A Theosophical definition of Fohat :

Fohat

An extremely mystical term used in the occultism of Tibet for what in Sanskrit is called daiviprakriti, which means "divine nature" or "primordial nature," and which also can be called "primordial light." In one sense of the word fohat may be considered as almost identical with the old mystical Greek eros, but fohat as a technical term contains within itself a far wider range of ideas than does the Greek term.

Fohat may be considered as the essence of kosmic electricity, provided, however, that in this definition we endow the term electricity with the attribute of consciousness; or, to put it more accurately, provided that we understand that the essence of electricity is indeed consciousness. It is ever-present and active from the primordial beginnings of a manvantara to its last end, nor does it then actually pass out of existence, but becomes quiescent or latent as it were, sleeping or dormant during the kosmic pralaya. In one sense of the word it may be called kosmic will, for the analogy with the conscious will in human beings is exceedingly close. It is the incessantly active, ever-moving, impelling or urging force in nature, from the beginning of the evolution of a universe or of a solar system to its end.

H. P. Blavatsky, quoting one of the ancient mystically occult works, says in substance: "Fohat is the steed and thought is the rider." If, however, we liken fohat to what the conscious will is in the human being, we must then think only of the lower or substantial parts  - the pranic activities  - of the human will, for behind the substantial parts stands always the directing and guiding consciousness. Fohat being incessantly active is therefore both formative and destructive, because it is through the ceaseless working of fohat that unending change continues  - the passing of one phase of manifested existence to another phase, whether this manifested existence be a solar system or a planetary chain or a globe or human being or, indeed, any entity.

Fohat is as active among the electrons of an atom and among the atoms themselves as it is among the suns. In one sense it may be called the vital force of the universe, corresponding from this viewpoint to the pranic activity on all the seven planes of the human constitution.

See also: Fohat, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Gods :

Gods

The old pantheons were builded upon an ancient and esoteric wisdom which taught, under the guise of a public mythology, profound secrets of the structure and operations of the universe which surrounds us. The entire human race has believed in gods, has believed in beings superior to men; the ancients all said that men are the "children" of these gods, and that from these superior beings, existent in the azure spaces, men draw all that in them is; and, furthermore, that men themselves, as children of the gods, are in their inmost essence divine beings linked forever with the boundless universe of which each human being, just as is the case with every other entity everywhere, is an inseparable part. This is a truly sublime conception.

One should not think of human forms when the theosophist speaks of the gods; we mean the arupa  - the "formless"  - entities, beings of pure intelligence and understanding, relatively pure essences, relatively pure spirits, formless as we physical humans conceive form. The gods are the higher inhabitants of nature. They are intrinsic portions of nature itself, for they are its informing principles. They are as much subject to the wills and energies of still higher beings  - call these wills and energies the "laws" of higher beings, if you will  - as we are, and as are the kingdoms of nature below us.

The ancients put realities, living beings, in the place of laws which, as Occidentals use the term, are only abstractions  - an expression for the action of entities in nature; the ancients did not cheat themselves so easily with words. They called them gods, spiritual entities. Not one single great thinker of the ancients, until the Christian era, ever talked about laws of nature, as if these laws were living entities, as if these abstractions were actual entities which did things. Did the laws of navigation ever navigate a ship? Does the law of gravity pull the planets together? Does it unite or pull the atoms together? This word laws is simply a mental abstraction signifying unerring action of conscious and semi-conscious energies in nature.

See also: Gods, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Chaitanya caitanya (Sanskrit) (from chit to perceive, understand, be conscious)

Consciousness, intelligence; the cosmic intelligence, hence also the light of the Logos. All individual egos in the universe are rooted in cosmic chaitanya as their universal source, and become individualized for experience and work in the material realms by means of the karanopadhi. Chaitanya is thus the invisible essence of human intelligence, the cosmic root of monadic individuality, and the cosmic intelligence-force which is the intrinsic or essential consciousness behind and within individuality.

As a proper name, a reformer of the Vaishnava sect in India (1485-1527), regarded in Bengal as an avatara of Krishna. One of his chief teachings was the duty of bhakti (attachment, devotion, or love) for Krishna so strong that no caste-feeling implying sectarian division could exist with it.

(See also: Chaitanya, caitanya, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

MEDITATION

Meditation is at least a three-step process that leads to a state of consciousness that brings serenity, clarity, and bliss. Our "normal" state of mind is actually quite abnormal. We receive sensory stimuli and react in a completely uncontrolled way (although we tell ourselves we have great control). We bounce from one thought to another and follow with our emotional and physical reactions.

Concentration is the first step in meditation and is the beginning of gaining control over the mind and thereby life. The procedure is deceptively simple and seems like it would be very easy to do, but there are few tasks more difficult to master. The idea is to pick an object/subject/music to place your attention on and then to focus exclusively on it without diversion.

