The teachings of Mark Griffin draw from meditation, Yoga Tantra, Kundalini, the Siddha lineage, and the direct exploration of consciousness. This glossary provides concise explanations of the principal terms, practices, and spiritual concepts found throughout the Awakening Archives.
Each definition reflects the way a term is presented within Mark Griffin’s teaching system. Links connect these concepts to related Topics and individual Teachings where they can be explored in greater depth.
Use the alphabetical guide to browse the glossary, or follow the related links beneath each definition to continue exploring the Archives.
Browse the Glossary
A–E
Bodhicitta
Bodhicitta is the awakened heart-mind in which wisdom, compassion, courage, and the intention toward enlightenment arise together. It is both an orientation toward awakening and a living capacity through which spiritual realization becomes expressed in relationship and action.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, Bodhicitta also has a subtle energetic dimension centered in the heart. The rising red energy of Kundalini and the descending white current of consciousness meet within this center, creating equilibrium between embodied energy and awakened awareness. Cultivating Bodhicitta helps stabilize the practitioner during purification and aligns individual intention with universal will.
Related concepts: Kundalini Shakti · White Bodhicitta · Red Bodhicitta · Subtle Body · Grace and Divine Will · Skillful Means
Explore: Bodhicitta Meditation II
Blue Pearl
The Blue Pearl is a subtle point of luminous consciousness associated with the innermost Self and the supracausal dimension of the human form. In Mark Griffin’s teachings, it represents a highly refined manifestation of consciousness within the subtle architecture of the practitioner.
The Blue Pearl is not treated merely as a symbolic image. It is presented as an experiential form through which awareness encounters the relationship between individualized consciousness and the infinite. Recognition of the Blue Pearl arises through the refinement of meditation, the subtle body, and the higher states of consciousness.
Related concepts: The Four Bodies · The Self · The Fourth State · Subtle Body · Consciousness
Explore: Rupa, the Blue Pearl
Chakras
Chakras are centers within the subtle body through which prana, perception, and consciousness are organized and expressed. They form part of an energetic system that also includes the nadis, bindus, subtle drops, and the central channel.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, chakras are not understood simply as symbolic diagrams or isolated energy points. They participate in the movement of Kundalini Shakti and the progressive transformation of the human system. As Kundalini activates and purifies the subtle body, awareness of these centers and their corresponding states of energy and consciousness becomes increasingly refined.
Related concepts: Kundalini Shakti · Subtle Body · Prana · Sushumna · Ida · Pingala · Purification
Explore: The Astral Body
Cessation
Cessation is the coming to rest of thought, mental modification, and the habitual projection of sensory identity. It does not mean unconsciousness or the destruction of awareness. It is the stilling of the activity that ordinarily obscures consciousness.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, cessation develops through meditation, concentration, pratyahara, and the refinement of breath and prana. As the movement of mind subsides, awareness becomes capable of perceiving its own underlying nature. Cessation therefore marks an opening into meditative absorption, samadhi, and direct recognition of the Self.
Related concepts: Stopping the Mind · Meditation · Pratyahara · Concentration · Samadhi · The Self
Explore: Modifications of the Mind
Concentration (Dharana)
Concentration, traditionally called dharana, is the practice of directing and sustaining attention upon a single object, sensation, sound, or point of awareness. It gathers the scattered movements of mind into a stable, continuous stream.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, concentration is both a foundational meditation practice and a capacity developed through work with breath, mantra, and the subtle body. As attention becomes one-pointed, external distraction diminishes and awareness becomes capable of entering the deeper stillness of meditation and samadhi.
Related concepts: Meditation · Dhyana · Pratyahara · SoHam · Samadhi
Explore: Meditation Teachings
Consciousness
Consciousness is the fundamental awareness within which mind, body, perception, and the experience of the world arise. In Mark Griffin’s teachings, consciousness is not understood as a product of the mind or brain, but as the prior, self-luminous reality underlying every state of experience.
Meditation progressively reveals the distinction between consciousness itself and the changing thoughts, sensations, and perceptions appearing within it. This recognition develops through the exploration of the Self, emptiness, non-duality, samadhi, and the fourth state of awareness.
