forbearance...

forbearance: Self-control; responding with patience and compassion, especially under provocation. Endurance; tolerance. See: yama-niyama. formerly: At an earlier time; in the past. formless: Philosophically, atattva, beyond the realm of form or substance. Used in attempting to describe the wondersome, indescribable Absolute, which is "timeless, formless and spaceless." God Siva has form and is formless. He is the immanent Pure Consciousness or pure form.

He is the Personal Lord manifesting as innumerable forms; and He is the impersonal, transcendent Absolute beyond all form. Thus we know Siva in three perfections, two of form and one formless. This use of the term formless does not mean amorphous, which implies a form that is vague or changing. Rather, it is the absence of substance, sometimes thought of as a void, an emptiness beyond existence from which comes the fullness of everything.

In describing the Self as formless, the words timeless and spaceless are given also to fully indicate this totally transcendent noncondition. See: atattva, Parasiva, Satchidananda, void. fortress: A fortified place; a fort. foster: To help grow or develop. fountainhead: A spring that is the source of a stream. The source of anything. fruition: The bearing of fruit. The coming to fulfillment of something that has been awaited or worked for.

funeral rites: See: cremation, bone-gathering, samskaras of later life. Previous…