Introduction and links to related topics Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Asrama - Asrama (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root sram to exert oneself spiritually)
A sacred building, a monastery or hermitage for ascetic purposes; likewise one of the four periods of effort or inner development in the religious life of a Brahmin in ancient times.
These asramas were
the student or Brahmacharin;
the householder or grihastha, the period of married existence when the Brahmin played his due role in the affairs of the world;
the period of religious seclusion or vanaprastha, usually passed in a vana (forest), a period of inner spiritual recollection and meditation on philosophical and religious matters; and
the one who has renounced all the distractions of worldly life or bhikshu who has turned his attention wholly to spiritual affairs, although he may have returned to the world of men for purposes of aiding and teaching.
Ass In the cults of Asia Minor a symbol of Set, Typhon, Satan, Jehovah, or Saturn. Jesus rides into Jerusalem "upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass," in accordance with the prophecy in Zechariah (9:9). If the ass is Saturn, and its foal the earth (whose physical globe is governed by the genius of Saturn in connection with the moon), this is an apt symbol of the descent of the Christos into the lower worlds. Plutarch relates that Typhon or Set fled on an ass into Palestine and there founded Hierosolymus and Judaeus (De Iside et Osiride, ch 30).
Kapalika - (Sanskrit) An ascetic sect which developed out of the Pashupatas around 500 ce and largely vanished around 1400. They earned a reputation for extreme practices. Possible predecessors of Gorakshanatha Siddha Siddhanta yogis.
See: Pashupata Saivism.
Natha - (Sanskrit) "Master, lord; adept."
Names an ancient Himalayan tradition of Saiva-yoga mysticism, whose first historically known exponent was Nandikeshvara (ca 250 bce). Natha - Self-Realized adept - designates the extraordinary ascetic masters (or devotees) of this school. Through their practice of siddha yoga they have attained tremendous powers, siddhis, and are sometimes referred to as siddha yogis (accomplished or fully enlightened ones). The words of such beings naturally penetrate deeply into the psyche of their devotees, causing mystical awakenings. Like all tantrics, Nathas have refused to recognize caste distinctions in spiritual pursuits. Their satgurus initiate from the lowest to the highest, according to spiritual worthiness. Natha also refers to any follower of the Natha tradition. The Nathas are considered the source of hatha as well as raja yoga.
See: Kailasa Parampara, Natha Sampradaya, siddha yoga.
Vairagya - (Sanskrit) "Dispassion; aversion." Freedom
from passion. Distaste or disgust for worldliness because
of spiritual awakening. Also, the constant renunciation of obstacles on the path to liberation. Ascetic or monastic
life.
Talapoin - Talapoin (Siam.). A Buddhist monk and ascetic in Siam; some of these ascetics are credited with great magic powers.
Gautama - The family name of the Buddha.
There is no certainty about the century in which the historical Gautama lived. Buddhists in various parts of the world date the life of the Buddha to either 624 to 544 BC, 448 to 368 BC, or 566 to 486 BC.
According to Buddhist biographies, Gautama was born the son of a king in Lumbini, now in Nepal near the modern Indian border. He was raised in luxury, but left home at age twenty-nine in search of "the Deathless. " He spent six years after this "Great Renunciation" following the spiritual practices of other ascetic teachers and then experimenting on his own.
At the age of thirty-five he attained enlightenment, rediscovering Truth (Dharma) and thus becoming worthy of the epithet "Buddha," or "Awakened One. " Out of compassion, he spent the next forty-five years teaching what he had rediscovered, and each of the different Buddhist traditions traces its doctrine to his career. He died at the age of eighty.
Suka - Suka (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root subh to shine]
The bright one; applied to several Hindu mythological characters. In Buddhist literature, a Brahmin ascetic said to have been a maharshi, who became of jivanmukta.
Cathari - In 12th Century France, the Cathars were also known as the Albigensians, elsewhere sometimes equated only slightly less accurately with chiliastic Manichæanism (the belief in a dualistic universe ruled by Good and Evil) and early Gnosticism. They held that the world was created by a blind demiurge and is under the dominion of Evil. The Albigenses (from the town of Albi), believed that Lucifer was God''s first son and Christ his second son, whose role was to bring spiritual order to Lucifer''s evil domain. Most historians persist in describing the Cathari as sexual "puritans" but it was actually reproduction that they condemned. Their priests did not eat eggs or milk because they are the by-products of reproduction.