Meditation is unbroken attention. The classic description of the difference between concentration and meditation is given in the example of pouring oil from a bottle into a bowl. At first the oil drips out a drop at a time. This is concentration. Then the oil comes out in a steady stream. This unbroken pouring out is meditation. If you really examine the process closer, you would notice that when the oil was coming out drop by drop, each drop caused a splash and the droplets of the splashing can be considered analogous to the distractions that interrupt our concentration. Once the stream starts becoming steady it flows effortlessly. Similarly, when concentration flows into meditation, the attention paid to the object of meditation becomes deeper and deeper effortlessly and spontaneously, true knowledge about the object presents itself.

As Albert Einstein tells us, everything in the universe is relative to everything else, ultimately your meditation will connect you to everything. At this point, the unity of the object of your meditation and your mind occurs. This is the state of contemplation and is the ultimate state of consciousness. Where we usually are only conscious of our body and ego and consider ourselves apart from the rest of the universe, with the experience of contemplation we become conscious of the cosmos and know ourselves to be a part of it and realize our unity with all of it.

The above definition of meditation was obtained from The Meditation Society of America.

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

A Theosophical definition of Samadhi :

Samadhi

(Sanskrit) A compound word formed of sam, meaning "with" or "together"; a, meaning "towards"; and the verbal root dha, signifying "to place," or "to bring"; hence samadhi, meaning "to direct towards," generally signifies to combine the faculties of the mind with a direction towards an object. Hence, intense contemplation or profound meditation, with the consciousness directed to the spiritual. It is the highest form of self-possession, in the sense of collecting all the faculties of the constitution towards reaching union or quasi-union, long or short in time as the case may be, with the divine-spiritual. One who possesses and is accustomed to use this power has complete, absolute control over all his faculties, and is, therefore, said to be "completely self- possessed." It is the highest state of yoga or "union."

Samadhi, therefore, is a word of exceedingly mystical and profound significance implying the complete abstraction of the percipient consciousness from all worldly or exterior or even mental concerns or attributes, and its absorption into or, perhaps better, its becoming the pure unadulterate, undilute superconsciousness of the god within. In other words, samadhi is self-conscious union with the spiritual monad of the human constitution. Samadhi is the eighth or final stage of genuine occult yoga, and can be attained at any time by the initiate without conscious recourse to the other phases or practices of yoga enumerated in Oriental works, and which other and inferior practices are often misleading, in some cases distinctly injurious, and at the best mere props or aids in the attaining of complete mental abstraction from worldly concerns.

The eight stages of yoga usually enumerated are the following:

(1)  yama, signifying "restraint" or "forbearance";

(2)  niyama, religious observances of various kinds, such as watchings or fastings, prayings, penances, etc.;

(3)  asana (q.v.), postures of various kinds;

(4)  pranayama, various methods of regulating the breath; (5) pratyahara, a word signifying "withdrawal," but technically and esoterically the "withdrawal" of the consciousness from sensual or sensuous concerns, or from external objects;

(5)  dharana (q.v.), firmness or steadiness or resolution in holding the mind set or concentrated on a topic or object of thought, mental concentration;

(6)  dhyana (q.v.), abstract contemplation or meditation when freed from exterior distractions; and finally,

(7)  samadhi, complete collection of the consciousness and of its faculties into oneness or union with the monadic essence.

It may be observed, and should be carefully taken note of by the student, that when the initiate has attained samadhi he becomes practically omniscient for the solar universe in which he dwells, because his consciousness is functioning at the time in the spiritual-causal worlds. All knowledge is then to him like an open page because he is self-consciously conscious, to use a rather awkward phrase, of nature's inner and spiritual realms, the reason being that his consciousness has become kosmic in its reaches.

See also: Samadhi, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Some neopagans believe that witchcraft should be used for good, and eschew any evil usages (See the Wiccan Rede and the Rule of Three (Wiccan)). Their belief is sometimes very similar to the belief of Christians in prayer, that the Divine will acknowledge and grant answers to a ritual given in a Deity's name. Some subscribe to the idea that all of reality is at some level interconnected, forming a single universal 'self' or 'oneness', and that by becoming conscious of this connection people can directly influence things around them. This view also implies ethical considerations ...

See also:

Witchcraft, Witchcraft - Practices typically considered to be witchcraft, Witchcraft - Etymology, Witchcraft - European witchcraft, Witchcraft - Middle Eastern witchcraft, Witchcraft - Ancient Middle Eastern and Near Eastern beliefs, Witchcraft - Witchcraft in the Tanakh Hebrew Bible Old Testament, Witchcraft - Witchcraft in the New Testament, Witchcraft - Jewish views of witchcraft, Witchcraft - African witchcraft, Witchcraft - Theories of Neopagan witchcraft, Witchcraft - Additional Reading

Read more here: » Witchcraft: Encyclopedia II - Witchcraft - Theories of Neopagan witchcraft

Some South African political analysts have seen a split within the ANC between the "prisoner" generation (ANC leaders like Mandela and others who studied political theory with each other while in prison), and the "exiles" like Mbeki, who studied economics in Western universities and helped the ANC-in-exile gain credibility with Western nations and corporations. Mbeki and his exile counterparts--responsible for representing the ANC to the West during the ANC's successful efforts to isolate the apartheid government internationally in the 1980s--were perhaps more acutely conscious of the compromises that ...

