the Pure Land teaching the Buddha who has established the way to Enlightenment for ordinary people; based on his forty-eight Vows and the recitation of his name
Namu-Amida-Butsu one expresses devotion and gratitude.
(more..) birth in the Pure Land"Symbolic expression for the transcendence of delusion. While such a birth was thought to come after death in traditional Pure Land thought, Shinran spoke of its realization here and now; for example he states, ‘although my defiled body remains in
samsara, my mind and heart play in the Pure Land.’" ( Taitetsu Unno, taken from his Key Terms of Shin Buddhism, in the essay (contained in this volume) entitled, "The Practice of Jodo-shinshu.")
(more..) BodhisattvaLiterally, "enlightenment-being;" in
Mahāyāna Buddhism, one who postpones his own final enlightenment and entry into
Nirvāṇa in order to aid all other sentient beings in their quest for Buddhahood.
(more..) Brahman Brahma considered as transcending all "qualities," attributes, or predicates; God as He is in Himself; also called
Para-Brahma.
(more..) cittaThe consciousness, the mind
(more..) dharmaTruth, Reality, cosmic law, righteousness, virtue.
(more..) DharmakaraSanskrit name for the Bodhisattva who through five aeons of practice perfected his Vows to establish an ideal land where all beings can easily attain Enlightenment. On completion of his Vows he became Amida Buddha and established the western Pure Land.
(more..) Dharmakayaliterally, “dharma body”; in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the supreme and non-manifest form of the Buddhas, personified as the Ādi-Buddha.
(more..) GenshinGenshin (942-1017) was a major figure in the Japanese development of Pure Land teaching, author of the Essentials of Rebirth [in the Pure Land] (Ōjōyōshū), a manual which popularized the teaching and illustrated the path to salvation. His writing was instrumental in Hōnen’s discovery of Shan-tao’s teaching of
nembutsu. In Shinran’s lineage he was the sixth great teacher.
(more..) HonenFounder of the independent school of Pure Land (
Jodo) Buddhism in Japan. He maintained that the traditional monastic practices were not effective in the Last Age (
mappo) nor universal for all people, as intended by Amida’s Vow. He incurred opposition from the establishment Buddhism and went into exile with several disciples, including Shinran. His major treatise, which was a manifesto of his teaching, was
Senchaku hongan nembutsu shu (
Treatise on the Nembutsu of the Select Primal Vow, abbreviated to
Senchakushu).
(more..) honganPrimal or Original Vow, particularly the Eighteenth Vow of Amida Buddha.
(more..) jiriki(A)Self power; the consciousness that one achieves Enlightenment through one’s own effort. In Pure Land Buddhism it is considered a delusory understanding of the true nature of practice and faith, which are supported and enabled through Amida’s compassion.
(B) One who is "liberated" while still in this "life"; a person who has attained to a state of spiritual perfection or self-realization before death; in contrast to
videha-muktav, one who is liberated at the moment of death..
(more..) Jodo(A) Japanese term for "Pure Land." Though all Buddhas have their Pure Lands, the Land of Amida Buddha became the most well-known and desired in China and Japan because of its comprehensive nature, its popular propagation, and its ease of entry through recitation of his Name.
(B) "pure land"; the untainted, transcendent realm created by the Buddha Amida (
Amitabha in Sanskrit), into which his devotees aspire to be born in their next life.
(more..) karunaa Sanskrit term meaning "compassion"; considered to be one of the pillars of faith and at the heart of Buddhist teachings.
(more..) Larger Sutra of Eternal LifeThe
Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra which gives an account of Dharmakara (Jap. Hozo) Bodhisattva’s Vows and his eventual fulfillment of them. The central Sutra for Shinran and part of a threefold complex of Sutras which include the
Sutra of Contemplation and the
Smaller Pure Land Sutra, which describes the Pure Land in detail. The title of the Sutra appears in various forms:
Sutra of Adornment of the Realm of Bliss,
Sutra of Immeasurable Life, or
Sutra of Limitless Life.
(more..) MahayanaThe Larger Vehicle in contrast to the Hinayana, or Smaller Vehicle. It claimed to be more universal in opening Enlightenment to all beings, and inspired the emergence of the Pure Land teaching directed to ordinary beings—denoted as all beings in the ten directions. This tradition is characterized by a more complex philosophical development, an elaborate mythic and symbolic expression which emphasizes the cosmic character of the Buddha nature, and its inclusion of the key virtues of compassion and wisdom.
