Glossary

Abhishekam	Sprinkling or pouring of water, milk, etc. Often used in religious, Yogic or ceremonial contexts, particularly in Tantrism. A ritual of empowerment also used to denote initiation in general.
Adiyogi	The first yogi, one of the many epithets of Shiva.
Aghoris	One of the ascetic sects of Shaivites. Their practices are often severe and grisly and contradictory to that of orthodox Hinduism.
Agna Chakra	The centre of knowledge and Enlightenment, the Agna is one of the seven major energy centres of the human body. Physically located between the eyebrows, it is also known as the ‘third eye’.
Agnis	Refers to the five fires of the body.
Akaal Mrutyu	Untimely death.
Aakash	Refers to the sky or ether. One of the five elements of Nature.
Amma	Mother. A reverential way of addressing a woman.
Anahata Chakra	The heart centre, one of the seven energy centres of the body.
Ananda	Bliss, unconditional joy.
Anandamaya Kosha	The innermost body or the bliss body.
Anatma	Literally, ‘the soulless one’.
Annamaya Kosha	Food-formed sheath, or the physical body, made up of the five gross elements or bhoota s—earth, wind, water, fire, ether—which are restored again into their initial states after death.
Antyeshti	The final ritual to be done for the deceased.
Apana Prana/Vayu	One of the five pranas in the human body.
Arjuna	A hero of the great epic Mahabharata to whom Krishna imparted the Divine message of the Bhagavad Gita.
Atharvana Veda	The last of the four Vedas that expounds the technology of using physical energy to one’s advantage.
Atma	Individual being, the supreme soul, or Brahman.
Aum	The primordial sound made by chanting the sounds A-U-M.
Avighna Yantra	A spiritual energy form to remove obstacles, available at the Isha Yoga Center.
Aiyyo	Cries of desperation in southern Indian languages.
Babaji	Mahavatar Babaji, Indian saint and yogi, believed to have lived in the 2nd century AD .
Bala Yogi	Child yogi. Refers to someone who attains Enlightenment at an early age and usually does not retain the body for long after that.
Bhishma	The grand old patriarch of the Mahabharata.
Bhoota	A ghoul or ghost. Also refers to the five primary elements of Nature—earth, wind, fire, water and ether.
Bhrumadhya	A Yogic practice where the eyeballs are focused between the eyebrows.
Brahmachari	Brahman means Divine and charya means path, so, one who is on the path of the Divine. Usually refers to one who has formally been initiated into monkhood through a certain energy process.
Brahmacharya	The path of the Divine. A life of celibacy and studentship on the path of spirituality moving towards the highest modifications of the senses. One of the stages of life as per the Varnashrama Dharma.
Buddhi	The faculty of discrimination, analysis, logical and rational thought; the intellect.
Budubuduku	A traditional gypsy soothsayer.
Chakreshwara	One who has attained mastery over all the chakras.
Chamundi Hills	A hillock in Mysore, where Sadhguru had a deep spiritual experience.
Chandala	Someone who deals with the disposal of corpses. Also a Hindu lower caste, traditionally considered to be ‘untouchable’.
Chaudi	A kind of disembodied being.
Dhritarashtra	The Kaurava king under whose rule the Mahabharata war took place. Also the father of Duryodhana.
Dhyana/Dhyanam	Sanskrit for meditation.
Dhyanalinga	A powerful energy form at the Isha Yoga Center in India, it was consecrated by Sadhguru exclusively for the purpose of meditation.
Dosha	Defect or blemish. Specifically refers to defects in the physical, mental or energy bodies.
Gandhari	A prominent character in the Mahabharata. She was a princess of Gandhara and the wife of Dhritarashtra, the blind king of Hastinapura, and the mother of a hundred sons—the Kauravas.
Gandharva	A class of celestial beings who are usually gifted with extraordinary talents such as music and dance.
Ghat	The bank of a river, where people usually come to bathe, wash and swim.
Gita	Literally, ‘song’. Here it refers to the seven holy books, of which Bhagavad Gita is the most famous one.
