Brahma (written Brahmā in IAST transliteration) (Devanagari ब्रह्मा, pronounced as "brəhmα:") is the Hindu creator god, and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. He must not be confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit of Hindu philosophy Brahman (the word stems of both are the same). Brahmā is identified with the Vedic deity Prajapati. At the beginning of the process of creation, Brahmā created ten Prajapatis (used in another sense), who are believed to be the fathers of the human race ...

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Brahma - Creation Brahma - Appearance Brahma - Vehicle Brahma - Consort Brahma - Temples

Read more here: » Brahma: Encyclopedia - Brahma

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Brahma, Brahma - Creation, Brahma - Appearance, Brahma - Vehicle, Brahma - Consort, Brahma - Temples

Read more here: » Brahma: Encyclopedia II - Brahma - Temples

Brahma (written Brahmā in IAST transliteration) (Devanagari ब्रह्मा, pronounced as "brəhmα:") is the Hindu creator god, and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. He must not be confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit of Hindu philosophy Brahman (the word stems of both are the same). Brahmā is identified with the Vedic deity Prajapati. At the beginning of the process of creation, Brahmā created ten Prajapatis (used in another sense), who are believed to be the fathers of ...

Including:

Brahma - Creation Brahma - Appearance Brahma - Vehicle Brahma - Consort Brahma - Temples

Read more here: » Brahma: Encyclopedia - Brahma

Kala Brahma (Gouri) (Sanskrit) Another name for the god Sabda Brahma, a mystic name for akasa or the astral light, the source of occult sounds and the power of mantras.

Sabda Brahma's "vehicle is called Shadja, and the latter is the basic tone in the Hindu musical scale. It is only after . . . passing through the study of preliminary sounds, that a Yogi begins to see Kala Brahma, i.e., perceives things in the Astral Light" (BCW 4:166; cf 4:164).

(See also: Kala Brahma, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Kalahansa or Hamsa (Sanskrit). A mystic title given to Brahma (or Parabrahman); means "the swan in and out of time". Brahma (male) is called Hansa-Vahan, the vehicle of the "Swan".

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

Brahma (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root brih to expand, grow, fructify)

The first god of the Hindu Trimurti or triad, consisting of Brahma, the emanator, evolver, and creator; Vishnu, the sustainer or preserver; and Siva, the regenerator or destroyer. Brahma is the vivifying expansive force of nature in its eternally periodic manvantaras. He stands for the spiritual evolving or developing energy-consciousness of a solar system which is also called the Egg of Brahma (brahmanda). Brahma is called the creator or Logos, but in the theosophic philosophy creator is simply an abstract term or idea, like army. In Burnouf's words:

"Having evolved himself from the soul of the world, once separated from the first cause, he evaporates with, and emanates all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself" (q SD 1:380n). The Vishnu-Purana explains that created beings "although they are destroyed (in their individual forms) at the periods of dissolution, yet being affected by the good or evil acts of former existences, are never exempted from their consequences. And when Brahma produces the world anew, they are the progeny of his will . . ." (q SD 1:456n).

Brahman is both masculine and neuter, and therefore has two meanings. In the masculine (Brahma) it is the evolving energy of the cosmic egg, as distinguished from the neuter (Brahman). Brahma is the vehicle or sheath of Brahman. The Vishnu-Purana says that Brahma in its totality has essentially the aspect of prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (mulaprakriti), and also the aspects of spirit and of time. "Brahma, as 'the germ of unknown Darkness,' is the material from which all evolves and develops 'as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,' etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahma the 'Creator' is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma 'expands' and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance" (SD 1:83). Again,

"Here we find, as in all genuine philosophical systems, even the 'Egg' or the Circle (or Zero), boundless Infinity, referred to as It, and Brahma, the first unit only, referred to as the male god, i.e., the fructifying Principle. It is  or 10 (ten) the Decade. On the plane of the Septenary or our World only, it is called Brahma. On that of the Unified Decade in the realm of Reality, this male Brahma is an illusion" (SD 1:333).

According to the Aitareya-Brahmana, Brahma as Prajapati (lord of beings) manifests himself first of all as twelve bodies or attributes, which are represented by the twelve gods, symbolizing 1) fire; 2) the sun; 3) soma, which gives omniscience; 4) all living beings; 5) vayu, or ether; 6) death, or breath of destruction -- Siva; 7) earth; 8) heaven; 9) Agni, the immaterial fire; 10) Aditya, the immaterial and invisible sun; 11) mind; and 12) the great infinite cycle, "which is not to be stopped." Brahma in one of his phases therefore is the visible universe, every atom of which is essentially himself.

