Jaina Dictionary

Jaina Gross. The same as the "Swastika" (q.v.), "Thor’s hammer" also, or the Hermetic cross.

(See also: Jaina Gross , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Jaina:

Jaina (sometimes Jain): pertaining to the jinas ("conquerors"), the liberated adepts of Jainism; a member of Jainism, the spiritual tradition founded by Vardhamana Mahavira, a contemporary of Gautama the Buddha

(See also: Jaina ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Jaina Cross. See SWASTIKA

(See also: Jaina Cross , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Jainism: (Jaina) (Sanskrit) An ancient non-Vedic religion of India made prominent by the teachings of Mahavira ("Great Hero"), ca 500 bce. The Jain Agamas teach reverence for all life, vegetarianism and strict renunciation for ascetics.

Jains focus great emphasis on the fact that all souls may attain liberation, each by his own effort. Their great historic saints, called Tirthankaras ("Ford-Crossers"), are objects of worship, of whom Mahavira was the 24th and last. Jains number about six million today, living mostly in India.

See: Mahavira.

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

Tirthankara (Sanskrit) [from tirtha a place of pilgrimage + kara maker, or doer from the verbal root kri to make, do]

Also tirthakara. Jain saints and chiefs, of which there are 24; equivalent to Jaina, or Jaina arhat.

(See also: Tirthankara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Svastika (Sanskrit). In popular notions, it is the Jaina cross, or the "four-footed" cross (croix cramponnée). In Masonic teachings, "the most ancient Order of the Brotherhood of the Mystic Cross" is said to have been founded by Fohi, 1,027 B.C., and introduced into China fifty-two years later, consisting of the three degrees.

In Esoteric Philosophy, the most mystic and ancient diagram. It is "the originator of the fire by friction, and of the ‘ Forty-nine Fires’." Its symbol was stamped on Buddha’s heart, and therefore called the " Heart’s Seal". It is laid on the breasts of departed Initiates after their death ; and it is mentioned with the greatest respect in the Ramayana. Engraved on every rock, temple and prehistoric building of India, and wherever Buddhists have left their landmarks; it is also found in China, Tibet and Siam, and among the ancient Germanic nations as Thor’s Hammer. As described by Eitel in his Hand-Book of Chinese Buddhism. .

(1) it is "found among Bonpas and Buddhists";

(2) it is "one of the sixty-five figures of the Sripada" ; ( it is "the symbol of esoteric Buddhism" ;

(4) "the special mark of all deities worshipped by the Lotus School of China". Finally, and in Occultism, it is as sacred to us as the Pythagorean Tetraktys, of which it is indeed the double symbol.

(See also: Svastika , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Nada-Yoga:

Nada-Yoga ("Yoga of the [inner] sound"): the yoga or process of producing and intently listening to the inner sound as a means of concentration and ecstatic self-transcendence

(See also: Nada-Yoga ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Narayana:

Narayana: (path of man, God of man, son of the original man): Vishnu-tattva-avatara. He in whom all reside. Is presented with four arms as the one resisting wordly temptations in the holding out of heavenly beauties.

- Plenary expansion of Krishna with four hands, holding the conch, the disc, the mace and the lotusflower.

 - Lord of the heavenly worlds, the Vaikunthha planets.

- Name of the Supreme Personality of God, He who is the source and destination of all living beings.

- The part (or lead) of God relating to man, that source from which the waters originated. (10.14: 14).

- Monier Williams dictionary:'the son of the original Man (with whom he is generally associated); he is identified with Brahma with Vishnu or Krishna; the Apsaras Urvasi is said to have sprung from his thigh; elsewhere he is regarded as a Kas'yapa or Angirasa, also as chief of the Sadhyas, and with Jaina's as the 8th of the 9 black Vasudevas) ; the Purusha-hymn is said to have been composed by Him)....'

 - Sage Narayana: for the welfare, in this and the next life, of the human beings abiding in dharma, jnana and self-control in Bharata-varsha, has he been performing penances from the beginning of Brahma's day (see 10.87: 6)

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

Fylfot (Scandianvian Norse). A weapon of Thor, like the Swastika, or the Jaina, the four-footed cross ; generally called "Thor’s Hammer".