Gnana Yoga	Knowledge, perception, discrimination; one of the four kinds of Yogas.
Gomukh	Literally, ‘cow’s mouth’; a place in the upper Himalayas, the location where the glacier forms the river Ganga. The glacial form has melted in a way that it resembles the face of a cow.
Gyan/Gnana/Gnanam	Knowledge, perception, discrimination
Homa	A Hindu ritual in which oblations or offerings are made into fire.
Jeevasamadhi	A Yogic practice where one ends one’s life by burying oneself or immersing oneself in water.
Kalabhairava	One who has mastery over time; a fierce form of Shiva.
Kapalabhati	A Yogic practice that involves forceful exhalation.
Kavacha	A shield.
Kinnara	A kind of a celestial being.
Klesha Nashana Kriya	A cleansing ritual performed at the Isha Yoga Center to cleanse the aura.
Kriya	Literally, ‘act, rite’; refers to a certain class of Yogic practices; inward action as opposed to karma, external action.
Kumbhaka	Breath retention during Yogic practice, especially in the practice of pranayama.
Kurukshetra	An extensive plain near Delhi, scene of the great war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, as it took place in the Mahabharata.
Linga Bhairavi Yantra	A spiritual energy form for the well-being of the family, available at the Isha Yoga Center.
Maha	An adjective or prefix meaning great, mighty, powerful, lofty, noble.
Mahabharata	A historic Indian epic that took place almost 5000 years ago.
Mahamrutyunjaya Mantra	A sacred Sanskrit chant that is supposed to ward off death.
Mahasamadhi	The highest form of equanimity that entails the complete dissolution or neutralization of the personal in the universal, whereby all traits of individual nature are transcended. Also known as Nirvana and Mahaparinibbana in other Eastern spiritual traditions.
Maya	Delusion, the veil of illusion which conceals one’s true nature, or conceals reality. It is used in contrast with the absolute reality.
Metti	Tamil word for toe ring worn by married women in India.
Mrutyu	Sanskrit for death.
Mrutyunjaya	Victory over death.
Mukti	Release, Liberation, the final absolution of the Self from the chain of death and rebirth. The highest goal of all spiritual seekers.
Muladhara	Located at the perineum, the Muladhara is the foundation of the energy body.
Mumtaz	One of the wives of the medieval Indian emperor Shah Jahan, in whose memory the famous Taj Mahal was built.
Naga	Literally, ‘serpent’; a symbol of the Kundalini coiled at the base of the spine; one of the secondary types of life forces (prana).
Namaskaram	Traditional southern Indian greeting.
Nirmanakaya	Literally, ‘one who has manufactured one’s body’; refers to accomplished yogis who materialize and dematerialize at will.
Nirvikalpa	Literally, ‘without qualities’. A type of samadhi, or equanimity, beyond all qualities or attributes, where a person’s contact with their body is minimal.
Ojas	Subtle energy.
Palani	A southern Indian town that is famous for its Murugan temple.
Pandavas	The protagonists of the Mahabharata.
Pisachi	A kind of disembodied being.
Prana	The fundamental life force.
Pranamaya Kosha	One of the five sheaths of the human body.
Prana Vayu	One of the five pranas of the body.
Prarabdha Karma	The portion of karma that is allocated for a particular lifetime.
Preta	A kind of ghost or being.
Rudraksha	Sacred beads; the seeds of a tree (Elaeocarpus ganitrus roxb ) found mostly in the Himalayan region. According to the legend, a tear from Lord Shiva fell to the Earth and from it grew the Rudraksha tree. Known to have many medicinal and transcendental qualities, a Rudraksha mala is one of the few possessions of an Indian spiritual seeker.
Runa	Literally, ‘debt’; in this context, it refers to the debt of relationship.
Runanubandha	The bondage caused or the debt accrued due to the debt of relationships.
Sadhaka	A spiritual seeker who has undertaken spiritual disciplines, usually under the guidance of a Master.
Sadhana	Literally, ‘tool or device’. Spiritual practices which are used as a means to Self-Realization.