Brahma "symbolizes personally the collective creators of the World and Men -- the universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly) immovable. He is collectively the Prajapatis, the Lords of Being; and the four bodies typify the four classes of creative powers or Dhyan Chohans . . ." (SD 2:60), these four bodies being ratri (night) associated with the creation of the asuras; ahan (day) associated with the gods; sandhya (evening twilight) associated with the pitris; and jyotsna (dawn or light) associated with the creation of men.

In the beginning Brahma was Purusha (spirit) and also prakriti (matter). It is later that he separated himself into two halves -- Brahma-Vach (female) and Brahma-Viraj (male). The term Brahma is not found in the Vedas. Blavatsky correlates Adam-Qadmon, Brahma, and Mars as symbols for primitive or initial generative and creative powers typifying water and earth; also all three are associated with the color red (cf SD 2:43, 124-5).

See also BRAHMA'S DAY

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

Vahana (Sanskrit) Vehicle, carrier; a vehicle of an entity which allows it to manifest on planes inferior to its own. The human constitution is comprised of a number of vahanas, each enabling the spiritual or intellectual entity to express itself on the plane where the vahana is native. Generally, the soul is the vehicle of a monad, the ego is the vehicle of a soul, and the body is the vehicle of an ego -- of whatever type or degree.

In The Secret Doctrine, fohat is spoken of as the vahana of the "Primordial Seven"; physical forces as the vehicles of the elements; and the sun as the vahana or buddhi of Aditi (I 108, 470. 527n). Again, all gods and goddesses are "represented as using vahanas to manifest themselves, which vehicles are ever symbolical. So, for instance, Vishnu has during Pralayas, Ananta 'the infinite' (Space), symbolized by the serpent Sesha, and during the Manvantaras -- Garuda the gigantic half-eagle, half-man, the symbol of the great cycle; Brahma appears as Brahma, descending into the planes of manifestation on Kalahansa, the 'swan in time or finite eternity'; Siva . . . appears as the bull Nandi; Osiris as the sacred bull Apis; Indra travels on an elephant; Karttikeya, on a peacock; Kamadeva on Makara, at other times a parrot; Agni, the universal (and also solar) Fire-god, who is, as all of them are, 'a consuming Fire,' manifests itself as a ram and a lamb, Aja, 'the unborn'; Varuna, as a fish; etc., etc., while the vehicle of Man is his body" (TG 357-8).

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

Chariot Vehicle (cf Sanskrit vahana, Hebrew merkhabah). The Zohar states that 'eyn soph uses the One, the manifested Heavenly Man, as its chariot; but, as 'eyn soph is the Boundless, it cannot come into individual relation with any thing; it is the depth or bythos of 'eyn soph whose ray uses the Heavenly Man as a chariot.

It is the unmanifested Logos or Brahman which uses the manifested Logos or Brahma as its vehicle. Chariot is also used to refer to the visible planets as vehicles of the planetary deities, as for instance in the chariot of Apollo or Phoebus and in the nine chariots of the stars around Dhruva the pole star. In similar fashion, the human body is often called the chariot of the inner charioteer, the real person or true ego.

(See also: Chariot, Vehicle, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Kalahansa or Kalahamsa (Sanskrit) The swan in eternity; in the pre-cosmogonical aspect, Kalahansa becomes Brahman or Brahma (neuter), darkness or the unknowable; and second, the swan in time and space when by analogy Kalahansa becomes Brahma (masculine).

Rather than Brahma being the Hansa-vahana (the one using the swan as vehicle), it is Brahma who is Kalahansa, while Purusha, the emanation from Brahma, as one of its aspects as a creative power, is the Hansa-vahana or swan-carrier.

"The 'Swan or goose' (Hansa) is the symbol of that male or temporary deity, as he, the emanation of the primordial Ray, is made to serve as a Vahan or vehicle for that divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of 'Darkness' -- for our human intellect, at any rate" (SD 1:80).

"The 'First Cause' had no name in the beginnings. Later it was pictured in the fancy of the thinkers as an ever invisible, mysterious Bird that dropped an Egg into Chaos, which Egg becomes the Universe. Hence Brahm was called Kalahansa, 'the swan in (Space and) Time.' He became the 'Swan of Eternity,' who lays at the beginning of each mahamanvantara a 'Golden Egg.' It typifies the great Circle, or O, itself a symbol for the Universe and its spherical bodies" (SD 1:359).

