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Glossary Terms Defining Christian Sprituality 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 ZAABUNDANT LIFE: Spiritual life is defined in terms of abundance which overflows not simply from material benefit, but is a result of the blessing or grace which is received from the Kingdom of Heaven (a biblical term for the realm of the transcendent). Abundant life is realized as a grace of inner fullness which is a gift, the result of becoming consciously affiliated with the Divine Reality, body, soul and spirit. ANOINTED: This term, expressed in the original languages of the Bible, is the title for Jesus. It is the meaning of the word Messiah, but more importantly it refers to the fact that he is filled or anointed with Spirit. Whoever is designated by this term is someone whose life is characterized by the Spirit. The Greek term for the anointed One is the Christ. ASCESIS: The exercise of the spiritual dimension of human being, or to practice the spiritual life as one would a skill or a sport. Spiritual life can only be known in the same way that one knows how to ride a bicycle, not from books from actual practice in experience. ADEQUACY: As a human grows he or she gradually becomes adequate to receive certain forms of knowledge. A small child, for example, is not yet "adequate" for higher mathematics and will only become so through the growth processes. In the same way, one must become adequate for spiritual truth through growth and development. APPROPRIATENESS: Certain conduct is necessary and suitable for a particular level of reality. Each unique being and situation also calls for a fitting response because the universe in which we exist is "dialogical" and in-communion with all of its interrelating parts. Appropriateness is wisdom learned through compassion and humility also called impeccability. ARCHETYPE: The ideal form of something, the original pattern, model and paragon of any concrete reality is its archetype. Sacred philosophy has understood that the forms of temporal and material reality are patterned according to archetypal realities which transcend their temporal forms. Such patterns exist in a realm of transcendence, but their shadows also manifest in the unconsciousness of human being. ATTAINMENT: To attain to a certain station of spiritual life is not to become "worthy" of it, but to become adequate for it. Human beings attain certain stages and levels of development through the necessary exercise of effort and will and thereby can act upon that level. ATTENTION: Attention is an ability which allows spiritual awareness (consciousness) to grow. With conscious attention one can achieve integration and become strong enough to will or accomplish certain tasks upon this earth, AWAKENING: In the spirituality of the Semitic peoples human beings are called to come awake from the state of spiritual sleep. The purpose of life in the "awakened state" is to live through a process of growth and a practice of remembrance that will transform our egocentric self-centeredness and move us toward the generosity and infinitude of the Divine Self. AWARENESS: Our circle of attention encloses a certain territory of awareness. Such a territory can be narrowly or broadly focused. It can include or exclude objects within that circle. Human consciousness is designed in such a way that it has great latitude and can contain heights and depths of awareness. BBEAUTY: Beauty is said to originate outside of human perception and in God. Beauty is manifested then as the multiple, harmonious and inter-connected forms which balance and compliment each other finding their appropriate home on every level of being. On the personal level, beauty attracts us spiritually and becomes our "point-of-contact" with the loving overflow of the divine creativity. BEING: Existence or being is the overflow of the divine creative energy. God as fullness spills over into Being, and that fullness is manifest in the multiplicity which is and connects all the Levels of Being which range in a hierarchy of inter-connectedness. BELOVED: The image of the relationship between the human and the divine is traditionally spoken of in the symbols of "romantic love." Romantic and even erotic imagery is said to come closest to the real relationship between human beings and the divine Lover. In such a relationship each to the other becomes "the Beloved." CCENTERING (PRAYER): Multiple forms of prayer have been described within the Christian tradition. More recently the term "centering" has been used to designate those forms which focus and concentrate attention upon the Center at the center of human being, the heart. CHARISMA: The gift of Spirit to humanity and the accompanying abilities and faculties come under the heading of the Greek term chrism. Christ was the Anointed One, who possessed and manifested in human form the full potentiality of the Spirit. One so possessed by Spirit is said to have charisma. COMPASSION: A term for the divine heart turned toward creation. Compassion is the balance between the demands of love and grace and that of justice. These two must be brought to bear in order to stimulate humanity toward the goal of the Divine-Humanity. CONCENTRATION: A spiritual methodology used in prayer to focus and integrate spiritual power as an activity of the will for the purpose of assimilating the truths or realities that one has "seen" through meditation so that they become a