See also:

Thabo Mbeki, Thabo Mbeki - Economic Policies, Thabo Mbeki - Political Style, Thabo Mbeki - Mbeki and the Internet, Thabo Mbeki - Controversies: Zimbabwe, Thabo Mbeki - Controversies: AIDS, Thabo Mbeki - Debate with Archbishop Tutu, Thabo Mbeki - Mbeki Zuma and Succession

Read more here: » Thabo Mbeki: Encyclopedia II - Thabo Mbeki - Economic Policies

A Theosophical definition of Human Soul :

Human Soul

The human soul, speaking generally, is the intermediate nature of man's constitution, and being an imperfect thing it is drawn back into incarnation on earth where it learns needed lessons in this sphere of the universal life.

Another term for the human soul is the ego  - a usage more popular than accurate, because the human ego is the soul of the human soul so to speak, the human soul being its vehicle. The ego is that which says in each one of us, "I am I, not you!" It is the child of the immanent Self; and through its imprisonment in matter as a ray of the overruling immanent Self, it learns to reflect its consciousness back upon itself, thus obtaining cognition of itself as self-conscious and hetero-conscious, i.e., knowing itself, and knowing "non-self" or other selves.

Just as our higher and highest nature work through this human soul or intermediate nature of us, so does this last in its turn work and function through bodies or vehicles or sheaths of more or less etherealized matters which surround and enclose it, which are of course still lower than itself, and which therefore give it the means of contacting our own lower and lowest planes of matter; and these lower planes provide us with the vital-astral-physical parts of us. This human soul or intermediate nature manifests therefore as best it can through and by the astral-physical vehicle, the latter our body of human flesh.

In the theosophical classification, the human soul is divided into the higher human soul, composed of the lower buddhi and the higher manas  - and the self corresponding to it is the bhutatman, meaning the "self of that which has been" or the reincarnating ego  - and the lower human soul, the lower manas and kama, and the self corresponding to it is pranatman or astral personal ego, which is mortal.

See also: Human Soul, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Religion :

Religion

An operation of the human spiritual mind in its endeavor to understand not only the how and the why of things, but comprising in addition a yearning and striving towards self-conscious union with the divine All and an endlessly growing self-conscious identification with the cosmic divine-spiritual realities. One phase of a triform method of understanding the nature of nature, of universal nature, and its multiform and multifold workings; and this phase cannot be separated from the other two phases (science and philosophy) if we wish to gain a true picture of things as they are in themselves.

Human religion is the expression of that aspect of man's consciousness which is intuitional, aspirational, and mystical, and which is often deformed and distorted in its lower forms by the emotional in man.

It is usual among modern Europeans to derive the word religion from the Latin verb meaning "to bind back"  - religare. But there is another derivation, which is the one that Cicero chooses, and of course he was a Roman himself and had great skill and deep knowledge in the use of his own native tongue. This other derivation comes from a Latin root meaning "to select," "to choose," from which, likewise, we have the word lex, "law," i.e., the course of conduct or rule of action which is chosen as the best, and is therefore followed; in other words, that which is the best of its kind, as ascertained by selection, by trial, and by proof.

Thus then, the meaning of the word religion from the Latin religio, means a careful selection of fundamental beliefs and motives by the higher or spiritual intellect, a faculty of intuitional judgment and understanding, and a consequent abiding by that selection, resulting in a course of life and conduct in all respects following the convictions that have been arrived at. This is the religious spirit.

To this the theosophist would add the following very important idea: behind all the various religions and philosophies of ancient times there is a secret or esoteric wisdom given out by the greatest men who have ever lived, the founders and builders of the various world religions and world philosophies; and this sublime system in fundamentals has been the same everywhere over the face of the globe.

This system has passed under various names, e.g., the esoteric philosophy, the ancient wisdom, the secret doctrine, the traditional teaching, theosophy, etc. (See also Science, Philosophy)

See also: Religion, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Sodalite: Sodalite is a deep, rich blue stone with white inclusions. It is composed of chloric sodium aluminum silicate. It is found mostly in Canada and Brazil.

Sodalite is said to prolong physical endurance, and is used by athletes. It is said to help create harmony within the inner being and to stop conflict between the conscious mind and the subconscious. It is good for those who are oversensitive and reactive, allowing a person to shift from emotional to rational thinking. Sodalite helps clear away old mental patterns.

It helps one to understand the nature of one’s self in relation to the universe. It awakens the third eye which prepares the mind to receive the inner light and intuitive knowledge. Sodalite is the densest and the most grounded of the deep blue stones, and clears the mind so that it can think with greater perception.

(See also: Sodalite, Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Buddhi (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root budh to awaken, enlighten, know)

The spiritual soul, the faculty of discriminating, the channel through which streams divine inspiration from the atman to the ego, and therefore that faculty which enables us to discern between good and evil -- spiritual conscience. The qualities of the buddhic principle when awakened are higher judgment, instant understanding, discrimination, intuition, love that has no bounds, and consequent universal forgiveness.

