Dhyani-chohans (Sanskrit-Tibetan) (from Sanskrit dhyani contemplation + Tibetan chohan lord)

Lords of meditation. In theosophical literature, dhyani-buddhas are the intellectual architects, the higher and more spiritual beings of the god-world. Dhyani-chohans, as a generalizing term, includes both the higher classes which take a self-conscious, active part in the architectural ideation of the universe, and the lower classes, some of which are self-conscious, but in their lower representations progressively less on on a descending scale.

The lowest of these builders are little more than merely conscious or semi-conscious beings following almost servilely the ideation of the cosmic spirit transmitted to them by the higher class of the architects.

Dhyani-chohan is likewise synonymous in one sense with the Sanskrit manu. The seven principal classes of dhyani-chohans are intimately connected, each to each, respectively, with the seven sacred planets of our solar system, and likewise with the globes of the earth planetary chain. Furthermore, there is a class of dhyani-chohans at the head of every department of nature in our solar system.

These dhyani-chohans, as the summit of the Hierarchy of Light, imbody in themselves as individuals the ideation of the cosmic Logos, thus forming the laws according to which nature exists and works. These laws, therefore, are really the automatic spiritual activities of the highest classes of the dhyani-chohans.

The dhyani-chohans have their bodhisattvas, intellectual offspring, or representatives on and in each descending cosmic plane, so that every being has as its highest portion one such dhyani-chohan as its egoic individuality. Hence, "the dhyani-chohans are actually in one most important sense our own selves. We were born from them; we were the monads, we were the atoms, the souls, projected, sent forth, emanated, by the dhyanis . . ." (Fund 407).

(See also: Dhyani-chohans, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Dhyan (Dhyani) - Chohan (Chohans) :

Dhyan (Dhyani) - Chohan (Chohans)

A compound word meaning "lords of meditation"  - kosmic spirits or planetary spirits. There are three classes of dhyan-chohans, each of which is divided into seven subclasses.

The dhyan-chohans collectively are one division of that wondrous host of spiritual beings who are the full-blown flowers of former world periods or manvantaras. This wondrous host are the men made perfect of those former world periods; and they guide the evolution of this planet in its present manvantara. They are our own spiritual lords, leaders, and saviors. They supervise us now in our evolution here, and in our own present cyclic pilgrimage we follow the path of the general evolution outlined by them.

Man in his higher nature is an embryo dhyan-chohan, an embryo lord of meditation. It is his destiny, if he run the race successfully, to blossom forth at the end of the seventh round as a lord of meditation  - a planetary spirit  - when this planetary manvantaric kalpa is ended, this Day of Brahma, which is the seven rounds, each round in seven stages.

In one most important sense the dhyan-chohans are actually our own selves. We were born from them. We are the monads, we are the atoms, the souls, projected, sent forth, emanated, by the dhyanis.

See also: Dhyan (Dhyani - Chohan (Chohans, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Dhyan-chohans, Dhyani (Dhyanis). See DHYANI-CHOHANS

(See also: Dhyan-chohans, Dhyani, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Dhyanis. See DHYANI-CHOHANS

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

dhyani:

dhyani (dhyaani). Meditator.

(See also: dhyani, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Dhyani-buddha (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root dhyai to meditate, contemplate + buddha awakened one)

Buddhas of contemplation or meditation; the fifth in the descending series in the enumeration of the Hierarchy of Compassion. Two general hierarchies of spiritual beings brought forth our cosmos: the dhyani-buddhas or architects who in their aggregate form the higher and more spiritual side, and actually compose the line of the luminous arc; and the dhyani-chohans or the builders or constructors who form the lower and relatively more material side, the line (from this viewpoint only) of the shadowy arc. Often the term dhyani-chohans is used for both these lines of beings.

There are seven dhyani-buddhas, so that for each round of a septenary planetary chain there is a presiding dhyani-buddha or causal buddha. Our present fourth round is under the care and supervision of the dhyani-buddha belonging to the fourth degree of this celestial hierarchy. The dhyani-bodhisattvas who watch over the globes of the planetary chain in each round are rays from the dhyani-buddha of the round.

"It is this dhyani-buddha of our fourth round, our Father in Heaven, who is the Wondrous Being, the Great Initiator, the Sacrifice, . . . The Ray running through all our individual being, from which we draw our spiritual life and spiritual sustenance, comes direct to us from this hierarchical Wondrous Being in whom we all are rooted. He to us, psychologically and spiritually, holds exactly the same place that the human ego, the man-ego, holds to the innumerable multitudes of elemental entities which compose his body . . ." (Fund 237-8).

These dhyani-buddhas furnished humankind with divine kings and leaders, who taught humanity the arts and sciences, and who "revealed to the incarnated Monads that had just shaken off their vehicles of the lower Kingdoms -- and who had, therefore, lost every recollection of their divine origin -- the great spiritual truths of the transcendental worlds" (SD 1:267).

Further, each human monad has sprung from the essence of a dhyani-buddha.

"The 'triads' born under the same Parent-planet, or rather the radiations of one and the same Planetary Spirit (Dhyani Buddha) are, in all their after lives and rebirths, sister, or 'twin-souls,' on this Earth.

"This was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every country: 'I and my Father are one,' said Jesus (John x. 30). When He is made to say, elsewhere (xx. 17): 'I ascend to my Father and your Father,'. . . It was simply to show that the group of his disciples and followers attracted to Him belonged to the same Dhyani Buddha, 'Star,' or 'Father,' again of the same planetary realm and division as He did" (SD 1:574).

