FENG SHUI

Feng shui (translated as “wind and water”) is the Chinese system of balancing the energy patterns of the physical environment. A composite of mystical beliefs, astrology, folklore, and common sense, the Chinese believe feng shui blends ancient wisdom with cultural tradition.

The laws of feng shui provide for positioning homes/businesses and designing room and office layouts in ways that promise to enhance the quality of their owners’ lives and businesses by channeling energy in positive ways. These principles strive for creating balanced, peaceful dwellings by bringing together the external and internal and living in harmony with natural and man-made environments.

Good feng shui promises occupants health, happiness, prosperity, and long life - a conscious connection between the outside environment and the world within. These same principles can also be applied to the human body (called min xiang shue) to promote inner character and restore harmony to areas of imbalance. Through meditation and daily exercises, min xiang shue can allow a deeper self-awareness and regeneration.

(See also: FENG SHUI , Alternative Health, Massage, Bodywork, Body Mind and Soul)

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Chuang Tze, a Chinese Philosopher, once dreamt that he was a butterfly. On waking, he said to himself, “Now, am I a man dreaming that I am a butterfly, or am I a butterfly thinking that I am a man?”

A spiritual view on dreams and the meaning of dreams by Sri Swami Sivananda, an authority in the vedic sciences and traditions.

Read more here: » Philosophy of Dreams XXIV: Dream of Chuang Tze

Read more here: » Vastu Shastra: Size, Shape, Orientation and Location in Vastu

Confucius

(Chinese: K'ung Fu-tzu, "Master K'ung"; 551-479 BC) The most famous philosopher of ancient China. According to tradition, he was born in Lu, China. Author of the Ch'un Chiu (Spring and Autumn Annals) and possible compiler of some early poetry, Confucius denied contemporary claims of his sageliness.

The most reliable historical source regarding Confucius is the Lun Yu (Analects). Transmitter of the rites and culture of earlier sage-kings, Confucius aimed to counteract the militarism of his day through training prospective leaders in humane government and gentlemanly arts. Ironically, no ruler fully accepted his teachings or employed him in high office. Religious issues were generally secondary to his ethical and political lessons but were expressed through his ritual piety. Sacrifices were properly performed to ancestral spirits at appropriate times during meals and after receiving certain gifts.

Confucius frequented the ancestral temple, presided in exorcism rites, and visited the Grand Temple of the great Duke of Chou. This sagely predecessor had stabilized the kingdom through unselfish service and religious mediation, securing the Mandate of Heaven (T'ien-ming). Confucius's concern to understand the Mandate of Heaven in his day was fulfilled when he was fifty.

He anguished over the early death of his best disciple, Yen Yuan, yet pursued a mission he believed was willed by Heaven.

Later Chinese generations claimed Confucius to be the perfect sage, honoring him in temples erected throughout China. The Chung Yung (Doctrine of the Mean) calls Confucius the "partner of Heaven and Earth. "

(See also: Confucius , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

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Lao-Tse or Lao-tzu (Chinese) One of the great teachers of China who appeared and taught some little time before Confucius began his career. Tradition has it that there was a meeting between Confucius and Lao-Tzu, and that the former referred to the latter as a dragon, an ancient mode of referring to a master of wisdom or initiate.

Although said to have written one thousand books "his great work, however, the heart of his doctrine, the 'Tao-te-King,' or the sacred scriptures of the Taosse, has in it, as Stanislas Julien shows, only 'about 5,000 words,' hardly a dozen of pages, yet Professor Max Muller finds that 'the text is unintelligible without commentaries, so that Mr. Julien had to consult more than sixty commentators for the purpose of his translation,' the earliest going back as far as the year 163 BC, not earlier, as we see. During the four centuries and a half that preceded this earliest of the commentators there was ample time to veil the true Lao-Tse doctrine from all but his initiated priests. . . . Tradition affirms that the commentaries to which our Western Sinologues have access are not the real occult records, but intentional veils, and that the true commentaries, as well as almost all the texts, have long since disappeared from the eyes of the profane" (SD 1:xxv).

(See also: Lao-Tse, Lao-tzu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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Gobi or Shamo Desert A wild, arid region of mountains and sandy plains which was once fertile land and in part the site of a former inland sea or lake on which was the "Sacred Island" where the "Sons of Will and Yoga," the elect of the third root-race, took refuge when the daityas prevailed over the devas and humanity became black with sin.

 It has been called by the Chinese the Sea of Knowledge, and tradition says that the descendants of the holy refugees still inhabit an oasis "in the dreadful wildernesses of the great Desert of Gobi, now the fabled Sambhala" (SD 2:220). This region was transformed into a sea for the last time ten or twelve thousand years ago; a local cataclysm drained off the waters southward and westward, leaving the present conditions. It is also said that the events connected with the drying up of the Gobi region are associated with allegories of wars between the good and evil forces and the "systematic persecution of the Prophets of the Right Path by those of the Left" which led the world into materialistic forms of thought.