Related concepts: The Self · Non-Duality · Emptiness · Samadhi · The Fourth State
Explore: Consciousness Teachings
Deity Yoga
Deity Yoga is a Tantric practice that uses divine forms as vehicles for transforming perception, identity, and consciousness. Rather than approaching a deity only as an external object of worship, the practitioner works with its form, qualities, energy, and awakened awareness within the field of meditation.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, divine forms such as Shiva and Shakti express principles operating within consciousness and the human system. Visualization, mantra, concentration, and identification with these forms help reorganize ordinary perception around an awakened pattern. Deity Yoga thereby engages form as a direct means of spiritual recognition.
Related concepts: Tantra · Yoga Tantra · Shiva and Shakti · Mantra · Form and Emptiness
Explore: Tantra Teachings
Dhyana
Dhyana is meditation understood as an uninterrupted flow of awareness. It develops when concentration becomes sufficiently stable that attention remains continuously aligned with its object without repeatedly falling into distraction.
Within the traditional progression described in Mark Griffin’s teachings, dharana gathers attention, dhyana sustains it, and samadhi arises as the distinction between the meditator and the object of meditation begins to dissolve. Dhyana therefore marks the deepening of disciplined concentration into meditative absorption.
Related concepts: Concentration · Meditation · Stopping the Mind · Samadhi
Explore: Introduction to Meditation
F–L
Emptiness
Emptiness is the open, ungraspable ground of awareness in which no form possesses a separate, fixed, or independent existence. It does not mean that nothing exists. It reveals that every appearance arises through relationship and remains inseparable from the consciousness in which it appears.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, emptiness is encountered as mental projection and identification subside through meditation and samadhi. Body, mind, sensation, and the world continue to appear, but their apparent solidity and separateness are recognized as expressions within a larger field. Tantra joins this recognition with form, revealing emptiness and manifestation as inseparable.
Related concepts: Form and Emptiness · Non-Duality · Consciousness · Cessation · Samadhi · The Void
Explore: The Deeper, the Higher
Form and Emptiness
Form and Emptiness describe the inseparable relationship between manifestation and the open, ungraspable reality from which manifestation arises. Form includes body, thought, sensation, image, energy, and the perceptible world; emptiness indicates that none of these possesses an isolated or permanent existence.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, form is not rejected in favor of an abstract void. Form is the living display of consciousness, while emptiness is its unlimited ground. Tantric practice brings these dimensions into direct relationship so that the practitioner recognizes manifestation and emptiness not as opposing realities, but as inseparable aspects of one awakened field.
Related concepts: Tantra · Emptiness · Non-Duality · Shiva and Shakti · Consciousness · Deity Yoga
Explore: Form & Consciousness
Grace and Divine Will
Grace is the spiritual power that supports, directs, and accelerates awakening beyond what personal effort alone can accomplish. Divine Will is the deeper intelligence through which this power acts, guiding the practitioner toward recognition, transformation, and right action.
Mark Griffin presents grace and disciplined practice as complementary rather than opposing forces. The practitioner develops steadiness, honesty, meditation, and openness, while grace acts through the Guru Lineage to remove obstruction and awaken capacities that cannot be produced through egoic effort. As individual will becomes aligned with Divine Will, action increasingly arises from awakened awareness rather than conditioned desire.
Related concepts: Guru Lineage · Guru Shakti · Shaktipat · Guru Yoga · Purification · Bodhicitta · Skillful Means
Explore: Divine Will
Guru–Disciple Relationship
The Guru–Disciple Relationship is the spiritual relationship through which awakening is transmitted, cultivated, stabilized, and brought toward completion. The Guru serves as a living expression of awakened consciousness, while the disciple develops the openness, honesty, discipline, and discrimination required to receive and integrate that transmission.
Mark Griffin presents this relationship not merely as one between two personalities, but as a dynamic field of transformation. Through Shaktipat, grace, instruction, meditation, and sustained contact with the Guru-principle, karmic conditioning and separation are progressively dissolved. The relationship ultimately directs the disciple toward recognition of the same awakened consciousness within the Self.