In the theosophical scheme, it is the sixth principle counting upwards in the human constitution: the vehicle of pure, universal spirit, hence an inseparable garment or vehicle of atman. In its essence of the highest plane of akasa or alaya, buddhi stands in the same relation to atman as, on the cosmic scale, mulaprakriti does to parabrahman.

Buddhi uses manas as its garment, and in the former are likewise stored the fruitages of the many incarnations on earth; hence buddhi is often called both the seed and flower of manas. Buddhi is truly the center of spiritual consciousness and therefore its qualities are enduring. The purer and higher part of manas must awaken, by rising to it, this essential energy that inherently resides in buddhi so that the latter may become active in a person's life. Buddha and Christ are examples of sages who had become human imbodiments of the usually latent qualities of buddhi. Buddhi becomes more or less conscious on this plane by the flowerings it draws from manas after every incarnation of the ego. "Buddhi would remain only an impersonal spirit without this element which it borrows from the human soul, which conditions and makes of it, in this illusive Universe, as it were something separate from the universal soul for the whole period of the cycle of incarnation" (Key 159-60).

"No purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, -- or the over-soul, -- has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha)" (SD 1:17).

In the human constitution buddhi is a ray from the cosmic principle mahabuddhi or adi-buddhi, a synonym for alaya, pradhana, or the Second Logos, while akasa in its higher reaches is identic with alaya.

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

Man [from Sanskrit the verbal root man to think; cf Latin mens mind, Sanskrit manas, manu]

The human kingdom, which is the midpoint of evolution, reaching relative consciousness in the fourth round, but attaining full human or manasic consciousness only the fifth round. On the last three rounds of the evolutionary journey man tends to become a god, and then divinity itself, and like every other original life-atom to reassume its primeval form as a member of the dhyani-chohanic host. Spiritual primeval intelligences, in order to become fully self-conscious gods, must pass through the human stage -- not necessarily that of terrestrial man but including all intelligences which have achieved their evolutionary unfolding from within the appropriate equilibrium between spirit and matter.

Man may be considered as having three main bases or upadhis: 1) the monadic or divine-spiritual, emanating from the supreme or cosmic monad of our universe; 2) the mental-intuitional, supplied by the manasa-dhyanis and manifesting from the sun in their evolutionary passage; and 3) the vital-astral-physical, as well as the emotional-psychic, from the moon-chain.

In the widest sense, the term is used for the Heavenly Man or Third Logos, or even the unified Triad of the first three cosmic Logoi, called the Crown of the Sephirothal Tree in the Qabbalah, the originant and not the copy of the universe, and therefore being the latter's source as well as the ultimate pattern toward which all in the universe tends.

(See also: Man, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Disease Broadly stated, disease is a disordered or inharmonious vital state of the organism, with more of less excess, defect, or perversion of functional activity. The condition may be some chemical or mechanical wrong which renders the body unable to respond naturally to the psychoelectric and other forces which play through and sustain the physical person.

Moreover, the material and immaterial elements of the human constitution react upon each other for health or disease, because the mind and emotions on the one hand, and the organs and their functions on the other, are interrelated parts of the same entity. As a rule, this interplay between the material and the conscious person becomes a vicious circle in disease. Mental or emotional shock or strain can so affect function as to result in organic disease. Long continued selfish emotions cause a distorted and inharmonious interaction of the pranic or vital currents of the body, resulting in one or another disorder, according to the type of the emotions and the individual karma.

In view of the electric nature of matter, physical disorder may be regarded as an electrical disharmony or wrong, since disease always changes the polarity of the body, more or less. The vital currents of human electricity connect the conscious person with his body by the living wires of nerves. The rhythmic motion or natural harmony vibrating in each cell and organ at its own rate, is responsive to the universal vibration or Great Breath which in other modes of motion manifests as heat, light, sound, density, etc. But beyond the electrical and vibrational states of the body, and above the mental influence, is the essential self, the source of all harmony or rhythmic procedures in all below it, keyed to harmony and striving to raise the lower nature to act in unison with its finer and greater powers. When the instinct of the animal body, the mental reasoning faculties, and the reimbodying ego's intuition are functioning together, the person is keyed to health, sanity, and wisdom. Otherwise, the real inner conflict manifests in some form of disorder.

As the human being, then, is a dynamo of balanced forces, some disorder in their operation is the basic wrong in human diseases. Moreover, as all matter is alive, conscious in some degree, and vibrationally responsive to the laws of nature, the same general principle applies also to disease in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. In mankind, the organic vital fluid of the reimbodying ego is the cohering factor for the entire constitution, dominating over all minor vital expressions of the life-atoms. The intense and ceaseless activity of these life-atoms builds and composes the body, and as age comes on, and the physical vehicle naturally and normally weakens, the uninterrupted activity of the vital power becomes too strong to be held in check by the gripping influence of the vital-electrical field. Thus the atomic forces, really the vital energies, continuing unabated within the body structure, slowly weaken it and finally destroy it, and this is death.

