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Naamsmruti program    A software program designed to increase chanting by giving reminders at specific intervals while using computers. Click here to download this package.

Nahmanides     Real name Moshe ben Nahman Gerondi 1194-1270. Spanish Jewish Rabbi, philosopher, Kabbalist and Biblical commentator.

H. H. Pirsaheb Nakshabandi     A Muslim Saint from Mumbai, India.

Namaste (Namaskar)     A respectful greeting that is accompanied by a gesture of joining one's palms, with the fingertips pointing upwards. The joined palms are brought close to the chest.

Name     The Name of The Lord.

Naamabrahman     The concept that The Lord's Name itself is The Lord.

Namachintamani     An ancient spiritual text

Namaha     I bow to you.

Namasankirtanyoga     ‘Nama’ means Name and ‘sankirtan’ means remembering, i.e., chanting or repeating, and ‘yoga’ mean pathway leading to the union with God. Hence, path of chanting The Lord's Name.

Saint Namdev     A Saint from Maharashtra, India in the 17th century.

Nanakshahi Calendar     A new standardized Sikh calendar based on the solar-year. Dates of festivals have been standardized and fixed. The Nanakshahi Calendar has not yet been implemented by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) at Amritsar, Punjab India.

Dr. Mrs. Nandini Samant     A senior seeker, looking after the Sanatan’s activity in India and abroad, as a part of her spiritual practice.

Sage Narada     A Sage and celestial musician, always facilitating the good of the world. He aided the pious in times of challenge and hastened the retribution of evildoers. Traversing the three worlds, He spread the Path of Devotion (Bhaktiyoga) to the Lord.

Narad Puran     A Hindu mythological Scripture.

Narada Sutra     Sutra written by Sage Narada on the qualities of devotion (bhakti) and the spiritual path of devotion.

Narayan     Another name of Lord Vishnu.

Nath sect     A sect in the Hindu Religion. The Guru is accorded a higher status than The Lord Himself. The yogis of this sect consider Lord Shiva as the foremost Guru and Matsyendra, a form of Lord Vishnu, as His first disciple. In this sect, there is a custom of describing the Guru lineage instead of the paternal lineage. Saint Dnyaneshvar is from this sect.

Navkar Mantra     Name chanted by a seeker in Jain religion as a part of mental worship.

Navaratra     The nine nights of vowed religious observance in celebration of the female deity.

Neem     A plant found in India; it has bitter leaves.

Negative energies     See distressing energies.

Nescience     Literally, the absence of knowledge. Refers to the covering around the soul consisting of nineteen components: the five subtle sense organs, the five subtle motor organs, the five vital energies, the conscious mind, the subconscious mind, intellect and ego. Together the soul and the nescience constitute the embodied soul (jiva).

Neti     A Sanskrut word, meaning 'not this'. It refers to the process of discriminating between Maya and Brahman. This is done by asking oneself 'What is God/Brahman?' and in response, ruling out entities in the Great Illusion/Maya as 'not this' ('Brahman is not this').

Nirbij (or Nirvikalpa) Samadhi     Literally, 'without presence'. The highest superconscious state, the state of non-duality (advait).

Nirgun     Unmanifest form.

Nisan     The first month of the Jewish/Semitic calendar year. It occurs in March/April.

H. H. Nisargadatta Maharaj     Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj was born in Mumbai, India in 1897. His parents, who called him Maruti, had a small farm in a village. Maruti worked on the farm as a boy. Although he grew up with little or no formal education, his father’s friend, Vishnu Haribhau Gore, a pious Hindu priest (Brahmin), exposed him to spiritual concepts. At the age of eighteen, Maruti left the farm to look for work in Mumbai. After a brief stint as a clerk, Maruti opened a shop, selling children's clothes, etc. Maruti married in 1924 and had a son and three daughters.     When Maruti was 34, a friend, Yashwantrao Bagkar, introduced him to his Guru, Shri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, the head of the Inchegeri (a small town in Maharashtra, India) branch of the Navanath sect. The Guru gave Maruti a Gurumantra and some instructions, and renounced His body soon after. Shri Nisargadatta later shared His experience with the practice of the Path of Knowledge. “My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am'. It may look too simple, even crude. My reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. And it worked!”     Within three years of meeting His Guru, Maruti became Self-Realized. After that, He was called Nisargadatta. He took up the life of an ascetic and walked barefoot to the Himalayas. Eventually, He returned to Mumbai, where He resided for the rest of His life, working as a small vendor and giving spiritual instruction from His home. From His living room in the slums of Mumbai, this Self-Realized Master became famous for His spiritual teachings about the Path of Knowledge (Dnyanayoga) based on His own experience. Many of His teachings have been published in books. The earliest volume, I Am That is widely regarded as a modern classic by practitioners of the spiritual monotheistic philosophy (Advaita). The success of I Am That, first published in English translation in 1973, made this Saint internationally famous and brought many Western devotees to his tenement where He gave spiritual discourses and held satsangs. At the time of His renunciation of the body in 1981, Shri Nisargadatta was 84 and had become His Guru's successor as the head of the Inchegari branch of the Navanath sect.

Nishkam Sadhana     Spiritual practice done without expectations of worldly gains.

Abba Nisterus     Abba Nisterus was one of a group of radical Christians who retreated to the deserts of north Africa during the 4th century to lead ascetic, contemplative lives. Their teachings are listed under "The Desert Fathers."

Nizam     A Muslim King.