(more..) mantra literally, "instrument of thought"; a word or phrase of divine origin, often including a Name of God, repeated by those initiated into its proper use as a means of salvation or liberation; see
japa.
(more..) Meditation SutraA major Sutra of the complex of three Sutras of the Pure Land tradition initiated by Honen. This sutra was very influential in traditional Pure Land thought because of the system of meditations it describes, as well as the offer of salvation it provides to defiled people incapable of such practice. It gave the basis for the recitation of the Buddha’s Name as a means of birth into the Pure Land.
(more..) mua Japanese term used to describe a non-ego self. The goal in Zen is to become
mu-no-hito, a person without ego.
(more..) MyogoIn Japanese, literally the "Name," referring to the six characters of the
nembutsu, thus the Name of Amida Buddha in Shin Buddhism (i.e.
Namu amida butsu).
(more..) nembutsu(A) "The practice of reciting
Namu-Amida-Butsu (the Name of Amida) is known as recitative
nembutsu. There is also meditative
nembutsu, which is a method of contemplation.
Nembutsu is used synonymously with
myogo, or the Name." (Unno)
(B) "remembrance or mindfulness of the Buddha," based upon the repeated invocation of his Name; same as
buddhānusmriti in Sanskrit and
nien-fo in Chinese.
(more..) nirvanaIn Buddhism (and Hinduism), ultimate liberation from
samsara (the cycles of rebirths or the flow of cosmic manifestation), resulting in absorption in the Absolute; the extinction of the fires of passion and the resulting, supremely blissful state of liberation from attachment and egoism.
(more..) Original VowA term referring to the Vows of Amida, which indicate that he worked for aeons and aeons in the past. "Original" is also translated as "Primal," or "Primordial" to suggest an event in the timeless past of eternity.
(more..) prajnaAs (1)
prājñā: The individual being in the state (
avasthā ) of deep sleep wherein the activity of the mind temporarily ceases and an unconscious, but fleeting, union with
Brahman occurs; As (2)
Prajñā: A Sanskrit term that denotes transcendental wisdom. It is considered one of the most important pillars of
Mahāyāna Buddhism, including Zen.
(more..) Pure Land"Translation from the Chinese
ching-t’u (
jodo in Japanese). The term as such is not found in Sanskrit, the closest being the phrase ‘purification of the Buddha Land.’ Shinran describes it as the ‘Land of Immeasurable Light,’ referring not to a place that emanates light, but a realization whenever one is illumined by the light of compassion." (Unno)
(more..) RamaIn Hinduism, one of the names by which to call God. In sacred history, Rama was the hero king of the epic Ramayana, and is one of the ten avatars of Vishnu. The term is also a form of address among
sadhus(more..) RamaThe seventh incarnation (
avatāra) of Vishnu and the hero of the epic tale,
Rāmāyaṇa.
(more..) Shan-taoShan-tao (613-681) was an important scholar of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism whose teaching greatly affected Hōnen and Shinran through his commentary on the Sutra of Contemplation and systematization of Pure Land doctrine. He is credited with stressing the recitation of the
nembutsu as the central act of Amida’s Vow and Pure Land devotion.
(more..) Shan-taoAn important scholar of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism whose teaching greatly affected Honen and Shinran through his commentary on the
Sutra of Contemplation and systematization of Pure Land doctrine. He is credited with stressing the recitation of the
nembutsu as the central act of Amida’s Vow and Pure Land devotion.
(more..) ShinranShinran (1173-1262): attributed founder of the Jodo Shin school of Buddhism.
(more..) sriLiterally, "splendor, beauty, venerable one;" an honorific title set before the name of a deity or eminent human being; also a name of Lakshmi (
Lakṣmī), the consort of Vishnu (
Viṣṇu) and the goddess of beauty and good fortune.
(more..) Sria prefix meaning “sacred” or “holy” (in Hinduism)
(more..) sutraLiterally, "thread;" a Hindu or Buddhist sacred text; in Hinduism, any short, aphoristic verse or collection of verses, often elliptical in style; in Buddhism, a collection of the discourses of the Buddha.
(more..) T'an-luanA major Chinese teacher (476-542) of Pure Land Buddhism whose thought greatly influenced Shinran. The third in the lineage of seven great teachers.
