Arrogance Dictionary

Consciousness is beauty and Creation is an expression of consciousness. Beauty is present in all creation. Eastern philosophy believes beauty is the nature of things, while western thought sees it as perception. Perhaps beauty is both subjective and objective.

The East emphasises subjectivity; it sees beauty as the nature of existence - as Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram, an objective phenomenon.

In the West, where objectivity is emphasised, beauty is seen as a subjective phenomenon. But as the old proverb goes, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Beauty bridges the subject-object divide.

(See also: Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Soundarya Lahiri: Soundarya Lahiri And Inner Beauty

Krishna and Kaliya: Good fights Evil - Krishna and Kaliya

It is a universal law: If we have ego, we will suffer. If we are arrogant, again, we will suffer till we are forced to surrender. The subduing of Kaliya the serpent by Krishna illustrates this.

The tenth canto of the Srimad Bhagvatam recounts the Kaliya daman lila performed by Krishna. Kaliya was a venomous serpent that lived in the Yamuna river. One summer Krishna's cowherd friends fainted and died when they drank water from the Yamuna. Kaliya had contaminated the river so much that vapour from the river was lethal enough to kill birds flying across.

Read more here: » Krishna and Kaliya: Good fights Evil - Krishna and Kaliya

In YOGA Tradition, Karma has a much deeper meaning, which, to a certain extent only, is related to the western idea of Destiny or Fate. In this vision, Karma is the accumulation of our past actions. These past actions (triggering actions) are causes which determine other actions (triggered reactions) in exact accordance with the charge of the corresponding past actions.

Read more here: » Karma Yoga: Karma, The Law of Action followed by Reaction

Fasting and Penance Strengthen the Soul

A feature common to most religions, worldwide, is the practice of undertaking periodic fasts. Saum or fasts are an integral part of Islam. For Hindus, fasts are a form and part of prayer and worship and the word upvas means "being near God".

The concept of asan or fasting takes different forms in Jainism. Followers of Buddhism too observe fasts on certain days as do Christians, especially during Lent.

Abstaining from food during Ramadan is a part of the broader programme that Islam prescribes for man to fulfil his moral and spiritual destiny in this world and in the hereafter.

Read more here: » Spiritual Fasting: Fasting and Penance Strengthen the Soul

Bhakti Yoga

Bhakti is the slender silken thread of Prema or Love that binds the heart of a devotee with the Lotus Feet of the Lord. Bhakti is intense devotion and supreme attachment to God. It is the spontaneous outpouring of love towards God. It is pure, unselfish, Divine Love or Suddha Prema. Bhakti is sacred, higher emotion with sublime sentiment that unites the devotee with the Lord. It has to be experienced by the Bhaktas.

From "Easy Steps to Yoga" by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » Bhakti Yoga: Bhakti Yoga Sadhana

The Satyanarayan puja is performed usually on the day of the full moon night. Many Hindus believe that listening to the katha or story and performing the puja will help them fulfil their desires, that it will bring prosperity, remove fear and free them from bondage. While emotional and sincere chanting of the katha has been known to bring positive results, they are more the result of a true understanding and implementation of the essence and complete message of the katha, rather than the fruits of the ritual itself.

(See also: Satyanarayana , God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Satyanarayana: Unifying Spirit of Sri Satyanarayana

 Many healing practitioners have shared with me their bewilderment over assuming illnesses or conditions from their clients, especially when they truly felt that their intentions were of loving service to another. Why would a healer or anyone become ill through healing others?

Read more here: » Law of Healing: Healer, Heal Thy Self

The Foreword to the book: Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time - THE MAYAN CALENDAR

Carl Johan Calleman has a Ph.D. in Physical Biology from the University of Stockholm (1984) and has served as a Senior Researcher of Environmental Health at the University of Washington in Seattle and as an expert on cancer for the World Health Organization. He is recognized as one of the world's foremost experts on the Mayan calendar based on the books Maya-hypotesen (in Swedish, 1994), The Mayan Calendar (Garev, 2001) and Enlightenment (Bear and Co, 2004).

Read more here: » Mayan Calendar: Foreword to the book Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time - THE MAYAN CALENDAR

 An Avatar is an incarnation of a fragment of God on Earth. Avatars that are known of in the West include Christ, Buddha, Rama and Krishna. There are many others, however, as enumerated in the Bhagavata, the story of all the major Avatars.

