Glossary of spirituality-related terms (G-L)

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This glossary of spirituality-related terms is based on how they commonly are used in Wikipedia articles. This page contains terms starting with G – L. Select a letter from the table of contents to find terms on other pages.


Contents: Top – 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

[edit] G

  • Glossolalia: (from the Greek, "γλώσσα" (glossa), tongue and "λαλώ" (lalô), to speak) Comprises the utterance of what appears (to the casual listener) either as an unknown foreign language (xenoglossia), simply nonsense syllables, or utterance of an unknown mystical language; the utterances sometimes occur as part of religious worship (religious glossolalia).
Certain Christians (see below) regard the act of speaking in tongues, as a gift of God through the Holy Spirit; one of the Gifts of the Spirit. Other religions also use glossolalia as a component of worship.
  • Gnosticism: A blanket term for various mystical initiatory religions, sects and knowledge schools, which were most prominent in the first few centuries AD. It is also applied to modern revivals of these groups and, sometimes, by analogy to all religious movements based on secret knowledge gnosis, thus can lead to confusion.
Illuminated Adi Granth
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Illuminated Adi Granth
The Adi Granth is often — incorrectly — used to refer to the Guru Granth Sahib. The Adi Granth only forms the portion of the Guru Granth Sahib which Guru Arjan compiled in 1604.
The Granth was made a guru by the last of the living Sikh Masters, Guru Gobind Singh in 1708. Guru Gobind Singh said before his demise that the Sikhs were to treat the Granth as their next Guru:
Punjabi: ਸੱਬ ਸਿੱਖਣ ਕੋ ਹੁਕਮ ਹੈ ਗੁਰੂ ਮਾਨਯੋ ਗ੍ਰੰਥ
Transliteration: Sab sikhan kō hukam hai gurū mānyō granth
English: All Sikhs are commanded to take the Granth as Guru
Guru also refers in Sanskrit to Brihaspati, a Hindu figure analogous to the Roman planet/god Jupiter. In Vedic astrology, Jupiter/Guru/Brihaspati is believed to exert teaching influences. Indeed, in many Indian languages, such as Hindi, the occidental Thursday is called either Brihaspativaar or Guruvaar (vaar meaning period or day).
In contemporary India and Indonesia, guru is widely used within the general meaning of "teacher". In Western usage, the original meaning of guru has been extended to cover anyone who acquires followers, and not necessarily in an established school of philosophy or religion. In a further metaphorical extension, guru is used of a person who has authority because of his or her perceived knowledge or skills in a domain of expertise.
The importance of discerning between a true guru and a false one is explored in scriptures and teachings of religions in which a guru plays a role. The assessment and criticism of gurus and the Guru-shishya tradition are espoused in the discourse about cults and new religious movements by Western secular scholars, theologians, anti-cultists, and by skeptics both in the West and in India.

[edit] H

  • Hindu scripture: Overwhelmingly written in Sanskrit. Indeed, much of the morphology and linguistic philosophy inherent in the learning of Sanskrit is inextricably linked to study of the Vedas and relevant Hindu texts. Hindu scripture is divided into two categories: Śruti – that which is heard (i.e. revelation) and Smriti – that which is remembered (i.e. tradition, not revelation). The Vedas constituting the former category are considered scripture by all Hindus. The post-Vedic Hindu scriptures form the latter category; the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are notable epics considered scripture by many sects. A sort of cross-over between the religious epics and Upanishads of the Vedas is the Bhagavad Gita, considered to be revealed scripture by almost all Hindus today.
Hindu texts are typically seen to revolve around many levels of reading, namely the gross or physical, the subtle, and the supramental. This allows for many levels of understanding as well, implying that the truth of the texts can only be realized with the spiritual advancement of the reader.
Lord Krishna revealing the eternal super-consciousness to Arjuna
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Lord Krishna revealing the eternal super-consciousness to Arjuna
  • Hinduism: (हिन्दू धर्म; also known as Sanātana Dharma - सनातन धर्म, and Vaidika-Dharma - वैदिक धर्म) A worldwide religious tradition that is based on the Vedas and is the direct descendent of the Vedic Indo-Iranian religion. It encompasses many religious traditions that widely vary in practice, as well as many diverse sects and philosophies. The modern estimates of Hinduism's origin vary from 3102 BCE to 1300 BCE. It is also the third largest religion in the world with a following of approximately 1 billion people. Ninety-eight percent of Hindus can be found on the Indian subcontinent, chiefly in India. It is noteworthy however that the relatively small Himalayan kingdom of Nepal is the only nation in the world with Hinduism as its state religion.
  • Hymn: A song specifically written as a song of praise, adoration or prayer, typically addressed to a god.
A writer of hymns is known as a hymnist or hymnodist, and the process of singing a hymn is called hymnody; the same word is used for the collectivity of hymns belonging to a particular denomination or period (e.g. "nineteenth century Methodist hymnody" would mean the body of hymns written and/or used by Methodists in the nineteenth century). Books called hymnals are collections of hymns, which may or may not include music.
Ancient hymns include the Great Hymn to the Aten, composed by the pharaoh Akhenaten, and the Vedas, a collection of hymns in the tradition of Hinduism. The Western tradition of hymnody begins with the Homeric Hymns, a collection of ancient Greek hymns, the oldest of which were written in the 7th century BCE in praise of the gods of Greek mythology.

