guru: (Sanskrit) "Weighty one," indicating an authority of great knowledge or skill.

A title for a teacher or guide in any subject, such as music, dance, sculpture, but especially religion.

For clarity, the term is often preceded by a qualifying prefix. Hence, terms such as

• kulaguru (family teacher),
• vinaguru (vina teacher) and
• satguru (spiritual preceptor).

In Hindu astrology, guru names the planet Jupiter, also known as Brihaspati. According to the Advayataraka Upanishad (1418), guru means "dispeller (gu) of darkness (ru)."

See: guru-shishya system, satguru.

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

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vasana: (Sanskrit) "Subconscious inclination." From vas, "living, remaining." The subliminal inclinations and habit patterns which, as driving forces, color and motivate one's attitudes and future actions. Vasanas are the conglomerate results of subconscious impressions (samskaras) created through experience. Samskaras, experiential impressions, combine in the subconscious to form vasanas, which thereafter contribute to mental fluctuations, called vritti. The most complex and emotionally charged vasanas are found in the dimension of mind called the subsubconscious, or vasana chitta.

See: samskara, mind (five states), vasana daha tantra, vritti.

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

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Sarasvati: (Sanskrit) "The flowing one." Shakti, the Universal Mother; Goddess of the arts and learning, mythological consort of the God Brahma.

Sarasvati, the river Goddess, is usually depicted wearing a white sari and holding a vina, sitting upon a swan or lotus flower. Prayers are offered to her for refinements of art, culture and learning.

Sarasvati also names one of seven sacred rivers (Sapta Sindhu) mentioned in the Rig Veda. Parts of the Indus Valley civilization thrived along the river until it dried up in 1900bce. Its course was lost and thought a myth by some until recently discovered in images taken by a French satellite. In addition, one of the ten dashanami swami orders is the Sarasvati.

See: Goddess, Shakti.

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

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sexuality: Hinduism has a healthy, unrepressed outlook on human sexuality, and sexual pleasure is part of kama, one of the four goals of life.

On matters such as birth control, sterilization, masturbation, homosexuality, bisexuality, petting and polygamy, Hindu scripture is tolerantly silent, neither calling them sins nor encouraging their practice, neither condemning nor condoning.

The two important exceptions to this understanding view of sexual experience are adultery and abortion, both of which are considered to carry heavy karmic implications for this and future births.

See: abortion, bisexuality, homosexuality.

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

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Shakti: (Sanskrit) "Power, energy," from the root shak, "to be able."

The active power or manifest energy of Siva that pervades all of existence. Its most refined aspect is Parashakti, or Satchidananda, the pure consciousness and primal substratum of all form.

This pristine, divine energy unfolds as ic�ha shakti (the power of desire, will, love), kriya shakti (the power of action) and jnana shakti (the power of wisdom, knowing), represented as the three prongs of Siva's trishula, or trident. From these arise the five powers of revealment, concealment, dissolution, preservation and creation.

In Saiva Siddhanta, Siva is All, and His divine energy, Shakti, is inseparable from Him. This unity is symbolized in the image of Ardhanarishvara, "half-female God." In popular, village Hinduism, the unity of Siva and Shakti is replaced with the concept of Siva and Shakti as separate entities. Shakti is represented as female, and Siva as male. In Hindu temples, art and mythology, they are everywhere seen as the divine couple. This depiction has its source in the folk-narrative sections of the Puranas, where it is given elaborate expression. Shakti is personified in many forms as the consorts of the Gods. For example, the Goddesses Parvati, Lakshmi and Sarasvati are the respective mythological consorts of Siva, Vishnu and Brahma. Philosophically, however, the caution is always made that God and God's energy are One, and the metaphor of the inseparable divine couple serves only to illustrate this Oneness.

Within the Shakta religion, the worship of the Goddess is paramount, in Her many fierce and benign forms. Shakti is the Divine Mother of manifest creation, visualized as a female form, and Siva is specifically the Unmanifest Absolute. The fierce or black (asita) forms of the Goddess include Kali, Durga, Chandi, Chamundi, Bhadrakali and Bhairavi. The benign or white (sita) forms include Uma, Gauri, Ambika, Parvati, Maheshvari, Lalita and Annapurna. As Rajarajeshvari ("divine queen of kings"). She is the presiding Deity of the Sri Chakra yantra. She is also worshiped as the ten Mahavidyas, manifestations of the highest knowledge - Kali, Tara, Shodashi, Bhuvaneshvari, Chinnamasta, Bhairavi, Dhumavati, Bagata, Matangi and Kamala. While some Shaktas view these as individual beings, most revere them as manifestations of the singular Devi. There are also numerous minor Goddess forms, in the category of gramadevata ("village Deity"). These include Pitari, "snake-catcher" (usually represented by a simple stone), and Mariyamman, "smallpox Goddess."

In the yoga mysticism of all traditions, divine energy, shakti, is experienced within the human body in three aspects:

1)    the feminine force, ida shakti,

2)    the masculine force, pingala shakti, and

3)    the pure androgynous force, kundalini shakti, that flows through the sushumna nadi.

Shakti is most easily experienced by devotees as the sublime, bliss-inspiring energy that emanates from a holy person or sanctified Hindu temple.

See: Amman, Ardhanarishvara, Goddess, Parashakti, Shaktism.

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

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Matanga Parameshvara Agama: (Sanskrit) Among the 28 Saiva Siddhanta Agamas, containing 3,500 verses, deals at length with the categories of existence (tattvas). The Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia is thought to have been built using the temple section of this scripture.

