Glossary: A
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Absence
The loss of the concept of Presence happens through the realization of the ultimate void (Sunyata), which is the absence of conceptualization. This is another radical departure from one's previous experience. One goes from a sense of absolute Presence to a sense of absolute Absence. One here realizes that for... more »
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Absolute
So when we say Absolute, we mean Being -- Essence with no qualities, before qualities come into Being. Then you know it's the source of everything, because you see everything arising from it. more »
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Absorption
Absorption is the innate ability of the human organism to completely assimilate learning from experience, to absorb it to the degree of not needing the memory of the learning process, either consciously or unconsciously. more »
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Acceptance
Acceptance will not be the personality accepting. Acceptance will be Essence coming; it will be like a benediction, a blessing, a gentle rain. The personality cannot accept. It can surrender to the truth of the moment -- which is the same as the stopping of rejection -- surrender and allow... more »
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Acting Self
The acting self is a totality, but it has, so to speak, a legislative branch and an executive one: the legislative branch is basically the self-identity and the executive branch the self-entity. Both branches are needed for meaningful action, for the complete action of the integrated self. Disturbances of either... more »
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Action
Action based on ambitions and ideals disconnect the self from its innate dynamism. The activity is bound to be somewhat unauthentic, for regardless of how near the ideals and ambitions are to the actual condition of the self, they cannot be identical to its condition in the moment because they... more »
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Activity
The past exists in us as activity, and the content of personality is an activity, a movement. Ego activity is the substance of suffering; it is contraction itself. You can see this more specifically if you look at the activity in the centers of the body. If you look at... more »
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Aggression
As it is a suppressive agent, the superego uses the energy of aggression in its control of the ego. Most of this aggressive energy is nothing but the aggression that the child experienced toward the coercive agencies in childhood. Now this aggression is used by the superego to punish the... more »
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Aim of Inquiry
The aim of inquiry, however, is not to arrive at conclusions but to enjoy the exploration and the thrill of discovery. This discovery is the unfoldment of the soul, and expresses the soul’s love of truth and reality, which itself is the expression of Being’s love of revealing itself. more »
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Alienation
The alienation from Essence begins at least from the time of inception of psychic structures for, as we have discussed, these structures become established by the development of self-representations that pattern the experience of the self. Experiencing the self through representations is antithetical to direct experience of the essential Presence.... more »
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Aliveness
But Being's perception of itself is immediate and direct. The experience is more like "I exist," felt with immediate, definite certainty. It is the feeling "I am." "I am because I am." The experience of Being is like being a certain medium or substance in which each point or atom... more »
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Allowing
The allowing position is an alternative that your mind doesn’t usually see. Your mind could see there is this way or that way. But there might be hundreds of other ways. Which way is broader, more expansive – to be free while your environment is the way it is now,... more »
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Aloneness
When the personality is gone, you feel alone, because the boundaries -- your ideas and memories -- are your father and mother. The separateness is your memories of your mother and father, your relationship with them and all your past experiences which you're bringing into the present. Your past experience... more »
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Anger
However, we see that anger turns into strength not because of verbalization itself, but because one feels the energetic aspect of the emotion instead of its conceptual part. The conceptual part can be eliminated through understanding, as in verbalization. However, the fact that anger can turn into strength by merely... more »
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Anguish
When attachment itself is experienced without the object of attachment, without attention to what you want to have and want to hold onto, when the sensation itself is felt, it is experienced as deep anguish, totally intolerable. We normally avoid this experience by not focusing on it; whenever you are... more »
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Animal Soul
The animal or libidinal soul is driven by two primary instincts or drives: the aggressive and libidinal. The aggressive drive includes the soul’s power and energy directed toward survival and all of its correlates: dominance, rivalry, territoriality, etc. The libidinal drive includes sexual and erotic energy and impulses, animalistic wanting... more »
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Annihilation
This is a black, empty space encountered at a very subtle level of identity, the sense of identity which stems from the experience of existence. Here we are not dealing with boundaries of any image; we are dealing with the identity itself, the actual feeling of existence. Identity itself, both... more »
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Anxiety
In other words, the ego relates to the superego just like the child related to the coercive agencies in his environment -- afraid of its attacks. So the moment that there is the possibility of unconscious material, that drew attacks in the past, surfacing to consciousness, the ego responds with... more »
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Appearance
There appear to be two realities or two truths. It seems that reality is not just one thing, but two things. The first is appearance, or what we call conventional truth. The second is fundamental truth. The appearance of reality is what you perceive all the time, what you see... more »
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Archetype
An archetype is a concept you have to remember. There are no such things as archetypes that actually exist in reality. We can experience ourselves as the mother, but there is no such thing as something everyone could experience in the same way. Some people at some point are mothers.... more »
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Arising
If there is something arising from within you that is natural and spontaneous and deep, that is not seeking. You’re being can flow in a certain direction, and be acting, without it being ego activity…a great deal of knowledge and understanding can arise out of such authentic activity, and became... more »
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Aspects
In our view, Being has a final, irreducible simplicity that we call the absolute or absolute dimension. It is the original nature of everything, the source of all manifestations. Everything arises out of this ground and ultimately returns to it. This ground is totally mysterious and indeterminable, but implicitly contains... more »
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Atman
...this sense of identity, like all other sectors of the personality, is an imitation of a certain specific aspect of Essence. Ego identity is an imitation of the identity of Essence, the true self. The Hindus call it the Atman. The sense of identity of the personality exists because there... more »
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Attachment
Ultimately, attachment is caused by desire and fear, desire for the good and fear of the bad, desire for pleasure and fear of pain, desire for life and fear of death. If you examine fear and desire you'll see that fear itself is based on desire, fear of death is... more »
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Authenticity
Authenticity means that the inner flow and the external action are the matter-of-fact reality of the self being itself, just as the heart beats because it is its intrinsic nature to do so. more »
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Autonomy
Autonomy is simply the capacity to be the Personal Essence, one's fullness of Being. The sense of freedom, independence, autonomy and individuation is experienced at such times as a very clear, precise and certain fact. There is no vagueness or uncertainty about autonomy when one recognizes the Personal Essence as... more »
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Autopoiesis
As a self-organizing (autopoietic) system, the soul has the following intrinsic properties: She is a dynamic continuous system, a field. She is an open system in interaction with an environment, not a closed or isolated system. She renews herself through the interplay of what she receives from the environment with... more »
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Awakening
The manifestation of Pure Being is the experience of awakening. One merely wakes up and realizes one's pure nature. It is as if one is usually dreaming, but is taking the dream to be reality. Then he wakes up and spontaneously realizes the true state of affairs... There is no... more »
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Awareness
Awareness is necessary not just for collecting observations for the process of understanding but really for all aspects of the work of inner development. It is also, of course, necessary for everyday practical living. Awareness is a characteristic of life itself, of all living matter. more »
