Nabi
Nadi
Nature mysticism
Nirbija samadhi
Nirguna
Nirodha
Nirvana
Nirvikalpa
Nirvikalpa samadhi
Nirvikalpa jnana
Noetic quality
Non dual
Non locality
Noumenon
Numinous
Nabi
Word definition: Prophet.
Etymology: Arabic: Messenger.
Technical description: Prophet; low causal mystic. Prophets in Islam (Arabic: الأنبياء في الإسلام) include “messengers” (rasul, pl. rusul), bringers of a divine revelation via an angel (Arabic: ملائكة, malāʾikah); and “prophets” (nabī, pl. anbiyāʼ), lawbringers that Muslims believe were sent by God to every person, bringing God’s message in a language they can understand. Knowledge of the Islamic prophets is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith, and specifically mentioned in the Quran. (Wikipedia)
Phenomenological description:
Synonyms: Prophet.
Cross-cultural comparisons:
Buddhist arhat
Hindu paramahamsa
Islam nabi
Jainism tirthankara
Chinese lohan
Christian prophet
Greek teleios
Inuit (Eskimo) (he or she who will become hlamchoua )
Tibetan changchub semspa (bodhisattva)
Christian symbolism baptized with blood
Pythagoreans epiphania
( M.J.M.)
The concept in mythology: The seer.
Supporting evidence: Similar independent descriptions of this stage from different cultures.
Nadi
Word definition: River or Stream.
Etymology: Several of the ancient Upanishads use the concept of nadis (channels). Nadi system is mentioned in the Chandogya Upanishad (8~6 cc. BCE), verse 8.6.6. and in verses 3.6-3.7 of the Prasna Upanishad (second half of the 1 millennium BC). As stated in the last,
Technical description: Nadi is an important concept in Hindu philosophy, mentioned and described in the sources some of which have about 3,000 years of history. The amount of nadis of the human body are claimed to be up to hundred-of-thousands and even millions. In regard to Kundalini yoga, there are three important nadis: ida, pingala, and sushumna (for the alternate names, see the section below). Ida (इडा, iḍā “comfort”) lies to the left of the spine, whereas pingala (पिङ्गल, piṅgala “tawny (brown)”, “golden”, “solar”) is to the right side of the spine, mirroring the ida. Sushumna (सुषुम्णा, suṣumṇā “very gracious”, “kind”) runs along the spinal cord in the center, through the seven chakras. Under the correct conditions the energy of kundalini is said to uncoil and enter sushumna through the brahma dwara or gate of Brahma at the base of the spine.
The Shiva Samhita treatise on yoga states, for example, that out of 350,000 nadis 14 are particularly important, and among them, the three just mentioned are the three most vital.
(Wikipedia)
See further: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/subtle-energies/nadis/
Phenomenological description: By Christ: In Christianity we find the potamoi, (which means rivers or streams in Greek).
“Whoever believes in me, as scripture says, rivers (potamoi) of living water will flow from within him.” John 7:38.
Nadis means rivers or streams.
The concept in mythology: Tree of life.
Supporting evidence: Intercultural similarities
Nature mysticism
Word definition: Oneness with nature.
Etymology: The ‘nature mysticism’ which we find in Romantic writers like Wordsworth.
Technical description: A peak experience of oneness with phenomena in the gross state.
See further: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/mystical-experiences/nature-mysticism/
Phenomenological description: “At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and animals that come and go, in the procession of seasons.” – C.G. Jung.
~ C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Ch. 8
Synonyms: Pantheism
Cross-cultural comparisons:
Buddhist srotapatti
Hindu parivrajaka
Islam wali
Christian nature mysticism
Greek pistos
Inuit (Eskimo) mittat
Tibetan theg men
Christian symbolism baptized with water
Pythagoreans paraskeie
( M.J.M.)
Relevance of the concept: The world no longer seen as objects,
but experienced as a process.
