Adulthood. When a father has taught his son all that he can about being a man, and believes that his son has understood what he wants to teach, then his son is an adult and should be free to make all decisions for himself. Similarly it is the case for a girl being brought up by a mother. See 'manhood' and 'womanhood'. A boy or girl who has no father or mother, respectively, will always tend to be sad in life and will never be fully grown up: there will always be an element of childhood in them. This is not a bad but nice tendency in them.

Alone. Aside from having God and various deities always by your side, you are actually alone until a true love situation arises and you are happily married. A child too is alone in this world and therefore needs to be treated with the utmost kindness by his or her parents, and by others, until he or she becomes an adult. At this point, of course utmost kindness should continue, but he or she should be told that all decisions are in the final analysis his or hers.

Bliss. When you have stopped operating from your brain, but have shifted your entire being to your heart, wherein rests your Soul, you are part of the way to bliss. You then need to find someone whom you love and then you are in bliss. Bliss is a mixture of peacefulness and happiness.

Boyfriend. What is the difference between a male friend and a "boyfriend"? Well, of course, there can be many definitions and meanings. But, a simple distinction is that with a boyfriend or girlfriend there is or there is an intention to have sexual relationships in addition to friendship. In the case of a child, someone below age 16, a boy or girlfriend is ideally just that, a friend. In some cases, a child will have sexual relations with a girl or boy friend, but, because they are children one should not make any distinctions.

Broken Heart. See article.

Caring for someone. This means that you will put yourself out for him or her and do things for him or her if they ask you to do it for them. When this is unconditional, that is you will do anything for them (if you can) providing that it is good for them, then your caring for them has turned into real friendship. In normal caring, you will do somethings for them, and not others, depending on for example your preferences. See also, not caring for someone.

Caring for you. (see 'Holding a Woman's Hand'):

•  Being sad if you are sad

•  Being happy if you are happy

•  If the two of you have agreed something, doing it or consulting the other before not doing it

•  not keeping you waiting unless circumstances make it difficult

•  if as a result of past behaviour, the two of you tend to do something together, not taking an action which would stop this without prior discussion

•  if he or she in the past has done something for you, then continuing with this, only stopping with prior discussion.

Chastity. Being chaste means not having sexual activity or sex with another person. It also means not thinking of such activity. Looking at another person or watching sexual activity or sex does not break the rule of chastity. Masturbating also does not break this rule. The woman of a husband and the husband of a woman is not 'another person', she or he is a part of the other, their energy spheres are partly linked.

Child. A boy or girl who obeys his or her parents. If, at the end of the day, the child does not obey its parents, then it is an adult.

Consciousness. The awareness of one's Self of itself and of the objects that are held in the mind.

Considerate.You meet a nice man. He asks you whether you are hungry. You say no. This is an example of being inconsiderate.

Devotion. An emotion which drives you to work selflessly for another person, for God, for mother Nature or for a subject or cause that you feel strongly about.

Divine love. This is the love that the deity you worship has for you: He or She will give you anything you want that is good for you, if you want Him or Her to, according to the amount of service you do for Him or Her. The amount of divine love is proportional to your worship. For every small gift of service you give to your deity, His or Her gifts to you are many times greater. A gift of service is an act of remembering Him or Her, an offering of a flower, or any nice thing that you do without selfishness. The ultimate service is Ishvara Pranidhana, the giving of your body, mind and Soul to your deity's Soul, God. Your deity's love and God's love for you is then 100%, total. There is then nothing that OM will not do for you.

Ear. In yoga philosophy, the "ear", "skin", "eyes", "tongue" and "nose" are not just the physical body parts, but also the capabilities associated with these: the senses of hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting and smelling. These senses relate to the five elements of "space", "air", "fire", "water" and "earth".

Ethics. The five moral principles of Yama in yoga philosophy are

• non-injury. Minimising the harm you do to other living beings, whether by your actions, words or thoughts
• truthfulness. Saying what God wants you to say
• non-theft. Not taking property, love or kindness more than you give
• chastity. Not having sex or sexual activity with another person and not thinking about these
• non-acquisitiveness. Not spending nor hoarding unnecessarily.

Freedom. Being able to do as one pleases when one pleases, where one pleases, combined with absence of worry.

God. Has three aspects: a Soul that is impersonal and difficult for us to fathom, a feminine personal creative aspect known as OM (pronounced AUM) and a body, being the physical world we see around us, including all living beings. He is in us and outside us. God is everywhere. When you walk, you are walking on Him, using His body. God is not invisible. He is the perfect Bhaktan: filled with love, power, potency and knowledge. He has all the human qualities of caring, tenderness, fondness, kindness, intimacy and friendship in perfect degree and in infinite abundance. He has two functions amongst many that stand out: justice and mercy. For everyone He is just, for those who try and make others happy He is also merciful – forgiving their transgressions of the moral law.

