Abhimanyu (Sanskrit) (from abhi towards + the verbal root man to think)

Son of Arjuna by Subhadra, sister of Krishna. In the mystic interpretation of the Bhagavad-Gita, Abhimanyu represents high-mindedness, akin to dhyana (meditation). Abhimanyu killed Duryodhana's son Lakshmana on the second day of the great battle of Kurukshetra, while he himself was slain on the thirteenth day.

The Mahabharata tells of Abhimanyu's previous birth as Varchas, son of Chandra, and the agreement entered into by Chandra with the devas to send his son to be born as the son of Arjuna in order to fight against the "wicked people." Chandra imposed the condition, however, that Abhimanyu should be slain by the opposing forces so as to return to him in his sixteenth year.

(See also: Abhimanyu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Advent (from Latin ad to, toward + venio to come)

Arrival; in Christianity a period of some four weeks preceding Christmas.

In pre-Christian Greece one of the great seats of initiation was Eleusis, a Greek word meaning coming or advent. All the Mystery schools of antiquity taught and dramatized doctrines dealing with that which is to come: the mysteries of death, rebirth, and initiation -- the birth or awakening of the inner Buddha or Christos in the neophyte. This was called the coming or advent of the god within.

Advent may also be used to signify the serial comings into the human sphere of a nirmanakaya who imbodies a dhyani-buddha -- a perfected human being from a preceding manvantara -- in order to enlighten the humanity of the current cycle. Such nirmanakayas work in the sphere of our earth as invisible or occasionally visible helpers of mankind.

The "second advent," referring to a second coming of Christ, was considered imminent by some early Christian sects, and is still expected by certain sects today. This echoes the archaic teaching concerning the advent of Maitreya-Buddha -- the next great Buddha to appear in the long line of Buddha-succession -- as well as the second coming of Elijah among the Jews, and the coming of the Kalki-avatara among the Hindus.

(See also: Advent , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

parami, paramita (paaramii, paaramitaa): Perfection of the character. A group of ten qualities developed over many lifetimes by a bodhisatta, which appear as a group in the Pali Canon only in the Jataka ("Birth Stories"): generosity (dana), virtue (sila), renunciation (nekkhamma), discernment (panna), energy/persistence (viriya), patience/forbearance (khanti), truthfulness (sacca), determination (adhitthana), good will (metta), and equanimity (upekkha).

 (See also: Parami, paramita , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Sutra (Sanskrit) [from siv to sew]

A string, thread; the sutras are strings of rules or aphorisms written in serve form, composed in terse and symbolic language with the obvious intention of their being committed to memory. This was a favorite form among the Hindus, as among all ancient peoples, of imbodying and transmitting rules of ancient religious and philosophic thought.

There are sutras written upon almost every subject, but the sutras commonly signify those connected with the Vedas, of which there are three kinds: the Kalpa-sutras (rules of ritual); the grihya-sutras (domestic rules) treating of ordinary family rites such as marriage, birth, name-giving, etc.; and the Samayacharika-sutras which treat of customs and temporal duties. The Kalpa-sutras belong to the class of writings called Srutis (heard or revealed); while the other two types of sutras belong to the Smritis (remembered), carried traditionally from generation to generation by word of mouth.

In Buddhist writings, the Sutras are the second division of sacred works, generally known under the equivalent Pali term Suttas.

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

krishna-janamastami:

hindu festival celebrating the birth of lord krishna

(See also: krishna-janamastami , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

DEATH...is reference to the physical body NOT the Soul or Spirit, which is usually believed to go on to another body in the exercise of REINCARNATION. DEATHING: is the exercise of sitting with a 'dying' person as comforter or can be the ritual exercised to ease the soul 'over' into its new existence. DEATH IN SERVICE: meaning service to life; is the natural death such as from illness, old age, child birth, rescue attempts or self sacrifice to help another. BUT does NOT include murder, execution, suicide, war, torture deaths, etc. TO ME...Death is that state of existence consisting of change, evaluation, planning, & forgetting...DenElder

(See also: DEATH , Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Arundhati (Sanskrit) (probably from a not + the verbal root rudh to check, restrain, bind)

One who releases, frees, unbinds; a medicinal climber, with power to heal severe wounds; consort of the sage Vasishtha; consort of Dharma, meaning established law, procedure, truth, referring in this case to the cosmos; from Arundhati were born "the divisions of earth" (VP 1:15); personification of the morning star, Phosphoros or Lucifer-Venus of the ancient Greeks and Latins, one of the seven stars of Ursa Major; power invoked by the bridegroom for conjugal excellence; name of kundalini, the occult energy in humanity symbolized by a coiled serpent said to lie latent at the base of the spinal column until energized into activity by strenuous yoga exercises.