Related concepts: Guru Lineage · Guru Shakti · Shaktipat · Guru Yoga · Grace and Divine Will · The Self
Explore: The Guru–Disciple Relationship
Guru Lineage
Guru Lineage is the living current through which spiritual awakening is transmitted from Guru to disciple. In Mark Griffin’s teachings, lineage is more than a historical succession of teachers. It is an active force of awakened consciousness that guides, protects, purifies, and gradually transforms the practitioner.
This current operates through Guru Shakti, Shaktipat, grace, spiritual practice, and the Guru–disciple relationship. Its purpose is not to create permanent dependence on an external teacher, but to awaken recognition of the Guru-principle and the Self within the disciple.
Related concepts: Guru Shakti · Shaktipat · Guru Yoga · Guru–Disciple Relationship · Grace and Divine Will
Explore: Guru Lineage Teachings
Guru Shakti
Guru Shakti is the awakened spiritual power operating through the Guru and the Guru Lineage. It is the active force of consciousness that transmits awakening, removes obstruction, and draws the disciple toward recognition of the Self.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, Guru Shakti does not originate in the personality or ego of an individual teacher. It arises from the awakened source represented by the lineage and acts through Shaktipat, grace, instruction, meditation, and spiritual relationship. As this power works within the disciple, Kundalini is activated, karmic conditioning is purified, and the inner Guru-principle becomes increasingly conscious.
Related concepts: Guru Lineage · Shaktipat · Kundalini Shakti · Guru Yoga · Grace and Divine Will · Purification
Explore: Kali and the Guru
Guru Yoga
Guru Yoga is the practice of aligning attention, devotion, and awareness with the awakened principle represented by the Guru. Through remembrance, meditation, openness, and identification with the Guru’s awakened state, the practitioner becomes increasingly receptive to the transformative current of the lineage.
Mark Griffin teaches that Guru Yoga is not limited to devotion toward an external personality. Its deeper purpose is to draw the Guru-principle into conscious relationship with the disciple’s own inner life. As the apparent separation between Guru and disciple diminishes, the practitioner recognizes awakened consciousness as the deepest nature of the Self.
Related concepts: Guru Lineage · Guru Shakti · Guru–Disciple Relationship · Shaktipat · Grace and Divine Will · The Self
Explore: The Grace Waves of Guru Yoga
Ida
Ida is one of the principal channels, or nadis, of the subtle body. Traditionally associated with lunar, cooling, and receptive qualities, it moves alongside the central channel and works in dynamic relationship with Pingala.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, Ida and Pingala represent complementary currents through which prana circulates within the human system. Their relationship affects breath, energy, perception, and mind. As these currents become balanced through meditation and pranayama, energy and attention can enter Sushumna, the central channel through which Kundalini ascends.
Related concepts: Pingala · Sushumna · Prana · Subtle Body · Kundalini Shakti · Pranayama
Explore: Prana, SoHam, and the Four Bodies
Kundalini
Kundalini is the spiritual force of awakening operating within the human system. Mark Griffin presents Kundalini Shakti as an evolutionary energy that illuminates the subtle body, transforms the mind, clears karmic obstruction, and opens awareness to deeper dimensions of consciousness.
Kundalini unfolds through the channels and centers of the subtle body and may be activated through meditation, breath, mantra, disciplined practice, and Shaktipat. Its awakening is not treated merely as an unusual energetic experience, but as part of the progressive transformation of the practitioner’s entire being.
Related concepts: Kundalini Shakti · Prana · Subtle Body · Chakras · Sushumna · Purification
Explore: Kundalini Teachings
Kundalini Shakti
Kundalini Shakti is the spiritual force of awakening operating within the human system. Mark Griffin describes it as an intelligent and evolutionary power that transforms energy, mind, perception, and identity as it moves through the subtle body.
Its awakening may be catalyzed through meditation, mantra, breath, disciplined spiritual practice, and Shaktipat. As Kundalini rises, descends, and circulates through the subtle architecture, it clears karmic obstruction and activates deeper capacities of awareness. The process is not limited to energetic sensation; it progressively opens the practitioner toward recognition of consciousness and the Self.