(more..) tariki(A) literally, "power of the other"; a Buddhist term for forms of spirituality that emphasize the importance of grace or celestial assistance, especially that of the Buddha Amida, as in the Pure Land schools; in contrast to
jiriki.
(B) Other Power; "The working of the boundless compassion of Amida Buddha, which nullifies all dualistic notions, including constructs of self and other. According to Shinran, ‘Other Power means to be free of any form of calculations (
hakarai).’" (Unno)
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) VasubandhuIn Shin Buddhism, the second great teacher in Shinran’s lineage. A major Mahayana teacher who laid the foundation of the Consciousness-Only school. In Pure Land tradition his commentary to the Larger Pure Land Sutra is a central text. To Zen Buddhism, he is the 21st Patriarch. Vasubandhu lived in fourth or fifth century (C.E.) India.
(more..) alter the "other," in contrast to the
ego or individual self.
(more..) Brahman Brahma considered as transcending all "qualities," attributes, or predicates; God as He is in Himself; also called
Para-Brahma.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) psyche(usually transcribed as
psyche): soul; breath of life, life-stuff; Homer distinguishes between a free soul as a soul of the dead, corresponding with
psuche (and still regarded as an
eidolon), and body souls, corresponding with
thumos,
noos and
menos: following the Egyptian theological patterns, the Pythagoreans constituted the
psuche as the reflection of the unchanging and immortal principles; from Plato onwards,
psuchai are no longer regarded as
eidola, phantoms or doubles of the body, but rather the human body is viewed as the perishable
simulacrum of an immaterial and immortal soul; there are different degrees of soul (or different souls), therefore anything that is alive has a soul (Aristotle
De anima 414b32); in
Phaedrus 248b the soul is regarded as something to be a separate, self-moving and immortal entity (cf.Proclus
Elements of Theology 186);
Psuche is the third
hupostasis of Plotinus.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) Om the most sacred syllable in Hinduism, containing all origination and dissolution; regarded as the "seed" of all
mantras, its three
mātrās or letters are taken to be symbolical of the
Trimūrti, while the silence at its conclusion is seen as expressing the attainment of
Brahma.
(more..) barakah Sheikh al-barakah is a phrase also used of a master who bears the spiritual influence of the Prophet or who has realized that spiritual presence which is only a virtuality in the case of most initiates.
(more..) dhikr "remembrance" of God, based upon the repeated invocation of His Name; central to Sufi practice, where the remembrance often consists of the single word
Allāh.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) japa "repetition" of a
mantra or sacred formula, often containing one of the Names of God; see
buddhānusmriti,
dhikr.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) logos(A) "word, reason"; in Christian theology, the divine, uncreated Word of God (
cf. John 1:1); the transcendent Principle of creation and revelation.
(B) the basic meaning is ‘something said’, ‘account’; the term is used in explanation and definition of some kind of thing, but also means reason, measure, proportion, analogy, word, speech, discourse, discursive reasoning, noetic apprehension of the first principles; the demiurgic
Logos (like the Egyptian
Hu, equated with Thoth, the tongue of Ra, who transforms the Thoughts of the Heart into spoken and written Language, thus creating and articulating the world as a script and icon of the gods) is the intermediary divine power: as an image of the noetic cosmos, the physical cosmos is regarded as a multiple
Logos containing a plurality of individual
logoi (
Enn.IV.3.8.17-22); in Plotinus,
Logos is not a separate
hupostasis, but determines the relation of any
hupostasis to its source and its products, serving as the formative principle from which the lower realities evolve; the external spech (
logos prophorikos) constitutes the external expression of internal thought (
logos endiathetos).(more..) MahayanaThe Larger Vehicle in contrast to the Hinayana, or Smaller Vehicle. It claimed to be more universal in opening Enlightenment to all beings, and inspired the emergence of the Pure Land teaching directed to ordinary beings—denoted as all beings in the ten directions. This tradition is characterized by a more complex philosophical development, an elaborate mythic and symbolic expression which emphasizes the cosmic character of the Buddha nature, and its inclusion of the key virtues of compassion and wisdom.
(more..) Māyā "artifice, illusion"; in
Advaita Vedānta, the beguiling concealment of
Brahma in the form or under the appearance of a lower reality.