Arundhati is one of the most mystical terms in ancient Hindu mythology. The congruence of attributes suggests that Arundhati is the cosmic sakti or power stimulating, generating, and bringing to birth what would otherwise lie latent or relatively inactive in the abysses of cosmic force or energy. In her role of Lucifer-Venus, Arundahati may be mystically connected with the hierarchies of the manasaputras, the sons of mind, who quickened dormant mind in the early humanities.

(See also: Arundhati , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Ida or Ila (Sanskrit) Refreshment, flow; the goddess of sacred speech, similar to Vach; in the Rig-Veda called the instructress of Manu, instituting the rules for the performing of sacrifices. The Satapatha-Brahmana represents Ida as arising from a sacrifice which Manu had performed for the purpose of obtaining offspring.

Although claimed by the gods Mitra and Varuna, she became the wife of Manu, giving birth to the race of manus. In the Puranas, she is daughter of Vaivasvata-Manu, wife of Budha (wisdom), and mother of Pururavas. In some accounts she is born a woman, becomes a man named Sudyumna, then rebecomes a woman before finally becoming a man again. This refers to the androgynous third root-race, as well as to the later part of the second root-race.

"In their most mystical meaning, the union of Swayambhuva Manu with Vach-Sata-Rupa, his own daughter (this being the first 'euhemerization' of the dual principle of which Vaivasvata Manu and Ila are a secondary and a third form), stands in Cosmic symbolism as the Root-life, the germ from which spring all the Solar Systems, the worlds, angels and the gods" (SD 2:148).

See also ILA

(See also: Ida, Ila , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

666

Many have been the designators of this apocalyptic finger, from Nero to the Popes, to Mohammed, to Ronald Wilson Reagan. But only through careful numerological analysis can we be certain of its true meaning. In The Dimensions of Paradise, John Mitchell shows clearly how this "number of the beast" is actually the Gnostic designation for Jesus Christ and the Crucifiction foisted on the world by the corrupt Church. Christ as an historical figure instead of a spiritual force was repugnant to the Gnostics. Decadent Babylon and the New Jerusalem are one and the same City of God, symbolizing the death rattle for the perverted religion and the birth of a new understanding. In Revelation, 666 refers to the phrase kai ho arithmos Chi-Xi-Sigma and stands for Jesus Christ as the idol on the cross rather than the Gnostic idea of the new Christ spirit, "the son of man," present in all men (much like our own "New Aeon" feeling). The New Jerusalem numbers are 3168, 1080, 1224 and 1764, but especially 864 and 666 (all of these, by the way, reduce to 9). New Jerusalem itself is 961 (seven), as is "the number of the leaves of the Tree of Life which are for the healing of nations."

A similar attribution can be found in Kenneth Grant's work (Outside the Circles of Time). For him, as for the writer of Revelation, the number has special apocalyptic meanings: "The Christians misunderstood the Unspeakable Name (IHVH) and supposed that by causing a rift between the Old Ones and the life-wave on earth they could 'save' mankind, and incidentally [of course!] gain total mastery of the planet." In order to do this, they inserted the Hebrew letter Shin (Grant calls this the letter of "Spirit," others associate it with "fire") between IH and VH, the Sh of Spirit. Thus we derive the name Yeheshuah or Johoshuah (IHShVH), which in Latin we call Jesus. The Xtians proceeded from there to identify this mythological name with a real person who, as Gerald Massey demonstrated, could only have been -- in an historic sense -- Jesus ben Pandira, an Egyptian who lived a century earlier. This wizard's mother was named Mary Magdalene, and he was stoned to death for sorcery. But the letter Shin, Grant tells us, "represents the triple-tongued flame of the Great Old Ones, whose supreme concentration -- Choronzon -- exhibits the triple Firetongue in the number 333." The latter is "mirrored in the final Heh of Tetragrammaton, the daughter-letter, whose number becomes the trebled Hex and the Unholy Act of Earth's destruction, under the rule of the Son of Typhon who is Set/Satan and the Anti-Christ."