"It is likewise these internal vital activities of the life-atoms held in insufficient check by the organic vitality which bring about many if perhaps not all of the various forms of disease of a lasting character. Cases of malignant disease are due to the same general cause but on account of specific and unusual circumstances are localized in some portion of the body where the power or control of the organic vitality becomes greatly weakened" (ET 813n).

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

A Theosophical definition of Space :

Space

Our universe, as popularly supposed, consists of space and matter and energy; but in theosophy we say that space itself is both conscious and substantial. It is in fact the root of the other two, matter and energy, which are fundamentally one thing, and this one fundamental thing is SPACE  - their essential and also their instrumental cause as well as their substantial cause  - and this is the reality of being, the heart of things.

Our teaching is that there are many universes, not merely one, our own home-universe; therefore are there many spaces with a background of a perfectly incomprehensible greater SPACE inclosing all  - a space which is still more ethereal, tenuous, spiritual, yes, divine, than the space-matter that we know or rather conceive of, which in its lowest aspect manifests the grossness of physical matter of common human knowledge. Space, therefore, considered in the abstract, is BEING, filled full, so to say, with other entities and things, of which we see a small part  - globes innumerable, stars and planets, nebulae and comets.

But all these material bodies are but effectual products or results of the infinitudes of the invisible and inner causal realms  - by far the larger part of the spaces of Space. The space therefore of any one universe is an entity  - a god. Fundamentally and essentially it is a spiritual entity, a divine entity indeed, of which we see naught but what we humans call the material and energic aspect  - behind which is the causal life, the causal intelligence.

The word is likewise frequently used in theosophical philosophy to signify the frontierless infinitudes of the Boundless; and because it is the very esse of life-consciousness-substance, it is incomparably more than the mere "container" that it is so often supposed to be by Occidental philosophers. (See also Universe; Milky Way)

See also: Space, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Cancer, Carcinoma A malignant opithelial tumor composed of a connective tissue-stroma surrounding groups or nests of multiplying epithelial cells. In general, carcinomas have capacity for unlimited growth, for invading adjacent tissues, and for producing similar typical growths in distant tissues in the same body or, as in experimental research, by grafts which take in another animal's body. These multiplying cells, drawing freely upon the nutritive materials of the living matter, pile up an unorganized, functionless, purposeless, uncontrolled local mass of its own cells running riot at the expense of the body.

The search for causes has held as suspect everything tangible in the human body and in the human milieu. Yet it is the different degree of development of the complex inner elements and urges of conscious quality which, giving personal play to the circulating life-forces, make the modern industrialized type just what it is as a human phenomenon of interacting spirit and matter. The searching analyses have yet to stress the reaction of modern people's combined mental, emotional, and ethical consciousness and vital forces upon the highly organized matter in their own bodies.

In each person the cosmic forces of vitality and intelligence manifest, perforce, according to individual karma. These combined factors are the noumena of all structural, chemical, functional, and biological phenomena. But these universal forces, in manifesting, are stepped down through the successive laya-centers of the inner person's spiritual, mental, emotional, and psychic nature. This series of conscious conditions provides and sets the stage, and directs the personal play of the manifesting impersonal forces. Every physical change as well as pathological phenomenon is "produced by certain conditions and changes in the tissues of the body which allow and force life to act in that body; . . . all this is due to those unseen creators and destroyers that are called in such a loose and general way, microbes" (SD 1:262).

During life the entire human constitution is suffused or permeated by the organic vital fluid of the reimbodying ego, which acts as a cohering factor for all the life-atoms of all the planes of the constitution to form an organic electrical field in which these life-atoms may inhere and work both collectively and individually, under the impulses and urges originating in the substance of the reimbodying ego. At times, the intense and unceasing vital activities of the life-atoms overcome the cohering, dominating influence of the organic psychoelectrical field. This is what brings about "many if perhaps not all of the various forms of disease of a lasting character. Cases of malignant disease are due to the same general cause but on account of specific and unusual circumstances are localized in some portion of the body where the power or control of the organic vitality becomes greatly weakened" (ET 813).

Lingering diseases are often preceded by a gradual withdrawal on inner lines of the higher parts of the human constitution which, being denied timely expression here, are drawn toward their native spiritual levels of existence. Thus the waning influence of the cohering, harmonizing, and balancing spiritual life-atoms and forces leaves the uncontrolled pranic forces to be expended upon the vital-astral-physical nature which manifests along the various materialistic mental, emotional, and sensuous levels and lines of life. An overdeveloped materialism is usurping the natural place and preventing the functional play of the duly awakening higher mind and spirit -- the essentials, at this stage, alike for our civilization's present safety and for its further progress.

This dangerous collective lack of balanced evolution is repeated in the play of the life-forces upon the cells of the cancerous individual. He is karmically responsible, as a self-conscious being with free will, for staging his own play of these impelling forces. His functionless cancer cell with its one primitive activity of self-division, localized out-of-time, is a biological throwback in type to the huge ethereal ovoid cell-forms of the first root-race. These primitive cells were then the normal encasement of the nascent, unself-conscious humans-to-be whose mode of reproduction was simple division. Now the normal body cell does not go off on its own, but adds its function to the complex organism in whose development it also has acquired its minor place to work and to evolve.