part of one's being and existence. CONSCIOUSNESS: The consciousness which I call "myself," the awareness that can say "I am" is the ray of Divine Awareness which illuminates the human mind. Self-conscious awareness is not "thought" itself, but is a conscious identity which watches, sees or observes the thought processes and all objects of thought that allows us as human beings to be aware of the fact that we are conscious and thinking at the very moment of thought. CONTEMPLATION: The highest and deepest human awareness is consciousness of God. The act of contemplation, however, is described as a direct knowing as in the act of touch when the subject and the object are united as one. DDEIFICATION: Early in Christian theology this term was used to express a profoundly revolutionary idea which was then called, theosis. The early teachers of the faith said that God had become human in order that humans might be deified, that is, transformed into the divine, or made like God. This was more than simply "looking like" God. It meant ontological change, possession of the very life and nature of God. DESIRE: A characteristic of human nature is the sense of inner longing and desire, often for what we cannot tell. Deep within is a constant craving and desire which seems not be satisfied by any finite thing, and so the longing persists. The sacred tradition calls this desire eros and speaks of its origin in God. Eros is a divine implant and can only be filled, it is said, by the infinitude of God's own being. All other lesser desires continue only to leave us hungry and ultimately unsatisfied. DETACHMENT: A term for the inner loosening of addictive and often overwhelming dependence upon those tendencies which control and dominate the ego. Egoic attachment to many influences, things, desires, and tendencies so distorts the inner world of human being that there is little freedom. Freedom then can only be gained by a severing of or a stepping back from those ties, called detachment. Normally detachment is gained through spiritual practice. In the Christian tradition, detachment is called apeithia. DIVINE DARKNESS: Darkness, which appears the opposite of Light is the condition of the human mind beyond its own limits in the limitlessness of the Infinite Mind. What is dark to the human mind is light to God and only appears dark in that it transcends human limitation. Divine darkness is also the symbol of the Ultimate Mystery which is empty of anything humanly known or conceived. DISCIPLINE: The exercise or practice which is essential to spiritual health demands a certain form of discipline or control which is the hallmark of spiritual mastery. Discipline itself is that balance between restraint and release. It expresses the poise and refinement of a well ordered life. EEGO: The "personality" which I call "myself," however, is an ego-identity which both I and others know as a uniquely formed individuality which changes over time. Ego is therefore a "social construct" made up out of the bits and pieces of experience and all the reactions and responses that entity makes toward the circumstances of life. It has a "face" which it turns toward the world, and an inner life which remains hidden only to itself. EMPTINESS: The inner state of openness and receptivity which is the essence of the term "poverty of spirit" is one in which the human heart is clear and unimpeded by the accumulation of possessions. Spiritual poverty or emptiness is the necessary state which precedes spiritual blessing. EPECTASIS: This is the doctrine of infinite growth enshrined in the early vision of the patristic period of Christianity. Human beings are said to have the capacity for never-ending growth in God as they move through eternity. There is, therefore, the capacity for the infinite expansion of consciousness and the consequent transformation of being. ESCHATON: The end or consummation of all things is spoken of as the eschaton in Greek. It is the culminating climax and destiny, the flowering of all realities into their ultimate forms. History itself is said to end in a state of fullness in the eschaton. ESSENCE: Below the surface form and the appearance of all manifestation lies the essence of a thing, its inner reality which often remains hidden below the form or is displayed in its exterior reality as appearance. Essence and appearance need not be opposite or different, but often they are. ESSENTIAL SELF: The persona and personality by which each individual is known is not the essential self, but the outer appearance of something deeper. From the perspective of sacred Tradition the essential self may not even be known to the human subject, since its essence is hidden in God who knows us and makes us known. FFAITH: The inner condition of fundamental trust and acceptance is the principle of faith. Faith is not a mental construct, a set of propositions, or a statement of belief, but an inner attitude of confidence and deep trust which grounds the human soul in peace and inner stability. FALSE SELF: We are designed by our Creator for greatness and transcendence. Anything short of that destiny is to let the promise go unrealized. To live solely within the circumference of one's ego-identity as it has been constructed, is to live falsely, for by definition that "self" is limited and narrow, constructed largely without the benefit of material from its divine Source. FREEDOM: Emancipation of our being from narrow limitation to the limitless