Anugraha Shakti Dictionary

anugraha shakti: (Sanskrit) "Graceful or favoring power." Revealing grace. God Siva's power of illumination, through which the soul is freed from the bonds of anava, karma and maya and ultimately attains liberation, moksha. Specifically, anugraha descends on the soul as shaktipata, the diksha (initiation) from a satguru. Anugraha is a key concept in Saiva Siddhanta. It comes when anava mala, the shell of finitude which surrounds the soul, reaches a state of ripeness, malaparipaka. See: anava, grace, Nataraja, shaktipata.

(See also: Anugraha shakti , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

grace: "Benevolence, love, giving," from the Latin gratia, "favor, goodwill."

God's power of revealment, anugraha shakti ("kindness, showing favor"), by which souls are awakened to their true, Divine nature.

Grace in the unripe stages of the spiritual journey is experienced by the devotee as receiving gifts or boons, often unbidden, from God. The mature soul finds himself surrounded by grace. He sees all of God's actions as grace, whether they be seemingly pleasant and helpful or not. For him, his very love of God, the power to meditate or worship, and the spiritual urge which drives his life are entirely and obviously God's grace, a divine endowment, an intercession, unrelated to any deed or action he did or could perform.

In Saiva Siddhanta, it is grace that awakens the love of God within the devotee, softens the intellect and inaugurates the quest for Self Realization. It descends when the soul has reached a certain level of maturity, and often comes in the form of a spiritual initiation, called shaktipata, from a satguru.

Grace is not only the force of illumination or revealment. It also includes Siva's other four powers - creation, preservation, destruction and concealment - through which He provides the world of experience and limits the soul's consciousness so that it may evolve.

More broadly, grace is God's ever-flowing love and compassion, karuna, also known as kripa ("tenderness, compassion") and prasada (literally, "clearness, purity").

To whom is God's grace given? Can it be earned? Two famous analogies, that of the monkey (markata) and that of the cat (marjara) express two classical viewpoints on salvation and grace.

• The markata school, perhaps represented more fully by the Vedas, asserts that the soul must cling to God like a monkey clings to its mother and thus participate in its "salvation."
• The marjara school, which better reflects the position of the Agamas, says that the soul must be like a young kitten, totally dependent on its mother's will, picked up in her mouth by the scruff of the neck and carried here and there. This crucial state of loving surrender is called prapatti.

See: anugraha shakti, prapatti, shaktipata, tirodhana shakti.

(See also: Grace , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

karunya: (Sanskrit) "Compassion, kindness, love." In Saivism, an alternate term for Siva's revealing grace, anugraha shakti.

See: anugraha shakti, grace.

(See also: Karunya , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

shaktipat: (Sanskrit) "Descent of grace." Guru diksha, initiation from the preceptor; particularly the first initiation, which awakens the kundalini and launches the process of spiritual unfoldment.

See: anugraha shakti, diksha,, grace, kundalini, shaktipat

(See also: Shaktipat , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

revealing grace:

See: anugraha shakti, grace.

(See also: Revealing grace , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Sadasiva: (Sanskrit) "Ever-auspicious."

A name of the Primal Soul, Siva, a synonym for Parameshvara, which is expressed in the physical being of the satguru. Sadasiva especially denotes the power of revealing grace, anugraha shakti, the third tattva, after which emerge Siva's other four divine powers.

This five-fold manifestation or expression of God's activity in the cosmos is depicted in Hindu mantras, literature and art as the five-faced Sadasivamurti.

• Looking upward is Ishana, "ruler" (the power of revealment).
• Facing east is Tatpurusha, "supreme soul" (the power of obscuration).
• Westwardlooking is Sadyojata, "quickly birthing" (the power of creation).
• Northward is Vamadeva, "lovely, pleasing" (the power of preservation).
• Southward is Aghora, "nonterrifying" (the power of reabsorption).

The first four faces revealed the Vedas. The fifth face, Ishana, revealed the Agamas. These five are also called Sadasiva, the revealer; Maheshvara, the obscurer; Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Rudra, the destroyer.

See: Parameshvara, tattva.

(See also: Sadasiva , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

anugraha shakti: (Sanskrit) "Graceful or favoring power." Revealing grace. God Siva's power of illumination, through which the soul is freed from the bonds of anava, karma and maya and ultimately attains liberation, moksha. Specifically, anugraha descends on the soul as shaktipata, the diksha (initiation) from a satguru. Anugraha is a key concept in Saiva Siddhanta. It comes when anava mala, the shell of finitude which surrounds the soul, reaches a state of ripeness, malaparipaka. See: anava, grace, Nataraja, shaktipata.

(See also: Anugraha shakti , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Hinduism Lexicon on A

From aadheenam to axis.

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