(more..) religio "religion," often in reference to its exoteric dimension. (The term is usually considered to be from the Latin
re + ligare, meaning to "to re–bind," or to bind back [to God] .)
(more..) shaikh(1) In Islam, a Sufi or other spiritual leader or master. (2) The term is also used more generally as an honorific title for a chief or elder of a group.
(more..) sunnah(A) Wont; the model established by the Prophet Muḥammad, as transmitted in the
ḥadīth.
(B) "custom, way of acting"; in Islam, the norm established by the Prophet Muhammad, including his actions and sayings (see
hadīth) and serving as a precedent and standard for the behavior of Muslims.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) yogaunion of the jiva with God; method of God-realization (in Hinduism)
(more..) abd(A) In religious language, designates the worshiper, and, more generally, the creature as dependent on his Lord (
rabb. (B) "servant" or "slave"; as used in Islam, the servant or worshiper of God in His aspect of
Rabb or "Lord".
(more..) balya "childhood," spiritual childlikeness; used as an expression of humility.
(more..) fana In Sufism, a designation for the extinction of individual limitation in the state of union with God.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) nirvanaIn Buddhism (and Hinduism), ultimate liberation from
samsara (the cycles of rebirths or the flow of cosmic manifestation), resulting in absorption in the Absolute; the extinction of the fires of passion and the resulting, supremely blissful state of liberation from attachment and egoism.
(more..) Sakinah The root SKN includes the meanings of immobility (
sukūn) and of habitation. The word is analogous to the Hebrew
Shekīna (the Divine Glory dwelling in the ark of the Covenant). Note the Qur’ānic verse: “It is He who makes the
Sakīnah descend into the hearts of the believers that they may acquire a new faith over their faith…” (48:4)
(more..) samsaraLiterally, "wandering;" in Hinduism and Buddhism, transmigration or the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth; also, the world of apparent flux and change.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) bast The expansion of the soul through hope or spiritual joy.
(more..) fana In Sufism, a designation for the extinction of individual limitation in the state of union with God.
(more..) Ghazzali Author of the famous
Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm ad-Dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”); ardent defender of Sufi mysticism as the true heart of Islam.
(more..) gnosis(A) "knowledge"; spiritual insight, principial comprehension, divine wisdom.
(B) knowledge;
gnosis is contrasted with
doxa (opinion) by Plato; the object of
gnosis is
to on, reality or being, and the fully real is the fully knowable (
Rep.477a); the Egyptian Hermetists made distinction between two types of knowledge: 1) science (
episteme), produced by reason (
logos), and 2)
gnosis, produced by understanding and faith (
Corpus Hermeticum IX); therefore
gnosis is regarded as the goal of
episteme (ibid.X.9); the -idea that one may ‘know God’ (
gnosis theou) is very rare in the classical Hellenic literature, which rather praises
episteme and hieratic vision,
epopteia, but is common in Hermetism, Gnosticism and early Christianity; following the Platonic tradition (especially Plotinus and Porphyry), Augustine introduced a distinction between knowledge and wisdom,
scientia and
sapientia, claiming that the fallen soul knows only
scientia, but before the Fall she knew
sapientia (
De Trinitate XII).
(more..) Haqq In Sufism designates the Divinity as distinguished from the creature (
al-khalq).
(more..) qabd A spiritual state following from fear of God; opposite of expansion (
al-basṭ).
(more..) sama Also designates sessions of spiritual music.
(more..) sufi In its strictest sense designates one who has arrived at effective knowledge of Divine Reality (
Ḥaqīqah); hence it is said:
aṣ-Ṣūfī lam yukhlaq (“the Sufi is not created”).
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) alter the "other," in contrast to the
ego or individual self.
(more..) ananda "bliss, beatitude, joy"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
chit, "consciousness."
(more..) Atman the real or true "Self," underlying the ego and its manifestations; in the perspective of
Advaita Vedānta, identical with
Brahma.
(more..) Brahma God in the aspect of Creator, the first divine "person" of the
Trimūrti; to be distinguished from
Brahma, the Supreme Reality.
(more..) Brahman Brahma considered as transcending all "qualities," attributes, or predicates; God as He is in Himself; also called
Para-Brahma.
(more..) Dhammapadaa collection of 423 verses, composed in Pali, giving the foundation of Buddhist moral philosophy; considered to be a central text of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teaching.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) AmrtaThe nectar of immortality, associated with Amida Buddha.
