Cause-awakened one

(Jpn.: engaku; Skt.: pratyekabuddha)

Also, self-awakened one. One who perceives the twelve-linked chain of causation, or the truth of causal relationship. Cause-awakened one also means those who, in an age when there is no Buddha, realize on their own the truth of impermanence by observing natural phenomena. Because their awakening is self-gained, cause-awakened ones are also called self-awakened ones. Together with voice-hearers, they constitute the persons of the two vehicles. Unlike bodhisattvas, they seek their own emancipation without thought of preaching for and instructing others.

The Sanskrit term pratyekabuddha means "independently enlightened one" or "individually enlightened one." In the early Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, it was rendered cause-awakened one, which implies one enlightened through perceiving causal relation ship. The Treatise on the Meaning of the Mahayana, written by Hui-yüan (523-592), describes pratyekabuddha as one who perceives the twelve-linked chain of causation or who awakens to the truth by observing natural phenomena such as the scattering of blossoms or the falling of leaves. Later the term was rendered as self-awakened one.

In The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, T'ien-t'ai (538-597) distinguishes these two types of pratyekabud-dha-cause-awakened ones and self-awakened ones. Mahayana, which upholds practice to benefit others, referred to the vehicle of pratyekabuddha, or the teaching that leads one to the state of pratyekabuddha, as Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle), because it concerns only one's own salvation. The realm of cause-awakened ones is also viewed as a condition of life, in which one perceives the transience of life in the six paths and strives to free oneself from the six paths by seeking eternal truth through one's own effort. This realm or state constitutes the eighth of the Ten Worlds.

(See also: Cause-awakened one, Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment Dictionary)

Ambrosia (Greek) (from ambrotos immortal from a not + mortos or brotos mortal; cf Sanskrit amrita from a not + the verbal root mri to die; Latin immortalus from in not + mors death)

In Classical myths variously the food, drink, or unguent of the gods or divine wisdom, connected with nectar; anything that confers or promotes immortality. Equivalent to the Sanskrit amrita and soma and the northern European mead. In a Chinese allegory, the flying Dragon drinks of ambrosia and falls to earth with his host.

The laws of evolution entail a so-called curse or fall upon virtually all the hosts of monads frequently called angels, whereby they are cast down to the nether pole and undergo peregrinations in the realms of matter; in the case of many such "fallen angels," this involves imbodiment or incarnation on earth. Man himself at a stage of his evolution experiences a similar "descent" and speeding-up, due to the impulses of the immortal urge within his breast to grow, progress, evolve, and become cognizant of larger reaches of truth. This is evident in the highly mystical Hebrew story of the forbidden Tree and in the various legends pertaining to soma in Hindu literature.

Yet on the upward arc of an evolutionary cycle, partaking of this sacred ambrosial food signifies initiation, the partaking by the initiant in the Mysteries of the "drink" of spiritual immortality. This drink is symbolized by the cup and its contained liquid, but actually is the receiving into the consciousness from the inner nature of the life-giving streams, the draught of everlasting life, or the elixir of life.

After partaking of this ambrosial elixir, brought about by lives of selflessness and by final initiation, the adept learns to live in the minor and intermediate spheres of the solar system as a fully self-conscious co-laborer with the gods in their cosmic work. Such are the higher nirmanakayas, true buddhas, etc.

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

Annihilation Complete destruction of consciousness is an impossibility in nature, for there can be no annihilation of the consciousness which makes the essential person. The universe is built of illimitable hosts of evolving entities existing in all-various grades of evolutionary unfoldment. All are passing through a continual series of changes -- comprising the shedding of sheath after sheath -- involving their essential consciousness.

These entities continuously modify the vehicles through which they express themselves on the various cosmic planes. When the elements forming a compound become dissociated, the compound as such ceases to exist, at least temporarily; but there still exists that which brought the elements into the compound union.

The human personality is constantly changing, even during a single life, and even more greatly through rebirth; indeed, the higher states of individualized consciousnesses, though they may endure for periods so vast as to seem to be everlasting, must disappear for a time during the kosmic pralaya. Even then, when the physical, psychic, and spiritual vehicles are reduced to unity, it is not annihilation any more than a person in dreamless sleep is annihilated while his higher self is in its original state of absolute consciousness, though it leaves no impression on the sleeping and therefore unconscious brain. "Nor is the individuality -- nor even the essence of the personality, if any be left behind -- lost, because re-absorbed. For, however limitless -- from a human standpoint -- the paranirvanic state, it has yet a limit in Eternity. Once reached, the same monad will re-emerge therefrom, as a still higher being, on a far higher plane, to recommence its cycle of perfected activity" (SD 1:266).

Nirvana, then, does not mean utter annihilation, nor did the Buddha teach utter annihilation or wiping out. Thus fundamental consciousness is uninterrupted from eternity to eternity, although undergoing continual change. But such change is not a difference of essence, but a continuously enlarging and ever greater unfolding of the inner essence.

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

Lost Word According to the Masonic ritual of the third or Master Mason's degree, the Word which was in the possession of the three Grand Masters of the Craft, King Solomon, Hiram of Tyre, and Hiram Abif, and could be given only when the three were "present and agreed," was said to have been lost on the death of Hiram Abif, in consequence of which it was decreed that until the True Word was again found, a Substitute Word should be used.

By the death of Hiram Abif not only was the Master's True Word lost, but it was discovered that there were no plans upon the Trestle-Board for continuing the work of the building of the Temple. This gives a clue to the meaning of the Lost Word which "ought to stand as 'lost words' and lost secrets, in general, for that which is termed the lost 'Word' is no word at all, as in the case of the Ineffable Name" (TG 191). Communicated to man in the childhood of the human race, these lost secrets were passed on from hierophant to hierophant in turn.

Every true Mason is in search of the Lost Word, the secret knowledge or gupta-vidya, yet the lost secrets of the Royal Art can never be communicated to, because they cannot be comprehended by, one who does not recognize and in degree at least realize his own inner divinity, the immanent christos or buddha within, which is his true self; i.e., through initiation become, actually and in fact, a Christos, an Osiris, a Hiram Abif. Every degree of initiation into the Mysteries has its secrets, its Word, its sacred formula, which may be communicated only to those who, according to Masonic ritual "are duly and truly prepared, worthy and well qualified," else the penalty is death to the one so revealing the Word or secrets.