:
Citations: “When we touch this domain, we are filled with the cosmic force of life itself, we sink our roots deep into the black soil and draw power and being up into ourselves. We know the energy of the numen and are saturated with power and being.
We feel grounded, centered, in touch with the ancient and eternal rhythms of life. Power and passion well up like an artesian spring and creativity dances in celebration of life.”
– David N. Elkins, The Sacred as Source of Personal Passion and Power
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
– William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, 1863
“There are sacred moments in life when we experience in rational and very direct ways that separation,
the boundary between ourselves and other people and between ourselves and Nature, is illusion. Oneness
is reality. We can experience that stasis is illusory and that reality is continual flux and change on very
subtle and also on gross levels of perception.
– Charlene Spretnak
“God does not die on that day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reasoning…. When the sense of the earth unites with the sense of one’s body, one becomes earth of the earth, a plant among plants, an animal born from the soil and fertilizing it. In this union, the body is confirmed in its pantheism.”
– Dag Hammarskjold (1905-1961)
“I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars …. I awaken everything to life.”
– Hildergard of Bingen
“And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts;
a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the Mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.”
– William Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey
“Man becomes aware of the Sacred because it manifests itself, shows itself, as something wholly different from the Profane … In his encounters with the Sacred, man experiences a reality that does not belong to our world yet is encountered in and through objects or events that are part of the world.
– Mircea Eliade
“The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe.”
– Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.
– Oliver Sacks
The identity of the nature-mystic expands as it were into nature, so that what is asserted is that the distinction between the individual and nature is lost. the two become one (or what is discovered is that what appeared to be two are have really been one all along).
Supporting evidence: many descriptions within the world literature.
Nirbija samadhi
Word definition: nirbija samadhi, the highest level of samadhi, which is a super-conscious state of enlightenment. In nirbija samadhi, the mind contains no thoughts: nothing but consciousness and pure awareness. It is a state in which the mind no longer supports itself and so becomes one with the higher Self.
Etymology: Nirbija is a Sanskrit term that literally means “without seed.”
Technical description: the nondual state of consciousness which is unconditional because all projected conditions have been seen through.
Nirbija-samadhi has no conditioning cause as they have all been transcended, and all conditional activity has been surrendered. The mind is now a radiant formlessness empty of both specific and generalised projection, seen and seer.
Phenomenological description: Pure consciousness without contents.
Synonyms: The Void.
Relevance of the concept: When a yogi enters this state, he/she has transcended all illusions of duality and has seen through all projections of separation.
The experience of nirbija samadhi is, therefore, said to be one where the mind becomes radiant and formless, entirely free from conditioning, projection and attachment. It is a state of spiritual oneness, where the mind entirely dissolves. There is no longer any distinguishing between the known and the knower, subject and object, or the seer and the seen.
Nirguna
Word definition: Sanskrit: “distinctionless”
Etymology: The fundamental text of this tenet is the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad definition of Brahman as neti-neti (“not this! not that!”)
Technical description: concept of primary importance in the orthodox Hindu philosophy of Vedānta, raising the question of whether the supreme being, Brahman, is to be characterized as without qualities (nirguṇa) or as possessing qualities (saguṇa). (Encyclopædia Britannica)
The Advaita (Nondualist) school of Vedānta assumes on the basis of selected passages of the Upaniṣads that Brahman is beyond all polarity and therefore cannot be characterized in the normal terms of human discursive thought. This being the case, Brahman cannot possess qualities that distinguish it from all other magnitudes, as Brahman is not a magnitude but is all.
(Encyclopædia Britannica)
Phenomenological description: Beyond duality.
Relevance of the concept: Nirguna (Sanskrit) Nirguṇa [from nis destitute, without + guṇa quality] Devoid of qualities or properties; Thus parabrahman or even Brahman is nirguna, whereas the manifested Brahma possesses gunas (attributes) and therefore is spoken of as saguna (with attributes).
Nirodha
Word definition: Cessation
Etymology: originally from the Visuddhimagga.
