Glossary: B
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Balance
From the perspective of our Work, generally speaking, three elements need to be balanced or need to stay in balance as a person is engaged in the process of development. Basically, the three things are understanding, being, and doing. Most individuals tend to emphasize one of these over the other... more »
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Basic Fault
All the various spiritual teachings address some version of our fundamental separation from reality. The understanding of this separation connects to a concept in psychology about a universal, painful disconnection in the infant soul, called the Basic Fault. Today we will use the phrase “basic fault” to speak of every... more »
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Basic Trust
In time, you develop basic trust and you learn to trust the dynamism of the inquiry. This will happen as result of several things: first, clearly recognizing the optimizing force in the dynamism of your own unfolding; second, truly seeing that optimization is the nature of the dynamism; and third,... more »
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Beast
The process leads to deep hurt and abandonment and the understanding of the origins of the Beast, or hatred of the good, in the early oral frustrations and deprivations. One of the steps in this process of working through is the recognition of how this issue depends partly on the... more »
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Beauty
True nature, the Essence of the soul, is valuable, is worthy of appreciation and love, not because it gives her something, not because it adds to her, not because it liberates her, but because it is beautiful. Its value is in its beauty and perfection. Its truth is its value,... more »
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Being
The reason we have the capacity to experience Being is that the self is an actual ontological Presence, a presencing of Being, not simply a construct, and this Presence has the capacity to be self-aware. Thus for the self to become directly aware of the realm of Being is for... more »
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Being / Nonbeing
True nature is absolute being, but also absolute nonbeing. It is both presence and absence of presence. It is both but not exactly, because these are conceptual elaborations of which true nature is innocent. We say it is both being and nonbeing, or neither, only because these are fundamental concerns... more »
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Being Oneself
The only way we can experience all that is possible for a human being is to be ourselves. If we are not ourselves, any other development is only a sector of human experience. To be a complete human being, to be a totality and experience wholeness, to be able to... more »
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Being Personal
The practice of being genuine in one's communication is a good way to reach the Personal Essence. When one is genuine about oneself, expressing an authentic concern, then one is personal. more »
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Being as Such
In other words, from the perspective of the supreme reality of the undifferentiated aspect of Being, all aspects of Essence are seen to be conceptual (as well as, for that matter, the entirety of the physical world, including the body). Only the unqualified Being exists, and differentiation and discrimination are... more »
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Belief
There is belief. There is faith which results from belief. There is faith which results from knowledge. And there is just knowledge. When knowledge is there all the time, there is no need for faith. more »
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Beloved
When we discover the absolute in our heart, which is a particular realization of the absolute, we find out that it is what our heart has always been looking for. We learn that we have been erecting idols in our heart, when our heart is in reality the Kaaba, the... more »
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Betrayal
When we are genuinely interested in the truth, the whole truth, we realize with a greater sorrow that this betrayal from the outside is less terrible than another betrayal: we come to understand that we have betrayed ourselves. We realize that when our environment betrayed us and abandoned us, with... more »
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Biochemistry
One factor that is becoming increasingly appreciated in modern psychology is that inner states depend on the chemistry of the body. Many hormones, enzymes, and neurotransmitters are found to be central in regulating emotions, moods, and internal mental states. When the body sufferers from some kind of biochemical imbalance, one's... more »
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Birth
In our view, a human being is born a living Presence, a soul, with various essential qualities inherent in that Presence. This living Presence possesses all the potential of humanity, all its properties and capacities. The self of the neonate, with its perceptions, sensations, feelings, images, impulses, processes, and movements,... more »
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Black Latifa
This development of the subtle capacities occurs specifically through the activation of the Black latifa, at the center of the forehead. The arising of this essential aspect means the opening up of this center, which we experience as the essence of peacefulness – a quiet and still presence, satin-smooth and... more »
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Black Space
In black space we are aware of the absence of the sense of self; however, we experience it not as a deficiency but rather as freedom and release. There is a sense of newness and coolness, of lightness and light-heartedness, of the absence of burden and suffering, and the presence... more »
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Blocking Love
As long as you believe you are a separate person with boundaries, with the attitude of getting things and protecting yourself, you will block love. Love destroys boundaries. Love has nothing to do with you or me. Love is just the activity of that creativity in that openness. Love is... more »
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Blue Latifa
Knowingness – the capacity to know through direct contact with an element of our experience – is related to a particular essential aspect. It is related to the operation of the Blue Diamond, which is the Blue Essence in its diamond presence. The Blue Essence is usually called the aspect... more »
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Boats
Teachings are boats with which to cross a river. You are not supposed to carry the boat with you on the other shore. If you carry the boat with you, you will end up with a greater load than when you started. Teachings help us see how our experience is... more »
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Body Centers
Each center contributes to the process of understanding. If the head center is functioning correctly, it means that space or emptiness is allowed. What is the significance of space and emptiness? When there is space in the mind, there is no self-image, you're not trying to stick to something in... more »
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Body Ego
The ego is first and foremost a body-ego, in the sense that the self-demarcations that form in our consciousness during infancy are based on our sensory experience of our bodies as distinct from other objects. The delusion is taking these body-boundaries to define and limit our sense of who and... more »
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Body Image
Here, Mahler shows the acuteness of her observation and the creativity of her formulation. In seeing the various grades of space, we will appreciate how accurate this formulation is. She is stating here that there are two kinds of body-image, or in her words, "the body ego contains two kinds... more »
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Boundaries
To allow yourself not to have boundaries means to accept your aloneness. At the very core of our assumptions about reality, we think aloneness means separateness. But aloneness is not being separate. The aloneness means having no boundaries. How can this be? It is a paradox. The aloneness means your... more »
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Boundless Dimensions
When a boundless dimension manifests, it relocates the consciousness of the soul to a whole different realm of reality, where she experiences herself in the world in a completely new way. All the elements of her world continue to appear, especially the objective ones not constructed by her mind but... more »
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Boundless Light
Boundless light is not only love, but the dimension of love beyond the human, beyond the individual. It is not for anyone, and not by anyone. It is for everyone; true nature is manifesting everyone, and everything, as pure love. And one of these forms of love is the soul... more »
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Brilliancy
Brilliancy arrives at insight in one shot, at a glance, as if intuitively. It doesn’t need to go through the various correlations. It is fast and breathtaking. However, it does not see the details of interactions and relationships between the various elements of the situation. We arrive at insight, but... more »