The mythos of Orpheus and Eurydice is a Mystery-story of the loss of the Word -- Eurydice being a personification of the esoteric wisdom. The recovery of the Word is possible only to him who, during initiation, descends into the Underworld fully prepared, and who fulfills the inescapable conditions for return therefrom in possession of the Word, as was Orpheus through his marriage with Eurydice. Should he like Orpheus lose it -- fail to bring Eurydice back with him -- such loss brings inevitable death, or at least a rupture between the personal man and his higher spiritual nature, so that the personal man, unprotected by his spiritual nature, becomes the prey of remorse and of the lower terrestrial passions, the Bacchantes, and is finally slain by them.

But this is not necessarily final failure, for in the next or in a succeeding life he may again begin his search for the Word, and if undaunted by obstacles, even by repeated failures, he continue in his search, he may and probably will ultimately find it.

(See also: Lost Word, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Turiya (Sanskrit) The fourth; the state of consciousness which the Buddhas and Christs, and occasionally great but less evolved people, reach in their times of spiritual ecstasy -- high samadhi. It is the fourth state of the famous Taraka-Raja-Yoga system in India, equivalent to a raising and temporary coalescence of the human consciousness with the atman, otherwise called nirvana. In this turiya state the divine self is perceived by the individual entitative self as its parent; and the atman thus is realized to be in its essence free of any mayavi distinction from its universal divine source. Turiya, the highest of all the states into which the consciousness may cast itself or be cast, "which is a practical annihilation of the ordinary human consciousness, is an attainment of union with atma-buddhi overshadowing or working through the higher manas. Actually, therefore, it is becoming at one with the monadic essence" (OG 72).

Turiya is a state or condition of consciousness which to the eye of an observer seems to be that of the deepest abstraction from things of the material world -- that state which to most people would seem to be a complete or perfect trance, physically speaking. The higher consciousness of the human being, often unconsciously to the brain-mind consciousness, enters into turiya and brings about for the physical person a condition of perfectly dreamless sleep; however, it is a state of the highest or most exalted spiritual and intellectual activity.

"In Pralaya, or the intermediate period between two manvantaras, it [the monad] loses its name, as it loses it when the real ONE self of man merges into Brahm in cases of high Samadhi (the Turiya state) or final Nirvana; 'when the disciple' in the words of Sankara, 'having attained that primeval consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the atma just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on)' " (SD 1:570).

See also JAGRAT; SUSHUPTI; SVAPNA

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

Shamanism Generally regarded as spirit worship, commonly and often unjustly classed with the religions of primitive peoples referring particularly to the beliefs of wandering tribes in Siberia, Tartary, and Monglia. Belief in a supreme being is a prominent feature but this supreme being must be propitiated through secondary powers, both beneficent and malevolent, by means of intermediaries -- priests or shamans.

Blavatsky had contacted several shamans and wrote concerning it: "What is now generally known of Shamanism is very little; and that has been perverted, like the rest of the non-Christian religions. It is called the 'heathenism' of Mongolia, and wholly without reason, for it is one of the oldest religions of India. It is spirit-worship, or belief in the immortality of the souls, and that the latter are still the same men they were on earth, though their bodies have lost their objective form, and man has exchanged his physical for a spiritual nature. In its present shape, it is an offshoot of primitive theurgy, and a practical blending of the visible with the invisible world." "The true Shamanism . . . can no more be judged by its degenerated scions among the Shamans of Siberia, then the religion of Gautama-Buddha can be interpreted by the fetishism of some of his followers in Siam and Burmah. It is in the chief lamaseries of Mongolia and Thibet that it has taken refuge" (IU 2:615-6).

"Its followers have neither altars nor idols, and it is upon the authority of a Shaman priest that we state that their true rites, which they are bound to perform only once a year, on the shortest day of winter, cannot take place before any stranger to their faith. . . . Whenever they assemble to worship, it is always in an open space, or a high hill, or in the hidden depths of a forest -- in this reminding us of the old Druidical rites. Their ceremonies upon the occasion of births, deaths, and marriages are but trifling parts of their worship" (IU 2:624).

(See also: Shamanism, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Nirmanikaya (Sanskrit) [from nirmana forming, creating + kaya body, robe, vehicle]

Appearance body; the lowest of the trikaya, followed by sambhogakaya and dharmakaya. A state assumed by a bodhisattva who, instead of entering nirvana, remains on earth to help inferior beings. "A Nirmanakaya is a complete man possessing all the principles of his constitution except the Linga-sarira, and its accompanying physical body. He is one who lives on the plane of being next superior to the physical plane, and his purpose in so doing is to save men from themselves by being with them, and by continuously instilling thoughts of self-sacrifice, of self-forgetfulness, of spiritual and moral beauty, of mutual help, of compassion, and of pity" (OG 114). Beings in this state make a wall of protection around mankind, which shields humanity from evils.

There are two kinds of nirmanakayas: the natural is the condition of a high initiate who reaches a stage of bliss second only to nirvana; the assumed is the self-sacrifice of one who voluntarily gives up the absolute nirvana in order to help and guide humanity. The nirmanakaya, then,

"is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his physical he would appear in his astral body -- having in addition all the knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he proceeds on the Path. Having reached the goal and refused its fruition, he remains on Earth, as an Adept; and when he dies, instead of going into Nirvana, he remains in that glorious body he has woven for himself, invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it. . . . to be enabled to help humanity, an Adept who has won the right to Nirvana, 'renounces the Dharmakaya body' in mystic parlance; keeps, of the Sambhogakaya, only the great and complete knowledge, and remains in his Nirmanakaya body. The esoteric school teaches that Gautama Buddha with several of his Arhats is such a Nirmanakaya . . ." (VS 96-7).

See also TRAILOKYA; TRIKAYA; TRIRATNA; TRISARANA

(See also: Nirmanikaya, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Jesus (Latin of Greek Iesous from Hebrew Yeshua` contraction of Yehoshua` a proper name meaning savior or helper, or that which is spacious or widespread)

Indubitably a historical character, whose life as narrated in the Gospels is pure allegory, a story of the initiation chamber. There is a story current from medieval times among the Jews, mentioned in the Sepher Toledoth Yeshua` (Book of the Generations of Jesus), to the effect that the Jesus of the Gospels was a Jehoshua ben Panthera, a Jewish adept living about 100 BC. Jesus illustrates the typical sequence in occult history: 1) the coming of a leader or teacher to a people needing to be led and taught; 2) his passing, followed by the adoration, even worship, of his followers; 3) the gradual transformation of historic facts into more or less embroidered legends or mythological tales, which in time cluster so thickly about his memory that his identity as a person, and even his name, are lost; 4) the myth, allegory, or legend; and 5) the efforts of other, later teachers to explain, interpret, and reinstate this earlier teacher, now a purely mythic figure or else materialized and misunderstood.