Happy. There are seven kinds, corresponding to each of the seven energy centres. When one's mind is satisfied with the state of one or more of these energy centres then you are happy. For example, you may be love-happy or emotionally happy or mentally happy. The amount of happiness with each energy centre depends on the amount of satisfaction with that centre. It is God in the final analysis who decides how happy you will be, through a combination of justice and mercy. Every man, every woman has an in-built desire to be happy in all seven energy spheres. Equivalently, happiness means perfect contentment with the degree to which your sense organs and mind are satisfied.

Happy or good marriage. This is where you are married to someone and the two of you love each other and are friends. A marriage where:

• both partners are blissfully happy and peacefully ecstatic at just the thought of each other
• they each help each other become healthy
• they have a wonderful sex life together
• their minds are filled with love for each other, whether they are together or not
• they develop emotional stability together.

Health. Perfect contentment with the functioning of your body.

Human being. An entity made of matter, and comprises a spiritual component, the Self, together with the body and mind, with the latter being comprising of seven energy spheres. Each human being is associated with a Soul, a deity whose Soul is God Himself. You, the Self, needs different experiences and are purposively given a different body and mind on the occasion of each of your births. A human being differs from other living beings in that it has all seven energy centres impacting the mind.

Human relationship. This consists of 5 elements: care, tenderness, intimacy, friendship and fondness. These are the 5 things, in appropriate quantity and type, that a man should do his or her best to give to his woman, a woman her husband, a father his son, a person to his or her friend, etc.

Humanity. This consists of the following 8 components: willingness and ability to listen, readiness to understand, learning from what one has listened to and understood, implementing what one has learnt, kindness, caring for self and others, tenderness and friendship.

Husband. A man who has entered you, a woman, in the natural way, whom you care for and who cares for you. Even if you achieve a 'legal' divorce, the man you married may be a husband to you, if these conditions are met.A husband is duty bound to try and give his woman whatever she needs in life, irrespective of whether they are together or are divorced.

Friendship. You have a friend when he or she is prepared to defend you against harm. He or she will try and give you or do for you anything that you need.You should not make friends with someone who does not care for you. Only God has the energy to do this. Everyone else, including an incarnation of God, for example, needs to prioritise on how much good he or she can do in the world, and hence choose those who will benefit from his friendship. If the 'friend' does not care for you, sooner or later he will abuse your friendship and therefore harm himself.

Indecency. What is not indecent? 1. A nude man or a nude woman, or any part of their anatomy 2. A man or woman making love with the other or with themselves 3.Watching any of the above, assuming that you have genuine consent. The test is whether any living being is being hurt: whether the ethical principle of non-violence (ahimsa) of yama is being broken. It is indecent if a man or a woman is forced to undress against their will. A woman is being indecent if she reveals too much of ber body to others if the man she is with is or would be hurt by this.

Instinct. God in the form of OM controls all the functionings of your body and mind. In particular She controls your subconscious mind. You get promptings to do things from time to time. This prompting from God represents what you need to do, for example in times of emergency. This is instinct.

Intimacy. This means sharing one's inner most thoughts with someone and not being selective about it. It also includes sharing one's emotional and sexual energies. In any relationship, the amount and type of intimacy needs to be appropriate. Thus a father needs to share the thoughts he has in relation to what is good for the son, to be not selective, but share all good thoughts with the son.

Intuition. Any message from one's Soul to one's Self where the mind has not managed to interfere. These contain information as to what is good for one. Intuition prompts your self to tell your mind to do what is good for you and also what you should do. All first thoughts come to you from God, but with the development of mind, the non-yogi does not listen to these first thoughts. He listens to second and subsequent thoughts. It is these second and subsequent thoughts that may come from the soul.

Kali Yug. This is the present and last age of the world. It commenced around 325 BC and finishes in 2050 AD. In this age, 75% of all goodness, truthfulness etc has gone.

Karma. The stock of good and bad choices you have made in this and in your previous life. It represents the balance of past choices of good or bad action, defined in terms of whether they are consistent or not with the 5 ethical principles of Yama. Your karma determines whether your life experiences will be pleasurable or not. Karma is only overruled by God's mercy.

Kindness. When a person sees you cry and does not immediately try and help you, you know that he or she is not kind.