(See also: Goat of Mendes , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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The central teaching in Tantra is that all of life is sacred, especially our sexuality. This is because Tantrism views the sex power as being the same inner energy that powers our enlightenment. The practitioner of sexual Tantra attempts to use the powerful sexual force as an agent for awakening and transcendence.

Read more here: » Tantra: Aligning Intimacy with Spirituality

Cheta or Che-ti (Chinese) Used in Chinese Buddhist works in reference to the famous Saptaparna Cave mentioned by a number of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims and writers, such as Fa-hian and Hiuen-Tsang. This cave is supposed to be one of the spots where the brilliant shadow of Gautama Buddha may still be seen on the walls of the cave at certain times by those who are fit and ready to perceive it. It is stated that in this famous cave, Gautama Buddha used to meditate and teach his arhats and disciples.

(See also: Cheta, Che-ti , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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Dzyan (Senzar) Closely similar to the Tibetan dzin (learning, knowledge). Although Blavatsky states that dzyan is "a corruption of the Sanskrit Dhyan and Jnana . . . Wisdom, divine knowledge" (TG 107), there is also a Chinese equivalent dan or jan-na, which in "modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics ch'an, is the general term for the esoteric schools, and their literature.

In the old books, the word Janna is defined as 'to reform one's self by meditation and knowledge,' a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically, the 'Book of Dzyan'" (SD 1:xx). This term then is connected directly with the ancient mystery-language called Senzar, with Tibetan and Chinese mystical Buddhism mostly of the Mahayana schools, and thirdly with the Sanskrit dhyana of which indeed it was probably originally a corruption.

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

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Yellow-faced Used in an archaic commentary on the Book of Dzyan (q SD 2:427-8), referring to people on Atlantis, the continent of the fourth root-race, who remained true to their teachers, in contradistinction to the Black-faced -- those who followed their sorcerer-leaders in practices of black magic -- who were engulfed in the cataclysm which submerged Atlantis. The Yellow-faced, the ancestors of the succeeding fifth root-race, were led to safety by their teachers, the Sons of Wisdom. Thus the fifth root-race -- sometimes referred to as Aryans because the Aryan Hindus are the descendants of the first subrace of the fifth root-race -- are said to be the descendants of "the yellow Adams, the gigantic and highly civilized Atlanto-Aryan race"; "they 'of the yellow hue' are the forefathers of those whom Ethnology now classes as the Turanians, the Mongols, Chinese and other ancient nations; and the land they fled to was no other than Central Asia. There entire new races were born; there they lived and died until the separation of the nations. . . . Nearly two-thirds of one million years have elapsed since that period" (SD 2:426, 425).

The foregoing does not mean that the modern Chinese, for instance, are the first subrace of the fifth root-race; for actually the true Chinese are the remains existing today of the last or seventh subrace of the fourth root-race, although indeed, due to many millennia of intermarriage with more truly Aryan stocks, the Chinese today are to be classed as part of the fifth root-race.

There is an old legend prevalent among many peoples that the color of human skin changes from light to dark as the ages slowly pass by: the legend stating that the first in any new great racial group or stock is light-colored or moon-colored, slowly changing to a more ruddy shade verging into cream or yellow, becoming gradually brown and darker brown, and ending with chocolate or what is called black. Yet the meaning is not that every race runs through these changing tints from light to dark during the course of its evolution, but that the different minor racial groupings, appearing each in its day during the course of the slow evolution of a root-race, gradually range from the root-race's beginning from the light, and passing gradually through the different stages to the chocolate. Nor is it again to be understood that theosophy teaches that all mankind sprang either from an original pair, as metaphorically taught in the Bible, but that in the beginnings of time seven primary seed-groupings appeared on earth from inner realms, each with its own tint or color as we would now say, and each of the seven having its own karmically defined position on the ladder of evolution.

The Negroes or people of chocolate-tinted skin are nevertheless not to be understood as being the seventh or last subrace of the fourth root-race, for the Chinese were these last. The chocolate-skinned men arose as a racial group at the very close of the Atlantean cycle, and are thus racially not degenerated from a previous higher evolutionary state, but are a human seed-stock born at the end of Atlantean development, destined in time through racial miscegenation to be one of the racial contributories to the humanity of the future.

See also YELLOW RACE

(See also: Yellow-faced , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

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Bhogarishi: nu (Sanskrit) One of the 18 siddhas of Saiva tradition, an alchemist and tantrika yogi, associated with the Palani Hills Murugan temple in South India, who created the Dandayuthapaniswami murti from nine poisonous metals. He is thought by some to still reside there in a cave. Chinese historical records suggest that he came from China. See: siddha, siddhi, tantric.