Infinity of the Divine Self is true freedom. The liberty which releases the human ego from the tyranny of itself and frees it to participate in a larger identity and reality constitutes emancipation. It is in that realm, however, that we find the template of our true being, in God. Paradoxically, it is in authentic and responsible commitment to our "divine image" that we are released into freedom; freedom to be for that which we were made. FULLNESS: It is through emptiness that we discover fullness, for fullness can only be defined by the universality of the whole which includes all things and the Source of All. To empty out the "cup" full of ourselves, and to be emptied into that great ocean is to know fullness. GGOD: The Anglo-Saxon term for the Ultimate Reality. All such terms are too abstract and barren, for in that great Emptiness is a fullness, a fecundity and a beauty which are indescribable in human language. It is that toward which the word "God" points. GNOSIS: The Greek word for knowledge carries with it historical connotations of both mystery and elitism. Gnosis is the conscious integration of the human subject with its own transcendent nature. Spiritual knowing as sacred knowledge is both an entrance into the mystery of God and practical wisdom explored and known in the public realm. To know the truth, to verify it by practicing it in one's own being is also called, epignosis. GRACE: From God flows all consciousness and being, the manifestation of the Divine Life. It is this fullness that we receive without merit and freely out of great generosity. Grace, therefore, is the generous self-donation of God which overflows into Being as a River of Light. GROWTH: The developmental process is fundamental to all life. All living things progress through transitions from one stage to another. It is through such a passage that maturation occurs and the growth of a living being takes place. Spiritual growth is manifest as a passage through stages of experience where we remain for awhile and then transcend. GUIDE: Spiritual formation is always under the direction of a guide whether human or divine. Spiritual growth is a potentiality grounded in being itself and is realized under the care of a Guide who empowers and directs that growth. HHEART: In the Semitic tradition, especially, the heart stands as the inner faculty of spiritual knowing and feeling. The heart is both a place and an ability from which we both receive and give spiritual life. The heart exists on the border between the soul and the spirit, mediating both realities. HOLY (HOLINESS): The original meaning of holy is "other" or even "transcendent." To be made holy in a spiritual sense is to be raised into a transcendent realm, beyond the normal bounds of what would ordinarily be true. Ultimately holiness would have everything to do with a transformation of being. HUMAN BEING: Humanity as a species constitutes its own reality. Human being is derivative being, made up of the stuff of both the physical and the spiritual universes, and integrating them in a psychological way through the unit of the personality. Humanness therefore is both our own individual experience but always known within the context of the collective experience of humanity. For in some final way, "human being" refers organically to the whole reality. HUMILITY: The gift of seeing the real and living in proper relationship and proportion to it is the essence of humility. Humility is honesty before the beautiful and awesome authority of the Divine Reality. IIMAGINATION: Human beings have the capacity to visualize the possible, the future and the unknown and in that sense both prepare and begin participation in it. The gift of imagination used intuitively is the creative force which allows us to create theophanies for the heart. INDENTIFICATION (positive meaning): At a deep level of spiritual reality there is an identity or a oneness between the human and the divine. The human could not know the divine without this essential identity. To become identified with one's Lord, therefore, is to seek out that essential affiliation which is the gift of divine being to us. IDENTIFICATION (negative meaning): This word term sometimes designates state of the ego without the divine presence. It also represents the close relationship between who we imagine ourselves to be and the content of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Often we are nothing other than these. We are so closely absorbed by them that they define us entirely. In this case, such a form of identification so restricts and narrows us that we cannot reach our full, created potential. INTELLECT: Western society typically defines intellect as I.Q. or the ability to reason or think quickly and clearly along certain lines. Traditionally, however, this term has stood for another form of intelligence altogether, one which is often called "spiritual intelligence." It is a deeper faculty than the "thinking mind" as such, and has much more to do with the spiritual consciousness and intuition then it does logical, linear thought. INTENTION: To will a thing and to focus upon that will which is more than mere whim or simple desire, is intention. INTERDEPENDENCE: The state of balance and harmony in the universe is one of interdependence rather than independence. The independence we so highly value in the western world is often a distortion and a projection of our ego-identity. It alienates and destroys, while interdependence