From physics
Terms the book borrows from physics and uses as a language for attention, pressure and steadiness.
Yesterday's clutter, still in orbit
The accumulated mental residue, unaddressed micro-distractions, past grievances and unresolved peripheral noise that orbit your consciousness, creating continuous cognitive drag.
Density
The same you, over less, goes deeper
How concentrated your attention is across the surface of your life; the same amount of you spread over less ground goes deeper, and the fourth stage on the book's path, where noise falls away and depth begins.
Discrimination
Telling signal from noise
The ability to tell what matters from what is merely loud; the fifth of the eight powers (Parakh Shakti), and the second stage on the book's path, where most of what arrives is recognised as noise and allowed to pass.
Entropy
Pulled in every direction, by default
The natural drift of attention towards scatter when nothing is done to gather it; the first stage on the book's path, and the condition of the high-entropy world the subtitle names.
Event Horizon
The point of no return
The threshold in any consequential act beyond which there is no turning back; the book's picture for the moment something is sent, said or committed, and for the seventh power, the composure to cross while still afraid.
Gravitational Time Dilation
The slow-motion mind
The book's picture for the way a steady mind experiences pressure as slower and more spacious; borrowed from the physics of clocks running slower near heavy objects, and used to describe the widening gap between what happens and how you respond.
Gravity
Coming back to centre
The pull that brings scattered attention back to its centre and keeps it there; the third stage on the book's path, practised not as a single act of will but as a steady, daily return.
Inner Mass
Inner groundedness
The degree to which your attention is gathered at one centre rather than spread across many pulls; the steadiness that lets outside events bend around you instead of knocking you over.
Karma
You pay for a reaction straight away
Not a ledger kept somewhere else, but the immediate inner cost of how you act: react with blame, defence or resentment and you pay for it straight away in drag, while a clean response leaves nothing behind.
Ontological Subtraction
Ruthless simplification
The deliberate dropping of roles, commitments, opinions and expectations that add weight without adding strength; the book's claim that freedom is reached by removing, not by adding.
Prime Mover
The cause of your day, not the effect of it
A person who is the cause of their own day rather than its effect; the book's name for the state in which attention is gathered, the centre is anchored, and action begins from within instead of as a reaction to whatever is loudest.
Recovery Speed
How fast you bounce back
The time it takes you to return to calm after something goes wrong; the book's single most useful measure of steadiness, with a target of sixty seconds.
Singularity
Gathered to a single point
The state the book is named for: scattered awareness pulled back and anchored to a single unshakeable point, dense enough that the world bends around it instead of running through it; borrowed from the point of infinite density that a collapsing star becomes.
Spaghettification
Stretched thin
The book's picture for a self pulled towards so many outside demands at once that it is stretched thin and becomes fragile; borrowed from the way the uneven pull near a black hole stretches an object into a long thin thread.
From Raja Yoga
Terms from the tradition the practice comes from, kept by the book and explained in plain words.
The morning anchor
The early morning hour set aside for quiet connection before the day begins; the book keeps the Raja Yoga name for it and states its purpose plainly, that the first minutes of the day belong to you rather than to your phone.
Jeevan Mukti
Still at the centre, active in the world
Liberation while living: still at the centre and fully active in the world, with the weight underneath deep enough that the surface cannot reach it. The book's destination, and the state Chapter 11 describes.
Sanskars
The grooves you act from
The grooves left in you by everything you have already done and felt: the habits, reactions and inclinations that fire before you have decided anything. A Raja Yoga term the book borrows for the conditioning a Prime Mover stops running on.
Traffic Control
Sixty seconds on the hour
A sixty-second pause at the top of each hour, used to notice accumulated tension and drop it before it compounds; the middle phase of the book's daily routine, and the reason a long day does not have to end in exhaustion.
Quick reference
The translation table used throughout the plain-language edition.
| Term in the original | Plain-language name used in this edition | One-line meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Vector dispersion | Pulling in every direction at once | Effort split across many demands cancels itself out. |
| Spaghettification | Stretched thin | A scattered self is fragile; small knocks go straight through. |
| Mass density / internal mass | Inner groundedness | Gathered attention makes you hard to knock over. |
| Invariable reference point | The fixed point | Something that does not move, to measure yourself against. |
| Latency to zero (T0) | Recovery speed | How long it takes to return to calm. Target: sixty seconds. |
| Ontological subtraction | Ruthless simplification | Drop weight instead of adding fuel. |
| Thermal dissipation (Power 3) | A bigger body warms slower | Enough of you present that criticism has somewhere to spread. |
| Fluid adaptability (Power 4) | Flow around what will not move | Keep the destination, change the path. |
| Signal-to-noise ratio | How much is the real thing | About five percent of a working day. Spend effort on the dial. |
| Vector resolution (Power 6) | Decide once | Re-deciding is force in two directions. |
| Event horizon courage (Power 7) | Stepping across the line | Composure is fear with ballast. |
| Harmonic resonance (Power 8) | Setting the tempo | The steadiest rhythm in a room wins. |
| Gravitational time dilation | The slow-motion mind | Steadier inside means slower-feeling time outside. |
| Horizontal stretching / vertical depth | Breadth vs depth | The same you, over less, goes deeper. |
| Amrit Vela | The morning anchor | The first minutes belong to you, not the phone. |
| Jeevan Mukti | Still at the centre, active in the world | The book's destination. |
| Prime Mover | The cause of your day, not the effect of it | You set the direction. |