See: Saiva Agamas.

(See also: Matanga Parameshvara Agama , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

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polygamy: Practice of having more than one spouse.

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

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polytheism: Belief in or worship of many Gods.

See: monotheism, Polytheistic, monotheistic, polytheism.

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

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pluralism (pluralistic): Doctrine that holds existence to be composed of three or more distinct and irreducible components, such as God, souls and world.

See: dvaitaadvaita.

pluralistic realism: A term for pluralism used by various schools including Meykandar Saiva Siddhanta, emphasizing that the components of existence are absolutely real in themselves and not creations of consciousness or God.

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

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Plotinus: Egyptian-born philosopher (205-270), one of the Western world's greatest known mystics, who extended and revived the work of the Greek philosopher Plato in the Roman Empire.

His philosophy, known as Neo-Platonism, posits concentric levels of reality, not unlike the Hindu cosmology of lokas, with a central source of sublime existence and values and an outer sheath of physical matter. Man, he said, is a microcosm of this system, capable of attaining the sublime inner state through enstasy. He practiced and taught ahimsa, vegetarianism, karma, reincarnation and belief in Supreme Being as both immanent and transcendent.

His writings, in six volumes, are called the Ennead. He was apparently familiar with Hindu wisdom through reading Life of Apollonius, a biography which narrated a young Greek renunciate's travels through India.

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

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pliant: Flexible, adaptable, not rigid.

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

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Rig Veda: (Sanskrit) "Veda of verse (rik)."

The first and oldest of the four Veda compendia of revealed scriptures (shruti), including a hymn collection (Samhita), priestly explanatory manuals (Brahmanas), forest treatises (Aranyakas) elaborating on the Vedic rites, and philosophical dialogs (Upanishads). Like the other Vedas, the Rig Veda was brought to earth consciousness not all at once, but gradually, over a period of perhaps several thousand years.

The oldest and core portion is the Samhita, believed to date back, in its oral form, as far as 8,000 years, and to have been written down in archaic Sanskrit some 3,000 years ago. It consists of more than 10,000 verses, averaging three or four lines (riks), forming 1,028 hymns (suktas), organized in ten books called mandalas. It embodies prayerful hymns of praise and invocation to the Divinities of nature and to the One Divine. They are the spiritual reflections of a pastoral people with a profound awe for the powers of nature, each of which they revered as sacred and alive. The rishis who unfolded these outpourings of adoration perceived a wellordered cosmos in which dharma is the way of attunement with celestial worlds, from which all righteousness and prosperity descends.

The main concern is man's relationship with God and the world, and the invocation of the subtle worlds into mundane existence. Prayers beseech the Gods for happy family life, wealth, pleasure, cattle, health, protection from enemies, strength in battle, matrimony, progeny, long life and happiness, wisdom and realization and final liberation from rebirth.

The Rig Veda Samhita, which in length equals Homer's Iliad and Odyssey combined, is the most important hymn collection, for it lends a large number of its hymns to the other three Veda Samhitas (the Sama, Yajur and Atharva). Chronologically, after the Samhitas came the Brahmanas, followed by the Aranyakas, and finally the Upanishads, also called the Vedanta, meaning "Veda's end."

See: Rig Veda, shruti, Vedas.

(See also: Rig Veda , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

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rigorous: Very strict or severe.

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

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pontifical: Having to do with pontiffs, or high priests. Having all the dignity, respect and influence of a spiritual leader endowed with great honor and authority.

See: ordination, Shankaracharya pitha.

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

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pomp: A dignified or brilliant display. Splendor and pageantry.

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

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revealing grace:

See: anugraha shakti, grace.

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

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pinda: (Sanskrit) "Roundish mass; body; part of the whole, individual; microcosm."

In worship rites, small balls of rice set aside daily in remembrance of ancestors. Philosophically, and emphasized in Siddha Siddhanta, the human body as a replica of the macrocosm, mahasakara pinda, also called Brahmanda (cosmic egg), or simply anda (egg).

Within the individual body of man is reflected and contained the entire cosmos. Each chakra represents a world or plane of consciousness with the highest locus in the head and the lowest in the feet. "Microcosmmacrocosm" is embodied in the terms pinda-anda. Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati lists six pindas, from the garbhapinda, "womb-born body," to parapinda, "transcendental body."

See: Brahmanda, microcosm-macrocosm.

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

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rishi: (Sanskrit) "Seer."

A term for an enlightened being, emphasizing psychic perception and visionary wisdom. In the Vedic age, rishis lived in forest or mountain retreats, either alone or with disciples. These rishis were great souls who were the inspired conveyers of the Vedas. Seven particular rishis (the sapta-rishis) mentioned in the Rig Veda are said to still guide mankind from the inner worlds.

See: shruti.

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pingala: (Sanskrit) "Tawny channel." The masculine psychic current flowing along the spine.

See: kundalini, nadi, raja yoga.

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

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rite (or ritual): A religious ceremony.

See: sacrament, sacrifice, samskara, Hinduism rites, Hinduism rituals.

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

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Pitriloka: (Sanskrit) "World of ancestors."

The upper region of Bhuvarloka.

See: loka.

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

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ritukala: (Sanskrit) "Fit or proper season." Time of menses.

A traditional ceremony marking a young lady's coming of age. Ritu also carries the meaning of "fertile time."

See: samskaras of adulthood.

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

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