Nature, working always and everywhere to evolve suitable forms for the progressive imbodiments of the manifesting one life, leaves civilized man free to do his part by spiritually balancing his own human growth. Otherwise, he becomes an unnatural unit in the universal plan which makes ethics the natural cohering, harmonizing factor in the universe itself which actually is imbodied consciousness. Highly evolved culture without spiritual leaven is only sublimated selfishness.

Long-continued selfish emotions cause a distorted and inharmonious flow of the pranic currents of the body and they cause disease according to the type of the emotions. This concerns the majority today, for few have a working philosophy of life which can take things as they come. Aside from the frankly criminal and vicious types, the inner life of the many is self-centered and disturbed by the emotional play of worry, grief, disappointment, unhappiness, or a sense of futility or frustration -- for all of whom there seems to be no way of escape. Even the exceptional cases who have no articulate troubles, and who outwardly seem free from the prevailing restlessness, suffer from a muted unrest and an inward tension, a haunting feeling of self-reproach for somehow being unworthy of themselves, while a more satisfying reality of life is waiting to be attained. Evidently, the emotional effect of all these conditions -- to which the generally uncivilized are immune as yet -- react in disorder of the psychomagneto-electric forces flowing along the highly organized network of nerves. The retarded or short-circuited forces produce disease in one or another organ according to the type of the emotions. Back of all precancerous microscopical and chemical findings of changes in the blood, or in the polarity of the cells, or what not, are causative inharmonies or wrongs of the inner life.

No age or personal condition is wholly exempt from malignancy; and the karmic causes, in child or adult, may date back to a former life. Cancer, with its ability to grow in any living tissue, has been found in nearly all animals and in many plants, showing the closely knit natural relationships between all forms of life, each kingdom acting upon and reacting from harmonies or disturbances in other kingdoms. Experimental research has taken it over to the animal world countless times. Moreover, humanity's milieu is, in a real sense, an emanation of itself, because the vital human stream of incoming and outgoing material and of life-atoms on all planes is interchanged with and used by all other things and beings. Hence, humanity's unbalanced quality stamped upon this visible and invisible substance would predispose its impress to reappear, at times, in the physical forms of nature's less conscious entities.

(See also: Cancer, Carcinoma, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Monad :

Monad

A spiritual entity which to us humans is indivisible; it is a divine-spiritual life-atom, but indivisible because its essential characteristic, as we humans conceive it, is homogeneity; while that of the physical atom, above which our consciousness soars, is divisible, is a composite heterogeneous particle.

Monads are eternal, unitary, individual life-centers, conscious-ness-centers, deathless during any solar manvantara, therefore ageless, unborn, undying. Consequently, each one such  - and their number is infinite  - is the center of the All, for the divine or the All is THAT which has its center everywhere, and its circumference or limiting boundary nowhere.

Monads are spiritual-substantial entities, self-motivated, self-impelled, self-conscious, in infinitely varying degrees, the ultimate elements of the universe. These monads engender other monads as one seed will produce multitudes of other seeds; so up from each such monad springs a host of living entities in the course of illimitable time, each such monad being the fountainhead or parent, in which all others are involved, and from which they spring.

Every monad is a seed, wherein the sum total of powers appertaining to its divine origin are latent, that is to say unmanifested; and evolution consists in the growth and development of all these seeds or children monads, whereby the universal life expresses itself in innumerable beings.

As the monad descends into matter, or rather as its ray  - one of other innumerable rays proceeding from it  - is propelled into matter, it secretes from itself and then excretes on each one of the seven planes through which it passes, its various vehicles, all overshadowed by the self, the same self in you and in me, in plants and in animals, in fact in all that is and belongs to that hierarchy. This is the one self, the supreme self or paramatman of the hierarchy. It illumines and follows each individual monad and all the latter's hosts of rays  - or children monads. Each such monad is a spiritual seed from the previous manvantara, which manifests as a monad in this manvantara; and this monad through its rays throws out from itself by secretion and then excretion all its vehicles. These vehicles are, first, the spiritual ego, the reflection or copy in miniature of the monad itself, but individualized through the manvantaric evolution, "bearing" or "carrying" as a vehicle the monadic ray. The latter cannot directly contact the lower planes, because it is of the monadic essence itself, the latter a still higher ray of the infinite Boundless composed of infinite multiplicity in unity. (See also Individuality)

See also: Monad, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Sakti (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sak to be powerful, energetic, have force]

Universal energy, the feminine aspect of fohat; one of the seven forces of nature, of which six are manifest and the seventh partly manifest. It is energy that proceeds through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the one that produces it. Popularly, the wives or consorts of the gods -- the energies or active powers of these deities represented as feminine influences.

"These anthropomorphic definitions are unfortunate, because misleading. The Saktis of Nature are really the veils, or sheaths, or vehicular carriers, through which work the inner and ever-active energies. As substance and energy, or force and matter, are fundamentally one, . . . it becomes apparent that even these Saktis, or sheaths, or veils, are themselves energic to lower spheres or realms through which they themselves work.