Related concepts: Kundalini · Shaktipat · Prana · Subtle Body · Sushumna · Chakras · Purification
Explore: Kundalini Intensive I
M–R
Mantra
Mantra is sacred sound used as a means of concentrating, purifying, and transforming consciousness. A mantra may consist of a seed syllable, a name, or a sequence of sounds whose vibration carries a particular spiritual force and pattern of awareness.
Mark Griffin presents mantra as more than the repetition of meaningful words. Sound and vibration participate in the formation of perception and manifested reality. Through attentive repetition, listening, and alignment with a mantra’s vibrational structure, the practitioner refines the mind, activates the subtle body, and enters into conscious relationship with the forces represented by the mantra.
Related concepts: Matrika · Spanda · SoHam · Om Namah Shivaya · Deity Yoga · Yoga Tantra
Explore: Om Namah Shivaya
Matrika
Matrika is the generative power of primordial letters and syllables through which sound, meaning, perception, and manifestation arise. Sometimes described as the hidden mother, Matrika represents the subtle matrix of vibration underlying language and the created world.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, the syllables of mantra are living units of consciousness rather than arbitrary sounds. Their organization gives structure to experience and connects the manifested universe with its source in consciousness. Working with mantra enables the practitioner to engage this creative sequence consciously and redirect its power toward purification and spiritual recognition.
Related concepts: Mantra · Spanda · Sound · Consciousness · Shiva and Shakti · Om Namah Shivaya
Explore: Om Namah Shivaya
Maya
Maya is the power through which unified consciousness appears as a world of separate forms, objects, identities, and experiences. It is often translated as illusion, but this does not mean that the manifested world is simply unreal. Rather, Maya obscures the underlying unity of consciousness by making its appearances seem independent and divided.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, identification with body, mind, personality, and sensory experience sustains this appearance of separation. Meditation does not require rejecting the world; it refines perception so that manifestation can be recognized as the dynamic display of consciousness rather than a reality separate from it.
Related concepts: Consciousness · Non-Duality · Form and Emptiness · The Self · Shiva and Shakti · Tantra
Explore: Consciousness Teachings
Meditation
Meditation is the disciplined internalization and refinement of attention through which the activity of mind becomes still and consciousness recognizes its own nature. In Mark Griffin’s teaching system, meditation is both a practical method and a comprehensive path of spiritual transformation.
Practices involving breath, SoHam, concentration, pranayama, and pratyahara draw awareness away from external distraction and into subtler levels of experience. As attention becomes stable, meditation opens toward stillness, samadhi, and direct recognition of the Self.
Related concepts: Concentration · Pranayama · Pratyahara · SoHam · Stopping the Mind · Samadhi
Explore: Meditation Teachings
Nirvikalpa Samadhi
Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the direct realization of consciousness beyond thought, conceptual distinction, and the ordinary sense of individual identity. Mark Griffin describes it as intuitive knowledge of the highest truth without thought—a condition in which even the mind and its imputed terms have ceased.
Nirvikalpa means “without conceptual differentiation.” Unlike Savikalpa Samadhi, in which subtle thought or identity remains present, Nirvikalpa reveals formless, universal consciousness beyond quality, time, and space. Mark presents this realization not as the completion of spiritual development, but as a transformative threshold from which consciousness progressively permeates and refines the rest of the human system.
Related concepts: Samadhi · Savikalpa Samadhi · The Fourth State · Consciousness · The Self
Explore: From the State of Nirvikalpa Samadhi
Non-Duality
Non-Duality is the recognition that consciousness and its manifestations are not fundamentally separate. The divisions between subject and object, Self and world, or awareness and experience arise within consciousness but do not divide its underlying reality.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, non-duality is not merely a philosophical position. It is realized directly as identification with thought, sensory experience, and separate selfhood dissolves through meditation and samadhi. Tantric practice extends this recognition into embodiment by revealing form, energy, mind, and the world as expressions of the same consciousness.