(See also: Kalahansa, Kalahamsa, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Vahana (Sanskrit). A vehicle, the carrier of something immaterial and formless.

All the gods and goddesses are, therefore, represented as using vahanas to manifest themselves, which vehicles are ever symbolical. So, for instance, Vishnu has during Pralayas, Ananta the infinite" (Space), symbolized by the serpent Sesha, and during the Manvantaras - Garuda the gigantic half-eagle, half-man, the symbol of the great cycle; Brahma appears as Brahma, descending into the planes of manifestations on Kalahamsa, the "swan in time or finite eternity"; Siva (phonet, Shiva) appears as the bull Nandi; Osiris as the sacred bull Apis; Indra travels on an elephant; Karttikeya, on a peacock; Kamadeva on Makara, at other times a parrot; Agni, the universal (and also solar) Fire-god, who is, as all of them are, "a consuming Fire", manifests itself as a ram and a lamb, Aja, "the unborn"; Varuna, as a fish; etc., etc., while the vehicle of MAN is his body.

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

Hamsa, Hansa (Sanskrit) The mystic swan or goose; representing divine wisdom beyond the reach of men. Exoterically, a fabulous bird which, when given milk mixed with water, drank only the milk and left the water, milk standing for spirit and water for matter. Anagrammatically, hamsa

"is equal to a-ham-sa, . . . meaning 'I am he' (in English), while divided in still another way it will read 'So-ham,' 'he (is) I' -- Soham being equal to Sah, 'he,' and aham, 'I,' or 'I am he.' In this alone is contained the universal mystery, the doctrine of the identity of man's essence with god-essence, for him who understands the language of wisdom. Hence the glyph of, and the allegory about, Kalahansa (or hamsa), and the name given to Brahma neuter (later on, to the male Brahma) of 'Hansa-Vahana,' he who uses the Hansa as his vehicle. The same word may be read 'Kalaham-sa' or 'I am I' in the eternity of Time, answering to the Biblical, or rather Zoroastrian 'I am that I am" (SD 1:78).

(See also: Hamsa, Hansa, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hamsa or Hansa (Sanskrit) "Swan or goose", according to the Orientalists ; a mystical bird in Occultism analogous to the Rosicrucian Pelican.

The sacred mystic name which, when preceded by that of KALA (infinite time), i.e. Kalahansa, is name of Parabrahm ; meaning the " Bird out of space and time". Hence Brahma (male)is called Hansa Vahana "the Vehicle of Hansa" (the Bird). We find the same idea in the Zohar, where Ain Suph (the endless and infinite) is said to descend into the universe, for purposes of manifestation, using Adam Kadmon (Humanity) as a chariot or vehicle.

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

Ardhamatra (Sanskrit) (from ardha half + matra a metrical unit)

Half a short syllable; the Nadabindu-Upanishad in speaking of Aum says that the syllable or character A is considered to be Kalahamsa's right wing; U, the left wing; M, the tail of the Swan, and the ardhamatra its head (cf VS 5, 74-5). In the Mahabharata kalahamsa is the name of several species of the hamsa bird, a goose or swan. Ardhamatra is a mystical term for one of the portions of the swan of time -- Brahma or the manifest or Third Logos of the universe, whose emanation or creative activity is hamsa-vahana (the vehicle or carrier of the swan).

Ardhamatra, therefore, has reference to the egoic individuality of the cosmic Third Logos or Brahma (also called Purusha), considered to be "one-half the measure" of the eternal past and the eternal future -- such egoic individuality being the product in space and time of the continuously reimbodying spirit of the universe, evolving and changing its nature by evolution as the cycles of time pass from the present into the past, and forwards into the future.

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

Hamsa, Hansa (Sanskrit) The mystic swan or goose; representing divine wisdom beyond the reach of men. Exoterically, a fabulous bird which, when given milk mixed with water, drank only the milk and left the water, milk standing for spirit and water for matter. Anagrammatically, hamsa

"is equal to a-ham-sa, . . . meaning 'I am he' (in English), while divided in still another way it will read 'So-ham,' 'he (is) I' -- Soham being equal to Sah, 'he,' and aham, 'I,' or 'I am he.' In this alone is contained the universal mystery, the doctrine of the identity of man's essence with god-essence, for him who understands the language of wisdom. Hence the glyph of, and the allegory about, Kalahansa (or hamsa), and the name given to Brahma neuter (later on, to the male Brahma) of 'Hansa-Vahana,' he who uses the Hansa as his vehicle. The same word may be read 'Kalaham-sa' or 'I am I' in the eternity of Time, answering to the Biblical, or rather Zoroastrian 'I am that I am" (SD 1:78).