The Christian Gospels appear to have originated in mystery-dramas, beautiful and often sublime in their inner significances, in which were depicted the experiences of the neophyte and adept in his union with the Logos, and hence such unified individual was called a Logos incarnate as a man, the Logos itself being variously named as Christos or Dionysos, and to have been by stages adapted and given a semi-historical guise, as has happened in other instances besides the Christian mythos. Christ therefore, or the Christos, is not a particular man or an especial incarnation of divinity, but a generic term for the divine as incarnated in all human beings, although Jesus was undoubtedly the name of this great Jewish initiate-avatara as an individual. Hence this universal allegory in its Christian version has a true historical peg to hang from; for there did appear, sometime before the Christian era, a special cyclic messenger who was due to come on the change of the ecliptic point from one sign of the celestial zodiac to another, from the sign of Aries to Pisces. In theosophical literature, Jesus is considered to be an avatara, the messenger for the European Messianic or Piscean cycle. As such, Jesus represented a ray sent from the Wondrous Being or spiritual hierarch of the earth into the soul of a pure human being, while the racial buddha, Gautama Buddha, supplied the intermediate or psychological nature in this act of white magic.

"But it is probable that the theosophic effort which Jesus attempted to initiate did not endure for fifty years after his death. Almost immediately after his passing, his disciples, all half-instructed, and in some cases almost illiterate, men . . . foisted upon the world of their time the forms and beliefs of early Christianity; and had there been nothing but these, that religious system had not lived another fifty years. But what happened? During the oncoming of the dark cycle after Jesus (which began as before said about the time of Pythagoras), the last few rays from the setting sun of the ancient light shone feebly in the minds of certain of these Christian Fathers, Clement of Alexandria for one, and Origen of Alexandria for another, and in one or two more like these, who had been initiated at least in the lowest of some of the then degenerate pagan Mysteries; and these men entered into the Christian Church and introduced some poor modicum of that light, . . . which they still cherished; and these rays they derived mainly from the Neo-pythagorean and the Neoplatonic system" (Fund 486-7).

The Hebrew name Jah or Jehovah became identified in the mind of Christians with the name of Jesus, although Jesus never was in any wise identical with the Jewish Jehovah, but was identified in initiation through his own inner god or Father in Heaven, and the Jewish Jehovah mystically was the regent of the planet Saturn.

The first three letters in Greek make I.H.S. placed at the head of representations of the crucified Jesus, often said to stand for Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus the savior of men) or In hoc signo (in this sign), with reference to the alleged vision of a cross of the Emperor Constantine. Jesus is a form of a worldwide mystery-name, whose importance was its meaning, usually given as a three-letter monogram, analogous to the Sanskrit Aum. We find it in the Greek Gnostic Iao and variants are common in ancient Greece, such as Iasios, Iasion, Iason, Iasos; and initiates were known as Iasides or sons of Iaso.

See also AVATARA

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

Upanishad (Sanskrit). Translated as "esoteric doctrine ", or interpretation of the Vedas by the Vedanta methods.

The third division of the Vedas appended to the Brahmanas and regarded as a portion of Sruti or "revealed" word. They are, however, as records, far older than the Brahmanas the exception of the two, still extant, attached to the Rig -Veda of the Aitareyins.

The term Upanishad is explained by the Hindu pundits as "that which destroys ignorance, and thus produces liberation" of the spirit, through the knowledge of the supreme though hidden truth; the same, therefore, as that which was hinted at by Jesus, when he is made to say, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free " (John viii. 32). It is from these treatises of the Upanishads - themselves the echo of the primeval Wisdom-Religion?that the Vedanta system of philosophy has been developed. (See "Vedanta".)

Yet old as the Upanishads may be, the Orientalists will not assign to the oldest of them more than an antiquity of 600 years B.C. The accepted number of these treatises is 150, though now no more than about twenty are left unadulterated. They treat of very abstruse, metaphysical questions, such as the origin of the Universe; the nature and the essence of the Unmanifested Deity and the manifested gods the connection, primal and ultimate, of spirit and matter ; the universality of mind and the nature of the human Soul and Ego.

The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism, as they show no preference for, nor do they uphold, the superiority of the Brahmans as a caste. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste, the Kshatriya, or warrior class, who are exalted in the oldest of them. As stated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone’s History of India -  - "they breathe a freedom of spirit unknown to any earlier work except the Rig Veda. . . The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils." The " Kshatriya Kings" were in the olden times, like the King Hierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledge and wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of the primordial divine Instructors - the Dhyani Buddhas or Kumaras.

There was a time, eons before the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads were written, when there was on earth but one "lip ", one religion and one science, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion and Truth. This was before the fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations of many languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentional deception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty and selfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments.

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

Hair. Occult philosophy considers the hair (whether human or animal) as the natural receptacle and retainer of the vital essence which often escapes with other emanations from the body. It is closely connected with many of the brain functions - for instance memory.

With the ancient Israelites the cutting of the hair and beard was a sign of defilement, and "the Lord said unto Moses. . . They shall not make baldness upon their head", etc. (Lev. XX1., 1-5.) "Baldness", whether natural or artificial, was a sign of calamity, punishment, or grief, as when Isaiah (iii., 24) enumerates, "instead of well-set hair baldness", among the evils that are ready to befall the chosen people. And again, "On all their heads baldness and every beard cut" (Ibid. xv., 2). The Nazarite was ordered to let his hair and beard grow, and never to permit a razor to touch them. With the Egyptians and Buddhists it was only the initiated priest or ascetic to whom life is a burden, who shaved.

 The Egyptian priest was supposed to have become master of his body, and hence shaved his head for cleanliness; yet the Hierophants wore their hair long. The Buddhist still shaves his head to this day - as sign of scorn for life and health. Yet Buddha, after shaving his hair when he first became a mendicant, let it grow again and is always represented with the top-knot of a Yogi. The Hindu priests and Brahmins, and almost all the castes, shave the rest of the head but leave a long lock to grow from the centre of the crown. The ascetics of India wear their hair long, and so do the war-like Sikhs, and almost all the Mongolian peoples. At Byzantium and Rhodes the shaving of the beard was prohibited by law, and in Sparta the cutting of the beard was a mark of slavery and servitude.