(more..) ananda "bliss, beatitude, joy"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
chit, "consciousness."
(more..) Atman the real or true "Self," underlying the ego and its manifestations; in the perspective of
Advaita Vedānta, identical with
Brahma.
(more..) Bhagavad Gita lit. "the Song of the Lord"; a text of primary rank dealing with the converse of
Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu) and the warrior
Arjuna on the battlefield of
Kurukshetra.
(more..) Brahma God in the aspect of Creator, the first divine "person" of the
Trimūrti; to be distinguished from
Brahma, the Supreme Reality.
(more..) Brahmaloka the heavenly paradise of
Brahmā .
(more..) cit "consciousness"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
ānanda, "bliss, beatitude, joy."
(more..) GandharvaCelestial musician; one of a class of demigods. The art or science of music is called Gāndharva-veda. Gāndharva-vivaha is one of the eight forms of marriage.
(more..) GayatriMantra held in great esteem and regarded as the essence of the Vedas; it is imparted to the brahmacārin during his investiture with the sacred thread. Also a Vedic metre of 24 syllable.
(more..) in divinisliterally, "in or among divine things"; within the divine Principle; the plural form is used insofar as the Principle comprises both
Para-Brahma, Beyond-Being or the Absolute, and
Apara-Brahma, Being or the relative Absolute.
(more..) Isa(A) literally, "possessing power," hence master; God understood as a personal being, as Creator and Lord; manifest in the
Trimūrti as
Brahmā,
Vishnu, and
Shiva.
(B) lit. "the Lord of the Universe"; the personal God who manifests in the triple form of
Brahmā (the Creator), Vishnu (the Sustainer), and
Shiva (the Transformer); identical with
saguna Brahman.
(more..) katharsispurification, purgation of passions; the term occurs in Aristotle’s definition of tragedy (
Poetics 1449b 24) and seems to be borrowed from medicine, religious initiations and magic.
(more..) lila "play, sport"; in Hinduism, the created universe is said to be the result of divine play or playfulness, a product of God’s delight and spontaneity.
(more..) logos(A) "word, reason"; in Christian theology, the divine, uncreated Word of God (
cf. John 1:1); the transcendent Principle of creation and revelation.
(B) the basic meaning is ‘something said’, ‘account’; the term is used in explanation and definition of some kind of thing, but also means reason, measure, proportion, analogy, word, speech, discourse, discursive reasoning, noetic apprehension of the first principles; the demiurgic
Logos (like the Egyptian
Hu, equated with Thoth, the tongue of Ra, who transforms the Thoughts of the Heart into spoken and written Language, thus creating and articulating the world as a script and icon of the gods) is the intermediary divine power: as an image of the noetic cosmos, the physical cosmos is regarded as a multiple
Logos containing a plurality of individual
logoi (
Enn.IV.3.8.17-22); in Plotinus,
Logos is not a separate
hupostasis, but determines the relation of any
hupostasis to its source and its products, serving as the formative principle from which the lower realities evolve; the external spech (
logos prophorikos) constitutes the external expression of internal thought (
logos endiathetos).(more..) MahayanaThe Larger Vehicle in contrast to the Hinayana, or Smaller Vehicle. It claimed to be more universal in opening Enlightenment to all beings, and inspired the emergence of the Pure Land teaching directed to ordinary beings—denoted as all beings in the ten directions. This tradition is characterized by a more complex philosophical development, an elaborate mythic and symbolic expression which emphasizes the cosmic character of the Buddha nature, and its inclusion of the key virtues of compassion and wisdom.
(more..) margaIn Hinduism, a spiritual “way, path”; see
bhakti,
jnāna,
karma.
(more..) Maya "artifice, illusion"; in
Advaita Vedānta, the beguiling concealment of
Brahma in the form or under the appearance of a lower reality.
(more..) mimesisimitation, representation; in
Poetics 1447 ab Aristotle includes all the fine arts under
mimesis, among them epic, tragedy, comedy, painting and sculpture; the images produced by
mimesis are not at all like photographic images; according to H.Armstrong, the classical Hellenic artists images are mimetically closer to those of the traditional arts of the East than to those of nineteenth-century Europe: ‘if we establish in our imagination the figure of the masked singing actor as our image of
mimesis we shall not do too bad’ (
Platonic Mirrors, p.151); however, in a vocabulary used by Proclus the terms
mimesis and
mimema are usually reserved for art of an inferior type, though Proclus says that ‘the congenital vehicles (
ochemata) imitate (
mimeitai) the lives of the souls’ (
Elements of theology 209) and ‘each of the souls perpetually attendand upon gods, imitating its divine soul, is sovereign over a number of particular souls’ (ibid.,204).
