A Wisdom Archive on Being

Metaphysics (Greek words meta = after/beyond and physics = nature) is a branch of philosophy concerned with the study of "first principles" and "being" (ontology). Metaphysics as a discipline was a central part of academic inquiry and scholarly education since before the age in which Aristotle coined the word. Long considered "the Queen of Sciences", its issues were considered no less important than the other main formal subjects of physical science, medicine, mathematics, poetics and music. Since the Age of Reaso ... Including:

• Metaphysics - The origin of the word 'metaphysics'
• Metaphysics - Examples
• Metaphysics - Criticism
• Metaphysics - Metaphysical subdisciplines
• Metaphysics - Metaphysical topics and problems
• Metaphysics - Metaphysical jargon
• Metaphysics - People

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Wheel Perpetual gyratory motion; a vortex, a center of revolving force. Matter is not only motion itself in low ranges of the cosmos, but has likewise many modes of motion, although not in the sense in which this phrase was used in the 19th century.
 
Lord Kelvin''s vortex-atoms illustrate the point, for he showed that many of the properties attributed to atoms could be represented by regarding atoms as vortices in a frictionless, incompressible fluid. More recent analysis of the atom has failed to resolve it into anything more than electric particles whose properties are functions of their motions. "Atoms are called ''Vibrations'' in Occultism . . . " (SD 2:633). Fohat traces spiral lines and forms wheels or centers of force around which primordial cosmic matter expands and contracts and passes through stages of consolidation ending in globes, and later through stages of etherealization. Vortical motion is a universal law, as seen in the stellar universe and in the electronic constitution of the physical atom, giving a fuller meaning to the word cycle.
 
Wheel, cycle, globes, and revolutions all pertain to the same fundamental conception of whirling, revolving, or gyratory motion of beings and substances; and as no motion can take place except in matter, space, and time, the whirlings and revolutions of beings and things include likewise the time periods or cyclic returns of beings and events throughout duration. Wherever there is a whirling or turning, whether of matter or of an event in time, it is because it is a being or thing which is active in reproducing itself in cyclic events (cf Ezekiel 1:15-21). This is one of the archaic ways of understanding what is now called the principle of Relativity. Indeed, so intimate and entangled are the actor and the act -- the being and its movements in time -- that it is not always easy to distinguish the actor inherent and moving from the effects in space and time of such movement; so that when we speak of a cycle of time we are perforce obliged to conceive of a moving entity producing the cycle, albeit the moving entity may not be visible to us and indeed may be incomprehensible. Hence, the frequent and often perplexing usage of wheel or wheelings found in ancient occult writings.
 
See also WINGED WHEEL; GLOBE, WINGED

 
(See also: Wheel, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Wondrous Being Often equivalent to Silent Watcher, the supreme head of a hierarchy; and since hierarchies are innumerable, there are innumerable Wondrous Beings. Thus there is a Wondrous Being or Silent Watcher of cosmic magnitude for the Brotherhood of Compassion; a Wondrous Being for our globe, who is identical on a smaller scale; and a Wondrous Being for our planetary chain. In the other direction, there are Wondrous Beings for all less hierarchies even down to that of the atom: it is the highest egoic form of the divine spark everywhere. In The Secret Doctrine the Wondrous Being is made equivalent to the root-base or ever-living-human-banyan.
 
"This ''Wondrous Being'' descended from a ''high region,'' they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before the separation of the sexes of the Third Race. . . .
 
"The ''Being'' just referred to, which has to remain nameless, is the Tree from which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., etc., have branched off. As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the profane -- the ever invisible) yet ever present Personage about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he again who holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the ''Nameless One'' who has so many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown. He is the ''Initiator,'' called the ''great sacrifice.'' For, sitting at the threshold of light, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life-cycle" (SD 1:207-8).
 
The Wondrous Being of the human constitution is the higher monad called atma-buddhi-manas or the inner god, to which Jesus referred when he spoke of his Father.
 
See also WATCHER

 
(See also: Wondrous Being, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Will-born Used in The Secret Doctrine as equivalent to mind-born -- referring specifically to those beings in the early third root-race "while it was yet in its state of purity" who were created by means of will power through kriyasakti by the Sons of Wisdom.
 