Related concepts: Consciousness · The Self · Form and Emptiness · Shiva and Shakti · Samadhi · Tantra
Explore: The Recognition of Consciousness
Ocean of Consciousness
The Ocean of Consciousness is Mark Griffin’s recurring expression for infinite, universal awareness—the undivided field from which individual experience, mind, energy, and form arise. The image of an ocean conveys both the vastness of consciousness and the inseparability of its individual expressions from their source.
A person may initially experience awareness as private and enclosed within the body and mind. Through meditation, Shaktipat, Kundalini awakening, and samadhi, this limited identification begins to dissolve. Individual consciousness is then recognized not as an isolated possession, but as an expression of the same universal field present in all experience.
Related concepts: Consciousness · The Self · Non-Duality · Samadhi · Shaktipat · Kundalini Shakti
Explore: Consciousness Teachings
Pingala
Pingala is one of the principal channels, or nadis, of the subtle body. Traditionally associated with solar, warming, and active qualities, it moves alongside the central channel in complementary relationship with Ida.
Mark Griffin describes Ida and Pingala as major pathways through which prana and awareness move within the subtle system. Their activity is closely related to the rhythm of breath, the functioning of mind, and the balance of inner energy. Meditation and pranayama help bring these currents into equilibrium so that energy can enter Sushumna and move toward higher states of awareness.
Related concepts: Ida · Sushumna · Prana · Subtle Body · Kundalini Shakti · Pranayama
Explore: Prana, SoHam, and the Four Bodies
Prana
Prana is the life force that animates the physical body and moves through the subtle energetic system. Although closely connected with breath, prana is not identical to the air entering and leaving the lungs. Breath is one of the principal vehicles through which its movement can be observed and influenced.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, prana operates across the physical, subtle, mental, and spiritual dimensions of the human form. Its movement is organized through the five principal pranas, the nadis, and the chakras. Because prana and mind move together, refining the breath and life force through pranayama becomes a practical means of stilling thought, internalizing attention, and entering meditation.
Related concepts: Pranayama · Breath · Five Pranas · Subtle Body · Ida · Pingala · Sushumna
Explore: Prana and Apana
Pranayama
Pranayama is the disciplined refinement of breath and prana, the life force moving through the human system. Although commonly translated as breath control, its deeper purpose is to influence the movement of energy and mind through conscious attention to breathing.
Mark Griffin teaches that breath, prana, and mind are intimately connected: when breath moves, prana moves, and when prana moves, mind moves. Practices involving inhalation, exhalation, retention, and bellows breathing help stabilize attention, balance the subtle system, and prepare the practitioner for concentration, meditation, and samadhi.
Related concepts: Prana · Bellows Breath · Kumbhaka · Pratyahara · Meditation
Explore: Pranayama
Pratyahara
Pratyahara is the internalization or withdrawal of the senses. Rather than suppressing sensory experience, the practitioner redirects attention away from its habitual involvement with external objects and toward the inner movement of breath, energy, mind, and consciousness.
In Mark Griffin’s meditation teachings, pratyahara is a practical bridge between external awareness and inner concentration. As attention aligns with the breath and prana becomes internalized, sensory activity quiets and the movements of mind begin to settle. This creates the conditions for dharana, dhyana, and samadhi to develop.
Related concepts: Meditation · Concentration · Breath · Prana · Dhyana · Samadhi
Explore: Distilled Pratyahara Meditation
Purification
Purification is the clearing of karmic conditioning, samskaras, psychological obstruction, and energetic imbalance that limit the recognition and expression of consciousness. It is an ongoing dimension of spiritual practice rather than a single event.
Mark Griffin teaches that meditation, Kundalini awakening, Shaktipat, disciplined action, and the grace of the Guru Lineage all participate in purification. As obstruction is exposed and released, the subtle body becomes clearer, attention becomes more stable, and the practitioner gains a greater capacity to sustain awakened energy and awareness. Purification therefore supports both spiritual realization and its integration into embodied life.