(more..) philosophialove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) prajapatiLiterally, "Lord of creatures;" the forefather of all beings.
(more..) psyche(usually transcribed as
psyche): soul; breath of life, life-stuff; Homer distinguishes between a free soul as a soul of the dead, corresponding with
psuche (and still regarded as an
eidolon), and body souls, corresponding with
thumos,
noos and
menos: following the Egyptian theological patterns, the Pythagoreans constituted the
psuche as the reflection of the unchanging and immortal principles; from Plato onwards,
psuchai are no longer regarded as
eidola, phantoms or doubles of the body, but rather the human body is viewed as the perishable
simulacrum of an immaterial and immortal soul; there are different degrees of soul (or different souls), therefore anything that is alive has a soul (Aristotle
De anima 414b32); in
Phaedrus 248b the soul is regarded as something to be a separate, self-moving and immortal entity (cf.Proclus
Elements of Theology 186);
Psuche is the third
hupostasis of Plotinus.
(more..) sutratmanimmanent Spirit, lit., the “thread of the Spirit” (in Hinduism)
(more..) tapasAusterity; intense mental concentration; literally warmth, fire; self-denial; ascetic endeavour; keeping the mind one-pointed in the search of truth or an ideal.
(more..) theosis "deification," participation in the nature of God (
cf. 2 Pet. 1:4); in Eastern Christian theology, the supreme goal of human life.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) VedaThe sacred scriptures of Hinduism; regarded by the orthodox (
āstika) as divine revelation (
śruti) and comprising: (1) the
Ṛg,
Sāma, Yajur, and
Atharva Saṃhitās (collections of hymns); (2) the
Brāhmanas (priestly treatises); (3) the
Āranyakas (forest treatises); and (4) the
Upaniṣāds (philosophical and mystical treatises); they are divided into a
karma-kāṇḍa portion dealing with ritual action and a
jñāna-kāṇḍa portion dealing with knowledge.
(more..) yamaIn Sanskrit, “restraint”, "self control", whether on the bodily or psychic level. in Hinduism,
yama is the first step in the eightfold path of the
yogin, which consists in resisting all inclinations toward violence, lying, stealing, sexual activity, and greed. See
niyama. (This term should not be confused with the proper name Yama, which refers to a figure from the early Vedas, first a king and then later a deity who eventually conducts departed souls to the underworld and is mounted on a buffalo.)
(more..) yantraIn Sanskrit, literally, “instrument of support”; a geometrical design, often representing the cosmos, used in Tantric Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism as a visual support or focus for meditation.
(more..) adaequatio rei et intellectus"the intellect (of the knower) must be adequate to the thing (known)"; a medieval epistemological maxim.
(more..) ananda "bliss, beatitude, joy"; one of the three essential aspects of
Apara-Brahma, together with
sat, "being," and
chit, "consciousness."
(more..) Bhagavad Gita lit. "the Song of the Lord"; a text of primary rank dealing with the converse of
Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu) and the warrior
Arjuna on the battlefield of
Kurukshetra.
(more..) Bodhidharmathe 28th patriarch of Buddhism and the 1st patriarch of Zen, he is said to have brought the meditation school of Buddhism to China around 520 C.E. A legendary figure whose face is painted by many Zen masters. (His original name was Bodhi-dhana.)
(more..) BodhisattvaLiterally, "enlightenment-being;" in
Mahāyāna Buddhism, one who postpones his own final enlightenment and entry into
Nirvāṇa in order to aid all other sentient beings in their quest for Buddhahood.
(more..) Brahma God in the aspect of Creator, the first divine "person" of the
Trimūrti; to be distinguished from
Brahma, the Supreme Reality.
(more..) Brahman Brahma considered as transcending all "qualities," attributes, or predicates; God as He is in Himself; also called
Para-Brahma.
(more..) cittaThe consciousness, the mind
(more..) dhyanaa Sanskrit term meaning "meditation." In China it was pronounced as "Ch’an," and in Japan it became "Zen."
