Glossary: N
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Nameless
As the nonconceptual, which I call the Nameless because there is no name for it, I know, and I know that I know. But I don’t know what I know. This level of knowing does not involve recognition of things. In the Absolute I don’t know, and I don’t know... more »
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Narcissism
In narcissism, the experience of the self is disconnected from its core, from the depths of what it is. It is estranged from its true nature, exiled from its primordial home. more »
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Narcissistic Emptiness
Three factors elicit narcissistic emptiness and meaninglessness: first, the normal process of maturation in which one outgrows defensive aspects of the identity; second, the pressure of doing spiritual work and experiencing essential Presence, which tends to expose the relative unreality of the level of personality identifications; and third, working with... more »
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Narcissistic Issues
To truly deal with the narcissistic issues one must go through the shell in a very specific way. It is not enough to experience only the narcissistic emptiness; understanding the shell is an important part of the process of understanding and working through the narcissistic constellation. The most important part... more »
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Narcissistic Rage
So we can see it as a normal reaction to hurt. However, it has special characteristics because the narcissistic hurt is different from other types of emotional pain. The fact that this hurt is very vulnerable, and opens up to an emptiness signifying the dissolution of identity, imbues the reactive... more »
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Narcissistic Shame
We always find the student struggling with painful reactions to the emptiness as it is exposed. She feels deficient and inadequate, worthless and unimportant, weak and inferior, a failure, a loser, a nothing. She feels fake and unreal, lacking substance or value. She feels that she is a liar and... more »
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Narcissistic Transference
As the emptiness of the shell approaches conscious awareness, one's relationships to others become more markedly narcissistic. Kohut called the narcissistic object relations narcissistic transferences (he later named them self-object transferences), referring especially to those seen in the clinical situation with the analyst. The narcissistic transferences generally function to shore... more »
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Narcissistic Wound
If there is to be any possibility of working through the narcissistic constellation, with its impressive array of defensive reactions described here, we must empathically understand these reactions of narcissistic rage, hatred, and jealousy. We must appreciate their defensive function, observe the situations that occasion such reactions, and explore their... more »
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Nature of Mind
Different systems emphasize one of three descriptions: the primordial non-differentiated consciousness; the awakened state of mind which is also universal; or the peaceful state of mind which is at rest, in complete peace. The nature of mind can then be experienced as blue, clear, or black aspects of consciousness. Each... more »
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Needs
Each child is born with a certain potential that includes many qualities, capacities, properties, functions, forms, and levels of experience and behavior. For these qualities to be established and developed they need to be related to in specific ways. The child needs for the important persons in his life to... more »
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Negative Merging
The symbiotic phase does not comprise only gratifying experiences; it includes many painful and frustrating experiences. When the infant's needs are not met adequately or immediately, he cannot but experience frustration, rage and other painful affects. But the infant's experience of this negativity is not experienced as his own or... more »
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Neonate
The neonate is born with no boundaries in its mind space, i.e., with no psychic structure. Its mind is just space, openness with no boundaries, physical or mental. This assumption is consistent with the notion of the undifferentiated matrix in object relations theory (Hartmann), with some difference: The absence of... more »
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Night Metaphor
The night means no mind and no consciousness. The mind rests on consciousness, and diversifies it into myriad things. But the night is beyond consciousness, beyond mind. The night is absolute annihilation, which is our truest nature. How can it be that all this splendor arises out of absolute annihilation,... more »
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No Self
The state of no self is actually a pure manifestation of inner spacious reality, Being in its openness, we experience it as empty space, immaculate and pure, light and clean, empty of everything structured by the mind. However the self reacts to the sense of no self in many ways... more »
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Nobility
To go back to my original definition, nobility is, from the perspective of Essence, living from the truth of Essence, according to the truth of Essence; to be a person, a human being, living in accord with the truth. It is understood that a person of noble character doesn't let... more »
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Noesis
Noesis, as we are using it here, is the soul’s capacity to be aware of itself not only as pure awareness, and not only as the content of experience, but to be aware directly of forms arising in the field of consciousness. This capacity for discriminating awareness that is not... more »
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Noetic Form
So what we call a noetic form is what we call a discriminated something that truly exists, that truly appears to perception… Physical reality as it actually exists is the existence of noetic form. more »
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Nonconceptual
Nonconceptual Reality is how things are. It is direct perception of reality without the involvement of the mind. It is both presence and absence, but also neither. It is neither self nor no-self, nor the absence of both self and no-self. It is both being and nonbeing and neither. It... more »
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Nondifferentiated Being
Nondifferentiated Being is simply the nature of everything, including all aspects of Being, and all of physical existence. One realizes that everything, on any level of perception, is nothing but a differentiation of this nondifferentiated sense of Being. This is different from the Cosmic Consciousness, which is the soul of... more »
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Nondual
In the third mode, Truth and identity are completely coemergent, absolutely nondual. If we express the second mode of experiencing Truth we will say: “There is only Truth,” while if we express the third way, we will say: “I am the Truth.” Both modes of experience are nondual, but we... more »
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Not Knowing
Inquiry invites basic knowledge to speak – for instance, in disclosing the limitations in our knowledge and experience. It investigates the possibility that knowingness can appear within what we do not know. Inquiry involves a not-knowing, but it also involves investigating what you do not know, which allows knowledge to... more »
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Not This / Not That
True reality is what appearance is not. So one way of knowing the true reality is to know that everything you see and experience, everything you think about, is not true. Just eliminate one thing after another: not this, not that. Everything goes. It all goes: everything you have experienced,... more »
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Nothingness
But completely experiencing the nature of the mind involves complete openness, or complete nothingness; when you really experience the nature of the mind, there is utter stillness with no observer observing anything, no experience, thought or label. more »
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Nous
The intellect considered the inner guide for the spiritual journey is not the intellect in the domain of common experience. This latter is only a reflection of what is called the real or higher intellect, the "nous" of the ancient Greeks, which is the appearance of the primordial discrimination, the... more »
