Effort Dictionary

Star:

1) Like The Star card in the Tarot deck, dreaming of a single bright, shining star is a sign that even if things seem bad, there is still hope, and that your desires and destiny will be fulfilled, possibly through the efforts of a friend.

2. If the dream displays a clear sky full of many bright stars, great success lies ahead, but if the stars are pale or obscured by clouds, there will be a period of poverty before you finally attain your goals.

3. A star between the horns of the New Moon indicates that an influential person, probably a woman, will appear on the scene and assist you in attaining your dearest dream.

4. A shooting or falling star implies success after a period of great effort.

Source: Astrocenter, http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/DreamDictionary.aspx

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Star , Meaning of Dreams about Star , Dream Interpretation Star )

A Theosophical definition of Asrama :

Asrama

(Sanskrit) A word derived from the root sram, signifying "to make efforts," "to strive"; with the particle a, which in this case gives force to the verbal root sram.

Asrama has at least two main significations.

1. The first is that of a college or school or a hermitage, an abode of ascetics, etc.; whereas the second meaning signifies a period of effort or striving in the religious life or career of a Brahmana of olden days. These periods of life in ancient times in Hindustan were four in number: the first, that of the student or brahmacharin;
2. second, the period of life called that of the grihastha or householder  - the period of married existence when the Brahmana took his due part in the affairs of men, etc.; third, the vanaprastha, or period of monastic seclusion, usually passed in a vana, or wood or forest, for purposes of inner recollection and spiritual meditation; and fourth, that of the bhikshu or religious mendicant, meaning one who has completely renounced the distractions of worldly life and has turned his attention wholly to spiritual affairs.

Brahmasrama. In modern esoteric or occult literature, the compound term Brahmasrama is occasionally used to signify an initiation chamber or secret room or adytum where the initiant or neophyte is striving or making efforts to attain union with Brahman or the inner god.

See also: Asrama , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Dictionary on Dreams Meaning including the meaning of dreams about: Ditch, Dividend, Diving, Divining Rods, Divorce, Docks, Doctor, Dogs, Dolphin, Dome, Dominoes, Donkey, Doomsday, Door, Door Bell, Doves, Dowry, Dragon, Drama, Dram-drinking, Draw-knife, Dressing, Drinking, Driving, Dromedary.

Dream Dictionary Index including links to 10.000 dream interpretations: Dream Dictionary Index

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

In 1999, Bennie LeBeau of the Eastern Shoshone tribe began to experience a torrent of dreams and visions. The visions directed him to set in motion the plans for a massive Medicine Wheel Ceremony. The ceremony is set to take place at High Noon on Saturday, May 8, 2004 at more than 20 sacred sites in the American West, and at many other sacred sites elsewhere around the world, including Australia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and the Middle East.

Read more here: » Native American Spirituality: Native American Medicine Wheel Ceremony on May 8th 2004

Killing

If you dreamed of killing someone, whether intentionally or by accident, it signifies a period of severe emotional stress during which you must make a heroic effort to control your temper. To dream of being a witness to a killing portends a change which will not be entirely to your liking. A dream of seeing others kill insects or animals prophesies help from friendly sources, but to dream of killing them yourself predicts that you will overcome your obstacles through your own efforts

Source: Swoon, http://www.swoon.com

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Killing , Meaning of Dreams about Killing , Dream Interpretation Killing )

Sun: The Sun rules Leo. Vitality is the energy reflected by the Sun in the astrological chart. Just as the Sun is the source of life for all living things we know of, the Sun’s position in your chart is an indicator of the way you approach life. Nearly everyone knows their Sun sign and a little bit about it. We read the astrology column in the newspaper to see how the day will be for our sign. Many people like the time of year around their birthday, not just because it is near their birthday, but because the energy of the Sun sign is so conformable.

Young children express the Sun sign energy clearly and directly. We tend to move away from this clarity as we learn different forms of expression, yet we always come back to the foundation of the Sun sign, learning to perfect the strengths that it indicates and to compensate for any weaknesses. The Sun is, in addition to being the source of life, the sustainer of our individual character. When you understand the deeper nature of your Sun sign, you also understand the core direction for your personal expression in the world.

The house position of the Sun in your chart indicates one area of life that takes on greater importance than any other. It is the area where you are perhaps the most self-conscious, it is where your will can be best expressed, it is where you can develop the greatest arrogance. You will focus loyalty and generosity in that area, as well as discover your own personal dignity.

The house and sign of the sun indicates an area in which you will strive to express yourself, and you will want to be recognized for your activities in that area of life. As you gain experience in living, you may become bolder in your efforts to attain your Sun sign goals. You can become a leader in this area because you understand the deepest and broadest values of this area of your life.

When you read about your Sun sign, take the details to heart. Make a personal effort – use your will – to develop the highest and best expression of this sign. It is your birthright, and the area where you can learn to speak and act with authority.

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

Indeterminacy Used in science to mean that the investigation of intra-atomic phenomena has (for the time being) reached the limits of human power to determine the behavior of a particle. The Heisenberg principle of uncertainty states that it is impossible to increase the accuracy of measurement of the velocity of a particle without by this very observational act introducing an uncertainty into the determination of its position.