Related concepts: Kundalini Shakti · Samskaras · Shaktipat · Subtle Body · Guru Shakti · Grace and Divine Will
Explore: Purification & Integration
S–Z
Samadhi
Samadhi is meditative absorption in which the ordinary divisions between observer, process of observation, and object of awareness become increasingly still or dissolve. It arises through the progressive refinement of concentration and meditation and reveals dimensions of consciousness beyond ordinary thought and sensory identity.
Mark Griffin presents samadhi as both a range of awakened states and an essential process of direct recognition. Its forms include Savikalpa Samadhi, in which subtle distinctions or mental activity remain, and Nirvikalpa Samadhi, in which conceptual thought and the ordinary sense of individual identity cease. Samadhi is not merely an altered state, but a means through which consciousness comes to know itself.
Related concepts: Concentration · Dhyana · Savikalpa Samadhi · Nirvikalpa Samadhi · The Fourth State
Explore: The Samadhi Kunda
Savikalpa Samadhi
Savikalpa Samadhi is a state of meditative absorption in which consciousness is directly experienced while some subtle form of thought, distinction, or individual identity remains present. The mind has become exceptionally still and transparent, but it has not disappeared completely.
Mark Griffin contrasts Savikalpa with Nirvikalpa Samadhi, where conceptual activity and the ordinary sense of “I” are extinguished. Savikalpa nevertheless represents a profound stage of recognition in which the practitioner experiences consciousness beyond conventional sensory and mental identification.
Related concepts: Samadhi · Nirvikalpa Samadhi · Dhyana · Consciousness
Explore: Consciousness Teachings
Shaktipat
Shaktipat is the direct transmission of spiritual awakening from Guru to disciple. It is the descent of Guru Shakti that activates Kundalini and initiates an inner process of purification, recognition, and transformation.
Mark Griffin presents Shaktipat as a living force of consciousness rather than a symbolic blessing or intellectual concept. Its action begins dissolving accumulated karmic conditioning and redirects awareness from habitual identification with the external world toward the Self. The transmission may be experienced dramatically or subtly, but its deeper significance lies in the continuing evolutionary process it sets in motion.
Related concepts: Guru Shakti · Kundalini Shakti · Guru Lineage · Grace and Divine Will · Purification · The Self
Explore: What Is Shaktipat?
Shiva and Shakti
Shiva and Shakti represent the inseparable dimensions of consciousness and its dynamic power of manifestation. Shiva signifies still, unbounded awareness, while Shakti is the creative force through which awareness appears as energy, mind, form, perception, and the universe.
Mark Griffin presents their relationship not as a dualism between two separate realities, but as a polarity operating within one consciousness. Tantric practice engages this unity through meditation, Kundalini, mantra, and divine form. As Shiva and Shakti are recognized as inseparable, the distinction between consciousness and its expression begins to dissolve.
Related concepts: Tantra · Kundalini Shakti · Yoga Tantra · Form and Emptiness · Non-Duality · Deity Yoga
Explore: Union of Shiva & Shakti
Siddha Lineage
The Siddha Lineage is a stream of realized teachers through whom the power and knowledge of awakening are transmitted. A Siddha is one whose spiritual realization has become established and who can awaken and guide that same process in others.
Mark Griffin’s teaching lineage proceeds through Bhagawan Nityananda and Swami Muktananda, with whom Mark began his formal spiritual training. The lineage is understood not only as a historical succession, but as a continuing current of Guru Shakti operating through Shaktipat, meditation, instruction, grace, and the Guru–disciple relationship.
Related concepts: Guru Lineage · Guru Shakti · Shaktipat · Guru–Disciple Relationship · Swami Muktananda · Bhagawan Nityananda
Explore: Guru Lineage Teachings
Skillful Means
Skillful Means is action guided by awakened awareness and adapted to the actual needs of a person, relationship, or circumstance. Rather than following a rigid formula, it expresses wisdom through the response most capable of supporting recognition, transformation, or compassionate action.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, Skillful Means develops as personal will becomes aligned with Divine Will. Meditation, Bodhicitta, discrimination, and spiritual practice refine the practitioner’s capacity to perceive what a situation requires. Right action then arises less from conditioned reaction and more from the intuitive intelligence of consciousness.