restores balance and proportion. INTUITION: Little understood and having fallen into the realm of folklore, intuition remains a higher form of knowing than rational thought which is so valued today. Intuition is higher order thinking which involves the grasp of meta-patterns in wholes rather than in its parts. INVOCATION: To call upon the Name of God is to practice the prayer of invocation or remembrance. Invocation is one of the most ancient forms of prayer, bringing one's whole being into full attention and awareness in the Presence of the Holy One. JJOURNEY: The root metaphor of Semitic spirituality of which Judaism, Christianity and Islam are a part is the movement of journey or pilgrimage. Spiritual life is not static, but dynamic. It is "nomadic" in the sense of its movement which may seem or be erratic, but under the guidance of the Spirit becomes a quest and pilgrimage to the Center of Reality. JUDGEMENT/JUSTICE: There is the need for fundamental reciprocity following the law of cause and effect. Judgment is the pronouncement of a justice rendered that will bring corrective action in order to restore and maintain balance in the body of the cosmos. KKNOWLEDGE: The personal appropriation of truth is knowledge. Knowledge is therefore always dependent upon the adequacy of the instrument which knows and the perspective from which it perceives. LLEADER: Leadership is a spiritual sense is always established through an inner authority rather than external control. It is there because there is integrity and moral power, not because of manipulation and exploitation. LECTIO DIVINA: One of the oldest forms of Christian meditation is based upon Scripture. It is the "spiritual reading" of Scripture through a process of reflection that includes Lectio (oral reading), meditatio (reflection upon its metaphors, symbols and images), oratio (prayerful dialogue with the Lord of our being), and contemplatio (prayerful, silent listening from the heart). LIFE: Life is not an epiphenomena, but a primary attribute of Spirit and created by Spirit in a hierarchy of forms. From with the most primitive single-celled forms life exists up and down the hierarchy of being. It reaches, ultimately, to the infinitude of the Divine Life form. At each level, from the lowest to the highest some new quality is added which enriches the growing complexity until it reaches utter and complete fullness. LIGHT: The inner energy which fills God and is the divine power of God is referred to as light. It is God's own essential energy which radiates out and into the creation. It is also known under the aspect of fire. LOGOS: The underlying principle which patterns the universe, giving it order, beauty and complexity in a multiplicity of forms is called in the West, logos. The understanding of the Christian tradition is that this creative and formative Word is alive and personal and has entered human history in the person of Jesus Christ. LOVE: The founding "law" or principle of the universe is love. It is the basis of all created forms and creative energy. Love is the contrary of self-centeredness. It transcends the narrow confines of the egoic self and reaches out beyond its eccentricity to embrace and serve all. MMARRIAGE: Marriage has traditionally symbolized the intimate union between God and humanity, or more specifically, the possibility that a human being could come to know God so closely and intimately that this union could best be symbolized by the relationship of man and woman in marriage. As a union of opposites that is both filled with tension and creativity so that it fructifies the universe, spiritual marriage is the ultimate state of humanity. MASTER: The term "master" is perhaps the most precise word for the individual who stands as spiritual authority in the life of a disciple upon a sacred path. In the tradition of Christianity, Christ is Master (or Lord) and the Christian disciple accepts that authority as student and follower. In Christianity, Christ is "living Master" (resurrected but unseen), present in Spirit, but at the level of the heart. MEDITATION: The prayerful act of bringing one's spiritual intellect (one's faculty to understand spiritual truths) into the presence of Truth itself. The ultimate purpose of meditation is that one might understand Truth in an inward way through the spiritual intellect. METANOIA: This is the original term in Greek (often translated as "repent") which is at the root of the Christian message. As opposed to the idea of repentance which carries with it much moral and emotional connotation, metanoia signifies a turning or re-orientation of being and mind to an altogether different reality from the one we are used to. Precisely it means an inward reorientation of being and consciousness from the horizontal dimension to the vertical. MIND: In the western world mind typically equates with mental activity, the activity of the mind in the process of thought or in its power of reasoning. Traditionally, however, mind has signified not the activity of mind as such, but instead for consciousness itself, the "field" in which mental activity takes place. Interestingly, human beings can be "conscious" of the processes of thought. We can observe themselves thinking. It is this "conscious observation" which constitutes mind or the field of consciousness. MYSTICISM: Is the field of human experience to which men and women have given witness everywhere and in every age, to the possibility of