Helping people find direction,
fulfillment, and inner peace
Why Take a Spiritual Name?
Gyandev and Diksha? What’s that about?
Over the years, the name a person is born with can become just a sound without meaning—and any meaning that it does have might not be particularly inspiring. (Our friend Craig cites his own name as an example: “crag dweller.”) Although we like our given names (Richard and Rina), we wanted names that would help us in the overarching purpose of our lives: to realize the highest potential that is within us.
That’s why we asked our teacher, Swami Kriyananda, to choose names for us. After carefully considering our inner natures, he gave us names that he feels reflect—and remind us to draw upon—some of our essential strengths. The names come from the Sanskrit language, the language of consciousness, the mother of all Indo-European languages.
Diksha Says ...
“The word diksha means spiritual initiation; its root, diksh, means to dedicate oneself to God. I have always been focused on inner growth, but now, every time I hear someone say my name, I feel it reaffirms and strengthens my dedication.
“It’s been a wonderful aid on my path. As I began using my new name, I could feel myself leaving behind old ways of being and acting, old habits, old identifications. I literally felt lighter, and better able to see new possibilities to become the person I really want to be.”
Gyandev Says ...
“My name comes from gyana (wisdom) and deva (angel, or repository). Thus it means holder of wisdom. Well, I’m working on it, and I take heart in the fact that Swami Kriyananda felt my innate strengths to include discrimination and discernment (the so-called Gyana Yoga approach). It’s as though he saw wisdom as both my aspiration and my means to attain that aspiration.
“As was true for Diksha, my name has been a great boon for me. It reminds me to apply my natural mental clarity not only to outer problems, but to my own inner growth. Now when someone says my name, I think, ‘Be awake—you might be about to learn something!’
“Of course, it’s not as easy a name as ‘Richard’—or even ‘Diksha,’ for that matter. The first syllable is like the two sounds ‘ghee’ and ‘yahn’ mooshed into one syllable: ‘ghyahn.’ The second syllable is somewhere between an English-speaker’s ‘dave’ and ‘dev.’ In fact, the correct Sanskrit pronunciation is even more unusual, as it uses a consonant sound that we don’t have in English—but for now, let’s not complicate things.”