Read more here: » Avatars: Sages, Saints and Avatars

Hinduism and Violence: Hindu view on violence

The Bhagavad gita, which is considered to be very sacred by the Hindus, equate anger (krodh), pride (mad), arrogance (darp), cruelty (kruratv), slaying the enemies (satru hatya), hatred (dhvesh), as demonical qualities (asura pravritti), in contrast to the divine qualities (daiva pravritti), which are harmlessness (ahimsa), absence of anger (akrodha), peace (santi), compassion (daya), forgiveness (kshama) and absence of malice (adhroho). From this description it becomes clear that Hinduism does not support violence, especially when it is perpetrated for selfish or egoistic reasons. 

Read more here: » Hinduism and Violence: Hindu view on violence

As we prepare ourselves for the upcoming school year, I thought this would be a good time to introduce you to a new perception about our children. Each generation has its unique characteristics that define new paradigms, forcing us to review our old systems and integrate a new way of thinking. Our educational system has been greatly challenged over the past 20 years and it is a reflection of the evolution of the mind and the spirit, as evidenced by our children and their special needs.

(See also: Indigo Children, What is Indigo Children, Parenting Indigo Children, Adult Indigo, Indigo Children Channeling)

Read more here: » Indigo Children: New Perceptions

Bhakthi:

Bhakthi: Reverent Adoration, (RRV-1), devotion (BV-36). Adoring the Supreme with the greatest possible Love is called Bhakthi, the (9) modes (path) of devotion. (RRV2-2):

1. Sravanam: listening to stories of the Lord's lilas or plays

 2. Kirtanam: chanting of God's glories

 3. Smaranam: remembering the presence of the Lord constantly

 4. Padasevanam: Pada means feet. Seva means service. This is when you get to blend your practice of karma yoga (seva) with bhakti. In doing your duty and serving humanity, develop the bhava that you are serving and worshiping the Lord's Feet.

 5. Archanam: Worship of God through rituals such as puja

 6. Vandanam: prostration. The yogi expresses his respect and love to god by prostrating physically to the ground thereby developing humility

 7. Dasyam: The devotee is developing the feeling of being the Lord's servant. This will weed out pride, selfishness, arrogance and egoism which are all based on avidya.

 8. Sakhyam: Feeling of friendship. This bhava helps the devotees establish a personal relationship with God picturing him as his best friend. One should be ready to do anything for their friend.

 9. Atmanivedanam: Complete surrender of self. The term bhakti is often translated as devotion or love but rarely as surrender. Actually surrender is the highest aspect of bhakti. One's ego is totally offered to the Lord and nothing but the atman remains and non duality is experienced.

(See also: Bhakthi , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

A Yoga Dictionary from Abhyasa to Yukti.

From "Kundalini Yoga" by Sri Swami Sivananda

A man who wished to be initiated into meditation went to a great sage and asked to be accepted as his disciple. The sage made him close his eyes gently and told him that the first step of meditation was to practise compassion. "Amity, compassion, amity, compassion" - the sage kept repeating.

The man, however, was not concentrating. Finally he opened his eyes and begged to be allowed to say something. "I can wish everybody well but my neighbour. I have a lawsuit against him. Can I leave him out?"

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Love and Happiness: Forgive and Forget To Create Amity

Read more here: » Natural Health: Arrogance Corrupts Body and Soul

For Gandhi, non-violence meant an overflowing love for all humanity, a way of life that emanated from the very marrow of his being. But for many of his followers, non-violence was simply a political strategy, a tactic for winning India's independence from Britain. The more earnestly Gandhi pursued his religious beliefs, the deeper his love for humanity grew.

This love made it all the more impossible for him to ignore the political realities that shaped people's lives. At the same time, contact with these political realities strengthened his conviction that nothing is more essential than the love for humanity that religious faith can inspire. He walked the middle way.

(See also: Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Explode Spiritual Bomb of Compassion

There is much evidence in existence to support the notion that we all possess the potential to incubate dreams - in other words, conjure up dreams to order. Whether they are romantic encounters, dreams that furnish solutions to problems, or even lucid dreams, with time and effort, they can be evoked. Ancient civilizations were well aware of the potential of dream incubation. The Egyptians, for example, built temples called Serapeums, named after Serapis, the god of dreams. It wasn't unusual for the expectant dreamer to undergo various procedures including cleansing, purging, offering up prayer and so forth, in order to experience the desired dream.