Thus, to this very day, the idol that the entire "Christian" world bows down to is not the Christos spirit at all, but the Anti-Christ. The washed faces, the white gloves, the alb and pale lilies of Sunday worship cannot dispel the blood of ages. Average Galileans are unable to display love of any kind for their fellow-man. Instead, they constantly evoke the images of sin, corruption, misery and damnation. All "holy books" contain contradictions, lies and false teachings, but the Xtian Bible is a monument of fabrications and contradictions, second only to the Koran.

(See also: 666 , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Iacchos (Ancient Greek). A synonym of Bacchus. Mythology mentions three persons so named: they were Greek ideals adopted later by the Romans. The word Iacchos is stated to be of Phœnician origin, and to mean "an infant at the breast ". Many ancient monuments represent Ceres or Demeter with Bacchus in her arms.

One Iacchos was called Theban and Conqueror, son of Jupiter and Semele; his mother died before his birth and he was preserved for some time in the thigh of his father; he was killed by the Titans. Another was son of Jupiter, as a Dragon, and Persephone ; this one was named Zagremus. A third was Iacchos of Eleusis, son of Ceres: he is of importance because he appeared on the sixth day of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Some see an analogy between Bacchus and Noah, both cultivators of the Vine, and patrons of alcoholic excess.

(See also: Iacchos , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

upanayana: (Sanskrit) "Bringing near."

A youth's formal initiation into Vedic study under a guru, traditionally as a resident of his ashrama, and the investiture of the sacred thread (yajnopavita or upavita), signifying entrance into one of the three upper castes.

The upanayana is among twelve samskaras prescribed in the Dharma Shastras and explained in the Grihya Sutras. It is prescribed between ages 8-16 for brahmins (who received a white thread), 11- 22 for kshatriyas (red thread), and 12-24 for vaishyas (yellow thread). At present the color white for the sacred thread has been adopted universally.

The upanayana is regarded as a second or spiritual birth, and one so initiated is known as dvija, "twice-born." Until about the beginning of the common era, the upanayana was also afforded to girls. Great value was placed on their learning the Vedas in preparation for the duties of married life.

See: samskaras of childhood.

(See also: Upanayana , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Midwifery: Midwives work with women so they can experience a healthy pregnancy and a safe natural childbirth as well as providing necessary education and follow-up care. Licensed midwives or nurse-midwives (both are recognized in Washington) receive extensive training in gynecology, fetus development, obstetrical complications, nutritional assessment, counseling, community health, family planning, various forms of delivery management, and other issues surrounding pregnancy and birth.

(See also: Midwifery , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Ariyasachcha ariyasacca (Pali) (from ariya noble, distinguished, of high birth + sachcha real, true)

Noble truth; in the plural, the Four Noble Truths (chattari ariyasachchani) set forth by Gautama Buddha in his first sermon: 1) pain (duhkha); 2) cause, origin of pain (samudaya) is desire (panha); 3) destruction of desire eliminates pain (nirodha); and 4) the road or footpath (magga), the noble eightfold way (ariya atthangika magga).

See also ARYASATYA (for Sanskrit equivalents)

(See also: Ariyasachcha ariyasacca , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Peratae (Latin) Peratai (Greek) One of the Gnostic bodies or associations, the Naaseni or Ophites, the "Serpent Gnostics," so called because of the mystical prominence of the serpent symbol in their rites and observances.

This Gnostic body is said by scholars to have been founded by Euphrates, who possessed wide astrological knowledge, and because of the teachings which his school followed were they named Peratai -- wanderers, i.e., on this earth of trial and tribulation; or "those of the other side," signifying individuals who regarded themselves as merely wanderers or pilgrims in regions far from their native home, the spirit.

Among other ideas, they held that the celestial bodies in a person's horoscope are the instruments of destiny or karma, which because of causes engendered in other lives bring the individuals to birth on this earth under the destined yoke marked in the celestial spaces by the sun, moon, and planets; and in order to protect themselves from the malignant influence of the genii of the planets they wore serpent sigils or talismans.