(See also: Hammer of Creation, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

hamsa: (Sanskrit) "Swan;" more accurately, the highflying wild goose Anser indicus.

The vahana, vehicle, of the God Brahma. It has various meanings, including Supreme Soul and individual soul. It is a noble symbol for an adept class of renunciates (paramahamsa) - winging high above the mundane, driving straight toward the goal, or of the discriminating yogi who - like the graceful swan said to be able to extract milk from water - can see the Divine and leave the rest.

The hamsa mantra indicates the sound made by the exhalation (ha) and inhalation (sa) of the breath.

See: paramahamsa.

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

Paranirvana, Parinirvana (Sanskrit) [from pari + nirvana blown out from nir out + the verbal root va to blow]

That which is beyond nirvana; the period of kosmic rest (mahapralaya or Great Night of Brahma), lasting 311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years. Likewise called the great Day Be-With-Us; the Egyptian Day of Come-To-Us; and the Christian Day of the Last Judgment which, however, has been materialized by modern dogmatism.

"The day when 'the spark will re-become the Flame (man will merge into his Dhyan Chohan) myself and others, thyself and me,' as the Stanza has it -- means this: In Paranirvana -- when Pralaya will have reduced not only material and psychical bodies, but even the spiritual Ego(s) to their original principle -- the Past, Present, and even Future Humanities, like all things, will be one and the same. Everything will have re-entered the Great Breath. In other words, everything will be 'merged in Brahma' or the divine unity" (SD 1:265-6).

The kosmic pralaya is analogous to the death of the human being. The spiritual monads are drawn into higher ranges of being, to live and evolve, while the lower elements or bodies of the universe disperse as does our physical and lower psychological vehicles after death.

See also PARANISHPANNA

(See also: Paranirvana, Parinirvana, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Vach vac (Sanskrit) Sound, voice, word, the mystic sound (svara) or essence of spirit of the divine creative activity, the vehicle of divine thought; and of this the Word is the manifested expression. Vach, or its equivalents in other cultures, is always considered feminine. Cosmically she is the carrier or mother of the Third Logos -- the Word or Verbum -- because of carrying perpetually within her the essence of divine thought, the First Logos; and hence Vach is the Second Logos, equivalent to the early Christian Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost -- later transmogrified into a cosmic male. In Hindu mythology Brahma separates his body into masculine and feminine, the feminine becoming Vach, in whom he creates Viraj, who is himself again Brahma. Here we have the three Logoi: Brahma, the First Logos, the divine thought; Vach, the Second Logos, the divine voice; and Viraj, the Third Logos, or the divine word, the philosophical equivalent of the Son of the Christian Trinity.

Hence Vach is associated with the work of creation, with the prajapatis. She calls forth the mayavi form of the universe out of abstract space or Chaos, of which the first cosmogonical stage are the seven cosmic elements. Mystically Vach is masculine and feminine at will, as in the Hebrew Genesis Eve is with Adam. It is through her power that Brahma produced the universe. Blavatsky points out that Brahma produced through Vach in the same way that the incomprehensible assumes a tangible form through speech, words, and numbers (cf SD 1:430). Vach through her productive powers produced what Pythagoras called the music of the spheres. The teachings of Pythagoras also speak of the hierarchies of the heavenly host as numbered and expressed in numbers. Vach is equivalent, in some aspects, to Isis, Aditi, mulaprakriti, the waters of space, chaos, and the Qabbalistic Sephirah.

"Whether as Aditi, or the divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of the seven sons: the 'Angels of the Face,' of the 'Deep,' or the 'Great Green One' of the 'Book of the Dead' " (SD 1:434). These feminine logoi are all correlations of light, sound, and ether. In many aspects Vach approaches Kwan-yin, she of the melodious voice. Sarasvati, the goddess of divine wisdom, is a later form of Vach. The Hebrew Lahgash is nearly identical in meaning with Vach as the hidden power of the mantras, the divine sound. "But Vach being also spoken of as the daughter of Daksha -- 'the god who lives in all the Kalpas' -- her Mayavic character is thereby shown: during the pralaya she disappears, absorbed in the one, all-devouring Ray" (SD 1:430-1).