(See also: Dhyani-buddha, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Dhyani Bodhisattyas (Sanskrit). In Buddhism, the five sons of the Dhyani-Buddhas. They have a mystic meaning in Esoteric Philosophy.

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

Dhyani Pasa (Sanskrit). "The rope of the Dhyanis" or Spirits; the Ring "Pass not" (See Sec.Doct., Stanza V., Vol. I., p. 129).

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

Dhyani Buddhas (Sanskrit). They "of the Merciful Heart"; worshipped especially in Nepaul. These have again a secret meaning.

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

Dhyani-bodhisattva (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root dhyai to meditate, contemplate + bodhisattva he whose essence is bodhi (wisdom))

A bodhisattva of meditation or contemplation; the sixth in the descending series of the Hierarchy of Compassion, the mind-born sons of the dhyani-buddhas.

"There is a dhyani-bodhisattva for this globe, and also for each of the three globes which precede this globe on the downward arc, and likewise a bodhisattva for each of the three globes which follow this globe on the upward arc -- one bodhisattva for each.

This dhyani-bodhisattva is the spiritual head of the spiritual-psychological hierarchy of each globe. . . . Our dhyani-bodhisattva is the Wondrous Being, the Great Initiator, the Silent Watcher of our globe . . ." (Fund 275).

(See also: Dhyani-bodhisattva, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Manasa-dhyanis (Sanskrit) [from manasa mental, intelligent from manas mind + dhyanis class of pitris from dhyani meditation]

The agnishvatta pitris, the givers of manas (mind) and intellectual consciousness to man; those solar and lunar pitris or dhyanis who incarnated by irradiation from themselves in the mentally senseless forms of semi-ethereal flesh of third root-race mankind. In the Puranas, considered the highest of the pitris (fathers of mankind).

The agnishvattas or manasa-dhyanis are intimately connected evolutionally and in occult cosmology with the sun, and are hence often called the solar ancestors of mankind. They are, in fact, one of the several classes of monads springing directly from mahat who provided man with his intellect, mind, and sense of individual moral responsibility.

(See also: Manasa-dhyanis, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Manasa Dhyanis (Sanskrit). The highest Pitris in the Puranas; the Agnishwatthas, or Solar Ancestors of Man, those who made of Man a rational being, by incarnating in the senseless forms of semi-ethereal flesh of the men of the third race. (See Vol. II. of Secret Doctrine.)

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

Chohan (Tibet, Tibetan) "Lord" or "Master" ; a chief; thus Dhyan-Chohan would answer to "Chief of the Dhyanis", or celestial Lights - which in English would he translated Archangels.

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

Host. See ANGEL(S); DHYANI-CHOHANS; HIERARCHIES

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

Dhyan (Dhyans). See DHYANI-CHOHANS

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

Chohan (Tibetan) (poss from chös law, dharma + Mong khan lord)

"Lord of the dharma"; in The Mahatma Letters chohan is the title usually given to superiors among the Masters of the Great White Lodge, whose chief is called the Maha-chohan. Also a general term used for beings in several states of evolution higher than the human.

"There are men who become such mighty beings, there are men among us who may become immortal during the remainder of the Rounds, and then take their appointed place among the highest Chohans, the Planetary conscious 'Ego-Spirits' " (ML 130).

Because chohan is used much as "chief" is used in English, the term does not signify one single degree in spiritual evolution.

Besides the chohans of light there are chohans of darkness who preside over pralayas, ruled by the Mamochohan.

See also DHYANI-CHOHANS.

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

Flagae Used by Paracelsus to denote an order of spiritual beings which correspond to the Christian guardian angels, or what would be called in theosophy the higher pitris or the sixfold dhyani-chohans -- that class of the dhyani-chohans in whom six of the seven constitutional principles of nature are more or less actively manifest.

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

Mamo-chohans (Tibetan?) In theosophy, the lords of darkness and of the forces of pure matter -- the dark and sinister spirits and operations of nature which are the activities of hosts of cosmic monads climbing slowly upward but as yet still sunken in the deep spiritual sleep of material existence. Hence mamo-chohans are unprogressed or unevolved planetaries or monads. The dhyani-chohans correspond to light, knowledge, and evolution; the mamo-chohans to darkness, ignorance, destruction, etc.

"The Dhyan Chohans answer to Buddh, Divine Wisdom and Life in blissful knowledge, and the Ma-mos are the personification in nature of Shiva, Jehovah and other invented monsters with Ignorance at their tail" (ML 463).

The dhyani-chohans preside at the opening and throughout every manvantara, while the mamo-chohans preside at the opening and throughout the pralayas.

(See also: Mamo-chohans, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Host. See ANGEL(S); DHYANI-CHOHANS; HIERARCHIES

(See also: Host, Hostia, Hostes, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Sapta-Surya (Sanskrit) The seven suns; the seven fundamental solar logoi of our own sun; the suns of our universal solar system. They are likewise connected to the hierarchies of intelligent beings or dhyani-chohans of various classes which enter into creative functions or action when the central sun emits creative light preceding the later periods of manvantaric activity.

Those classes of the dhyani-chohans who are the cosmic architects open the manvantaric drama by entering upon their respective functions, and once the lines of structure are thus laid, the lower classes of dhyani-chohans -- high though they may be in spirituality and intellectuality -- begin thereupon their work as builders, which is ceaseless until the manvantaric end.

References to these two general classes of ideative cosmic spirits, the architects and the cosmic masons or builders, are found in nearly all of the ancient religio-philosophic scriptures of the world.

(See also: Sapta-Surya, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)