Technical description: According to a commentary of the Yoga Sutras by ancient Hindu author, Vyasa, nirodha is the fifth and most desired of the five states of mind. It is a mastered mind with full control and, if a yogi can sustain it for a long period of time, he/she can realize the true Self and reach the state of final liberation, or moksha.
The controlled mind should not be confused with suppressed thoughts. The thoughts and emotions stay, but, with deep meditation, the mind becomes still and one-pointed. This mastery of deep stillness is called nirodha.
See further: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/mysticism/three-forms-of-mysticism/
Phenomenological description: The emptiness of spacelessness and timelessness.
Synonyms: Spiritual enlightenment.
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
“The Visuddhimagga.”
Nirvana
Word definition: literally means “blown out”
Etymology: 1836, from Sanskrit nirvana-s “extinction, disappearance” (of the individual soul into the universal), literally “to blow out, a blowing out” (“not transitively, but as a fire ceases to draw;” a literal Latinization would be de-spiration), from nis-, nir- “out” + va- “to blow” (from PIE root *we- “to blow”). Figurative sense of “perfect bliss” is from 1895.
Technical description: Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions describe the term for liberation differently. In the Buddhist context, nirvana refers to realization of non-self and emptiness, marking the end of rebirth by stilling the fires that keep the process of rebirth going. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union of or the realization of the identity of Atman with Brahman, depending on the Hindu tradition. In Jainism, it is also the soteriological goal, it represents the release of a soul from karmic bondage and samsara. (Wikipedia)
See further: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/mysticism/three-forms-of-nirvana/
Phenomenological description: The emptiness of space and time.
Synonyms: Spiritual liberation, Kenosis.
Cross-cultural comparisons: This state of permanent deep meditation, which is called Nirvana, has been described by St. Paul in Philippians 4:7 as;
7 …The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.
Citations: Nirvana, is a state rather than alocalitie, forming a continuum of consciousness from the superspiritual to the nether pole of the spiritual condition. There are nirvanas of different degrees: one so high that it blends insensibly with the condition of the cosmic hierarch of our universe. The lower degrees of nirvana, however, are attained at intervals by highly spiritual and very mystically-inclined people, who have had intensive spiritual training. They enter for a very short period into this state, but usually cannot remain there for long.
(However, Nirvana on a high causal level is continuous, uninterrupted and permanent, without any effort M.J.M.)
Nirvikalpa
Word definition: Transconceptual.
Etymology: free from change or differences
Technical description: Nirvikalpa is a Sanskrit term which can be translated as “transconceptual.” The word consists of the prefix nir, meaning “without” or “beyond”; vi, meaning “apart from”; and kalpa, meaning “order.” In yoga, it is defined as the processes of the mind that are wordless, with no thought form or discursive thoughts. It is not unconsciousness, but rather awareness that is simple and natural, beyond order, beyond analytical thinking and beyond time, space and knowledge.
Phenomenological description: A non-dual state.
The difference between Nirvikalpa samadhi and Sahaja samadhi, who are both nondual states, is that Nirvikalpa samadhi is a plateau state and Sahaja samadhi is a permanent state. (Ramana)
Synonyms: Asamprajnata-Samadhi
Relevance of the concept: Nirvikalpa is a Sanskrit term which can be translated as “transconceptual.” The word consists of the prefix nir, meaning “without” or “beyond”; vi, meaning “apart from”; and kalpa, meaning “order.” In yoga, it is defined as the processes of the mind that are wordless, with no thought form or discursive thoughts. It is not unconsciousness, but rather awareness that is simple and natural, beyond order, beyond analytical thinking and beyond time, space and knowledge
Nirvikalpa samadhi
Word definition: Transconceptual state
Technical description: Nirvikalpa samadhi as been described by some as the flowering of a human being. It is a state of union with Brahman. In this state, the yogi comes face-to-face with their own Atman. It is the culmination of all spiritual practices and the realization of the ultimate spiritual goal. Nirvikalpa is said to bring about feelings of infinite bliss and peace, where thoughts cease to exist. Those who have written about this state have found it difficult to describe because it is a state beyond the thinking mind.