the human encounter and direct communication with Divine Reality. Described in many languages and by many symbols, it has been universally experienced as an intimate knowing of Transcendence with the whole of one's being. MYSTERY: The realization that this world is not all there is to reality and that what we experience now of reality is permeated with other dimensions and possibilities. The universe is not an empty place, but filled with the mysterious Presence of an immanent Other. MYTH: Myth is the language of imaginative insight into ultimate reality, which not only reveals the truth under the form of symbol, but also enables those who receive the myth to participate somehow in the very experience of the one who invoked it. To know a myth, therefore, in the proper sense is to be initiated into a unique experience of reality. NNOTHINGNESS: Nothingness is a term that means different things to many sacred traditions. Within Christianity and the western faiths it signifies ego-loss (death) so that the human self may find its ultimate reality in God. PPERFECTION: Though this term often connotes moral faultlessness (sinlessness, without fault), the original term in the New Testament means instead, completion or fullness (telios). Perfection in fruit, for example, is not flawlessness, but fruit that is fully ripe. A perfect rose is not flawless, but one that is in full bloom. In fact unique "imperfections" may even enhance its beauty. PERSONALITY: Although personality is undoubtedly rooted in the substructure of genetic and temperamental stabilities, personality itself is a surface structure form of human being. It is a social construct made up out of a life-time of interaction in and with familial and social events. POWER: Spiritual power or energy is available to human experience, but originates from a transcendent source outside of the temporal realm. We can make ourselves available to power or energy, and once the contact is made such power can be abused and turned toward lesser ends, but its ultimate authority and beneficent realization comes from God. PRAYER: Prayer can be best understood as an inner movement of spiritual attention and communication directed towards God. Understood in this way, prayer is the gathering of our awareness before the Presence of God in which a dialogue, heart to heart and spirit to Spirit occurs. Modes and means for this communication include human language, the analogical imagination, centering prayer, silence, single-pointed awareness and the expansion of consciousness as the multiple coordinates of our being are focused upon the Divine Reality. PRAYER OF THE HEART: Christian spirituality describes many levels of prayer, one of which is the Prayer of the Heart. When an individual begins to descend below the level of mental prayer and find a place of awareness deep within, at the level of the heart, and there begin to pray, one has entered the Prayer of the Heart. This is not one simple or easy step, it itself is a journey into an immense territory said to be as vast as the universe, for the shores of Infinity itself are said to lap at the gateway of the heart. PRAXIS: Spiritual reality is known in two fundamental ways, theoria and praxis. The first stands for the conceptual and contemplative grasp of spiritual truth, and the second recognizes that no truth can be grasped in abstract, but always in relationship to lived experience as a form of living practice. Praxis, therefore, is the personal appropriation of spiritual truth by living it. PRESENCE: The mystery of the sacred traditions are that the Divine is always present to the creation, fully and completely present and humanity is meant to live in that presence fully and completely, which means consciously. To live in (to practice) the presence of God is one of the greatest forms of spiritual praxis, and the deepest secret of spiritual joy. PROPHET: God has addressed us under the auspices of human language and culture, choosing human vessels as channels of such communication. The prophetic message is to call us into awareness of and union with the Divine Reality, which is the Whole of which we are only a small part. Thus the prophets call us from "separateness" into union and integration. PSYCHE: The inner universe of human subjectivity, conscious and unconscious, is the realm of the psyche. It is designated by ancient tradition as the microcosm, reflecting the larger marcrocosm. This inner universe of which in which we come to know ourselves as egoic-identities, is the world that is ultimately transformed or remade in the image of its creator. RREALIZATION: Spiritual realization is the fundamental transformation of the separate, limited, constricted nature of ego-identity into the richness of its infinite identity. It is a movement from separation and alienation to union with God as Beloved. RECOLLECTION: Humanity is given the gift of awareness, which means the capacity of spiritual recollection. We can "remember" whose we are, and to whom we belong. We can call out to our true Center and be re-collected there by invoking what is most central to Ultimate Reality and therefore what is most central in us. Recollection is the practice of such invocation. REMEMBRANCE: Human awareness need not be limited to its own subjectivity alone. It has the capacity for expansion and growth beyond the borders of personal identity and awareness. To remember our Ultimate Identity, to awaken to that Reality and to live within