Among the Scandinavians, we are told, it was considered a disgrace, "a mark of infamy", to cut off the hair. The whole population of the island of Ceylon (the Buddhist Singhalese) wear their hair long.

So do the Russian, Greek and Armenian clergy, and monks. Jesus and the Apostles are always represented with their hair long, but fashion in Christendom proved stronger than Christianity, the old ecclesiastical rules (Constit. Apost. lib. I. C. 3) enjoining the clergy "to wear their hair and beards long" (See Riddle’s Ecclesiastical Antiquities.)

The ‘Templars were commanded to wear their beards long. Samson wore his hair long, and the biblical allegory shows that health and strength and the very life are connected with the length of the hair. If a cat is shaved it will die in nine cases out of ten. A dog whose coat is not interfered with lives longer and is more intelligent than one whose coat is shaven.

Many old people as they lose their hair lose much of their memory and become weaker. While the life of the Yogis is proverbially long, the Buddhist priests (of Ceylon and elsewhere) are not generally long-lived. Mussulmen shave their heads but wear their beards; and as their head is always covered, the danger is less.

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

Avatar, Avatara (Sanskrit) (from ava down + the verbal root tri to cross over, pass)

That which passes down or descends; the passing down of a celestial energy or an individualized complex of celestial energies -- a celestial being -- in order to overshadow and illuminate a human being who, at the time of such connection of divinity with matter, possesses no human soul karmically destined to be the inner master of the body thus born. "Hence an Avatara is one who has a combination of three elements in his being: an inspiring divinity; a highly evolved intermediate nature or soul, which is loaned to him and is the channel of that inspiring divinity; and a pure, clean, physical body" (OG 16).

Sankaracharya, Krishna, Lao-tzu, and Jesus were avataras in differing degrees, of somewhat differing structure. There was a divine ray which came down at the cyclic time of each of these incarnations, and the connecting link or the flame of mind was provided in each case by a member of the Hierarchy of Compassion. Krishna says, "I incarnate in period after period in order to destroy wickedness and reestablish righteousness" (BG ch 4, sl 8). Krishna here represents the Logos or logoic ray which "on our plane would be utterly helpless, inactive, and have no possible means of communication with us and our sphere, because that logoic ray lacks an intermediate and fully conscious vehicle or carrier, i.e., it lacks the intermediate or highly ethereal mechanism, the spiritual-human in us, which in ordinary man is but slightly active. An avatara takes place when a direct ray from the Logos enters into, fully inspires, and illuminates, a human being, through the intermediary of a bodhisattva who has incarnated in that human being, thereby supplying the fit, ready, and fully conscious intermediate vehicle or carrier" (Fund 276).

Blavatsky says that "rebirths may be divided into three classes: the divine incarnations called Avataras; those of Adepts who give up Nirvana for the sake of helping on humanity -- the Nirmanakayas; and the natural succession of rebirths for all -- the common law. The Avatara . . . is a descent of the manifested Deity -- whether under the specific name of Siva, Vishnu, or Adi-Buddha -- into an illusive form of individuality, an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is objective, but it is not so in sober fact. That illusive form having neither past nor future, because it had neither previous incarnation nor will have subsequent rebirths, has naught to do with Karma, which has therefore no hold on it" (BCW 14:373-4).

Vishnu as the supporter of life is the source of one line of avataras so often spoken of in Hindu legends. These ten avataras of Vishnu are: 1) Matsya the fish; 2) Kurma the tortoise; 3) Varaha the boar; 4) Narasimha the man-lion (last of animal stage); 5) Vamana the dwarf (first step toward the human form); 6) Parasu-Rama, Rama with the axe (a hero); 7) Rama-chandra, the hero of the Ramayana; 8) Krishna, son of Devaki; 9) Gautama Buddha; and 10) Kalki, the avatara who is to appear at the end of the kali yuga mounted on a white horse, inaugurating a new reign of righteousness on earth. A horse has from immemorial time been a symbol of the spiritual as well as vital energies of the inner solar orb. Hence, when the next avatara is said to come riding a white horse, the meaning is that he comes infilled with the solar light or splendor -- an avatara or manifestation of a spiritual and intellectual solar energy which will carry all before it on earth.

Brahmanical esotericism never taught that divinity descended into the animals as given in the legends. These names of different animals and men, like all zoological mythology, were chosen because of certain characteristic attributes. They actually represent ten degrees of advancing knowledge and growth in understanding -- ten degrees in the esoteric cycle -- as well as different evolutionary stages through which monads break through the lower spheres in order to express themselves on higher rungs of the evolutionary ladder of life. These names also represent the technical names given to neophytes in esoteric schools. The lowest chela was called a fish, the chela who had taken the second degree successfully was called a tortoise, and so forth, till the highest of all was called an incarnation of the sun -- a white horse in Hindu legend.

These avataric descents do not appertain solely to a race, root-race, globe, chain, or solar system, because nature repeats itself by analogy, and the same line of enlarging understanding of evolutionary development takes place in all the spheres mutatis mutandis. Thus these avataric descents can be ascribed to the solar system, the planetary chain as a whole, a globe, a root-race, and even to a subrace.

(See also: Avatar, Avatara, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Immortality That which is not subject to death, deathlessness. Death is the dissolution of a compound entity, where the compound itself ceases to exist, though its elements do not perish. Nor does the ensouling entity perish because of the dissolution of its physical, astral, or other vehicle. Hence in a restricted sense certain elements can be said to be immortal, relative to the compound they form.

Theosophy teaches the constant rebirths of the identic spiritual-intellectual individuality throughout the manvantara; and that, even after union into paranirvana, the individuality, precisely because it is then on its own higher plane or sphere of life, is not lost and will reemerge at a new manvantara to pursue its own particular cycle. This eternal monad, the spiritual-intellectual individuality, is the real and truly immortal essence of the person; and within this supreme cycle of immortality are a series of less immortalities, each representing the life cycle of one of the imbodiments of the monad. Death therefore of necessity becomes a recurrent process, precisely like birth or rebirth, and of many degrees, and simply means the dissolution of some group of lower sheaths enclosing the individual in imbodiment.