[edit] I

  • I Ching: The oldest of the Chinese classic texts. It describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy which is at the heart of Chinese cultural beliefs. The philosophy centers on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change (see Philosophy, below). In Western cultures, the I Ching is regarded by some as simply a system of divination; others believe it expresses the wisdom and philosophy of ancient China.
  • Iconolatry: (from the two Greek terms eikon denoting simply a picture or image, and latreia to adore or worship) Icon in Greek simply denotes a picture but has now come to be closely associated with religious art used by the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. Icons are used by Orthodox Churches to assist in prayer and worship of God. Icon (image) is the same word used in the Bible in Genesis 1:27, Colossians 1:15.
Iconolatry is the worship of images (mainly in two-dimensional form) and often referred to in relation to the Iconoclastic period where there was a "cleansing" and destruction by the Church of all religious art. The reasons for this were that the Christians would worship images of Saints, the Son of God and even pictures of God and scrape parts of the icons into Holy Communion.
Peace of mind, serenity, and calmness are descriptions of a disposition free from the effects of stress. In some cultures, inner peace is considered a state of consciousness or enlightenment that may be cultivated by various forms of training, such as prayer, meditation, T'ai Chi Ch'uan or yoga, for example. Many spiritual practices refer to this peace as an experience of knowing oneself.
  • Involution: In integral theory, the process by which the Divine manifests the cosmos is called involution. The process by which the creation rises to higher states and states of consciousness is the evolution. Involution prepares the universe for the Big Bang; evolution continues from that point forward. The term involution comes from the idea that the divine involves itself in creation.
After the creation, the Divine (i.e. the Absolute, Brahman, God; all these essentially mean the same thing) is both the One (the Creator) and the Many (that which was created).
Muslims at prayer
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Muslims at prayer
  • Islam: (Arabic: الإسلام al-islām) "The submission to God" is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions and the world's second largest religion. Followers of Islam, known as Muslims, believe that God (or, in Arabic, Allāh; also in Aramaic Alaha) revealed his direct word for mankind to Muhammad (c. 570–632) and other prophets, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Muslims assert that the main written record of revelation to humankind is the Qur'an, which they believe to be flawless, immutable, and the final revelation of God to humanity. Muslims believe that parts of the Gospels, Torah and Jewish prophetic books (though originally divine in their nature) have been forgotten, misinterpreted, incorrectly edited by humans, or distorted by their followers and thus their original message has been corrupted over time. With that perspective, Muslims view the Qur'an as a correction of Jewish and Christian scriptures, and a final revelation.

