Advaita Vedanta: A subdivision of Vedanta. The non-duality approach.
Ahimsa: [Nonharming]. Abstention from harmful actions, thoughts, and words. An important moral discipline [yama] in Yoga, Buddhism, and Jainism.
Ajnani: One who has not realized the Self.
Ananda: [Bliss]. In Vedanta, the mind-transcending blissfulness of the Ultimately Reality or Self. This is not considered to be a quality but the very essence of Reality.
Arunachala: The holy mountain in India where Shri Ramana spent all his adult life.
Atman: [Self]. The transcendental Self according to the non-dualist [Vedanta]
schools of thought, which is identical to Brahman.
Avadhuta: [Cast off]. A radical type of renouncer who abandons all conventions; a crazy adept.
Avatara: [Descent]. An incarnation of the Divine, such as Krishna and Rama.
Avidya: [Ignorance]. Spiritual nescience, which is the root of all human suffering and the cause of one’s bondage to egoic states of consciousness.
Bhagavad-Gita: [Lord’s Song]. The earliest and most popular scripture of Yoga, containing the teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna.
Bhakta: [Devotee]. A follower of Bhakti-Yoga.
Bhakti: [Love, devotion]. The spiritual sentiment of loving participation in the Divine.
Bodhisattva: [Enlightenment being]. In Mahyana Buddhism, the spiritual practitioner who has vowed to commit himself or herself to the liberation of all beings, postponing his or her own ultimate realization.
Brahma: The Creator-God of the famous medieval Hindu triad of gods. The other two are Vishnu [as Preserver] and Shiva [as Destroyer]. Brahma must be carefully distinguished from the Brahman, which is the eternal foundation of existence.
Brahmacarya: [Brahmic Conduct]. The practice of chastity in thought, word, and deed, which is regarded as one of the fundamental disciplines [yama] of Yoga.
Brahman: The impersonal absolute according to Vedanta; the transcendental Ground of the world.
Buddha: [Awakened]. Title of Gautama, founder of Buddhism.
Chit: [Consciousness]. Pure Awareness, or the Transcendental Consciousness beyond all thought; the eternal Witness. See also atman, purusha.
Dharma: The cosmic law or order. Teaching-doctrine.
Dhyana: Meditation.
Diksha: Initiation by the guru.
Gopi: Female shepherd. In Vaishnavism, these terms refer to the devotees of Lord Krishna.
Guna: [Quality]. One of three primary constituents of Nature [prakriti]: Sattva [principle of lucidity], Rajas [principle of activity, and Tamas [principle of inertia].
The interaction between these three types creates the entire manifest and unmanifest cosmos, including all psycho-mental phenomena.
Guru: [Heavy]. Spiritual Teacher.
Hinayana: [Small Vehicle]. The minority school of Buddhism, which has arhatship or arhantship as its leading ideal.
Ishvara: [Ruler]. Personal God. The Lord Of Karma.
Janaka: An Indian king: An account of his Self-realization can be found in The Ashtavakra Gita.
Japa: [Recitation]. Meditative recitation of mantras.
Jiva: [Living Being]. The psyche, or finite conscious human personality, which experiences itself as different from others and does not know the transcendental Self.
Jivan-Mukti: [Living Liberation]. The Self-realized adept who is fully liberated while still embodied.
Jnana: Knowledge of the Self.
Jnani: One who has realized the Self.
Kali-Yuga: [Dark Age]. The modern age of spiritual decline, which requires a new approach to Self-realisation. It is thought to have started in 3,012 B.C.
Karma: [Action]. Activity in general of the unenlightened individual, which activates the law of cause and effect.
Krishna: An incarnation [avatara] of Vishnu.
Kundalini: [Serpent Power]. The power that lies dormant in the lowest psychic center of the human body. The ascent of the kundalini to the highest psychic center, at the crown of the head, brings about a temporary state of ecstatic identification with the Self. [In Nirvikalpa Samadhi].
Leela: The play of God.
Linga: [Mark]. The phallus as the symbol of creativity, which is specifically associated with God Shiva.
Mahatma: Great soul, great man or saint.
Mahayana: [Great Vehicle]. The majority branch of Buddhism, which has the Bodhisattva as its great ideal.
Mantra: Sound that empowers the mind for concentration and the transcendence of the ordinary states of consciousness. Usually the sacred words are given to a disciple by the guru.
Maya: Illusion.
Moksha: [Release]. The highest of possible human pursuits: Liberation. Synonymous with Self-realisation.
Mouna: Silence.
Muktas: Liberated ones.