This progeny is termed the Sons of Ad, Sons of the Fire-mist, or Sons of Will and Yoga. "It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first a wondrous Being, called the ''Initiator,'' and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings. ''Set apart'' in Archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis, ''Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras'' -- to form the nursery for future human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle" (SD 1:207). Theosophy teaches that in future ages generation by means of will power through krisyasakti will again be the method of producing offspring.
 
The Puranas also refer to will-born progeny, termed chhandajas.

 
(See also: Will-born, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Will The ensouling creative essence of abstract, eternal motion throughout the kosmos. As an eternal principle it is neither spirit nor substance but everlasting ideation. In its abstract sense, it is a hierarchy of intelligent forces emanating from the aggregate of the hosts of beings, visible and invisible, which are nature itself.
 
The so-called laws of nature are the action and interaction of the combined consciousnesses and wills which pervade the kosmos. The will pours forth in floods of light and life from the primal Logos. These floods, following the pathways of universal circulation, come to us from the central heart of the solar system -- insofar as our solar universe is concerned. They thus descend, plane by plane and cycle by cycle, into the depths of matter, from which finally they arise again towards their primal source.
 
 In this progressive descent and ascent, will is made to manifest in keeping with each plane or state of consciousness which it enters. There is, therefore, the one fundamental kosmic will-ideation, breaking into innumerable streams of willing entities during periods of manifestation, and thus it operates in myriad ways, in every round of the endless ladder of life.
 
Divine or universal thought and will come into manifestation through the collective hosts of spiritual beings, the dhyani-chohans, who are the vehicles through which the unmanifested appears. "They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her ''laws,'' while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not ''the personifications'' of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought" (SD 1:38). The natural law which preserves the balanced motion of planetary rotation was explained by Herschel''s saying "that there is a will needed to impart a circular motion and another will to restrain it" (SD 1:503).
 
In the composite human being -- the microcosm -- there are the divine, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, animal, astral, and even physical wills. The old maxim "behind will stands desire" accounts for the paradoxical influence of this colorless force which is used to energize both good and evil motives. Thus, as it operates through the intermediate human nature, the individual consciously and unconsciously gives it a right or wrong direction, according to his use of free will in choosing his course of conduct. The divine will is expressed in the sublime, impersonal desires of lofty celestial deities; while at the opposite pole, selfish, sensual, animal desires too often direct the action of the human will. The origin of good and evil lies respectively in the harmony and the conflict of wills in the kosmos.
 
The special physical organ of the human will is the pituitary gland. The brain and body show the different action of the conscious, positive, volitional will and of the negative, automatic, vegetative will. The latter energizes the mysteries of organic functions carried on by various conscious or semiconscious elemental entities who themselves act instinctively under the intelligent, harmonious laws of nature for the body''s welfare.
 
Will power is a mighty, colorless force or energy which can be set in motion by one who has the power and knowledge to do so. In India, in combination with abstract desire, it is mentioned as one of six primary powers (ichchhasakti) by which the adept accomplishes many of his wonders. "The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one''s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result . . . For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of the primordial divine Light and eternal Life "(SD 2:173). The occult power of will explains many scientific problems of animate and inanimate matter. In human beings, it may consciously and unconsciously act upon other human wills and upon that of beasts; likewise, it may act upon physical and astral substance to produce various phenomena such as levitation, fire-walking, birthmarks, etc. "Paracelsus teaches that ''determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain'' " (TG 370).

 
(See also: Will, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Wu Wei (Chinese) Inaction, inactivity; quiescence, placidity. Used in Taoism in relation to the tao of man, the idea being that "Heaven is emptiness" and by practicing wu wei (inaction) and becoming "empty" one becomes at one with heaven or tao. Reminiscent of the highly mystical import of the Buddhist sunyata (Sanskrit, "emptiness," "void").
 
In all such words the difficulty is in finding ordinary language to convey the thought. There is not an absolutely empty point of space in all infinitude; what seems to the human senses to be cosmic vacuity is actually complete or absolute fullness, a pleroma as the Gnostics said.
 