it is to practice the art of remembrance. REPENTANCE: (See metanoia) This term, translated in English, today often suggests a moralism or an inner state of morbid introspection which does not reflect much of the original intent of the Greek word. It has been used to describe religious conversion in such a say that the focus becomes merely the cessation of bad behavior, and not a transformation in the inner state of the hear. RIGHTEOUSNESS: This is the state of right relatedness to all the interactions and relationship which maintain equilibrium, balance and integrity in the universe. It is, therefore a state of impeccability. To be in "right relationship" (to the Ground of our Being) and therefore the Ground of All Being is to be righteous. It is not our own righteousness (rightness) but the perfect alignment of our being with what is True, Good, and Right already which therefore results in a way of life that lives in a balanced and harmonious manner. SSACRED TRADITION: We are not alone in the cosmic milieu. We are part of a living organism whose source is transcendent. As part of that "body" we are important, and therefore are addressed and held dear. Sacred Tradition is the living maintenance of the cosmic totality by the gracious act of its transcendent source. That Tradition is a wisdom which lives, grows and is pass on through the personal appropriation that each participant in the change makes. SAINT: Throughout the centuries of Christian history many women and men have been identified by the community as models of spiritual life, outstanding examples of the progress made along the spiritual path. These men and women were not different or special in some fundamental way from any other human. They were not perfect, for example. Simply, their sainthood was a result of extra-ordinary effort made by ordinary people. SALVATION: This key term used in the Bible has to do with God's work of restoring a human being, the entire body of humanity, and ultimately the cosmos to a completeness and fullness of being. Since Christian tradition sees humanity as presently existing in a state of loss, salvation would refer to the restoration of fullness. Because full restoration of human being to its original design does not happen all at once, salvation would also refer to a process of completion. SANCTIFY (SANTIFICATION): Originally this word has to do with the consecration of some object or person for use by the divine Reality. It is "given up" to that Reality, or set aside for transcendent use. Holiness, in this sense, is not moral perfection. Rather it is the consecration of an ordinary human being or object for sacred use. SELF: The universe is not inanimate, but animate, filled with consciousness. Consciousness however is not epiphenomenal, but the bedrock of existence. To be conscious is to be conscious as a "self" (whether reflective or not). The supreme consciousness shares itself with each conscious being. To have a self is to be aware of that consciousness in a self-reflective manner. SENSING: Sensory instrumentality is the means by which a living being comes to know its environment, its milieu. If the totality of a creature's environment is physical then its sensory apparatus will be limited to that alone, but if it is psychological and spiritual, then it will have the requisite mechanism to know the total dimensionality of its world. SERVICE: Life is predicated upon exchange. One can live by and through the exchanges unconsciously or consciously. To consciously live in the complexity of giving and receiving and to increase its richness is to serve, by willingly giving what will enrich the whole and thus ultimate one's own reality. SILENCE: Rumi said, "Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening" (Mathnawi, I, 1627). Silence is therefore the "space" in which we learn to listen. Without silence we cannot hear, we cannot receive the necessary input from without which will give us insight and connect us to the Whole. Silence is not therefore simply a void, it is an act of participation in learning. SOUL: the unique construction made up over time through the accumulation of both inner and outer experiences gathered into a single whole or unit, an ego-identity which I call "myself" and which is known to some greater or lesser degree by those who also know me. SPIRIT: that instrumentality, which may or may not be operative for any particular human being, through which the knowing self can come to learn of, project itself into, and receive information from the spiritual universe, just as the body functions analogously toward the physical universe. SPIRITUALITY: Human beings are creatures who possess the capacity to know, experience, and live within the spiritual dimensions as well as the physical and inter-subjective psychological dimensions. Spirituality is the knowledge and practice of such living, which means the growth (or the journey) that brings that capacity to maturity. SUBMISSION: In order to transcend the narrow limitations of our own egoic identities, we must surrender to a higher-order reality. Such surrender is not ultimately any fundamental loss, but our highest gain. Though indeed we may temporarily feel submission as a painful surrender, its furthest manifestation is our completion and fullness. SUPREME IDENTITY: The Self (known also as the divine Mind) which knows all things in an eternally present moment and which sheds the light of Consciousness itself upon all living