GLOSSARY

anīsa — not lord, subject

Ananda — bliss, delight, beatitude, spiritual ecstasy; the essential principle of delight: a self-delight which is the very nature of the transcendent and infinite existence.

Bhakti — devotion, love for the Divine.

central being — the portion of the Divine which supports the individual being and survives from life to life; it has two forms: jivātman, which is above the manifestation in life, presiding over it, and the psychic being, which stands behind mind, life and body in the manifestation, supporting them and using them as its instruments.

Consciousness-Force — the Conscious Force that builds the worlds; a universal Energy that is the power of the Cosmic Spirit working out the cosmic and individual truth of things.

Dharma — law; the deepest law of one's nature; the right law of individual and social life; literally, that which one lays hold of and which holds things together.

Higher Mind — see under spiritualised mind.

inner mind — that which lies behind the surface mind (our ordinary mentality); this inner or subliminal mind senses directly all the things of the mind-plane, is open to the action of a world of mental forces, and can feel their influences which act upon the material world and the life-plane but which at present we can only infer and cannot directly experience.

inner physical — the physical part of the inner being.

inner vital

Intuition — see under spiritualised mind.

Ishwara — Lord, the Divine.

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mind (the mental) — "mind" and "mental" connote specially that part of the nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental vision and will, etc. that are part of man's intelligence. The ordinary mind has three main parts: mind proper, vital mind, and physical mind.

The mind proper is divided into three parts: the thinking mind or intellect, concerned with ideas and knowledge in their own right; the dynamic mind, concerned with the putting out of mental forces for the realisation of the ideas; and the externalising mind, concerned with the expression of ideas in life.

The vital mind or desire mind is a mind of dynamic will, action, desire; it is occupied with force and achievement and satisfaction and possession, with enjoyment and suffering, giving and taking, growth and expansion, etc.

The physical mind is that part of the mind which is concerned with physical things only; limited by the physical view and experience of things, it mentalises the experience brought by the contact of outward life and things, but does not go beyond that. The mechanical mind, closely connected with the physical mind, goes on repeating without use whatever has happened.

Overtopping the ordinary mind, hidden in our own superconscient parts, there are higher ranges of Mind, gradations of spiritualised mind leading beyond mind to the Supermind. In ascending order they are: Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuition and Overmind.

Nature — the outer or executive side of the Conscious Force which forms and moves the worlds. The higher, divine Nature (Para Prakriti) is free from Ignorance and its consequences; the lower Nature (Apara Prakriti) is a mechanism of active Force put forth for the working of the evolutionary Ignorance. The lower nature of an individual — mind, life and body — are part of Prakriti.

Nirvana — extinction (not necessarily of all bein g, but of being as we know it, extinction of ego, desire and egoistic action and mentality).

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Overmind — see under spiritualised mind.

the physical (being) — not the body alone, but the whole physical

mind, vital, material nature, physical mind — see under mind.

Prakriti — Nature; Nature-Force. "Existence is composed of Prakriti and Purusha, the consciousness that sees and the consciousness that executes and formalises what we see. The one we call Soul, the other Nature." (Sri Aurobindo) see also Purusha.

psyche — the soul; spark of the Divine before it has evolved into an individualised being; the divine essence in the individual. In the course of the evolution, the soul grows and evolves in the form of a soul-personality, the psychic being. See also psychic being and soul.

the psychic — psychic being, the term is sometimes used for the psyche or soul. See also psyche and psychic being.

psychic being — the divine portion in the individual which evolves from life to life, growing, by its experiences until it becomes a fully conscious being. The term "soul" is often used as a synonym for "psychic being", but strictly speaking, the soul is the undifferentiated psychic essence, whereas the psychic being is the individualised soul-personality developed by the psychic essence in the course of evolution. See also the psychic, soul, and soul-personality.

psychic entity — psychic essence.

psychic essence — the soul in its essence; the divine essence in the individual, the divine spark which supports the evolution of the being in Nature. In the course of the evolution the psychic essence grows and takes form as the psychic being.

psychic personality — see soul-personality.

psychic principle — psychic essence.

psychicisation — the psychic change in which the psychic being comes forward to dominate the mind, vital and physical so as to change the lower nature.

Purusha — Conscious Being; Conscious-Soul; essential being supporting the play of Prakriti; the Purusha represents the true being on whatever plane it manifests — physical, vital, mental, psychic.

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rajasic — of the nature of rajas, the quality of action and passion and struggle impelled by instinct and desire.

sadhana — spiritual practice; the practice of yoga, sattwic — of the nature of sattwa, the quality of harmony, light, purity and peace.

soul — the psychic essence or entity, the divine essence in the individual; a spark of the Divine that comes down into the manifestation to support the evolution of the individual. In the course of the evolution, the soul grows and evolves in the form of a soul-personality, the psychic being. The term "soul" is also often used as a synonym for "psychic being". See also the psychic and psychic being.

soul individuality — see psychic being.

soul-personality —the psychic being or soul-form developing through

evolution and passing from life to life. See psychic being, soul-spark — see psyche.

spiritualised mind, gradations of — higher ranges of mind overtopping our normal mind and leading to Supermind; these successive states, levels or graded powers of being are hidden in our own super-conscious parts. In an ascending order the gradations of spiritualised mind are:

Higher Mind: a luminous thought-mind whose instrumentation is through an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight. In the Higher Mind one becomes constantly and closely aware of the Self, the One everywhere and knows and sees habitually with that awareness.

Illumined Mind: a mind no longer of higher thought, but of spiritual light; here the clarity of the intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit.

Intuition: a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate than the above-mentioned gradations to the original knowlege by identity. What is thought-knowledge in the Higher Mind becomes illumination in the Illumined Mind and direct intimate vision in the Intuition. This true and authentic Intuition must be distinguished

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from a power of the ordinary mental reason which is too easily confused with it, that power of involved reasoning that reaches its conclusion by a bound and does not need the ordinary steps of the logical mind.

Overmind: The Overmind is a delegate of the Supramental Consciousness, its delegate to the cosmic Ignorance. The Supramental is the total Truth-Consciousness; the Overmind draws down the truths separately and gives them a separate identity.

subliminal — inner, not on the waking surface.

Supermind — the Supramental, the Truth-Consciousness, the Divine Gnosis, the highest divine consciousness and force operative in the universe. A principle of consciousness superior to mentality, it exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions.

Tapasya (tapasyā) — effort, energy, austerity of the personal will; concentration of the will and energy to control the mind, vital and physical and to change them or to bring down the higher consciousness or for any other yogic or high purpose.

transformation — not just a change of consciousness, but the bringing down of the higher, divine consciousness and nature into the lower nature of mind, life and body, and the replacement of the lower by the higher.

true being — see Purusha.

true mental — see Purusha.

true physical — see Purusha.

true vital — see Purusha.

Truth-Consciousness — see Supermind.

the vital (being) — the life-nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings, passions, energies of action and of all the play of possessive and other related instincts, such as anger, fear, greed, lust, etc. The vital has three main parts: higher vital: the mental vital and emotional vital taken together.

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The mental vital gives a mental expression by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations or other movements of the vital being; the emotional vital is the seat of various feelings, such as love, joy, sorrow, hatred and the rest.

central vital or vital proper: dynamic, sensational and passionate, it is the seat of the stronger vital longings and reactions, such as ambition, pride, fear, love of fame, attractions and repulsions, desires and passions of various kinds and the field of many vital energies.

lower vital: made up of the smaller movements of human life-desire and life-reactions, it is occupied with small desires and feelings, such as food desire, sexual desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame, little wishes of all kinds, etc.

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