Read more here: » Dream incubation: To evoke a specific dream

aura analysis (aura reading, auric diagnosis): direct or indirect examination of the vital energy that envelops each human. Nonpsychics can analyze the aura through Kirlian photography or a Kilner screen.

Dr. Walter J. Kilner (1847-1920) of St. Thomas's Hospital, in London, invented this screen: two plates of glass, an eighth of an inch apart, containing an alcoholic solution of a dye (usually carmine or a coal-tar dye).

Auric colors reveal the personal traits of the subject, such as impressionableness and spiritual arrogance. Proponents also associate auric colors with glands, organs, organ systems, and psychological states such as anger and boredom.

(See also: Aura analysis , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Mahabharata

"[The Mahabharata] is...probably the longest single poem in the world's literature. Traditionally the author of the poem was the sage Vyasa, who is said to have taught it to his pupil Vaisampayana. The latter, according to tradition, recited it in public for the first time at a great sacrifice held by King Janamejaya, the great grandson of Arjuna, one of the heroes of the story. ...the poem tells of the great civil war in the kingdom of the Kurus, in the region about the modern Delhi, then known as Kuruksetra."

-- A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, p. 407

"The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind, but of a whole people. ...The whole poem has been built like a vast national temple unrolling slowly its immense and complex idea from chanber to chamber, crowded with significant groups and sculptures and inscriptions, the grouped figures carved in divine or semi-divine proportions, a humanity aggrandised and half-uplifted to super-humanity and yet always true to the human motive and idea and feeling, the strain of the real constantly raised by the tones of the ideal, the life of this world amply portrayed but subjected to the conscious influence and presence of the powers of the worlds behind it, and the whole unified by the long embodied procession of a consistent idea worked out in the wide steps of the poetic story."

"The leading motive is the Indian idea of the Dharma. Here the Vedic notion of the struggle between the godheads of truth and light and unity and the powers of darkness and division and falsehood is brought out from the spiritual and religious and internal into the outer intellectual, ethical and vital plane. It takes there in the figure of the story a double form of a personal and a political struggle, the personal a conflict between typical and representative personalities embodying the greater ethical ideals of the Indian Dharma and others who are embodiments of Asuric egoism and self-will and misuse of the Dharma, the political a battle in which the personal struggle culminates, an international clash ending in the establishment of a new rule of righteiousness and justice, a kingdom or rather an empire of the Dharma uniting warring races and substituting for the ambitious arrogance of kings and aristocratic clans the supremacy, the calm and peace of a just and humane empire. It is the old struggle of Deva and Asura, God and Titan, but represented in the terms of human life."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL Vol.14 pp. 287-88

(See also: Mahabharata , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Indigo children are supposedly a set of children having certain special psychological and spiritual attributes. The indigo child concept was first popularized by the book, The Indigo Children, written by the husband and wife team of Lee Carroll and Jan Tober1, with the contributions of medical doctors, psychologists, and parents whose essays are included in the text. The adjective "indigo" is used because it is claimed these children appear with an indigo-hued aura.

(See also: Indigo Children, What is Indigo Children, Parenting Indigo Children, Adult Indigo, Indigo Children Channeling)

Read more here: » Indigo Children: Indigo children in Wikipedia  

japa: (Sanskrit) "Incantation."

Practice of concentrated repetition of a mantra, often while counting the repetitions on a mala or strand of beads. It may be done silently or aloud. Sometimes known as mantra yoga.

A major sadhana in Hindu spiritual practice, from the simple utterance of a few names of God to extraordinary feats of repeating sacred syllables millions of times for years on end. It is recommended as a cure for pride and arrogance, anger and jealousy, fear and confusion. It harmonizes the doshas and quiets the vrittis. Filling the mind with divine syllables, awakening the divine essence of spiritual energies in the physical body, japa brings forth the amrita. For Saivites, Namah Sivaya in its various forms is the most treasured mantra used in japa. The mantra Hare- Rama-Hare-Krishna is among the foremost Vaishnava mantras.

Japa yoga is said to be of 14 kinds:

• daily (nitya),
• circumstantial (naimittika),
• the japa of desired results (kamya), f
• orbidden (nishiddha),
• penitential (prayashchitta),
• unmoving (achala),
• moving (chala),
• voiced (vachika),
• whispered (upanshu),
• bee, or murmured (bhramara),
• mental (manasa),
• uninterrupted (akhanda),
• nonuttered (ajapa) and
• circumambulatory (pradakshina).

See: amrita, mantra, yama-niyama, yoga.

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