Nadi: [Conduit]. Channels in the body where the prana or energy travels through.
Nirvana: [Extinction]. The transcendence of the ego, a condition that is untouched by space and time.
Nirvikalpa-Samadhi: [Transconceptual Ecstasy]. Samadhi in which no differences are perceived. It is characterized by an absence of body-consciousness. Although he has a temporary awareness of the Self in this state, one is not able to perceive sensory information or function in the world. When body consciousness returns, the ego reappears, so the ego has not been finally eliminated.
Om: The key mantra of Hinduism, symbolising the Absolute.
Parabrahman: The Supreme Brahman.
Prana: [Life]. The life-force sustaining the body which has five principals forms.
Pranayama: [Breath Control]. The careful regulation of the breath. This is the most important practice of Hatha-Yoga.
Puja: [Worship]. Ritual veneration of one’s teacher as an embodiment of the Divine.
Rama: The main hero of the Ramayana, deified as an incarnation of God Vishnu.
Rishi: A type of Vedic seer, who sees the hymns of Veda.
Sadhana: [Realizing]. The spiritual practice toward Self-realisation.
Sadhaka: A spiritual seeker.
Sadhu: A noble person or a spiritual seeker. However, Shri Ramana frequently used this term as a title for someone who has realized the Self.
Sahaja-Samadhi: [Natural Ecstasy]. The effortless ecstasy. This is the state of the Jnani who has finally and irrevocably eliminated his ego. A Jnani in this state is able to function naturally in the world, just as any ordinary person does. Knowing that he is the Self, the Jnani sees no difference between himself and others or the world. For a Jnani, everything is a manifestation of the indivisible Self.
Samsara: [Confluence]. The finite world of change and illusion.
Samskara: [Activator]. Innate tendencies.
Sat-Chit-Ananda: Being-Consciousness-Bliss.
Satsang: [Relationship to the True]. The spiritual practice of being in the presence of someone who has realized the Self. Association with ‘being’.
Savikalpa-Samadhi: [Ecstacy with form-ideation]. This state of Self-Awareness is maintained by constant effort. The continuity of the Samadhi is wholly dependent on the effort put in to maintain it. When Self attention wavers, Self-Awareness is obscured by thoughts and imagery.
Shakti: [Power]. The feminine power aspect of the Divine, which is fundamental to the metaphysics and spirituality of Trantrism.
Shanti: [Peace]. Ultimate peace. Quality which coincides with Self-realisation.
Siddha: [Accomplished, perfect]. A Self-realized adept. One who has reached perfection.
Siddhi: [Accomplishment]. Paranormal power, that comes as a result of spiritual practice.
Swarupa: Real form or Real Nature.
Tamil: A South Indian language: Shri Ramana’s mother tongue.
Tapas: [Glow, heat]. Ascetism, religious austerity, penance, heat.
Tiruvannamalai: A town about a mile from Shri Ramana’s Ashram.
Turiya: The Fourth State of Consciousness.
Vajrayana: [Adamantine Vehicle]. The tantric branch of Buddhism, especially of Tibet, which evolved out of the Mahayana.
Vasana: [Trait]. The concatenation of subliminal activators [samskaras], deposited in the depth of consciousness. Mental tendencies.
Vedanta: [Veda’s End]. The dominant Hindu tradition, which teaches that Reality is singular and One.
Vedas: Four collections of scriptures dating from 2,000 B.C. to 500 B.C. which are the ultimate source of authority for most Hindus.
Vichara: Self-inquiry.
Vishnu: One of the three principal deities of Hinduism. Vishnu periodically reincarnates in a human body.
Yoga: [Union]. Spiritual practice in general.
Yoga-Vasishtha: A massive advaitic text attributed to Valmiki in which the Sage Vasishtha answers questions put by Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu. Composed sometime in the tenth century A.D.
Yuga: [Age]. According to Hindu mythology, there are four yugas, each of several thousand years’ duration. The present age is Kaliyuga.
Kein Gespräch: das Glossar des Buches, am Ende abgedruckt. Es steht hier, weil es zum Band gehört und sonst nirgends zu finden wäre.
Absätze ohne Sprecherpräfix gehören dem zuletzt genannten Sprecher — so steht es im Buch, wo der Präfix nur den Anfang einer Rede markiert. Die Zuordnung ist eine Folgerung dieser Ausgabe. Namen in Klammern sind aus dem Text erschlossen: sicher belegt sind , wahrscheinlich . Alle anderen Kürzel bleiben stehen, weil der Beleg nicht trägt.