The
glossary

A way of living where clarity, enough, trust and harmony are all present together, and carry on from one generation to the next.

When we say a good earth, we don’t mean nice or comfortable. We mean a world where people live with clarity, have more than they need, aren’t afraid of each other, and fit with each other and with nature. Good is the movement towards all four together, lived as an undivided society and a shared order, not achieved by one person alone.

Madhyasth Darshan · शुभ (shubh) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 220

Having an answer to your whys and your hows, so that problems resolve instead of piling up.

Clarity is getting the answer to “why?” and “how?”. It is the state of knowing, accepting, recognising and living by what you have understood. With it, problems are resolved rather than managed. Clarity is the first of the four things everyone is asking for.

Madhyasth Darshan · समाधान (samadhan) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 188

Producing more than you need and consuming less, until the feeling of lack is gone.

Prosperity here is not a number. It is a feeling: knowing what you need, producing more than that, using less, and so living without a sense of shortage. It can only be measured against a need you have understood, which is why it begins with knowing our needs.

Madhyasth Darshan · समृद्धि (samriddhi) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 191

Not being afraid of the person in front of you: trust in the present, held in every relationship.

Trust is the absence of fear between people. It comes when what each of us expects in a relationship is fulfilled, again and again, so we can trust the present and expect to live without fear in the future too. It comes from relationships, not from force.

Madhyasth Darshan · अभय, विश्वास (abhay, vishvas) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 21, 175

Everything existing together without opposition, each part completing the other.

Harmony means that people with people, and people with nature, exist together without conflict, each one helping the other become complete. It isn’t sameness. It is everything fitting with everything else.

Madhyasth Darshan · सहअस्तित्व (sah-astitva) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 193

Being free of confusion and problems; a present moment that is resolved.

Happiness is not a passing pleasure. It is being free of confusion and of problems, so that the present is settled. It shows up as being fair in relationships and having no opposition inside oneself. Because it rests on understanding, it can last.

Happiness is a resolved present.

Madhyasth Darshan · सुख (sukh) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 199

Knowing something and accepting it, shown by living according to it.

To understand is to know and to accept what you know. It includes knowledge, the judgement to see what matters, and the know-how to act. Understanding is only complete when it is visible in the way a person lives.

The test of understanding is not how well you can explain it. It is what becomes different in how you live.

Madhyasth Darshan · समझ (samajh) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 186

What it takes to keep being, and to play your part in the larger order: for people, both physical things and understanding.

Everything needs to keep existing and to take part in the order around it. For a human being, needs come in two kinds: physical needs, which are limited and can be counted, and the need to understand, which is what makes a lasting happy life possible. Knowing the difference is the beginning of prosperity.

Madhyasth Darshan · आवश्यकता (aavashyakata) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 39

A small group of people who recognise their relationships and fulfil them, each helping the others towards clarity and prosperity.

A family is a small group of people bound by relationship, in which each person recognises those relationships and their values and lives up to them. Its members complete each other: in prosperity on the physical side and in clarity on the side of understanding. The aim of a family is clarity and prosperity, and it is the first place a good system has to work. In this sense a family is defined by relationship, not by blood or one household: chosen families count, and so do the relationships of people who live alone.

Madhyasth Darshan · परिवार (parivar) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 111

A connection in which what we expect of each other, and owe each other, is already understood, for the sake of both becoming complete.

A relationship is a meeting between people in which expectations, responsibilities and duties are understood in advance, all for the sake of each other’s completeness. We are born into relationships. Every one of them can help a person grow.

Madhyasth Darshan · संबंध (sambandh) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 207

Recognising a relationship, fulfilling what it asks of you, and both people being satisfied.

Fairness is recognising the relationship you are in, fulfilling the values it carries, and checking that both sides are satisfied. Its result is trust in the present. Legal justice, which courts and laws provide, protects people and settles what they can’t settle themselves. Fairness in this sense is something more: it is lived between people, and a verdict alone doesn’t create it.

Madhyasth Darshan · न्याय (nyay) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 103

The conscious part of a person, the one that hopes, thinks, wants, decides and experiences, distinct from the body it runs.

The self is the conscious unit in a human being. It hopes, thinks, desires, decides and experiences, and it is the one doing the knowing, accepting and living. The body is its instrument. When we say “life” or “you, the soul”, this is what we mean. In Madhyasth Darshan’s account it is not a belief but the part of you that is reading this sentence, a claim it invites you to check for yourself.

Madhyasth Darshan · जीवन (jeevan) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 77

Living free of confusion: seeing yourself, existence and human conduct clearly, and showing it in how you live.

Awakening is not a mystical event. It is becoming free of confusion: clearly knowing the self, existence and humane conduct, recognising the purpose of a human life, and showing all of this through honesty, responsibility and participation in what you do.

Madhyasth Darshan · जागृति (jagriti) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 75

Something shown in experience, behaviour and practice, and lived from one generation to the next, not only stated.

A thing is proven when it holds in experience, in behaviour with others and in practice. The strongest proof is a way of life that people actually live, and that the next generation can live too. That is why we say living cannot be verified in a day.

Madhyasth Darshan · प्रमाण (praman) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 126

Seeing something exactly as it is, understanding it, and being able to express that understanding.

Philosophy (darshan) is the act of seeing what is there exactly as it is, understanding it, and expressing and communicating that understanding. It is complete only when it includes knowing existence, knowing the self and knowing humane conduct.

Madhyasth Darshan · दर्शन (darshan) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 88

Ways of living together that are stable, certain and continuing, so that people can trust the present.

A good system is not a set of rules imposed from above. It is a way of living together, starting in the family and growing outwards, that is stable, certain and continuing, so that everyone in it can trust the present. Each part takes part in the whole.

Taking part in the larger order and being organised in yourself are the same act.

Madhyasth Darshan · व्यवस्था (vyavastha) · Paribhasha Sanhita, p. 179