C. W. King states that the Ophites were the descendants of the Bacchic Mystae, basing this on the fact that coins of the period bear the Bacchic serpent, which is represented as raising himself out of the sacred coffer, while the reverse side of the coin shows two serpents entwined around torches (Gnostics and Their Remains 225).

(See also: Peratae, Peratai , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Horus (Egypt, Egyptian). The last in the line of divine Sovereigns in Egypt, said to he the son of Osiris and Isis.

He is the great god "loved of Heaven", the "beloved of the Sun, the offspring of the gods, the subjugator of the world".

At the time of the Winter Solstice (our Christmas), his image, in the form of a small newly-born infant, was brought out from the sanctuary for the adoration of the worshipping crowds. As he is the type of the vault of heaven, he is said to have come from the Maem Misi, the sacred birth-place (the womb of the World), and is, therefore, the "mystic Child of the Ark" or the argha, the symbol of the matrix.

Cosmically, he is the Winter Sun. A tablet describes him as the "substance of his father", Osiris, of whom he is an incarnation and also identical with him. Horus is a chaste deity, and "like Apollo has no amours. His part in the lower world is associated with the judgment.

He introduces souls to his father, the judge" (Bonwick). An ancient hymn says of him, "By him the world is judged in that which it contains. Heaven and earth are under his immediate presence. He rules all human beings. The sun goes round according to his purpose. He brings forth abundance and dispenses it to all the earth. Everyone adores his beauty. Sweet is his love in us."

(See also: Horus , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Capricorn (from Latin capr goat + cornus horn)

The goat, often mystically connected with the sea; the tenth sign of the zodiac. In astrology, an earthy, cardinal sign, one of the two houses of Saturn, and the exaltation of Mars; its bodily correspondence is the knees. The symbol is a hybrid monster, often with the fore part of a goat or antelope and the hind part of a fish or dolphin. In some systems it is a crocodile. This sign marks the extreme southern limit of the sun.

In the Hindu zodiac it is Makara. Subba Row (The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac) says that ma is equivalent to the number 5, and kara means hand; thus the word signifies a pentagram. It may be taken to represent objectively both the microcosm and the macrocosm. Makara is the most mysterious of the signs, connected with the fifth group of the hierarchy of creative powers, and with the microcosmic pentagram -- the five-pointed star representing man (SD 1:219). In Egypt this sign was called the crocodile; with the Peratae Gnostics, it was represented as a dolphin and identified with Chozzar, god of the waters; it is associated with the Leviathan of Job, and with a group of five kumaras in India (SD 2:577).

"Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual 'microcosm,' and the death or dissolution of the physical Universe (its passage into the realm of the Spiritual) . . . 'When the Sun passes away behind the 30th degree of Makara and will reach no more the sign of the Meenam (pisces) then the night of Brahma has come' " (SD 2:579 & n).

Equating the 12 sons of Jacob in the Hebrew system to the signs of the zodiac, Naphthali is assigned to Capricornus: he is called a "hind let loose."

(See also: Capricorn , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Vedas

Veda is a generic name for the most ancient Indian sacred literature, i.e. the Rg-veda, Yajur-veda, Sama-veda and Atharva-veda. Each of these books is divided into two portions, mantra and brahmana. The term Veda is generally reserved for the mantras or metrical hymns, especially those of the Rg-veda. Sri Aurobindo has translated and/or commented on many of the Vedic hymns. Most of his writings related to the Vedas have been collected in Volumes 10 and 11of the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library(SABCL), The Secret of the Veda, and Hymns to the Mystic Fire.

"I propose...that the Rig-Veda is itself the one considerable document that remains to us from the early period of human thought of which the historic Eleusinian and Orphic mysteries were the failing remnants, when the spiritual and psychological knowledge of the race was concealed, for reasons now difficult to determine, in a veil of concrete and material figures and symbols which protected the sense from the profane and revealed it to the initiated. One of the leading principles of the mystics was the sacredness and secrecy of self-knowledge and the true knowledge of the Gods.

The Veda...is an inspired knowledge as yet insufficiently equipped with intellectual and philosophical terms. We find a language of poets and illuminates to whom all experience is real, vivid, sensible, even concrete, not yet of thinkers and sytematisers to whom the realities of the mind and soul have become abstractions.