See further: https://marinusjanmarijs.com/lists/list-of-different-types-of-samadhi/
Relevance of the concept: Nirvikalpa samadhi is recognized as one of the highest states of samadhi. The state of consciousness before this is savikalpa samadhi where the experience of time and space alters. The yogi recognizes that everything is complete and there is nothing more to do. Thoughts still exist, but they do not affect the yogi in this state. After experiencing savikalpa samadhi, however, normal human consciousness returns.
The difference between this stage is that in nirvikalpa samadhi all thoughts dissolve. This is considered a state of being at one with the Divine. It is a state of true ecstasy, oneness and limitless bliss. After experiencing nirvikalpa samadhi, a yogi does not wish to return to the world. They may forget their own name, how to speak or how to think properly. With practice, though, they may find it easier to experience this state and then function in a normal way afterward.
Beyond nirvikalpa samadhi is sahaja samadhi. This state is only achieved by very few spiritual masters and is said to allow them to achieve the highest level of spiritual consciousness while still functioning in the physical world. (Yogapedia)
Nirvikalpa jnana
Technical description: Nirvikalpa is used in Jnana yoga with samadhi (enlightenment) as nirvikalpa samadhi, which is, according to some sources, the highest form of samadhi. It is enlightenment without thoughts, ideas or form; a state of endless peace and tranquillity.
(Yogapedia)
Noetic quality
Word definition: cognitive quality.
Etymology: “pertaining to the intellect,” 1650s, from Greek noetikos “intelligent,” from noesis
Technical description: Relating to mental activity or the intellect.
‘the noetic quality of a mystical experience refers to the sense of revelation’
Phenomenological description: The cognitive element of mystical experiences.
Synonyms: Clairknowing.
Relevance of the concept: Translogical insight.
The concept in mythology: A mirror.
Non dual
Word definition: The ever-present union of subject and object, Form and Emptiness, Heaven and Earth. Nondual can refer to both the suchness or “isness” of Reality right now and also the very highest basic level or structure-stage of awareness, where this suchness is a permanent realization. It is both the ever-present ground of evolution, as well as its ultimate goal.
Technical description: Vishishtadvaita, (Sanskrit: “Qualified Non-dualism” or “Non-dualism of the Qualified”) one of the principal branches of Vedanta, a system (darshan) of Indian philosophy.
Phenomenological description: A circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
Synonyms: Advaita
Citations: Mysticism in Plotinus:
No doubt we should not speak of seeing but, instead of seen and seer, speak boldly of a simple unity. For in this seeing we – neither distinguish nor are there two. The man … is merged with the Supreme, one with it. Only in separation is there duality. This is why the vision baffles telling; for how can a man bring back tidings of the Supreme as detached when he has seen it as one with himself. . . . Beholder was one with beheld . . . he is become the unity, having no diversity either in relation to himself or anything else . . . reason is in abeyance and intellection, and even the very self, caught away, God-possessed, in perfect stillness, all the being calmed.
(Plotinus, Works, trans. by Stephen MacKenna, New York, New York Medici Society, Enneads VI, IX, and XI. Quoted by Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy)
Non locality
Word definition: Spacelessness.
Etymology: The related Asian idea of nondualism developed in the Vedic and post-Vedic Hindu philosophies, as well as in the Buddhist traditions.