Viewing the question from the consciousness aspect, death means the exchange of one mode of consciousness for others. We cannot say offhand that we are either mortal or immortal, since we contain various elements of both kinds. The essence of the individuality is unconditionally immortal, its sheaths or bodies are mortal in various and relative degrees.

Immortality is conditional for the human soul: if it aspires to its inner god and allies itself therewith, the human soul becomes immortal because it is at one with its spiritual parent, the upper triad or monad. But if the personal or human soul refuse to recognize its spiritual essence and allies itself with increasing fullness with the complex compound of the lower human nature, it loses its chance of immortality and becomes but a psychological mortal compound itself.

The Buddha's statement that "nothing composite endures and consequently that as man is a composite entity there is in him no immortal and unchanging 'soul,' is the key. The 'soul' of man is changing from instant to instant -- learning, growing, expanding, evolving -- so that at no two consecutive seconds of time or of experience is it the same. Therefore it is not immortal. For immortality means enduring continually as you are. If you evolve you change, and therefore you cannot be immortal in the part which evolves, because you are growing into something greater" (FSO 385). In this sense, portions of an entity may endure for long periods of time, and thus be called immortal; but they are not immortal in the sense of continuing to exist unchanged or in a state identical to what they are now.

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

Nirmanakaya (Sanskrit). Something entirely different in esoteric philosophy from the popular meaning attached to it, and from the fancies of the Orientalists.

Some call the Nirmanakaya body "Nirvana with remains" (Schlagintweit, etc.) on the supposition, probably, that it is a kind of Nirvanic condition during which consciousness and form are retained. Others say that it is one of the Trikaya (three bodies), with the "power of assuming any form of appearance in order to propagate Buddhism" (Eitel’s idea); again, that "it is the incarnate avatara of a deity" (ibid.), and so on.

Occultism, on the other hand, says:that Nirmanakaya, although meaning literally a transformed "body", is a state. The form is that of the adept or yogi who enters, or chooses, that post mortem condition in preference to the Dharmakaya or absolute Nirvanic state. He does this because the latter kaya separates him for ever from the world of form, conferring upon him a state of selfish bliss, in which no other living being can participate, the adept being thus precluded from the possibility of helping humanity, or even devas.

As a Nirmanakaya, however, the man leaves behind him only his physical body, and retains every other "principle" save the Kamic - for he has crushed this out for ever from his nature, during life, and it can never resurrect in his post mortem state. Thus, instead of going into selfish bliss, he chooses a life of self-sacrifice, an existence which ends only with the life-cycle, in order to be enabled to help mankind in an invisible yet most effective manner. (See The Voice of the Silence, third treatise, "The Seven Portals".) Thus a Nirmanakaya is not, as popularly believed, the body "in which a Buddha or a Bodhisattva appears on earth", but verily one, who whether a Chutuktu or a Khubilkhan, an adept or a yogi during life, has since become a member of that invisible Host which ever protects and watches over Humanity within Karmic limits.

 Mistaken often for a "Spirit", a Deva, God himself, &c., a Nirmanakaya is ever a protecting, compassionate, verily a guardian angel, to him who becomes worthy of his help. Whatever objection may be brought forward against this doctrine; however much it is denied, because, forsooth, it has never been hitherto made public in Europe and therefore since it is unknown to Orientalists, it must needs be "a myth of modern invention" - no one will be bold enough to say that this idea of helping suffering mankind at the price of one’s own almost interminable self-sacrifice, is not one of the grandest and noblest that was ever evolved from human brain.

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

DEVACHAN

The Land where the Gods are reborn. Life's threshold, located between the manvataras and between earth-lives. The higher realm above the astral (Skt. and Tibetan deva, "light" + chan, "dwelling place"). Madame Blavatsky, in writing of the realm of Devachan and the "wheatfields of Aanroo", is careful to point out that Manas splits here, after death, between the higher and lower minds. Only the higher mind remains. The lower, self-directed mind goes with the kama-rupa to the "Abode of Shells", or the place of the Hebrew Qlipoth. Our "I" or "atman" (with small a) rejoins that spiritual part of itself that is not incarnated, and as "Atman (large A), it proceeds on through the aionic planets. According to HPB, in Devachan we relive the totality of our past lives and re-experience our "enduring selfhood". We relive the trans-personal "I" which our labors, filtered through numberless incarnations, have made of the monadic essence which we originally introduced into form. The visualized solar system is the materialistic waste of an as-above-so-below operation. Hence all archetypes and ideas ultimately surface to the material world. Here we blueprint all the evolutions and involutions ("Not the One in many, but the oneness of the Many"). Rulers of these archetype-beings along with their human evolution make up the Dhyan-Choans, gods or "contemplative lords".

There are rare beings who sacrifice their rest, Devachan or Nirvana to remain earthbound in continual rebirth out of compassion for mankind. Animals, though their astral bodies possess some temporary survival potential, have no ego-manas, hence no Devachan. The animal monad can reincarnate only as a higher species. By the same token, HPB states (Secret Doctrine), "Eastern philosophy rejects the Western theological dogma of a newly-created soul for every baby born, as being as unphilosophical as it is impossible in the economy of nature. There must be a limited number of monads growing..."

Prior to Zoroaster and the Forth, or present, race, there was no Devachan, but only rebirth, phoenix-like out of the ashes of the previous body. Xtianity teaches the doctrine of the Old Third Race in which there is no higher Manas and the human monad does not reincarnate until the Second Coming.

In orthodox Xtianity there is no rebirth - only literal resurrection on the Day of Judgment with Christ's return (this opening of graves does not accompany the return of Zoroaster, Kalki or the Maitreya Buddha). Also, unlike the Theosophical version of the hereafter, there is no comparable split of spirit from soul in orthodox Xtianity. Reincarnation is a Gnostic or Neoplatonic heresy (Plato called this the "Realm of Ideas").

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

Akasa (Sanskrit) (from akas to be visible, appear, shine, be brilliant)

The shining; ether, cosmic space, the fifth cosmic element. The subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space. It is not the ether of science, but the aether of the ancients, such as the Stoics, which is to ether what spirit is to matter. In the Brahmanical scriptures, akasa is used for what the Northern Buddhists call svabhavat, more mystically adi-buddhi (primeval buddhi); it is also mulaprakriti, cosmic spirit-substance, the reservoir of being and of beings. Genesis refers to it as the waters of the deep. It is universal substantial space, and mystically in its highest elements is alaya.

