THE GREAT REFUGE BY RAM SWARUP

• Lakshmi - Goddess of beauty, love and prosperity, consort of Vishnu
• Mahabharata - great epic of the late Vedic age involving the story of Krishna and the Pandavas
• Mahesh - name of Shiva
• Manas - mind, particularly the outer or sense mind
• Mantra - repetition of spiritual words or sounds
• Moksha - liberation as the supreme goal of life
• Paramatman - the Supreme or Absolute Self
• Parvati - Goddess of meditation and transformation, consort of Shiva
• Patanjali - sage who compiled the Yoga Sutras
• Prakriti - nature, primal matter
  Pranayama - yogic breathing practices
• Puja - Hindu rituals consisting of various offerings like flowers to the Divine in its various forms
• Puranas - Hindu scriptures after the Vedic era
• Purusha - the conscious being
• Radha - consort of Lord Krishna
• Rama - seventh avatar of Lord Vishnu
• Ramayana - story of Rama and his wife Sita
• Rig Veda - oldest Veda and repository of mantra
• Sacchidananda - Being-Consciousness-Bliss
• Sama Veda - Veda of sound and chanting
• Samadhi - spiritual realization
• Sanatana Dharma - the universal or eternal tradition of truth
• Sankhya - Hindu system of philosophy founded by Kapila
• Sarasvati - Goddess of Wisdom
• Satya - Truth or reality
• Shaiva - worshipping of the Divine in the form of Shiva
• Shakta - worshipper of the Divine in the form of the Goddess
• Shankaracharya - great Advaitic philosopher and sage of the early medieval period
• Shanti - peace
• Shiva - the Divine in its destructive or transformative function
• Shudra - member of the labor class
• Tantra - medieval Hindu texts of Goddess worship and yoga practice
• Uma - Divine Mother, form of Parvati
• Unaryan - a person lacking in spiritual and ethical values
• Upanishads - last level of Vedic scriptures relating to Self-realization
• Vaishnava - worshipper of the Divine in the form of Vishnu
• Vaishya - member of the trading or farming classes
• Vedas - the Hindu scriptures or source teachings
• Vedanta - the science and philosophy of Self-realization
• Vishnu - the Divine in its protective and preserving function
• Yajur Veda - Veda of ritual 
• Yoga - spiritual practices leading to Self-realization
• Yoga Sutras - classical work on yogic spirituality

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