Knowledge. There are two types of knowledge: of divinity and of material things. All the problems of the world and for an individual commence because parents do not give proper instruction to their children in divinity but focus instead on the mundane. Knowledge too is not theoretical, even though in later life it seems as if one needs just to employ the brain. Knowledge fundamentally is experienced and later comes to be believed and thought about. In order to count, a child has to count rather than to learn how to count. It is an important difference. You see a cow rather than read about it. In later life it is more difficult to learn and acquire knowledge because the mind has taken over from the instrument which gives you knowledge: the heart. Hence learning a language is more difficult in later life. To gain knowledge, one also needs time, time with the object to be learnt.

Law. There is man's law and God's law. A priest in a church is a man. Divorce in a court is to do with man's law. Someone who loves God should have no interest in this. There is no man's law that that should worry him or her. For example, a man and a woman who are separated under God's law are able to marry you under God's law, not man's depending on whether they have received a piece of paper from a Court. They are married or not depending on whether he has entered her, it is nothing to do with pieces of paper.

Law of Karma. See also karma. This states that the balance of happiness and suffering is determined by the extent to which you follow the 5 ethical principles of yama (non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity and non-acquisitiveness).

Liberation. In the yoga texts, there are two words used for the states of life when all the other goals of life (wealth, pleasure and health) have been achieved and your life has no other purpose. Both states are states of love:

• Kaivalya, or isolation, is the highest state that a yogi can achieve without the assistance of God
• Moksha is the state where one has a permanent loving remembrance of God. It arrives at some point after one has performed a final surrender to God (Ishvara Pranidhana).

   

Love. With caring should go fondness and tenderness. The three together constitute love.

Manhood. This consists of the following components: self-sufficiency, knowing one's own mind, doing what one's own mind and heart says, a high sex drive, self control, physical fitness and strength, emotional calm, respect for woman and womanhood.

Marriage. When a man says to a woman I will care for you for the rest of our lives together (or something similar) and she says the same, they are married. The word 'says' in this context need not be verbal but can also be a statement communicated by their hearts to each other. Marriage becomes a religious commitment before God where a man has entered a woman. When this happens, the man is honour bound according to time honoured tradition to look after the woman with care and tenderness for as long as she wants him to. In the case of marriage to a deity, marriage is when He or She enters your heart. By definition, marriage is a happy state because when a human being cares for you and you care for them (both need to be true), and the act of marriage has taken place, you will be happy. Thus, the ancient fairy tales refer to a boy and girl 'getting married and living happily ever after', this all being the natural state of affairs. One can define three types of marriage:

Marriage Type #1

• Husband and wife, 100% in love with each other 

Marriage Type #2

• Husband and partner, having committed to each other to care for each other for the rest of their lives, but with no true love  

Marriage Type #3

• Man and woman, caring for each other, but with no long term commitment.

Marriage ceremony. At a marriage ceremony, each person says ‘I do', but this really is a promise of caring for the other, rather than a marriage.

Married. A man and woman are married when they underwent marriage and care for each other. They cease to be married when one or other ceases to care.

Mental health. This is when the mind does exactly what the self tells it to do, as distinct from having a sluggish or opposite response.

Mind. A servant, not a master of the self. If the self determines that it would like a woman to think of a man, then this is what the woman's mind will do. The contents of the mind are thoughts, feelings, peace and bliss. In this age everyone is stressed. What the mind most needs in the short run is relaxation (even more than happiness). In the absence of this it gets stuck in a rut, the next best thing. The mind also has inclinations, which are determined largely by the history of its experiences in this life.

Need. Your needs are defined by what is necessary for you to achieve your highest objectives in life, i.e. the fourth aim of life, moksha or liberation, union with God. Thus you need enough food and water and air to survive, love to keep your spirits up, care and intimacy from a wife or husband, friendships (to deliver to you what you need), advice (when asked for and not when not asked for) on making good choices in your life, and safety (friends who will defend you against attack if need be, for example).

Nice. This means that if one in the final analysis has to choose between helping someone and helping oneself, one will help the other nice person.

Niceness and kindness. A person is kind if he helps people, whether they are strangers or not, without expecting anything in return. Many people are kind. A kind person is slightly different from a nice person. A nice person is a kind person who is also discriminating. He tries to help nice people become happy. A kind person does not necessarily think about the consequences of his actions. A nice person does and thinks about whether his act of kindness will be of benefit to the person he is being kind to.

Not caring (for someone). In this state, you may say that you care for someone, but in reality, any caring is a trade, so long as he or she is giving you something that you want or need, you 'care' for him or her. When he or she does not give this to you, you walk away. Or his gift to you relates to the social status, or other attribute you gain from helping him. In Kali Yug, it is rare to find someone who cares for you.