Related concepts: Bodhicitta · Grace and Divine Will · Meditation · Consciousness · Guru Yoga · Purification
Explore: Love Is an Act of Will
SoHam
SoHam is the natural mantra of the breath: “So” associated with inhalation and “Ham” with exhalation. Traditionally understood as “I am That,” it expresses the identity of individual awareness with universal consciousness.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, SoHam is not limited to a mantra repeated mentally. The practitioner learns to listen for it as a subtle vibration already present within the breath. Following this current internalizes attention, refines awareness of prana, and draws the mind toward stillness, the central channel, and deeper states of meditation.
Related concepts: Breath · Prana · Mantra · Sushumna · Meditation · The Space Between the Breaths
Explore: Listening to the SoHam
Spanda
Spanda is the primordial pulse, vibration, or creative movement of consciousness. It describes the subtle dynamism through which still, unbounded awareness expresses itself as sound, energy, perception, form, and the manifested universe.
In Mark Griffin’s Tantric teachings, Spanda is not separate from consciousness. It is consciousness experienced in its power of movement and creation. Mantra provides a direct means of engaging this vibrational dimension, allowing the practitioner to trace sound and perception back toward their source in awakened awareness.
Related concepts: Consciousness · Shiva and Shakti · Mantra · Matrika · Kundalini Shakti · Form and Emptiness
Explore: Om Namah Shivaya
Stopping the Mind
Stopping the mind is the cessation of the habitual movement of thought, sensory projection, and mental modification. It does not mean damaging, repressing, or forcibly controlling the mind. It is the gradual stilling of mental activity through disciplined attention and meditation.
Mark Griffin connects this process with breath, prana, pratyahara, concentration, and the space between the breaths. As attention becomes internalized and the movements of mind subside, awareness can perceive the consciousness normally obscured by thought. Stopping the mind therefore becomes a doorway into samadhi and direct recognition of the Self.
Related concepts: Meditation · Pratyahara · Concentration · Cessation · Samadhi · The Self
Explore: Introduction to Meditation
Subtle Body
The subtle body is the energetic dimension of the human form through which prana, perception, karma, and Kundalini operate. Its inner architecture includes the nadis, chakras, bindus, subtle drops, and the principal channels Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna.
Mark Griffin presents the subtle body as a real vehicle of consciousness rather than a symbolic representation of psychological experience. It underlies and animates the physical form while also participating in dream, meditation, spiritual transformation, death, and the continuity of awareness. Through meditation, Kundalini awakening, and Shaktipat, the subtle body is progressively activated, purified, and made luminous.
Related concepts: The Four Bodies · Kundalini Shakti · Prana · Chakras · Ida · Pingala · Sushumna
Explore: The Astral Body
Sushumna
Sushumna is the central channel of the subtle body, extending through the inner axis of the human form from the base of the spine toward the crown. It is the principal pathway through which Kundalini and internalized awareness move toward higher states of consciousness.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, ordinary pranic activity moves primarily through Ida and Pingala. As breath, energy, and attention become balanced and internalized through meditation, prana can enter Sushumna. This movement withdraws awareness from external sensory activity, stills the mind, activates the subtle centers, and supports the unfolding of meditation and samadhi.
Related concepts: Ida · Pingala · Kundalini Shakti · Prana · Chakras · Pratyahara · Samadhi
Explore: The Astral Body
Tantra
Tantra is a path of transformation that works directly with body, energy, mind, form, and consciousness as expressions of one reality. Mark Griffin’s teaching draws from Shaiva, Siddha, and Vajrayana traditions while presenting Yoga Tantra as a living system of spiritual practice and recognition.
Rather than rejecting embodiment or the manifested world, Tantra uses mantra, meditation, deity practice, sacred ritual, subtle anatomy, and the relationship of Shiva and Shakti as means of awakening. Through these practices, the human form becomes an instrument for the recognition and expression of consciousness.