As universal space, it is also known as Aditi, in which lies inherent the eternal and continuously active ideation of the universe producing its ever-changing aspects on the planes of matter and objectivity; and from this ideation radiates the First Logos. This is why the Puranas state that akasa has but one attribute, namely sound, for sound is but the translated symbol of logos (speech) in its mystic sense. Akasa as primordial spatial substance is thus the upadhi (vehicle) of divine thought. Further, it is the playground of all the intelligent and semi-intelligent forces in nature, the fountainhead of all terrestrial life, and the abode of the gods.

Akasa is the noumenon and spiritual substratum of differentiated prakriti, otherwise the seven or ten prakritis, the root or roots of all in the universe. These prakritis are not merely in akasa, but are the manifestations of akasa in its various grades or degrees of evolutionary development. All the ancient nations mythologically deified akasa in one or another of its aspects and powers (cf IU 1:125 for a descriptive listing of the many names anciently used for akasa). It is the indispensable agent in all religious or profane magic: occult electricity, the universal solvent, in another aspect kundalini. "Akasa is the mysterious fluid termed by scholastic science, 'the all-pervading ether'; it enters into all the magical operations of nature, and produces mesmeric, magnetic, and spiritual phenomena. As, in Syria, Palestine, and India, meant the sky, life, and the sun at the same time; the sun being considered by the ancient sages as the great magnetic well of our universe" (IU 1:140n).

Sometimes the astral light is used as a convenient but inaccurate phrase for akasa. In clarifying the difference between these Blavatsky says: "The Astral Light is that which mirrors the three higher planes of consciousness, and is above the lower, or terrestrial plane; therefore it does not extend beyond the fourth plane, where, one may say, the Akasa begins.

"There is one great difference between the Astral Light and the Akasa which must be remembered. The latter is eternal, the former is periodic. The Astral Light changes not only with the Mahamanvantaras but also with every sub-period and planetary cycle or Round. . . .

"The Akasa is the eternal divine consciousness which cannot differentiate, have qualities, or act; action belongs to that which is reflected or mirrored from it. The unconditioned and infinite can have no relation with the finite and conditioned. . . . We may compare the Akasa and the Astral Light . . . to the germ in the acorn. The latter, besides containing in itself the astral form of the future oak, conceals the germ from which grows a tree containing millions of forms. These forms are contained in the acorn potentially, yet the development of each particular acorn depends upon extraneous circumstances, physical forces, etc." (TBL 75-6; also IU 1:197).

The astral light is the tablet of memory of earth and of its child the animal-man; while akasa is the tablet of memory of the hierarchy of the planetary spirits controlling our chain of globes, and likewise of their child, each spiritual ego. The astral light is simply the dregs or lowers vehicles of akasa. Gautama Buddha held only two things as eternal: akasa and nirvana. In the Chandogya Upanishad (7:12:1-2) akasa (ether, space) is equated with Brahman.

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

Devachan bDe-ba-can de-wa-chen (Tibetan) (from bde-ba happiness + can possessing)

The happy land; exoterically, a translation of the Sanskrit sukhavati, the happy Western Realm or Pure Land of the dhyani-buddha Amitabha of East Asian Buddhism. Certain Tibetan books contain glowing descriptions of devachan, such as the Mani Kambum (or Kumbum) and the Odpagmed kyi shing kod. The term was first employed in theosophical literature by the Mahatmas in their letters to A. P. Sinnett.

In theosophy, devachan is the interlude between earth-lives during which the strictly higher human part of the human composite constitution, the reincarnating ego or higher manas, rests in perfect bliss. Recurring time periods of manifestation and quiescence are fundamental in nature, and devachan is the subjective part of the cyclic rhythm of human evolution on this globe. It corresponds, post-mortem, to the sleeping state of the imbodied, but the devachanic "dreams" are far more vivid and real than ordinary dreams; as a matter of fact, earth life is more truly a dream -- to many oftentimes a nightmare.

Devachan commences after the "second death" has taken place, when the lower quaternary of human principles (sthula-sarira, linga-sarira, prana, and kama) has separated from the reincarnating ego, which has drawn into itself the noblest thoughts, emotions, and the unrealized hopes of the past incarnation. Atma-buddhi and the more spiritual part of manas -- the reincarnating higher human ego -- become the spiritual monad for the time being, so that the human ego takes its devachan within the monad. The devachanic state applies only to the middle human principles, the purified personality. It has many degrees, and the ego finds its proper place in harmony with its karmic evolutionary stage.

Devachan is a state of peace and happiness beyond ordinary mental cognizance, and no disturbing element can enter until the reincarnating ego has finished resting and recuperating its energy for a new sojourn on earth. Because the reincarnating ego builds its own paradise out of the materials it gathered in the last incarnation, there are great varieties in the devachanic state. It is the product of every individual's unfulfilled spiritual yearnings, longings, and aspirations: since these were not fulfilled or only partly so in earth life, during the interval between earth-lives the ego seeks to fulfill them, rehearsing its spiritual yearnings which, being mental visions or pictures, are thus real in a far truer sense that anything possible on earth, where the consciousness is so thickly enshrouded with the obscuring veils of lower attractions. It is the quality of these aspirations, however, which determines the length of the devachanic state: the more lofty and spiritual the aspirations, the longer the stay. Devachan is not a state of positive action and responsibility, and therefore not a field of retribution for wrong done in the past.

The purified ego is far beyond the reach of ordinary mediums whose contact is confined to far grosser entities and planes. Occasionally a sensitive can rise to the devachanic plane and enter into a spiritual communion with an ego with whom there is close sympathy, but even this is rare, and to retain it in the memory is perhaps rarer.

In considering devachan and nirvana, devachan appertains to the higher human ego, however sublimated it may be, of any particular incarnation; whereas nirvana is a far higher state in which the personality is completely transcended and dropped, or has become so thoroughly purified that it is identified with the higher self. The devachanic state is of an illusory nature (although real enough to the devachani, just as earth life is to us); but the nirvani has attained universal consciousness and experiences reality -- sachchidananda, as expressed by the Vedantists.

Devachan and nirvana are not localities, but the states of consciousness of the beings in those respective spiritual conditions. Nirvana is the highest spiritual or superspiritual state; devachan is the intermediate or high psychological states; and avichi, popularly called the lowest of the hells, is the nether pole of the spiritual condition. These three are states of beings existing in the lokas or talas, the worlds of the cosmic egg; whereas paranirvana ("beyond nirvana," a super-nirvana) is that divine state which is virtually identification with cosmic reality.

