Manomaya

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Characterized by the integration of mind and awareness with matter, indicating a state of consciousness that transcends the physical
2. Describing a being or entity whose essence is derived from the interplay between mental faculties and physical existence
3. Pertaining to a conception of life that reflects a unity of thought and material reality, often associated with higher states of mindfulness

Etymology: "Manomaya" comes from Sanskrit, where "manas" means "mind" and the suffix "-maya" means "made of" or "consisting of." Literally, it describes something made of mind. The suffix is a familiar one in Sanskrit compounds, appearing in words such as "annamaya" (made of food) and "anandamaya" (made of bliss), and the pattern forms part of the ancient Taittiriya Upanishad's model of the self as a series of nested sheaths, or "koshas," from the physical body inward. The word's meaning in English-language philosophy comes largely from the modern Indian thinker Sri Aurobindo, who used it in his writing on consciousness and the evolution of the mind, and in the scholarly vocabulary built around his work. Because it is a technical term adopted for a specific philosophical purpose rather than a long-established English word, its sense depends on that context: it names a mental level in which thought and matter are understood as a single, integrated reality rather than as separate things.