

Yoga and Health
EDUCATION, EMBODIMENT, EMPOWERMENT
Abhyasa – practice, focus
Advaita – non-duality principal; having no duality; the supreme Reality, which is the “one without a second.” The word advaita is especially used in Vedanta philosophy, which stresses the unity of the Self (Atman) and Brahman.
Agni – fire principle
Ahamkara – [aham “I”; kara “maker”] Self-will, separateness; ego
Ahimsa – non-violence, doing no injury, wishing no harm
Akasha – space, sky; the subtlest of the five elements
Arjuna – one of the five Pandava brothers and an important figure in Indian epic and legend. He is Sri Krishna’s beloved disciple and friend in the Bhagavad Gita.
Ananda – joyfulness
Ashtanga – eight-limbs of yoga
Atman – “Self”; the innermost soul in every creature, which is divine
Ayurveda – science of life/longevity, 5000-year old holistic system of medicine from India
Avidya – ignorance, lack of wisdom
Avyaya – the eternal, the changeless
Bhagavad Gita – “The Song of the Lord”, name of Hindu scripture which contains the instruction of Sri Krishna
Brahma – God as creator, one of the Hindu Trinity; the others are Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer
Bramacharya – conduct leading to God, self-control, purity
Brahman – the supreme reality underlying all life, the divine ground of existence, the impersonal God-head
Brahmin – literally, a person who strives to know Brahman; in traditional Hindu society, a person of the priestly or learned class
Bhakti – devotion, worship, love
Bhakti Yoga – The Way of Love
Bandha – a binding, lock
Buddha – the Awakened one, the title given to the sage Siddhartha Gautama Shakyamuni after he obtained complete illumination. The Buddha lived and taught in North India during the sixth century B.C.
Buddhi – intellect, reason, decision-making aspect of the citta
Chakra – energy center in the subtle body, “wheel”
Cit – pure consciousness (without gunas)
Citta—conditioned consciousness (with gunas)
Deva – God, male deity
Devi – Goddess, female deity
Dharma – law, duty; the universal law which holds all life together in unity; that which upholds
Dristi – view
Duhkha – pain, suffering, “bad space”
Gandharva – heavenly musicians who are demigods, rather touchy and proud, handsome and amorous
Garuda – The great eagle that is Vishnu’s vehicle
Gayatri – a kind of meter used in the Vedic hymns; a prayer to the sun composed in this meter
Guna – attribute, quality; specifically, the three qualities which makeup the phenomenal world: sattva, law, harmony, purity, goodness; rajas, energy, passion; and tamas, inertia, ignorance. The corresponding adjectives are sattvic, rajasic, and tamasic.
Guru – teacher, mentor; the planet Jupiter; heavy
Gurukula – studying in the home of the teacher
Hatha – force, joining of sun and moon; difficult type of yoga requiring great effort
Iccha – desire, will
Istadevata – desired deity, deity chosen for worship
Ishvara – personal God, universal teacher
Jnana – wisdom; higher knowledge
Jnana Yoga – The Way of Wisdom
Jyotisa – Vedic astrology/astronomy
Kala – time
Kama – selfish desire, greed; sexual desire, sometimes personified as Kamadeva
Karma – action; former actions which will lead to certain results in a cause-and-effect relationship
Karma Yoga – The Way of Action
Kauravas – “The sons of Kuru”, Duryodhana and his brothers, who are the enemies of the Pandava brothers
Kichadi – cooked mung beans and rice, and easy digest meal taken during panchakarma
Kirtana – telling, praise
Kosha – sheath, layer (subtle body)
Krishna – [‘black’; or from krish ‘to draw, to attract to oneself”] “The Dark One” or “He who draws us to Himself,” name of an incarnation of Vishnu. Vishnu, the cosmic force of goodness, comes to earth as Krishna to reestablish dharma, or law. Krishna is the friend and advisor of the Pandava brothers especially Arjuna, to whom he reveals the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the inner Lord, who personifies spiritual love and lives in the hearts of all beings.
Kshertra – a field; a place; a sacred place or temple
Kundalini – “The serpent power”, spiritual or evolutionary energy
Kurukshetra – “The field of the Kurus”, where the Mahabharata battle takes place. It is north of the modern city of Delhi.
Mahabharata – name of the great Indian epic composed some 2,500 years ago, traditionally attributed to the sage Vyasa. It relates the conflict between the descendants of Pandu (the forces of light) and those of Dhritarashtra (the forces of darkness)
Manas – the mind; specifically, the faculty which registers and stores sensory impressions
Mantra – a holy name or phrase; a spiritual formula
Maya – illusion; appearance, as contrasted with Reality; the creative power of God
Mira – a woman saint of medieval India remembered for her songs to her beloved Krishna
Moksha – liberation, salvation, illumination
Nirvana – complete extinction of self-will and separateness; realization of the unity of all life
Nirvikalpa samadhi – a state of spiritual awareness in which there is no perception of duality, of inside or outside, of subject and object; merger in the impersonal godhead
Om – [or Aum] the cosmic sound, heard in deep meditation; signifies Brahman, the divine ground of existence
Patanjali – the author of the Yoga Sutras, a classic description of the way to Self-realization through meditation. Patanjali lived around the second century BCE and his method id sometimes referred to as raja yoga
Prakriti – the basic energy from which the mental and physical worlds take shape; nature
Prana – breath, vital force
Purusha – witness consciousness unaffected by the material world
Sadhana – 1) body of disciplines or way of life which leads to the supreme goal of Self-realization; 2) personal practice “accomplishing”
Samadhi – mystical union with God; a state of intense concentration in which consciousness is completely unified
Samsara – perpetual cycle of birth and death
Samskara – acquired subliminal impressions, habits
Sanga/Sangha – community
Sankhya – one of the six branches of traditional Hindu philosophy
Sanyasa – renunciation
Sat – The Real; truth; goodness
Satya – truth
Savikalpa samadhi – [sa-vikalpa “having distinctions” or “admitting separateness”] Samadhi in which some duality of subject and object remains, the devotee being absorbed in his meditation without becoming completely identified with the object of contemplation; union with the personal God
Shakti – power, divine feminine
Shraddha – faith
Sri – a title of respect originally meaning “lord” or “holy”
Svadharma – the duty appropriate to a particular person, one’s own individual dharma
Tantra – technique usually involving mantra, yantra and deities, especially the Goddess
Tapas – a practice causing change, “heat”; austerity, control of the senses; the spiritual power acquired through self-control
Tejas – brilliance and heat of prana, fire
Upanishad – texts compiled after the Vedas encapsulating their wisdom “sitting close and beneath”
Vayu – wind
Veda – knowledge; the name of the most ancient Sanskrit scriptures; considered to be a direct revelation from God to the mystics of the past
Vidya – a science or branch of study
Vedanta – philosophy of Vedic thought encapsulated in the Upanishads
Viniyoga – application of yoga
Vinyasa – flowing sequence, arrangement
Vritti – fluctuation, activity, “a turning”
Yantra – visual geometrical pattern
Yoga – union, connection, relationship; a path or discipline which leads to a state of total integration or unity; one of the six branches of Hindu philosophy
Yogi – a person who practices spiritual disciplines