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

Orpheus (Greek) An early religious teacher and reformer in Greece about whom clustered so many legends that in course of time his historic existence came to be disputed. He was, however, an actual historic character, probably born in Thrace about the 13th century BC, lived and taught at Pimpleia on Mount Olympus, revived the ancient wisdom-religion, reformed the then degraded popular religion, and was killed -- according to the story -- because of it.

He gathered pupils or disciples about him, and founded a famous Mystery school from which in time emanated a vast literature, now perished with the exception of the Orphic Hymns, the Lithica (a poem on the nature of precious stones), the Argonautica (which recites the connection of Orpheus with the Argonautic expedition), and some other fugitive fragments -- and in our time these are supposed to be apocryphal or of a far later date than Orpheus himself, although certainly containing Orphic elements.

There appears to have been no question in antiquity as to the actual historical existence of a godlike man who founded the Orphic religion or Mysteries, and whose work was continued by others in direct line, some of whom took his name, for no less than six different teachers by the name of Orpheus were known. When we add to the historic account the story of Orpheus as the Magician-Bard, and the legends of his divinity, his marriage with Eurydice (esoteric wisdom), his teaching, his agony and passion, and finally his martyr's death -- legends almost identical with some of those attached to world-saviors such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Mithra -- it is clear that he was not only a great teacher in himself, but an important link in the Hermetic Chain of esoteric succession.

The legendary Orpheus was the son of Apollo, god of music and the sun, and of Calliope, muse of epic poetry. With his seven-stringed lyre, the symbol of the cosmic and human constitution, he became the magical musician: rocks moved, trees bent, flowers sprang forth, mountains bowed themselves before his song. He journeyed with the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece. His mystic union with Eurydice, like the Argonautic quest, is clearly allegorical. Orpheus won his mystic bride by the power of his music and after the mystic union returned to Pimpleia on Mount Olympus where he lived and taught in a cave (recorded also of other great teachers).

When Eurydice died from the bite of a venomous snake, Orpheus visited the Underworld to reclaim her, and his descent there is a veiled record of initiation. Orpheus was permitted to take Eurydice back with him on condition that he did not look back, symbolic of a stern condition for successfully traveling the mystic path. But Orpheus did look back and his union with the esoteric doctrine, personified as Eurydice, was broken. After mourning, he withdrew to Mount Rhodope, where a group of Maenads or Bacchanals tore him limb from limb.

Blavatsky identifies Orpheus with Arjuna, son of Indra and disciple of Krishna, who taught mankind, established Mysteries, and went to Patala (hell or the Antipodes) and there marries the daughter of the naga king (TG 242).

Orpheus may be regarded both as an ideal or as a man and teacher. In either case, whether cosmic or terrestrial, Orpheus corresponds to the unceasing attempts of the higher or spiritual ego to raise the lower ego out of the toils of matter, much as in the Gnostic story the Christos attempts to raises the Sophia, his own lower self or vehicle, out of the mire and toils of the inferior worlds. If the call of impersonal compassion be so strong that it become personal, in other words if Orpheus looks back to

See and becomes attracted to the lower planes, he loses his Eurydice. Eurydice means "wide judgment," the function of reason in the human constitution. Orpheus here would represent intuition, and Eurydice the reason: manas sunk in the earthly nature is raised to wisdom through budhi.

When the ideal Orpheus in the neophyte conjoins with Orpheus the struggling soul, then Orpheus becomes the initiate who during the trials in the Underworld secures the safety of mind (Eurydice) and thus becomes a son of the sun. Should, however, Orpheus look back -- should buddhi itself become entangled in the lower morass -- then Eurydice is not rescued, Orpheus is enchained, and the task must be essayed anew.

(See also: Orpheus, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Manasaputras (Sanskrit) [from manasa intelligent from manas mind + putra son, child]

Sons of mind. Mind manifesting in the universe is called mahat; when manifesting in particular entities it is called manas. Manasa signifies beings who are endowed with the fire of self-consciousness which enables them to carry on trains of self-conscious thought and meditation. Hence the manasaputras are children of cosmic mind, a race of dhyani-chohans particularly evolved along the lines of the manasic principle.

From the hierarchy of compassion, the light-side of nature as contrasted with the matter-side, came these semi-divine manasaputras who incarnated in the quasi-senseless, intellectually dormant human race at about the midpoint of the third root-race of this fourth round. By their own spiritual-intellectual fire and flame they quickened the latent mental fires in infant humanity stimulating the thought principle, just as parents teach a little child to think, quickening its mind, by means of books, by precept, by example, and by words. It is the most simple thing to do and yet a glorious achievement. It shows how inferior beings are protected and guided by higher beings, or dhyani-chohans, just as a child is watched, loved, and guided by its parents. Mind was quickened in mankind by the manasaputras, but there was already latent mind in man -- unevoked; it required the coming of the superior developed mind, a part of the latter's own flame to the wick of the unlighted candle, to set the unlighted candlewick aflame in its turn; but it could not be set aflame unless mind were already latent there.

These manasaputras are a mystery in the human constitution: they are both ourselves and a descent into us of our higher selves. They are entities from the buddhic hierarchy of compassion, from the luminous arc of evolving nature, and they are under the guidance of the Silent Watcher of the planetary chain, their supreme head.

"These advanced entities are otherwise known as the Solar Lhas, as the Tibetans call them, the solar spirits, who were the men of a former kalpa, and who during the third Root-race thus sacrifice themselves in order to give us intellectual light -- incarnating in those senseless psycho-physical shells in order to awaken the divine flame of egoity and self-consciousness in the sleeping egos which we then were. They are ourselves because belonging to the same spirit-ray that we do; yet we, more strictly speaking, were those half-unconscious, half-awakened egos whom they touched with the divine fire of their own being. This, our 'awakening,' was called by H. P. Blavatsky, the incarnation of the Manasaputras, or the Sons of Mind or Light. Had that incarnation not taken place, we indeed should have continued our evolution by merely 'natural' causes, but it would have been slow almost beyond comprehension, almost interminable; but that act of self-sacrifice, through their immense pity, their immense love, though, indeed, acting under Karmic impulse, awakened the divine fire in our own selves, gave us light and comprehension and understanding; and from that time we ourselves became 'Sons of the Gods,' the faculty of self-consciousness in us was awakened, our eyes were opened, responsibility became ours; and our feet were set then definitely upon the path, that inner path, quiet, wonderful, leading us inwards back to our spiritual home. . . .