[edit] J

  • Jainism: (pronounced in English as /ˈdʒeɪ.nɪzm̩/), traditionally known as Jain Dharma (जैन धर्म) A classical religion with its origins in the prehistory of India. The Jains, although a small minority in India now, have continued to sustain the shraman (श्रमण) tradition. Jainism is significantly influential in both the ethical and economic spheres in India. Jainism places great stress on compassion to all living beings. Self-control (व्रत vrata in Sanskrit) forms a central part of being a Jain. A lay Jain is termed a shravaka (श्रावक) i.e. a listener. The Jain Sangha (संघ) has four components: monks, nuns, lay men and women.
  • Japa: (or Japam) A spiritual discipline in which a devotee repeats a mantra or the name of the God. The repetition can be aloud or just the movement of lips or in the mind. This spiritual practice is present in the major religions of world. This is considered as one of the most effective spiritual practices.
  • Jihad: (Arabic: جهاد‎ jihād) An Islamic term, from the Arabic root jhd ("to exert utmost effort, to strive, struggle"), which connotes a wide range of meanings: anything from an inward spiritual struggle to attain perfect faith to a political or military struggle to further the Islamic cause. The meaning of "Islamic cause" is of course open to interpretation. The term is frequently mistranslated into English as "holy war", although jihad can apply to warfare. Mainstream Muslims consider jihad to be the most misunderstood aspect of their religion by non-Muslims. The Islamic religious legitimacy of the goals or methods of various Islamist movements who adopt the terminology of jihad is often brought into question, usually by moderate and liberal Muslims.
A person who engages in any form of jihad is called a "mujahid", meaning "striver" or "struggler". This term is most often used to mean a person who engages in fighting, but, for example a Muslim struggling to memorize the Qur'an is a called a mujahid. The neologism jihadist is sometimes used to describe militant Islamic groups, including but not restricted to Islamist terrorism (c. f. Jihadist organizations and Rules of war in Islam).
Over at least the last two thousand years, Judaism has not been monolithic in practice, and has not had any centralized authority or binding dogma. Despite this, Judaism in all its variations has remained tightly bound to a number of religious principles, the most important of which is the belief in a single, omniscient, transcendent God who created the universe, and continues to be involved in its governance. According to Jewish thought, the God who created the world established a covenant with the Jewish people, and revealed his laws and commandments to them in the form of the Torah. Jewish practice is devoted to the study and observance of these laws and commandments, as they are interpreted according to various ancient and modern authorities.

[edit] K

  • Karma: (Sanskrit: कर्म from the root kri, "to do", meaning deed) or Kamma (Pali: meaning action, effect, destiny) A term in several Indian religions that comprises the entire cycle of cause and effect. Karma is a sum of all that an individual has done and is currently doing. The effects of those deeds actively create present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life. In religions that incorporate reincarnation, karma extends through one's present life and all past and future lives as well.
The law of Karma is central in Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, & Jainism. (These religions were formed in India). All living creatures are responsible for their karma and for their salvation (or release from samsara). As a term, it can be traced back to the early Upanishads.
  • Koan: A story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to Intuition. Koans are often used by Zen practitioners as objects of meditation to induce an experience of enlightenment or realization, and by Zen teachers as testing questions when a student wishes to validate their experience of enlightenment.
A famous koan is, "Two hands clap and there is a sound; what is the sound of one hand?" (oral tradition, attributed to Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769), considered a reviver of the koan tradition in Japan)..
Koans are said to reflect the enlightened or awakened state of historical sages and legendary figures who uttered them, and sometimes said to confound the habit of discursive thought or shock the mind into awareness or an experience of metanoia or radical change of consciousness and perspective, from the point of view of which the koan 'question' is resolved, and the practitioner's religious faith is enhanced.

[edit] L

In general, sufic development involves the awakening in a certain order these spiritual centers of perception that lie dormant in every person. Each center is associated with a particular color and general area of the body, as well as ofttimes with a particular prophet, and varies from Order to Order. The help of a guide is considered necessary to help activate these centers. The activation of all these "centers" is part of the inner methodology of the sufi way or "Work". After undergoing this process, the dervish is said to reach a certain type of "completion" or becomes a Complete Man.
  • Love: Has many different meanings in English, from something that gives a little pleasure ("I loved that meal") to something one would die for (patriotism, pairbonding). It can describe an intense feeling of affection, an emotion or an emotional state. In ordinary use, it usually refers to interpersonal love. Probably due to its psychological relevance, love is one of the most common themes in art.
Just as there are many types of lovers, there are many kinds of love. Love is inherent in all human cultures. It is precisely these cultural differences that make any universal definition of love difficult to establish. See the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Expressions of love may include the love for a "soul" or mind, the love of laws and organizations, love for a body, love for nature, love of food, love of money, love for learning, love of power, love of fame, love for the respect of others, et cetera. Different people place varying degrees of importance on the kinds of love they receive. Love is essentially an abstract concept, easier to experience than to explain.

Contents: Top – 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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