Glossary-RS

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Repentance:  in the Christian tradition, connected with sin, remorse, condemnation.  In Buddhism, sin is ignorance of the true nature of existence; repentance is deep regret for one's basic ignorance and the determination to overcome it.

Rishi:  seer; Rishis authored the Vedas in antiquity.

Roshi (J):  Venerable Teacher or Master.

Sadhu:  one devoted to asceticism and spiritual discipline.

Samadhi:  a blissful superconscious state in which a yogi perceives the identity of the individualized soul and Cosmic Spirit; spiritual ecstacy.

Samkhara: One of the five Buddhist Skandhas or attributes.

Samma Sambuddha: The sudden remembrance of all one's past incarnations, a phenomenon of memory obtained through Yoga. A Buddhist term.

Samsâra (Sans): birth and death; the world of relativity, of impermanence, of constant change.

Samothrace: An island in the Grecian Archipelago, famous in days of old for the mysteries celebrated in its temples. These mysteries were world-renowned.

Samyttaka Nikaya: One of the Buddhist Sutras.

Sanna: One of the five Skandhas, or attributes, meaning "abstract ideas."

Sannyasi (Sans):  renunciant; from skt., "to cast aside."

Seance: A term now used to denote a sitting with a medium for sundry phenomena.  Used chiefly among the spiritualists.

Self: There are two Selves in men --the Higher and the Lower, the Impersonal and the Personal Self.  One is divine, the other semi-animal.

Sephiroth: A Hebrew Kabalistic word for the ten divine emanations from Ain-Soph, the impersonal, universal Principle or Deity.

Shunyata:  the viable void.

Somnambulism: "Sleep walking."  A psycho-physiological state.

Soul:  the sum total of an individual personality, an enduring ego-entity that exists more or less independently of the physical body and survives after death. (Zen Buddhism)

Spiritism: The same as below, with the difference that the Spiritualists reject almost unanimously the doctrine of Reincarnation, while the Spiritists make of it the fundamental principle in their belief.

Spiritualism: The modern belief that the spirits of the dead return on earth to commune with the living.

Sri (Sans):  Hindu "Mr.," an honorific title applied to a religious or spiritual teacher in the Hindu tradition.

Sthula Sharira: The Sanskrit name for the human physical body in Occultism and Vedanta philosophy.

Sthulopadhi: The physical body in its waking, conscious state.

Sukshmopadhi: The physical body in the dreaming state (Svapna), and Koranopadhi, "the causal body."  Terms of the Taraka Raj Yoga School.

Summerland: The fancy name given by the Spiritualists to the abode of their disembodied "spirits," which they locate somewhere in the Milky Way.  It is described on the authority of returning "spirits" as a lovely land, having beautiful cities and buildings, a Congress Hall, Museums, etc.

Swami:  he who is one with himself.