(more..) ideain non-technical use the term refers to the visual aspect of anything; for Plato and Platonists, it is the highest noetic entity, the eternal unchanging Form, the archetype of the manifested material thing; in Plato,
idea is a synonim of
eidos, but in Neoplatonism these two terms have a slightly different meaning.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) karmaaction; the effects of past actions; the law of cause and effect ("as a man sows, so shall he reap"); of three kinds: (1)
sanchita karma: actions of the past that have yet to bear fruit in the present life; (2)
prārabdha karma: actions of the past that bear fruit in the present life; and (3)
āgāmi karma :actions of the present that have still, by the law of cause and effect, to bear fruit in the future.
(more..) philosophylove of wisdom; the intellectual and ‘erotic’ path which leads to virtue and knowledge; the term itself perhaps is coined by Pythagoras; the Hellenic
philosophia is a prolongation, modification and ‘modernization’ of the Egyptian and Near Eastern sapiential ways of life;
philosophia cannot be reduced to philosophical discourse; for Aristotle, metaphysics is
prote philosophia, or
theologike, but philosophy as
theoria means dedication to the
bios theoretikos, the life of contemplation – thus the philosophical life means the participation in the divine and the actualization of the divine in the human through the personal
askesis and inner transformation; Plato defines philosophy as a training for death (
Phaed.67cd); the Platonic
philosophia helps the soul to become aware of its own immateriality, it liberates from passions and strips away everything that is not truly itself; for Plotinus, philosophy does not wish only ‘to be a discourse about objects, be they even the highest, but it wishes actually to lead the soul to a living, concrete union with the Intellect and the Good’; in the late Neoplatonism, the ineffable theurgy is regarded as the culmination of philosophy.
(more..) pramanaAuthority; source of knowledge; a measure or standard; perception.
(more..) purusaLiterally, "man;" the informing or shaping principle of creation; the "masculine" demiurge or fashioner of the universe; see "Prakriti (
Prakṛti)."
(more..) samadhiThe final step in yogic practice; the mystical experience or ecstasy of deep meditative absorption in
Brahman or other form of transcendent Reality; some call it super-consciousness.
(more..) sriLiterally, "splendor, beauty, venerable one;" an honorific title set before the name of a deity or eminent human being; also a name of Lakshmi (
Lakṣmī), the consort of Vishnu (
Viṣṇu) and the goddess of beauty and good fortune.
(more..) Sria prefix meaning “sacred” or “holy” (in Hinduism)
(more..) theologiadivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) theologydivine science, theology,
logos about the gods, considered to be the essence of
teletai; for Aristotle, a synonim of metaphysics or first philosophy (
prote philosophia) in contrast with physics (
Metaph.1026a18); however, physics (
phusiologia) sometimes is called as a kind of theology (Proclus
In Tim.I.217.25); for Neoplatonists, among the ancient theologians (
theologoi) are Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod and other divinely inspired poets, the creators of theogonies and keepers of sacred rites.
(more..) Tradition(as the term is used by "Traditionalists" and in the "Perennial Philosopy":) Divine Revelation and the unfolding and development of its sacred content, in time and space, such that the forms of society and civilization maintain a "vertical" connection to the meta-historical, transcendental substance from which revelation itself derives.
(more..) VasubandhuIn Shin Buddhism, the second great teacher in Shinran’s lineage. A major Mahayana teacher who laid the foundation of the Consciousness-Only school. In Pure Land tradition his commentary to the Larger Pure Land Sutra is a central text. To Zen Buddhism, he is the 21st Patriarch. Vasubandhu lived in fourth or fifth century (C.E.) India.
(more..) Vedanta"End or culmination of the
Vedas," a designation for the Upanishads (
Upaniṣāds) as the last portion ("end") of the
Vedas; also one of the six orthodox (
āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy who have their starting point in the texts of the Upanishads (
Upaniṣāds), the
Brahma-Sūtras (of Bādarāyana Vyāsa), and the
Bhagavad Gītā ; over time,
Vedānta crystallized into three distinct schools:
Advaita (non-dualism), associated with Shankara
(ca.788-820 C.E.);
Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dualism), associated with Rāmānuja
(ca.1055-1137 C.E.); and
Dvaita (dualism), associated with Madhva (ca.1199-1278 C.E.); see "Advaita."
(more..) yogaunion of the jiva with God; method of God-realization (in Hinduism)
(more..)