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

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Zodiac [from Greek zodiakos kyklos circle of animals]

The zone extending on both sides of the ecliptic, with a total width of about 16 degrees, so as to include the apparent paths of the planets and moon. It is divided into twelve equal parts or signs, which are counted from the position of the vernal equinoctial point. The position of this point recedes westward along the ecliptic at the rate of about 50" of arc per year. The Hindus call this the fixed zodiac, giving the name of movable zodiac to the zodiacal constellations. The ancient figure for the length of a precessional cycle is 25,920 years, also the length of an important racial unit in human evolution.

"A simple calculation will show that at this rate the constellation Taurus (Heb. Alph) was in the first sign of the zodiac at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, and consequently the Equinoctial point fell therein. At this time, also, Leo was in the summer solstice, Scorpio in the autumnal Equinox, and Aquarius in the winter solstice; and these facts form the astronomical key to half the religious mysteries of the world -- the Christian scheme included" (TG 387).

The zodiac is found everywhere among the civilized nations, such as the Chaldeans, Hindus, Egyptians, Chinese, and in Job (said to be the oldest book in the Bible); but its antiquity is lost in the night of time. The zodiac may briefly be described as a book on evolution in twelve chapters, and as such its applications and correspondences are innumerable. Time is marked by the passage of the planets through its signs, by their conjunctions in various positions, and by the movement of the nodes and apsides of planets; so that the whole course of cycles large and small can be calculated and the past and future read by those who understand. The twelve divisions of the ecliptic or fixed zodiac have the same names and significance as the zodiacal constellations. They may be applied to cycles in history, such as the Messianic cycle, to races of mankind, and to the human constitution, mental and physical. When applied to the globes of the earth planetary chain -- using the esoteric computation of a twelvefold system -- the rectors of the houses of the zodiac have each predominance over one globe of the earth-chain.

"Each of these constellations, together forming the twelve houses of the zodiac, is a cluster of stars karmically united by past bonds of destiny, each having its own . . . spiritual electricity or fohatic magnetism, . . . each one producing its own type of influences in the outflow of its emanations around its, and extending through space" (FSO 125).

There was once a division of the zodiac into ten signs because two were kept secret, and the twelve were made up by the Greeks by dividing Virgo-Scorpio into two and introducing between them the balancing sign Libra. An Egyptian mural painting shows a somewhat different arrangement of the ten and the twelve, there being twelve gods on ten seats, numbers 7 and 8, and 11 and 12 being paired. The Hindu astrologers have other divisions, subdividing the twelve houses; and also having 27 or 28 lunar mansions. Speaking of the knowledge of the ancient sages, Blavatsky remarks that "if such men as Kepler and even Sir Isaac Newton believed that stars and constellations influenced the destiny of our globe and its humanities, it requires no great stretch of faith to believe that men who were initiated into all the mysteries of nature, as well as into astronomy and astrology, knew precisely in what way nations and mankind, whole races as well as individuals, would be affected by the so-called 'signs of the Zodiac' " (TG 387-8).

The Chinese zodiacal system was quite complicated. Besides being divided into 28 and 24 parts, it included two distinct duodenary series. The Chinese method of dividing "the yellow road of the sun" was by means of twelve cyclic animals named the rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, serpent, horse, sheep, monkey, hen, dog, and pig. The opening sign corresponds to Aquarius, and it is interesting to observe that in the East, the rat is often used as an ideograph for water. But the Chinese series proceeds in a retrograde direction, against the course of the sun; thus the second sign (the ox) takes the position of Capricorn, etc.

The Aztecs had a month of 20 days, and seven of the names of the days of the month had animal appellations -- four the same as the Chinese (the hare, monkey, dog, and serpent), while three were strictly American animals, the ocelot, lizard, and eagle.

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

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Confucius K'ung Fu-tzu (551-479 BC) "Philosopher K'ung"; Chinese philosopher, statesman, and scholar, whose teachings dealt with morals, family, social reforms, and statecraft. He called himself a "transmitter, not an originator." His Analects is one of the Five Books of Chinese classics. (SD, BCW)

(See also: Confucius, K'ung Fu-tzu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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Kwan-yin, Kuan-yin (Chinese) The Chinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, the female aspect of Kwan-shai-yin, referred to in the Stanzas of Dzyan as the triple of Kwan-shai-yin, residing in Kwan-yien-tien, "because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is the 'Mother, the Wife and the Daughter' of the Logos, just as in the later theological translations she became 'the Father, Son and (the female) Holy Ghost' -- the Sakti or Energy -- the Essence of the three.