Vach is also called Savitri (the generatrix), the mother of the gods and of all living. She is identical in the human range with Eve, who is also called the mother of all living. Ila or Ida is but the second repetition of Vach in a different period of cosmogony. Vach refers to the cosmic and divine theogony, while Ila refers to a later period in the earth's history when the physiological transformation of the sexes took place during the third root-race. In this last sense Vach corresponds with Eve.

Vach is often called Sandhya (twilight), also Satarupa (a hundred forms) to describe the feminine logos unfolded into the ten planes and subplanes of the universe. The cow is a symbol of Vach, for the cow has always been the emblem of the passive generative power of nature.

Vach is also mystic speech "by whom Occult Knowledge and Wisdom are communicated to man, and thus Vach is said to have 'entered the Rishis.' . . . she is called 'the mother of the Vedas,' 'since it was through her power (as mystic speech) that Brahma revealed them . . . " (SD 1:430). The Rig-Veda and Upanishads give four kinds of Vach -- vaikhari, madhyama, pasyanti, and para -- corresponding to the four cosmic principles: the physical universe, the light of the Logos, the Logos itself, and parabrahman or the infinite.

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

Rudra, Rudras (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root rud to weep]

A class of monads or dhyani-chohans belonging to the upper worlds of nature, whether of our solar system or planetary chain; virtually identical to the higher manasaputras or kumaras who refuse to create, i.e., imbody themselves in the then unprepared human vehicles. Certain individuals from among the highest of the class, however, were among the very first to obey karmic law, and they incarnated in chosen human vehicles of the third root-race during this present fourth round. The rudras are therefore equivalent to the solar lhas or pitris as contrasted with the lower four classes of monads, the lunar pitris.

The rudras are highly intellectual and spiritual entities, having through previous evolutionary periods attained self-consciousness by individually passing through the equivalent of the human kingdom. The rudras represent an aggregate of entities in the primary formation of worlds, as well as the intellectually informing principles of man. They are mythologically said to be at war with the shadowy entities and powers of the lower spheres, and hence are sometimes spoken of as the destroyers of outward forms. The Vishnu-Purana states that "at the end of a thousand periods of four ages, which complete a day of Brahma, the earth is almost exhausted. The eternal Avyaya (Vishnu) assumes then the character of Rudra (the destroyer, Siva) and re-unites all his creatures to himself. He enters the Seven rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the globe; he causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth. . . . Thus fed with abundant moisture the seven solar rays become seven suns by dilation, and they finally set the world on fire. Hari, the destroyer of all things, who is 'the flame of time, Kalagni,' finally consumes the Earth. Then Rudra, becoming Janardana, breathes clouds and rain" (6:3).

The rudras here are collectively spoken of as an individual equivalent to Siva, who has always been recognized as the patron or chief of initiates and of occult training. He is often spoken of as the destroyer, whereas regenerator would be a better term. Rudra is truly the Siva of the Rig-Veda, and in many respects the Agni of later writings. Like Siva, Rudra is a beneficent deity (because regenerating), and a mistaken maleficent deity (because destroying falsehoods and imperfections at the same time). As the beneficent one or spiritual healer, Rudra is the higher human ego aspiring to its own spiritual pure state; and as the destroyer he is the same imprisoned higher human ego whose war against imperfection, evil, and sin make him the "roarer" or the "terrible."

Rudra is sometimes called the father of the maruts or Vedic storm gods. "To receive a name Rudra is said to have wept for it. Brahma called him Rudra; but he wept seven times more and so obtained seven other names -- of which he uses one during each 'period' " (SD 2:615n). The various names refer to the seven subordinate classes of the one generalized class.

"With regard to the origin of Rudra, it is stated in several Puranas that his (spiritual) progeny, created in him by Brahma, was not confined to either the seven Kumaras or the eleven Rudras, etc., but 'comprehends infinite numbers of beings in person and equipments like their (virgin) father. Alarmed at their fierceness, numbers, and immortality, Brahma desires his son Rudra to form creatures of a different and mortal nature.' Rudra refusing to create, desists, etc., hence Rudra is the first rebel" (SD 2:613n).

Thus the rudras are the sevenfold manifestations of Rudra-Siva, the seven subclasses of which Rudra-Siva is the hierarch; or again the seven intelligent subhierarchies of intellectual character in nature which reform or destroy in order to regenerate. They are also one of the classes of the "fallen" or intellectually incarnating gods, the progenitors of the true intellectual-spiritual self in man.