It is most curious that contemporary mention of this sect almost always ignores this most important aspect, viz. their insistence that human reproduction or procreation is the only unforgivable sin. Since this world is hell, to foist existence on innocent beings is a crime. Hence, they were the first practitioners of compulsory birth-control.
Some of the Cathari were quite ascetic frequently fasting, always chaste and were called Parfaits or "Perfects", hence the modern French dessert. Others believed that sodomy was a logical way of avoiding procreation. In Bulgaria, where Cathari were equated with the Bogomils, sodomy was routinely practiced as an alternative to reproduction hence the origin of the word "bugger" from Bulgar.
The Cathari (and other Gnostics) understood what our postmodern world has forgotten. A society that puts all of its meaning, purpose, faith and future into its children, is a society that has lost touch not only with the present and with its sense of responsibility it has lost touch with life itself. Those least qualified to teach are those who are most fertile. Those who grind out children like links of sausage cease to take the slightest interest in the very things that their children value the most and those things that most ought to concern society, what most needs to be preserved. People who have had children no longer demand of themselves the time, energy, courage or inclination to attempt the rigorous, perilous and unpredictable experimentation essential to authentic personal, social and racial growth.
As the Catholic Church was considered by the Cathari to be strictly "the work of the Devil" and the Cross an affront to God, the Cathari were universally despised. The Church opposed this heresy vigorously through pogroms and massacres, so that by 1330 there were no more of them left to persecute.
Vairagi - (Sanskrit) "Dispassionate one." An ascetic who
lives by the principle of vairagya. Also names a particular
class of mendicants, generally Vaishnavas, of North India
who have freed themselves from worldly desires.
See:
monk, sannyasa, tyaga.
Gymnosophists - Gymnosophists (from Greek gymnosophistai naked wise men)
Name given by the Greeks to the ascetics met by Alexander in India, as mentioned by Plutarch and others. They are said in some cases to have practiced extreme asceticism, including virtual nudity in all weathers; these "learned yogis and ascetic type philosophers who returned to the jungle and forest, there to reach through great austerities superhuman knowledge and experience," are said to have possessed occult powers due to their mode of life and to the traditional knowledge which they had (TG 130, IU 1:90, 113).
Pashupata Sutra - Pashupata Sutra (Sutras): (Sanskrit) The recently rediscovered (1930) central scripture of the Pashupata school of Saivism, attributed to Lakulisha. It covers asceticism at great length, and the five subjects of Pashupata theology: effect, cause, meditation, behavior and dissolution of sorrow. It urges the ascetic to go unrecognized and even invite abuse.
See: Pashupata Saivism.
Hasidism - (Hebrew. hasid, "pious" or "pietist") A Jewish religious movement that emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century beginning in Podolia in the Ukraine and then spreading to other parts of eastern Europe, including central Poland, Galicia, Hungary, and Belorussia-Lithuania. The founder of the movement is considered to be Israel ben Eliezer Baal Shem Tov, known as the Besht, whose life is embellished by many legends attributing to him extraordinary spiritual powers.
The ground for Hasidism was prepared by the formation of various mystic circles characterized by a distinctive pattern of religious asceticism, in some cases establishing their own form of prayer in independent synagogues. From these small ascetic groups Hasidism grew into a major social movement. The period of the most intense flourishing of Hasidism was between 1773 and 1815, when the disciples of Dov Baer of Mezhirech, successor to the Besht, helped to spread the movement by establishing centers throughout eastern Europe.
Beside the claim that one must worship God through physical acts such as eating, drinking, and sexual relations. is a metaphysics that sees God as the sole reality filling all worlds, where reality is but the veil or garment of the divine light. In some Hasidic texts, this monistic tendency comes very close to denying the independent existence of the world vis-a-vis the divine.
Sramanacharya - Sramanacharya Sramanacarya (Sanskrit) [from sramana ascetic + acharya teacher]
A Buddhist or Jain teacher of ascetic type.
Sramana - Sramana (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sram to exert]
Making effort or exertion; toiling, laboring; one who performs acts of penance and mortification -- an ascetic of such type. Particularly applied to Buddhist monks or mendicants, to Buddha, or to a Jain ascetic.
When a sravaka from theory goes into the actual practice of self-control in all its senses, he becomes a saramana, a practicer of the esoteric instructions. Mere asceticism, however, apart from strict spiritual aspiration and intellectual training, is of little value, and too often distracts the attention of the student merely to care for the body and its appetites. The story of the Buddha himself well illustrates this, for the time came when he abandoned ascetic mortification of the body and turned his entire attention to the far greater and more difficult spiritual and intellectual discipline and evolution.
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