Thus in the Esotericism of the Vedantins, Daiviprakriti, the Light manifested through Eswara, the Logos, is at one and the same time the Mother and also the Daughter of the Logos or Verbum of Parabrahmam; while in that of the trans-Himalayan teachings it is -- in the hierarchy of allegorical and metaphysical theogony -- 'the Mother' or abstract, ideal matter, Mulaprakriti, the Root of Nature . . . a correlation of Adi-Bhuta, manifested in the Logos, Avolokiteshwara; and from the purely occult and Cosmical, Fohat, the 'Son of the Son,' the androgynous energy resulting from this 'Light of the Logos' " (SD 1:136-7).

Kwan-yin is the Chinese counterpart from one point of view of the Egyptian Isis, the Hebrew Bath-Qol -- the "daughter of the (Divine) Voice" -- and of the Hindu Vach.

"She is male and female ad libitum, as Eve is with Adam. And she is a form of Aditi -- the principle higher than Ether -- in Akasa, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature; thus Vach and Kwan-Yin are both the magic potency of Occult sound in Nature and Ether -- which 'Voice' calls forth Sien-Tchan, the illusive form of the Universe out of Chaos and the Seven Elements" (SD 1:137).

(See also: Kwan-yin, Kuan-yin , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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The research and study of the Sacred Geometry and Space of Sacred Sites have been the focus of Martin Gray for more than 20 years. Martin Gray is an anthropologist and photographer specializing in the study of Sacred Power Places. During a twenty-year period he has journeyed to more than 1,000 holy places in 80 countries. This introductionary article will give you an introduction to the Power of Sacred Sites and the Sacred Space they provide for Spiritual Awakening.

Read more here: » Sacred Sites: Places of Peace and Power

Chuang Tzu (Chinese) Chinese philosopher (late 4th century B.C.) who, with Lao Tzu and Kuan Tzu, is regarded as one of the patriarchs of Taoism. He wrote a work under his name which treats of the tao and its relation to the universe and man, and gives directions for the conduct of human life.

(See also: Chuang Tzu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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Chutuktu, Hutukhtu (Mongolian) Also Khutukhtu, Houtouktou, etc. Saintly; same as the Tibetan tulku or chutuktu and the Chinese huo-fo (living buddha), rendered into Chinese by the ideographs tsai lai jen (the man who comes again, the one who returns), identic in meaning with the Buddhist tathagata.

A high initiate or adept; those individuals who are, or are supposed to be, incarnations of a bodhisattva or some lower buddha; although these so-called incarnations may be not actual reimbodiments in the strict sense, but rather what may be described as overshadowings by a buddhic or buddha-power.

The chutuktu is able, upon leaving his body at death, consciously to seek reimbodiment almost immediately in some child newly born, or at the moment of birth. Blavatsky states that it is commonly believed that there are "generally five manifesting and two secret Chutuktus among the high lamas" (TG 85).

(See also: Chutuktu, Hutukhtu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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Ti (Chinese) In the I Ching, the name for the beneficent sustaining power or chief spirit of the universe. One of the minor deities is described there as engaging in rebellion against his superior, in which he maintains that he himself is ti. In consequence of this the rebellious spirit with seven choirs of celestial spirits were exiled upon earth: this "brought a change in all nature, heaven itself bending down and uniting with earth" (SD 2:486) -- a Chinese version of the Fallen Angels. Back of this tale itself lies the fundamental concept that all things originate in the divine, emanate from it, and ultimately return to it, so that at any stage of this spiritual procession, any minor entity can claim that its inmost selfhood is identical with the highest, the originating source.

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

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Yang (Chinese) The bright aspect -- as the sunny side of a hill -- in contrast to yin, the dark side. In mystic Chinese literature and in Taoism, yang is associated with the masculine aspect, while yin refers to the feminine aspect. Thus tao is regarded as the interaction of the revolving changes produced by the yang and yin: yang referring to immaterial, celestial force and substance; yin, to material equivalents.

Popularly everything of a beneficial aspect is associated with yang, while everything of maleficent tendency is related to yin. However, this limits the original conception of yang and yin as forming the two contrasted sides of the universe, for one cannot exist without the other, and each in its own way is as important as the other.

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

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Abhayagiri (Sanskrit) (from a not + bhaya fear + giri mountain, hill)

Mount Fearless; a mountain in Sri Lanka. According to Fa-hien, the Chinese traveler, in 400 AD. Abhayagiri had an ancient Buddhist vihara (monastery) of some 5,000 priest and ascetics, whose studies comprised both the Mahayana and Hinayana systems, as well as Triyana (three paths), "the three successive degrees of Yoga. . . . Tradition says that owing to bigoted intolerance and persecution, they left Ceylon and passed beyond the Himalayas, where they have remained ever since" (TG 2-3).

Abhayagiri-vasinah (from vas to dwell, inhabit)

Dwellers on Mount Fearless; also a branch of Katyayana's disciples (3rd century BC).

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

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Hinduism Lexicon on B

From backbiting to buddhi chitta.

Read more here: » Hinduism: Hinduism Lexicon on B