Related concepts: Yoga Tantra · Shiva and Shakti · Mantra · Matrika · Spanda · Deity Yoga · Form and Emptiness
Explore: Tantra Teachings
The Four Bodies
The Four Bodies are the physical, subtle, causal, and supracausal dimensions of the human form. Together they describe a progression from matter and sensory experience through energy and mind to infinite consciousness.
In Mark Griffin’s teaching system, the physical body organizes matter; the subtle body organizes prana and the energetic architecture; the causal body organizes mind, memory, and individual mental formation; and the supracausal body corresponds to the Self and infinite consciousness. These bodies exist as increasingly subtle sheaths within the human form and provide a framework for understanding meditation, dream, death, Kundalini awakening, and the movement into higher states of awareness.
Related concepts: Physical Body · Subtle Body · Causal Body · Blue Pearl · The Fourth State · The Self
Explore: Prana, SoHam, and the Four Bodies
The Fourth State (Turiya)
The Fourth State, traditionally called Turiya, is the consciousness underlying waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep. Unlike those three changing states, Turiya is the ever-present awareness through which every condition of experience is known.
In Mark Griffin’s four-body framework, the Fourth State corresponds to the supracausal dimension of infinite consciousness and the Self. Meditation gradually reveals that awareness continues beneath changes in body, senses, and mind. Recognition of the Fourth State shifts identity away from the temporary contents of experience and toward the consciousness present throughout them.
Related concepts: Consciousness · The Four Bodies · The Self · Witness Consciousness · Samadhi
Explore: Entering the Fourth State
The Natural State
The Natural State is awareness resting in its own uncontrived nature, without being obscured by habitual thought, effort, or identification. It is called natural because it is not manufactured by meditation or added to the practitioner from outside. It is the underlying condition revealed when obstruction settles.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, spiritual practice prepares the practitioner to recognize and stabilize this ever-present awareness. Meditation, grace, and transmission do not create the Natural State; they help dissolve the conditioning that prevents it from being consciously known. As recognition matures, awakened awareness becomes increasingly integrated into perception, action, and ordinary life.
Related concepts: Consciousness · The Self · Non-Duality · Cessation · The Fourth State · Samadhi
Explore: Consciousness Teachings
The Self
The Self is the deepest nature of identity beyond body, personality, thought, memory, and ego. In Mark Griffin’s teachings, the Self is not an improved or perfected version of the personal self. It is pure consciousness—the awareness present within every state but limited by none of them.
Meditation progressively shifts identification from the changing contents of experience toward the awareness through which those contents are known. Through samadhi and direct recognition, the practitioner discovers the Self not as a separate inner object, but as inseparable from universal consciousness and the ground of being itself.
Related concepts: Consciousness · Witness Consciousness · The Fourth State · Non-Duality · Samadhi · Ocean of Consciousness
Explore: The Recognition of Consciousness
Turiya
See The Fourth State (Turiya).
Witness Consciousness
Witness Consciousness is the capacity to observe thoughts, sensations, emotions, and experience without becoming completely identified with them. It reveals that the awareness knowing an experience is distinct from the changing mental and sensory contents being known.
In Mark Griffin’s teachings, establishing the witness is an important movement away from identification with personality and mind. As observation becomes stable, the practitioner recognizes an underlying awareness that remains present throughout changing states. At deeper levels of realization, even the apparent distinction between witness and witnessed dissolves into nondual consciousness.
Related concepts: The Self · Consciousness · Meditation · Non-Duality · The Fourth State · Cessation
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Yoga Tantra
Yoga Tantra is a system of spiritual practice that transforms body, energy, mind, and perception into means of awakening. It joins the disciplined inward methods of yoga with the Tantric recognition that embodiment and manifestation can serve as direct vehicles of spiritual realization.
In Mark Griffin’s teaching system, Yoga Tantra works with meditation, Kundalini, mantra, subtle anatomy, divine form, and the relationship of Shiva and Shakti. Rather than seeking liberation by rejecting the human form or the world, it activates and refines the capacities already present within them so that consciousness can recognize and express its own awakened nature.
Related concepts: Tantra · Kundalini Shakti · Mantra · Deity Yoga · Shiva and Shakti · Form and Emptiness
Explore: Tantra Teachings