Technical description: In spirituality, nondualism, also called non-duality, means “not two” or “one undivided without a second”. Nondualism primarily refers to a mature state of consciousness, in which the dichotomy of I-other is ‘transcended’, and awareness is described as ‘centerless’ and ‘without dichotomies’ Although this state of consciousness may seem to appear spontaneous, it usually is the “result” of prolonged ascetic or meditative/contemplative practice, which includes ethical injunctions. While the term “nondualism” is derived from Advaita Vedanta, descriptions of nondual consciousness can be found within Hinduism (Turiya, sahaja), Buddhism (Buddha-nature, rigpa, shentong), and western Christian and neo-Platonic traditions (henosis, mystical union). (Wikipedia)
Phenomenological description: Clairvoyance. (non-local perception)
Relevance of the concept: This concept what millennia old is within mysticism, was in the 20th century proposed within Quantum theory.
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
Dean Radin: “Entangled minds.”
Noumenon
Word definition: The object, itself inaccessible to experience.
Etymology: 1796, “object of intellectual intuition” (opposed to a phenomenon), term introduced by Kant, from Greek noumenon “that which is perceived,” neuter passive present participle of noein “to apprehend, perceive by the mind” (from noos “mind,” which is of uncertain origin). With passive suffix -menos.
Technical description: The object, itself inaccessible to experience, to which a phenomenon is referred for the basis or cause of its sense content.
A thing in itself, as distinguished from a phenomenon or thing as it appears.
Kantianism. something that can be the object only of a purely intellectual, nonsensuous intuition. (Wikipedia)
Phenomenological description:
Synonyms: supersensible.
Relevance of the concept: Noumenon, plural Noumena, in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich) as opposed to what Kant called the phenomenon—the thing as it appears to an observer. Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man, however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal because practical reason—i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide.
The relationship of noumenon to phenomenon in Kant’s philosophy has engaged philosophers for nearly two centuries, and some have judged his passages on these topics to be irreconcilable. Kant’s immediate successors in German Idealism in fact rejected the noumenal as having no existence for man’s intelligence. Kant, however, felt that he had precluded this rejection by his refutation of Idealism, and he persisted in defending the absolute reality of the noumenal, arguing that the phenomenal world is an expression of power and that the source from which this power comes can only be the noumenal world beyond. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
The concept in mythology: Plato’s cave.
Citations: Noumenon [from Greek noeo to perceive with the mind, think; cf nous] Plural Noumena. An object perceived by the mind apart from the senses, an object of cognition. Also the unknown real entity, substance, or essential thing-in-itself, which the mind perforce posits as the basis of the phenomenon, appearance, or objective thing; hence reality as distinguished from apparent or sensible qualities.
Numinous
Word definition: filled with a sense of the presence of divinity : Holy
Etymology: “divine, spiritual,” 1640s, from Latin numen (genitive numinis) “divine will,” Numinous is an English adjective, derived in the 17th century from the Latin numen, that is (especially in ancient Roman religion) a “deity or spirit presiding over a thing or space”. Meaning “denoting or relating to a numen”, it describes the power or presence or realisation of a divinity. It is etymologically unrelated to Immanuel Kant’s noumenon, a Greek term referring to an unknowable reality underlying all things.
Technical description: The word was popularized by the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his influential 1917 book Das Heilige, which appeared in English as The Idea of the Holy in 1923. Otto writes that while the concept of “the holy” is often used to convey moral perfection – and does entail this – it contains another distinct element, beyond the ethical sphere, for which he uses the term numinous.:5–7 He explains the numinous as a “non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self”. This mental state “presents itself as ganz Andere, wholly other, a condition absolutely sui generis and incomparable whereby the human being finds himself utterly abashed.” Otto argues that because the numinous is irreducible and sui generis it cannot be defined in terms of other concepts or experiences, and that the reader must therefore be “guided and led on by consideration and discussion of the matter through the ways of his own mind, until he reach the point at which ‘the numinous’ in him perforce begins to stir… In other words, our X cannot, strictly speaking, be taught, it can only be evoked, (Wikipedia)
Phenomenological description: Mystical experience.
Synonyms: Mystical, Spiritual.
Relevance of the concept: perception of a transcendent reality.
Literature: Books / Articles / Websites:
Rudolf Otto:” The Idea of the Holy” 1923
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