(See also: Fylfot , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Ahamkara:

Ahamkara ("I-maker"): the individuation principle, or ego, which must be transcended; cf. asmita; see also buddhi, manas

(See also: Ahamkara ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Amrita:

Amrita ("immortal/immortality"): a designation of the deathless Spirit (atman, purusha); also the nectar of immortality that oozes from the psychoenergetic center at the crown of the head (see sahasrara-cakra) when it is activated and transforms the body into a "divine body" (divya-deha)

(See also: Amrita ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Advaita:

Advaita ("nonduality"): the truth and teaching that there is only One Reality (Atman, Brahman), especially as found in the Upanishads; see also Vedanta

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Abhyasa:

Abhyasa: practice; cf. vairagya

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Swastika svastika (Sanskrit) An auspicious or lucky object; especially applied to the mystic symbol -- a cross with four equal arms, the extremities of which are bent sharply at right angles, all in the same direction -- marked upon persons and things in order to denote good luck, although originally the symbol had a far deeper significance. Sometimes the arms are bent to the left, sometimes to the right.

The symbol is very widespread, and extremely ancient, engraved on every rock-temple and prehistoric building in India, and wherever Buddhists have flourished, as well as in Greece, among the ancient Scandinavians, and in ancient America. It has been called the Jaina Cross; Fylfot, Mjolnir, or Thor's Hammer by the Scandinavian peoples; and in the Chaldean Book of Numbers the Worker's Hammer.

One of the most comprehensive, important, and philosophically scientific symbols, it is a symbolic summary of the whole work of evolution in cosmos and man, from Brahman down to the smallest biological unit. "Few world-symbols are more pregnant with real occult meaning than the Swastica. It is symbolized by the figure 6; for, like that figure, it points in its concrete imagery, as the ideograph of the number does, to the Zenith and the Nadir, to North, South, West, and East; . . . It is the emblem of the activity of Fohat, of the continual revolution of the 'wheels,' and of the Four Elements, the 'Sacred Four,' in their mystical, and not alone in their cosmical meaning; further its four arms, bent at right angles, are intimately related . . . to the Pythagorean and Hermetic scales. One initiated into the mysteries of the meaning of the Swastica, say the Commentaries, 'can trace on it, with mathematical precision, the evolution of Kosmos and the whole period of Sandhya.' Also 'the relation of the Seen to the Unseen,' and 'the first procreation of man and species' " (SD 2:587).

The bent arms also signify the continual revolution of the invisible cosmos of forces, which on our plane becomes the revolution in time of the world's axes and their equatorial belts. In alchemy its shows that by the unceasing revolution of the four elements, equilibrium about a stable center is attained, the circle is generated out of straight lines, the complex and changeful nature becomes one. The two crossed lines represent spirit and matter, male and female, positive and negative. It shows man to be a link between heaven and earth, for the horizontal arm having one hook pointing up, the other down. In its applicability to all planes it contains the key to the seven great mysteries of kosmos.

(See also: Swastika, svastika , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Thor’s Hammer. A weapon which had the form of the Svastika; called by European Mystics and Masons the " Hermetic Cross", and also "Jaina Cross ", croix cramponnée ; the most archaic, as the most sacred and universally respected symbol. (See " Svastika".)

(See also: Thor’s Hammer , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Kosha:

Kosha ("casing"): any one of five "envelopes" surrounding the transcendental Self (atman) and thus blocking its light: anna-maya-kosha ("envelope made of food," the physical body), prana-maya-kosha ("envelope made of life force"), mano-maya-kosha ("envelope made of mind"), vijnana-maya-kosha ("envelope made of consciousness"), and ananda-maya-kosha ("envelope made of bliss"); some older traditions regard the last kosha as identical with the Self (atman)

(See also: Kosha ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Prasada:

Prasada ("grace/clarity"): divine grace; mental clarity

(See also: Prasada ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Kundalini-shakti:

Kundalini-shakti ("coiled power"): according to Tantra and hatha yoga, the serpent power or spiritual energy, which exists in potential form at the lowest psycho-energetic center of the body (i.e., the mula-adhara-cakra) and which must be awakened and guided to the center at the crown (i.e., the sahasrara-cakra) for full enlightenment to occur

(See also: Kundalini-shakti ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Karma Yoga:

Karma Yoga ("Yoga of action"): the liberating path of self-transcending action

(See also: Karma Yoga ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Bhakti Yoga:

Bhakti Yoga ("Yoga of devotion"): a major branch of the yoga tradition, utilizing the feeling capacity to connect with the ultimate Reality conceived as a supreme Person (uttama-purusha)

(See also: Bhakti Yoga ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)