things and comes to be expressed as a single conscious knower in a multitude of different subjects is the Supreme Identity which constitutes the essence of each human self. The single, conscious self resembles a ray from the central sun of the Self and within each ray the Self projects the object of finite experience, manifesting the individual by identifying itself with a point of view and with the objects in that point of view. While identifying itself with these nodes of consciousness within the creation, it remains in principle infinite, total and omniscient which does not, of course, penetrate through to the "rays of self knowing" much less to the egos which they contain. TTEACHER: For each human being, who is by definition a "student" in this world, there is both a teacher and a teaching. Ultimately the only teacher is the Spirit speaking the divine Word spoken at the level of the heart. The instruments of the teaching and the teacher, however, may be many sources. TRADITION: The wisdom accumulated through time and experience forms the basis of tradition. Sacred Tradition is that wisdom which has been shaped and guided by Transcendence itself. Human beings are given the gift of the wisdom of tradition as a legacy. In order to receive it they must honor it. In order to contribute to its living nature they must participate within it fully, accepting both its demands and its gifts. TRANSFORMATION: We are eternal creatures in transitional form. Our ultimate being does not reside in the temporal world, though it is meant to have a temporal and physical existence. The ultimate mode of human being is a form so transcendent to this one, that it is hardly to be recognized, though what it presently is is connected and essential its final outcome. TRUTH: To say that Reality exists beyond my subjectivity or my interpretation of a reality external to that subjectivity, is to acknowledge that Truth exists, at least in potential. To begin a process of knowing that is not simply a knowledge of the self and to be shaped by that knowing so that one becomes more and more adequate for the object of knowledge, is to begin a dialogue with Truth. TRUST: The foundation of all spiritual life is a trust in God. For many people "trust" simply means "belief." However the issue is one of whether or not we fundamentally trust God with our lives, our destiny, and our learning. Is God trustable? If, at the core of our beings, we can learn to trust then we will walk forward more boldly and more quickly into the processes of spiritual growth. Trust is the first critical step in that direction. UULTIMATE REALITY: Reality has many forms, many dimensions. Its ultimate form is of such a nature that no language can contain it. It is that Reality, which is also called divine and transcendent, that is in fact Ultimate Reality. UNCONSCIOUS: This word has multiple meaning. In spiritual terms this has to do with a lack of awareness or spiritual sleep, though one may be fully awake by normal standards. In psychological parlance it means that part of our awareness which lies below our ability to gain conscious access, but is often available through dreams or hypnosis. In physical terms it means that state in which we cannot be consciously aroused. UNION: Unity as part-to-whole is a fundamental need because it is the actuality of existence. We are united with that reality, but union is conscious participation in unity. Human beings are designed to live in union with the Ultimate Reality which relates all parts to the whole, and which is in fact the (non-dual) origin of Wholeness. VVIRTUES: Virtue is the qualitative essence of being human that transcends instinct or even temperament. Through spiritual growth various capacities and qualities come into being which are a gift share shared with us from the Divine Nature. WWAY: This is the traditional term used from early Christian tradition which designates the spiritual life or path as a journey. In Christianity Jesus Christ is understood to be the pioneer or trailblazer, who marks out the path in his own being. In fact his very person, for the Christian, becomes the pathway itself. WILL: The capacity to choose and to act meaningfully and not reactively is the faculty of the will. This is also our gift of freedom which opens a space that is not filled with caprice or simple instinct. WISDOM: Sacred wisdom is the treasury of knowing that is grained through experience and practice and which can be used to intuit future outcomes. Wisdom, therefore, exists as an accumulated body of knowledge which can be tapped by the intuition and used for good. WITNESS: We bear witness in ourselves to the reality we experience. A witness is not simply an observer of reality or one who gives verbal testimony, but one who demonstrates in fullness what has been realized in experience. WHOLENESS: Because of our finite nature we tend to experience the world and ourselves in parts and pieces. In fact the whole fabric of reality is a web which is one entire entity. To begin to know the whole and to live within that awareness is the beginning of wholeness. WORSHIP: Human beings are inwardly aligned to the Transcendent. The hunger to know and explore that realm is the origin of worship which when it is entered creates an inner response of awe in relationship to the Divine Reality which is the experience of worship. Definitions developed by Lynn C. Bauman, 1996-97
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