Glossary
- acarya – a teacher, a master, one who teaches by words and example;
- Vaisnava – a devotee of Visnu (Krishna);
- karma – pious or impious material activities that lead to material happiness
or suffering; - karma-marga – the path of religious piety that leads to heavenly pleasures; known
also as ‘karma’; - jnana – knowledge;
- jnana-marga – the path of philosophical search that leads to impersonal brahman;
- bhakti – devotion, a feeling directed towards Visnu (Krishna); soul’s natural
state of existence; - bhakti-marga – the path of spiritual purification of the heart that leads to fully
revived transcendental love for Godhead; - sraddha – a faith in the goal of bhakti;
- prema – a state of fully revived transcendental love for Godhead; also known
as ‘prema-bhakti’; - jiva – a soul, a conscious living being who is part and parcel of the Supreme Lord;
- samsara – the cycle of reincarnation in the material world in which a soul (jiva) is being involved;
- pravrtti-marga – the path of pious material activities;
- nivrtti-marga – the path of renouncing material activities;
- brahmacari – the period of student’s life of a boy; a person living in celibacy;
- grhastha – the period of living in a family life; a married man;
- vanaprastha – the period of a hermitic life (in seclusion) after giving up family duties;
- sannyasi – the period of a life of a man after breaking any and all connections with the material world;
- nama, rupa, guna, lila – name, form, qualities, pastimes;
- maya – illusory and external energy of Krishna