"These Manasaputras, children of Mahat, are said to have quickened and enlightened in us the Manas-manas of our manas-septenary, because they themselves are typically manasic in their essential characteristic or Swabhava. Their own essential or manasic vibrations, so to say, could cause that essence of Manas in ourselves to vibrate in sympathy, much as the sounding of a musical note will cause sympathetic response in something like it, a similar note in other things" (OG 96-7).

The "descent" of the manasaputras before the middle of the third root-race was only a partial descent, and even today they are not yet fully incarnated in us, they have not yet fully manifested their splendor within us because our minds are not yet fully evolved. The descent is still in progress and will continue until the very end of the fifth round. Even the titan-intellects of the human race have not yet fully expressed the powers of the manasaputra above and within them. These manasaputras are incarnating ever more and more, just as the growing child develops more mental power as each year passes. As man proceeds along the evolutionary pathway and unfolds his inner nature, he will bring forth his own latent manasaputra and in the next manvantara he will light the way for lesser entities.

"In addition to this, there was still another class of Manasaputras who, as it were, started the whole thing going by inflaming . . . with their own fire of intelligent thought and self-consciousness those of the human race who, at that time, in the early part of the Third Root-Race in this Round, were ready, who caught the flame; and then their own mental apparatus, their own manasic powers, burst as it were into bloom as a rose unfolds rapidly its petals when the season comes for it to do so. And these Manasaputras . . . were the highly evolved entities from previous cosmic manvantaras, who deliberately, belonging as they do to the hierarchy of the Buddhas of Compassion, as it were left their own sublime spheres and descended among men and taught them -- and then withdrew" (SOPh 468).

(See also: Manasaputras, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Seal of the Theosophical Society

Composed of a serpent in the form of a circle (Ananta-sesha) biting its tail -- standing for eternity and boundless wisdom.

Its scales signify the illimitable diversity of wisdom or truth, and likewise the innumerable smaller cycles within boundless duration. The circumscribed swastika at the meeting point of the head and tail is a practically universal ancient emblem portraying evolution, the endless movement of spirit in and through matter.

Within the large circle formed by the serpent are two interlaced triangles (called in India the seal of Vishnu, in the West the seal of Solomon). The white triangle pointing upwards denotes the spiritual fire of consciousness, concealed wisdom, or spirit. The downward-pointing black triangle, sometimes colored blue or red, refers to the manifested worlds of matter, or to wisdom revealed in the worlds of manifestation. The two triangles interlaced form a six-pointed star, which means the manifested Logos, or the third cosmic emanation of the ineffable One. Again, the six-pointed star refers to the six general forces or powers of nature, the six principles, the six planes -- which are represented as being all synthesized by their origin, the seventh, when a point or dot is placed within the star, for this point is what Pythagoras called the Monas monadum (the monad of monads).

"The double triangle -- the Satkiri Chakram of Vishnu -- or the six-pointed star, is the perfect seven. In all the old Sanskrit works -- Vedic and Tantrik -- you find the number 6 mentioned more often than the 7 -- this last figure, the central point being implied, for it is the germ of the six and their matrix. It is then thus . . . {drawing]

-- the central point standing for seventh, and the circle, the Mahakasha -- endless space -- for the seventh Universal Principle. In one sense, both are viewed as Avalokitesvara, for they are respectively the Macrocosm and the microcosm. The interlaced triangles -- the upper pointing one -- is Wisdom concealed, and the downward pointing one -- Wisdom revealed (in the phenomenal world). The circle indicates the bounding, circumscribing quality of the All, the Universal Principle which, from any given point expands so as to embrace all things, while embodying the potentiality of every action in the Cosmos. As the point then is the centre round which the circle is traced -- they are identical and one, and though from the standpoint of Maya and Avidya -- (illusion and ignorance) -- one is separated from the other by the manifested triangle, the 3 sides of which represent the three gunas -- finite attributes. In symbology the central point is Jivatma (the 7th principle), and hence Avalokitesvara, the Kwan-Shai-yin, the manifested 'Voice' (or Logos), the germ point of manifested activity; -- hence -- in the phraseology of the Christian Kabalists 'the Son of the Father and Mother,' and agreeably to ours -- 'the Self manifested in Self' -- Yih-sin, the 'one form of existence,' the child of Dharmakaya (the universally diffused Essence), both male and female. Parabrahm or 'Adi-Buddha' while acting through that germ point outwardly as an active force, reacts from the circumference inwardly as the Supreme but latent Potency. The double triangles symbolize the Great Passive and the Great Active; the male and female; Purusha and Prakriti. Each triangle is a Trinity because presenting a triple aspect. The white represents in its straight lines: Gnanam -- (Knowledge); Gnata -- (the Knower); and Gnayam -- (that which is known). The black -- form, colour, and substance, also the creative, preservative, and destructive forces and are mutually correlating . . ." (ML 345-6).

Within the star is placed the crux ansata, the handled cross or tau, one aspect of which is the particularized functions or activity of spirit in matter so far as our own world is concerned, and more especially insofar as intelligence is working upon cosmic matter. It is a symbol often associated with the adept or initiate as typifying his union with spiritual intelligence rather than with the powers and potencies of unspiritualized life in the material world.

When Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott went to India in 1879, the Sanskrit word Aum was placed above the seal, while below it was added the phrase: Satyan nasti paro dharmah (there is no religion [law]

higher than truth [reality]) which was adopted as the motto of the Theosophical Society.

In some respects the seal of the Theosophical Society is similar to the personal seal of Blavatsky: however, in place of the tau within the interlaced triangles, her seal had the initials E B (E standing for Elena, pronounced Yelena in Russian, and B for Blavatsky). Inside the circle are astrological and Qabbalistic signs stated by some to refer to Blavatsky herself, while above the seal is a countess' coronet belonging to her family.

The seal of the Theosophical Society can be said to refer to a universe expanding into manifestation from its origin in cosmic spirit, emanation picturated by the comprehending serpent of space and duration. Just as the serpent periodically sheds its old skin, a universe, after a period of rest or dormancy, is again emanated, the child of its former self, for another period of cosmic manifestation.

(See also: Seal of the Theosophical Society, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

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