The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher planes of consciousness and contained this secret knowledge. The words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic; from others the verses withheld their hidden knowledge.

Many of the lines, many whole hymns even of the Veda bear on their face a mystic meaning; they are evidently an occult form of speech, have an inner meaning.

Under pressure of the necessity to mask their meaning with symbols and symbolic words...the Rishis resorted to fix double meanings, a device easily manageable in the Sanskrit language where one word often bears several different meanings, but not easy to render in an English translation and very often impossible....The Rishis, it must be remembered, were seers as well as sages, they were men of vision who saw things in their meditation in images, often symbolic images which might precede or accompany an experience and put it in a concrete form, might predict or give an occult body to it. ...The mystics were and normally are symbolists, they can even see all physical things and happenings as symbols of inner truths and realities, even their outer selves, the outer happenings of their life and all around them."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, SABCL Vol. 10

(See also: Vedas , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Thorah (Hebrew, Jewish). "Law", written down from the transposition of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Of the "hidden Thorah" it is said that before At-tee-k-ah (the "Ancient of all the Ancients ") had arranged Itself into limbs (or members) preparing Itself to manifest, It willed to create a Thorah; the latter upon being produced addressed It in these words: "

It, that wishes to arrange and to appoint other things, should first of all, arrange Itself in Its proper Forms". In other words, Thorah, the Law, snubbed its Creator from the moment of its birth, according to the above, which is an interpolation of some later Talmudist.

As it grew and developed, the mystic Law of the primitive Kabbalist was transformed and made by the Rabbins to supersede in its dead letter every metaphysical conception; and thus the Rabbinical and Talmudistic Law makes Ain Soph and every divine Principle subservient to itself, and turns its back upon the true esoteric interpretations.

(See also: Thorah , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

AGE OF HORUS

Another 2000-year cycle beginning in 1904 when Crowley received the Book of the Law from Aiwass (some say the age began with the birth of Crowley's son). Stands for constant progress. Horus grows from a helpless infant to the highest seat of the gods, whence integrating with Ra. Horus, as the impulse to manifest, is the constant enemy of his brother, Seth, who represents the inexorable dragging down of negation and nothingness.

(See also: AGE OF HORUS , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

veil

1. Invisible field of etheric energy separating the physical from the psychic senses, surrounding a person in the inside of the aura. 2. The film over some babies at birth; usually denoting the child will be psychic

(See also: Veil , Body Mind and Soul)

Death, Dead People, Death and Dying, Dying

• To dream of seeing any of your people dead, warns you of coming dissolution or sorrow. Disappointments always follow dreams of this nature.
• To hear of any friend or relative being dead, you will soon have bad news from some of them.
• Dreams relating to death or dying, unless they are due to spiritual causes, are misleading and very confusing to the novice in dream lore when he attempts to interpret them. A man who thinks intensely fills his aura with thought or subjective images active with the passions that gave them birth; by thinking and acting on other lines, he may supplant these images with others possessed of a different form and nature. In his dreams he may see these images dying, dead or their burial, and mistake them for friends or enemies. In this way he may, while asleep, see himself or a relative die, when in reality he has been warned that some good thought or deed is to be supplanted by an evil one. To illustrate: If it is a dear friend or relative whom he sees in the agony of death, he is warned against immoral or other improper thought and action, but if it is an enemy or some repulsive object dismantled in death, he may overcome his evil ways and thus give himself or friends cause for joy. Often the end or beginning of suspense or trials are foretold by dreams of this nature. They also frequently occur when the dreamer is controlled by imaginary states of evil or good. A man in that state is not himself, but is what the dominating influences make him. He may be warned of approaching conditions or his extrication from the same. In our dreams we are closer to our real self than in waking life. The hideous or pleasing incidents seen and heard about us in our dreams are all of our own making, they reflect the true state of our soul and body, and we cannot flee from them unless we drive them out of our being by the use of good thoughts and deeds, by the power of the spirit within us.
• [53] See Meaning of Dreams about Corpse.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Death , Dreams - Meaning of Dream about Death , Dream Interpretation Death )

Samsara

Cycle of rebirths; realms of Birth and Death.

 (See also: Samsara , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)