"The crown of the astral light, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, is the generalized Sakti of Universal Nature in so far as our solar system is concerned" (OG 150).

Sakti in another sense is soul-power, the mental-psychic energy of the god as of the adept. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi, the wife or sakti of the five Pandava brothers, represents a spiritual power they all possessed in common. In legends and tales of the ancient peoples, the wives of the great heroes mystically represent the aggregate of the saktis or spiritual powers that the heroes had individually attained.

Considering the saktis as more or less conscious forces in nature, gives a picture of not only the turbulent and ever-active movements in the lower planes of nature, but likewise the calm and stately measures of spiritual activity. It is common in the West to associate power, activity, energy, and force with masculine correlations; but this is quite arbitrary, and an impassionate viewing of nature will show it to be continuously moved by vehicular as well as inspiriting causes.

Cosmically sakti or the saktis originate in the summit of the astral light or akasa, which in one sense may be considered as not only the womb of the cosmic saktis, but as their playground and in another sense as the saktis collectively themselves. In man, sakti is the buddhi in its higher aspect, and the activities of the various pranas in the human constitution in its lower aspect. There is no essential distinction between any divinity and its consort, between Brahman and pradhana, Brahma and prakriti, or between parabrahman and mulaprakriti. Furthermore, all the saktis are either conscious entities in nature, or vital effluxes or emanations, cosmic fluids, with which nature is infused throughout.

The reason the occultist of all ages looks askance at the tantric practices, or the Tantras dealing largely with the saktis, is because these tantric books and practices are almost wholly occupied in relations and correlations both in nature and in man of the saktis in their lower aspect. The kundalini, for instance, is likewise born in the buddhi in man, but descending through the human constitution has its pranic or psychovital physical representations in the various chakras or vital centers of the human frame, and thus the kundalini is an example of sakti or of its fluidic effluxes in the lower portions of the human constitution.

The early Christians looked upon the Holy Spirit as of distinctly feminine characteristics, influence, or svabhava, as the center not only of vital but of spiritual and intellectual activity, whether in the universe or man, so that the Holy Spirit corresponds to a divine sakti. A notable instance in Hinduism is the Sakti or goddess Durga, having both a lofty or spiritual, and an inferior or distinctly material, function in nature, and therefore a beneficent as well as a terrible action therein -- the very name Durga meaning "terrible in action," or "terrible in going." And yet Durga is the consort or sakti of Siva, often called the Mahesvara (Great Lord); and the name of this goddess arises from the utterly impartial, infinitely just, and yet often simply terrific action of the forces in nature, particularly when karmically directed to works of regeneration, often called destruction. Cosmic operations or cosmic justice are often indeed to human vision terrible in their operation, which can never be set aside, stayed, or diverted. Hence Durga is often represented in iconography as surrounded with a necklace of skulls or by similar ghastly emblems -- a series of ideas which the pragmatic West misinterprets and consequently depicts as horrible and revolting.

(See also: Sakti, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Germ In cosomogenesis, the germ stands for the first well-developed localized cosmic entity, luminous and semi-astral, that is to be a future world, whether a globe or a sun.

Hence the germ is the developed resultant of the first cosmic impulse of the primeval intelligent formative principle working downwards into manifestation. This stage in the evolution of a cosmic entity, whether globe or sun, in Sanskrit is called hiranyagarbha (golden germ or womb), for out of the germ as from a womb springs or evolves the entity later to appear.

The Secret Doctrine (2:176) speaks of the self-existent Kama, born from the heart of Brahma, as the personification of "the first movement that stirred the ONE, after its manifestation from the purely abstract principle, to create, 'Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind; . . . the bond which connects Entity with Non-Entity.'"

Japanese cosmogony says that "out of the chaotic mass, an egg-like nucleus appears, having within itself the germ and potency of all the universal as well as of all terrestrial life" (SD 1:216).

The fourth order of celestial beings, the highest group among those monads invested with their appropriate forms for that plane, is the nursery of the human, conscious, spiritual souls, and they constitute, through the next lower order "the first group of the first septenary host -- the great mystery of human conscious and intellectual Being. For the latter are the field wherein lies concealed in its privation the germ that will fall into generation.

That germ will become the spiritual potency in the physical cell that guides the development of the embryo, and which is the cause of the hereditary transmission of faculties and all the inherent qualities in man" (SD 1:218-19).

See also BACTERIA

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

Purusha purusa (Sanskrit) Man; the ideal or cosmic man, equivalent to the Qabbalistic 'Adam Qadmon. It contains with prakriti or nature all the seven, ten, or twelve scales of manifested being. Mystically, Purusha is used for the spiritual self or monad in each self-conscious entity, whether a universe, solar system, or human being; also it is sometimes interchangeable with Brahma, the evolver or creator. Purusha is what is called energy or force in science, if these words include the inseparable attribute of intelligence and moral harmony.

Purusha and prakriti stand to each other as the two poles of the same homogeneous, intelligent, living, cosmic substance, the root-principle of the universe, sometimes called svabhavat. In Kapila's Sankhya philosophy, "unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what he is; and the Spirit latent in Matter must be awakened to life and consciousness gradually" (SD 2:42).