Orgasm. There are seven different kinds, one for each of the seven main energy spheres. They are all triggered by sexual activity: man seeing, feeling, touching, hearing, smelling, tasting or thinking of another person (usually woman), and the same for woman. In terms of the main (natural) sex orgasm, it arises when there is sufficient stimulation of the penis or clitoris and the mind is relaxed.

Prostitution. When a man or a woman gives another sexual pleasure for the purpose of receiving money or fame or some other material benefit.

Religion. What does it mean to be religious? What are the constituents of a true religion? It is a set of beliefs that encourage the person to

• be clean in body and mind
• be contented and happy
• develop purity of body and mind so that he/she can be worthy of association with God
• study the writings of God and the exploits of God
• do all actions in accordance with God's Will and not to do actions contrary to His/Her Will.

Self. Also known as spirit or Atma or Atman. This instrument of the Soul has the twin characteristics of listening and of determining what the (conscious) mind will do. The self may listen to the mind's inclinations, or to the instructions or advice of another person, to the promptings of the Soul (known as intuition) or to God. In respect of both the body and mind, the self wants the person to be lazy to some extent or other, to not over-exert and not to hurt him or herself. The self also has certain inclinations (desires) of what to do, based on what it has listened to over time in this life. The self is that instrument that has consciousness of our body and mind.

Sexual Harrasment. What does harrassing a man or a woman mean? It means using some form of power relationship to dominate the other person in some way and induce him or her to change his/her behaviour, response, etc in some way. It is deemed sexual in nature if the harassment is between a man and a woman. There are acceptable and unacceptable kinds of sexual activity: 

• Acceptable to Man: Between genuine consenting adults

• Acceptable to God: Between a man and a woman with mutual consent

• Unacceptable, i.e. unqualified harrassment or worse: If there is a breach of the principle of ahimsa, non-injury.

Soul. The Soul (Sanskrit: Purusha) has consciousness of the self, and can have consciousness of itself and of other Souls, and of God.

True love. You are in a true love state when you will do anything that your lover wishes you to do. This is the state that you have after surrender to your lover, which could be God. In contrast to love, friendship and marriage, you can only have true love to one being at a time.

Truth (1) Telling things exactly as they are.

Truth (2) What God says to you. Whatever God does or says to you is what you need. Therefore truth (2) may differ from truth (1).

Wedding. The public confirmation that two people have or will get married. From a religious perspective, God sees into every heart and no wedding is needed. He knows whether or not you will keep your promise of caring, etc, to your partner.

Wife. A woman who tries her best and does all she can to make her husband happy. Equivalently, it is a woman who has surrendered her body, heart and Self to her husband, in an analogous fashion to Ishvara Pranidhana. At any time, a woman can have several husbands (eg if she has previously divorced), but is a wife to only one man. You can be married to a woman without she being your wife, this is the norm in Kali Yug. You have a duty of care to her, but at the end of the day you can let the woman go if she does not care for you. Your wife is there, for you, for the rest of your life. She is your responsibility. You cannot 'divorce' or 'separate' from a wife. When somebody surrenders their body, heart and Self to you, your duty to her transcends all bounds.

Womanhood (1) See manhood; woman needs respect for man and manhood.

Womanhood (2) Woman has a natural fear that man will dominate them. For example, this fear arises because man is usually stronger, physically than woman. This natural fear drives woman to tend to try and dominate man and to say 'no' to man, to do the opposite of what her husband wishes. The fear is based on the true supposition that her husband will if she gets into the habit of saying 'yes' will expect her to continue to say 'yes'. She, as do men too, fears that her husband does not really love her, and that at some point he will ask her to do something that will be harmful to her or to her daughter. It is this fear that stops man surrendering to God and woman surrendering to her husband and becoming a wife. The highest purpose of a mother is to teach the daughter how to become a true woman, free from this fear. A woman (and a man) needs love more than material things (like money). But because of fear, she has a natural tendency to choose money rather than love. A second purpose of a mother is to teach her daughter that love for her husband, trying to do what he wants her to do, is more important than money. Finally, she needs to teach her daughter that God gives at all times what is needed, and that the daughter needs to pray to her personal deity with full love and devotion for all her wants.

Yoga Sutras of Lord Patanjali. This short book encapsulates the whole philosophy, psychology and science of yoga (“Raja” or “Ashtanga” yoga). All schools of yoga recognize its authoritativeness.

Yogi. Someone in whom kundalini has awakened. A yoga student is someone who is following the path of kriya (also known as karmayoga) specified in the second chapter of the Yoga Sutras, or one who has proceeded to following the mental disciplines of Jnana Yoga specified in the first chapter.