Sahasrara Chakra	The chakra, or energy centre, of the human system located at the fontanelle, or crown, of the head.
Samadhi	Deep state of equanimity, one of the eight limbs of Yoga. Greatly celebrated in the Indian spiritual tradition, the experience of samadhi is therapeutic and deeply transformative in nature.
Samat Prana/Samana Vayu	One of the five pranas of the body.
Samskara	Ritual, in the general sense. Denotes rites such as the birth ceremony, tonsuring, marriage, cremation, etc. In Yoga, it stands for the indelible imprints in the subconscious left behind by daily experiences.
Samyama	A confluence of the states of dharana , dhyana and samadhi. Here, it refers to the eight-day meditation programme conducted by Sadhguru, where one is transported into explosive states of meditativeness. This programme is a possibility to shed lifetimes of karma and experience deep states of meditativeness and samadhi.
Sanchita Karma	The whole volume of karma of a person.
Santara	An ancient Jain practice of progressively fasting to death.
Sanyasa	On the path of spirituality, a stage of life as per the Varnashrama Dharma. The withdrawal from the world in search for Self-Realization.
Satsang	Literally, ‘in communion with Truth’; a congregation of seekers.
Savikalpa	Literally, ‘with qualities’. Used to refer to a type of samadhi, or equanimity, with qualities or attributes.
Shakti Chalana	A kind of Yogic practice taught at the Isha Yoga Center.
Shambhavi Mahamudra	A Yogic practice taught by Sadhguru.
Sharira	Literally, ‘body’.
Shivayogi	A name borne by Sadhguru in two of his previous lifetimes.
Shoonya	Literally, ‘emptiness’. An effortless process of conscious non-doing, Shoonya meditation is an extremely powerful and unique form of meditation taught by Sadhguru in a ‘live form’ at the Isha Yoga programmes.
Shraadha	Annual death ritual of the Hindus for one’s ancestors.
Siddhasana	A dynamic Yogic posture or practice. The mainstay sadhana of brahmacharis at the Isha Yoga Center.
Smashana	Hindu cremation ground.
Tantra	Literally, ‘technology’; in this context it refers to the technology of spiritual transformation. Commonly refers to a spiritual path in India.
Tantrik	A practitioner of Tantra.
Tapovan	A place above Gomukh, on the banks of the Gangotri, the glacial origin of the river Ganga.
Taraka Mantra	A secret and powerful mantra for Liberation that is whispered by Kalabhairava into the ears of those who die in Kashi.
Teerthakund	A consecrated body of water at the Isha Yoga Center.
Udana Prana/Vayu	One of the five pranas of the body.
Uttarayana	The period of the year from the winter solstice in December to the summer solstice in June.
Vanaprastha Ashrama	One of the stages of life according to the Varnashrama Dharma. People usually live away from their families during this stage, mostly in the forests.
Vasanas	Tendencies or inclinations; subliminal traits in a human being, the residue of desires and actions.
Veda	Refers to the oldest portion of the Hindu scriptures.
Velliangiri Mountains	The sacred mountain ranges in Tamil Nadu, in the foothills of which the Isha Yoga Center is located.
Vibhuti	Sacred ash that is made by burning cow dung; this is usually consecrated with the energies of a powerful deity before it is used. It is often smeared over certain parts of the body, especially the forehead and over the chakras.
Vignana	Science or special knowledge, in traditional terms.
Vignanamaya Kosha	One of the five sheaths of the human body.
Vishesh	Special or extraordinary.
Vishuddhi	One of the seven major chakras, Vishuddhi is the centre of power and vision. It is located at the pit of the throat.
Vyana Prana/Vayu	One of the five pranas of the body.
Yaksha	Celestial disembodied beings who are believed to inhabit secluded places.
Yamadoota	Agents of Yama, the Hindu God of death.
Yantra	Literally, a ‘tool or a device’; in this context it refers to an energy form, which can be designed and consecrated in different ways to bring prosperity and well-being to one’s life.
Yatana	Suffering.
Yatra	Travel, journey, pilgrimage.
Yudhishthira	The eldest of the Pandava princes, known for his virtues.