Cosmic sunyata or wu wei is emptiness simply because it lacks the lowest forms of matter -- forms and bodies which are like the spume or bubbles on the sea of cosmic reality, which to human senses is empty because invisible, intangible, and not subject to sense perception.

 
(See also: Wu Wei, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Yatus or Yatudhanas (Sanskrit) A kind of spirit corresponding to the Greek daimon, one of the hierarchies of spiritual, semi-spiritual, and ethereal entities -- among many other similar classes, such as the nagas, gandharvas, devas, rishis, apsarasas, and yakshas. In the human constitution, those elemental or semi-elemental beings which are instrumental in carrying out the mandates of the higher parts of man; in the solar system they perform a similar function of cosmic character. Along with the other classes, they are the "Sun''s attendants throughout the twelve solar months; in theogony, and also in anthropological evolution, they are gods and men -- when incarnated in the nether world" (SD 2:211).

 
(See also: Yatus, Yatudhanas, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Wraith, Wraie The fleeting apparition of a person, about the moment of death, to another person in kinship or psychomagnetic sympathy. Though wraith may cover different cases, in general it is due to the mayavi-rupa of the person who is dying. It is produced by his thought, though he is unaware of the effect he is producing. An intense and anxious thought about the person he wishes to
 
See becomes objective to the seer, and the apparition wears the aspect and commonly the ordinary clothing of the dying person. In some cases the apparition may not be due to any thought on the part of the dying person, but to abnormal sensitiveness or clairvoyance on the part of the seer. Being in close sympathy with the dying one, he bears the image of that one in his latent memory; and when the event occurs, his higher senses, being aware of it, cause the objectivization of this memory as a visual apparition.
 
The thought itself is objective to a mind capable of perception on that plane; but to become objective to the physical senses, it must clothe itself in matter of a lower grade; and this objectivization may vary from a picture in the mind''s eye to an apparition seen by the physical vision. In any case the organism of the seer can provide the necessary vehicle for such an objectivization. Distance plays no part in the phenomenon, and there is no projection of a physically substantial body through space from one place to another. The above case should be distinguished from an appearance of the astral double seen near the graves of the recently deceased.
 
See also EIDOLON; PHANTOM; SPECTER

 
(See also: Wraith, Wraie, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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World Egg, Mundane Egg The virgin or eternal egg is chaos, which is fecundated by the ray from spirit, and yet remains immaculate. According to the Stanzas of Dzyan, "The ray shoots through the virgin egg; the ray causes the eternal egg to thrill, and drop the non-eternal germ, which condenses into the world-egg" (SD 1:28). The non-eternal egg signifies the transitory worlds of manifestation and is often used for the universe in germ preceding its emanational unfolding. The first cause of a universe, its emanating spirit, was figurated as a bird which dropped an egg into chaos, the egg in course of aeons becomes the manifested universe.
 
According to the Laws of Manu, hiranyagarbha "is Brahma the first male formed by the undiscernible Causeless cause in a ''Golden Egg resplendent as the Sun,'' " (SD 1:89). The Rig-Veda says that the incomprehensible divine germ of our universe, " ''the one Lord of all beings . . . the one animating principle of gods and man,'' arose, in the beginning, in the Golden Womb, Hiranyagarbha -- which is the Mundane Egg or sphere of our Universe" (ibid.).
 
Ptah, the Egyptian god of creation, is represented as bringing forth beings from a lump of clay on a potter''s wheel. This lump of clay represents the world egg, out of which all the beings creep. And the winged globe, so prominent in Egyptian symbology, is another symbol of the world egg.
 
See also EGG

 
(See also: World Egg, Mundane Egg, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Will-less A condition of beings who have not yet evolved forth free will, hence without initiative or self-determination. A specific instance is the case where will-less may be applied to the gods in heaven against whom Satan rebelled (as narrated in Milton''s Paradise Lost). In theosophical literature, used in reference to mankind in its early stages before manas (mind) became awakened, hence to the first and second root-races and early third root-race. Even among these early races the will was not absent, but it had not yet come into functional activity.

 
(See also: Will-less, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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