Purusha corresponds to the Greek First or Unmanifest Logos; yet at times the svabhavic characteristics of Purusha are reminiscent rather of the Third or Manifest Logos, which shows the various functions attributed to Purusha in cosmogony which have gained currency at different times in Hindu thought.

See also LOGOS; PUMS

(See also: Purusha purusa, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Idealism Philosophical systems based fundamentally on consciousness, as contrasted with systems based on sensation or materialism. It affirms that the universe is an imbodiment of mind or, as stated by theosophy, the aggregated imbodiments of hierarchies of minds proceeding from a unitary divine root or universal hierarch.

It states that reality is essentially divine, spiritual, or noumenal and, on a lower plane, that the psychic is noumenal to the physical, which is its phenomenon. As a theory of knowledge, idealism identifies reality, so far as humankind is concerned, with inner conscious experience, or asserts that the mental life alone is truly knowable.

Subjective idealism denies the existence of objective reality altogether, except perhaps as illusory, as for instance in the views of Berkeley. Objective idealism, such as the system of Schelling, recognizes the existence of objective worlds while regarding the ideal world as the primary production and paramount: the external world has a relative and temporary or mayavi reality. This latter view is the only strictly logical one; for if we annihilate the object, we must thereby annihilate the subject also, these two terms having no meaning except relatively to each other.

In any theory of knowledge, there must be knower and thing known; and the latter is objective to the former. Absolute idealism logically is as unthinkable as is absolute materialism.

See also MAYA

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

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Life-atom In theosophical literature, the vital ensouling power or vital entified unit in every primary or ultimate physical particle, itself a vital quasi-conscious individualized vehicle of the spiritual monad or highest consciousness-center. A life-atom is not the physical atom of science, which is but the vehicle or garment of the former, compounded of physical or physical-astral matter only. This being so, an atom decomposes when its term of expression on this plane is ended, but it reimbodies itself again, doing so by the innate force or life which its ensouling monad (life-atom) radiates. The term does not mean the ultimates or primary particles of prana (life principle or life force). Prana, itself derivative from the jiva, is as an entity quite distinct from the atoms it animates. The physical atoms belong to the lowest or grossest state of matter on our plane, while jiva essentially is an emanation or outpouring from atman or paramatman.

"Life is ever present in the atom of matter, whether organic or inorganic, conditioned or unconditioned -- a difference that the occultists do not accept. Their doctrine is that life is as much present in the inorganic as in the organic matter: when life-energy is active in the atom, that atom is organic; when dormant or latent, then the atom is inorganic" (BCW 5:111-12).

Life-atoms may indeed be called the building blocks of the universe or of any imbodied entity: for they are in very truth the vehicles of universal life. They are composite of consciousness in the core of the core of each, and they manifest spontaneously in that form of consciousness which at times is called will and at other times force or energy. They partake of spirituality and remain ever invisible: physical atoms group and form around them and their aggregation results in physical matter, the life-atoms being to them very much as higher and invisible principles.

Life-atoms may be said to belong to all planes, functioning within each of the seven principles of which the human composition is built: thus we may speak of divine life-atoms, spiritual life-atoms, intellectual, psychic, vital, astral, and physical life-atoms. During man's life those which are intimately connected with an individual are in a state of constant flux and reflex, entering and leaving in unceasing rhythms the body of their owner or host; but after death the dominant controlling factor having departed from the lower planes, each group of life-atoms proceeds to peregrinate throughout their respective natural habitats. Thus when the physical body dies, the life-atoms of the body go into the soil, into plants, or into the bodies of beasts or men -- through food or by osmosis, or in breathing creatures through the air that is inspired or expired -- they are drawn to bodies by magnetic sympathy. This transmigration of the life-atoms is the origin of the theories of the transmigration of the human soul into beasts after death.

The life-atoms belonging to the astral plane which make up the linga-sarira or model-body of men and beasts, are also liberated at death and follow along the same general lines as the physical life-atoms: they find their way into and out of other astral vehicles with which they are in magnetic sympathy. In this way they help form the astral vehicles of individuals of the three lower kingdoms as well as of the beast and human kingdoms. In similar manner peregrinate the psychic, intellectual, spiritual, and divine life-atoms. In order that the spiritual monad may proceed on its afterdeath journey, all sheaths of the spiritual consciousness must be dropped on their appropriate planes, thus finally permitting the spiritual ego to pursue its upward and inward journey unhampered by the attractions to the lower planes which these life-atoms bring about.

"The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man's constitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man's body are as numerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, . . . in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a learning entity, an evolving entity, a being which is living, moving, growing, never standing still -- evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimately becomes divinity" (OG 87).

During this evolutionary journey it passes from unself-consciousness through manifold and all-various stages of experience to self-consciousness, finally merging into divinity. When this last stage is reached it is no longer an unself-conscious god-spark but a self-conscious god, one of the co-laborers and collaborators in the great work of the building of the worlds.

(See also: Life-atom, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)