These extremely occult and important beings are connected with the kabeiroi because they are the intellectual offspring of these planetary deities; identical also with the 'elohim. Sometimes they are called in the ancient writings tushitas, jayas, adityas, asuras, vasus, rishis, kumaras, manus, and the spiritual rebels. They are even referred to as the ten vital breaths or pranas because these ten vital breaths are the ten varieties of intellectual energies or forces flowing from them, and which on the intellectual plane may be spoken of as the mental pranas.

(See also: Rudra, Rudras, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mind-born Born of imagination and will -- through kriyasakti, the power of thought and mind -- not begotten or produced by any physical mode of procreation. It sometimes refers to sons of will and yoga, sons of wisdom, spiritual dhyanis, sons of the prajapatis, mind-born sons of Brahma, etc.

They were the ancestors of the self-conscious human races first appearing numerously during the fourth round, and otherwise known as solar lhas, solar spirits, angishvattas, manasaputras, dhyani-chohans. They had been self-conscious men in a former embodiment of the earth-chain, and it was their lot to awaken self-conscious mind in the mankind of this round. They entered the early third root-race and awakened the intellectual fire in them.

The manasas rejected some earlier subraces as unfit vehicles for themselves, hence as refusing to "create," i.e., emanate mind from themselves to inform these unready or unevolved human vehicles. The mind-born sons of the early third root-race were the first themselves to arouse the fire of mind in the unself-conscious human vehicles, and were the highest and therefore the least affected by such lower contact. Retaining their self-consciousness in full and therefore not falling into oblivion, these were the first founders as fully self-conscious humans of the earliest groups of god-inspired men, the forerunners of what later became the ancient Mysteries. A branch of these entities has continued from immemorial time as the Great Lodge of the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion.

In Hebrew allegory the connection among the ideas associated with Jehovah is this same archaic verity which in Hebrew Qabbalistic thought is exemplified as 'Adam Qadmon; and the word transliterated as Jehovah in a collective sense refers to the Benei 'Elohim (sons of the gods).

The universe itself is, from the viewpoint of emanational evolution, the mind-born or -produced offspring or son of universal Mother Nature or the Second or Manifest-Unmanifest Logos, whose characteristics have been looked upon by mystics as feminine -- generative or productive. Virtually all peoples of antiquity trace their origin to a spiritual root, which is this Second Logos or Mother Nature manifesting through its son or the Third Logos; and various other mythoi trace their ancestry likewise to divine beings who were considered during the course of evolution at one time to have been asexual like Christian angels, and at another stage to have been bipolar in nature, or what in its physical manifestation were called hermaphrodites or androgynes.

(See also: Mind-born, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mulaprakriti mulaprakrti (Sanskrit) [from mula root + prakriti nature]

Root-nature; undifferentiated cosmic substance in its highest form, the abstract substance or essence of what later through various differentiations become the prakritis, the various forms of matter, concrete or sublimate. It is precosmic root-substance, the root-principle of the world stuff and all in the world; that aspect of parabrahman or space which underlies all the ethereally or materially objective planes or space of universal nature.

It is again unmanifested primordial stuff or substance, divine-spiritual, undifferentiated, and therefore indestructible, eternal, parentless, and abstractly the Mother -- space itself, and the vehicle, lining, or alter ego of parabrahman. It is "the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic Matter. It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense. Root-nature is also the source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter. It is the Soul, so to say, of the one infinite Spirit. The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti, and say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis of the Upadhi or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental or psychic. It is the source from which Akasa radiates" (SD 1:35).

Mulaprakriti along with parabrahman are the two aspects of the one universal principle which is unconditioned to any human conception, and similarly eternal. Parabrahman is unconditioned and undifferentiated reality, and mulaprakriti is its veil or inseparable vehicle. To the First Logos or cosmic ego emerging in parabrahman, "once this ego starts into existence as a conscious being having objective consciousness of its own, we shall have to see what the result of this objective consciousness will be with reference to the one absolute and unconditioned existence from which its starts into manifested existence.

From its objective standpoint, Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulaprakriti. . . . Parabrahmam by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of cosmic matter" (N on BG 20-1). Mulaprakriti stands in the same relation to parabrahman as the Qabbalistic Life of Space does to 'Eyn Soph; similarly on lower planes, it is what pradhana is to Brahman, or what prakriti is to Brahma.

(See also: Mulaprakriti, mulaprakrti, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)