The attempt to represent phenomena as a chain of cause and effect must lead sooner or later to a point where we can no longer trace the cause -- not because causes vanish, but because of the imperfection of our observation and of our instruments, so that the chain of causation continues until we lose track of it because of incapacity. Hence we are unable to predict the behavior of a particle. Subsequent investigation may enable us to carry the chain of causation farther, but the process cannot go on indefinitely without carrying us beyond the physical plane. The standards of measurement successfully adopted for molar physics and for phenomena within terrestrial limits have proved inadequate for the definition of phenomena outside those limits; and both theory and experiment show that these standards are largely conceptual and must be changed to suit new conditions.

Some people try to introduce a volitional principle into nature at this point, but this is falsely to assume that the volitional principle is absent elsewhere -- an assumption purely speculative, and which seems entirely unwarranted. It is not that the universe is divided into a mechanical section and a volitional section, arbitrarily separated by a hypothetical boundary that varies according to our progress in investigation.

The mechanical interpretation therefore is a device adopted for practical purposes on the physical plane, which enables us to predict results within limits that do not bring the validity of its assumptions into question. Science finds that one form of motion is consequent upon another, but it knows nothing about the cause of motion; and words like force and mass are merely convenient abstractions. Hence there can be no reason for introducing a psychological element into nature at one point rather than at another, for such disjunct compartments do not exist in nature.

Indeterminacy, as used by science, is the contrary of determinism; both would seem to imply attitudes of mind rather than actualities in nature.

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

Dream Interpretation Bicycle

A bicycle stands for an individual choice of direction, strength and effort. Riding a bike in a dream may suggest that you are the one who is in charge of your own destiny. If you feel as if your bike is floating in the air, you want to advance socially, and to improve your financial situation. Buying a bicycle means that you need to be more active and improve your physical condition.

Source: Dream-Land, http://www.dream-land.info

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Bicycle , Meaning of Dreams about Bicycle , Dream Interpretation Bicycle )

Hinduism, Islam and Christianity: Hinduism Relationship with Islam and Christianity

The propagators of both Christianity and Islam have been doing a great service to Hinduism for the last several centuries, with their vehement criticism born out of their profound ignorance of Hinduism and their condescending sympathy for the natives. When they set foot on the Indian soil in the medieval period, they made every possible effort to declare Hinduism as a Satanic cult and a religion of the Brahmins in an attempt to draw converts from lower castes, ignoring its philosophical depths and its true character. Unknowingly, they helped Hinduism by forcing the Hindus of medieval and British India to become more defensive, resolute and determined to safeguard their own religion.

Read more here: » Hinduism, Islam and Christianity: Hinduism Relationship with Islam and Christianity

Dream Interpretation Elevator

Riding in an elevator means that you are looking for help with a specific problem, or you want to achieve your goals in a hurry without putting much effort into it. Riding up in the elevator means social and professional advancement. Riding down in an elevator means the desire for sexual adventures or your fortunes will decrease. Seeing an elevator in your house means that you want to advance in life fast without much effort.

Source: Dream-Land, http://www.dream-land.info

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Elevator , Meaning of Dreams about Elevator , Dream Interpretation Elevator )

Indigo Children

Children born since around 1982 really are different, like no other generation of record. If the movie "Indigo" makes this point and no other, it has done the world a favor and hopefully will help to engender an overall transformation in how we regard and teach children. Surely it will inspire a forum whereby the children themselves can speak and be heard... for our youngest citizens truly have something important to say that is worth hearing.

Read more here: » Indigo Children: A view on the movie Indigo by Twyman/Walsh/Simon about Indigo Children

Buddhism: Basic Buddhist Dictionary

A basic dictionary of Buddhism terms. Please note that all words in grey like " Buddhism " are links to an archive with related articles.

Dreams Interpretation including the meaning of dreams about: Ditch, Dividend, Diving, Divining Rods, Divorce, Docks, Doctor, Dogs, Dolphin, Dome, Dominoes, Donkey, Doomsday, Door, Door Bell, Doves, Dowry, Dragon, Drama, Dram-drinking, Draw-knife, Dressing, Drinking, Driving, Dromedary.

Dream Dictionary Index including links to 10.000 dream interpretations: Dream Dictionary Index

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

Read more here: » Dreams Interpretation: Dreams Interpretation from; Diving to Drinking

WILL

Another word for persistence and maintained attention. Will is one of the two natural human powers for altering reality (the other is imagination). When faced with an insoluble problem or great odds against us, it is the Will alone that leads us through to solution and victory. As the imagination is the power of the mind through understanding and enlightenment, the Will is the way of material action. There is no will without physical effort of some kind exerted over physical phenomena.

Colin Wilson says of the will:

"Modern civilization induces an attitude of "passivity." When a  Stone Age hunter set out to trap wild animals, he was aware of his will as a  living force. When the prehistoric farmer scored the surface of the earth with  a crude plough, he knew that his family's survival through the winter depended  on his effort, and his will responded to the challenge. When a modern city dweller walks down a crowded thoroughfare, he feels no sense of challenge or  involvement. This city was built by other people; all these shops and offices  are owned by other people. He can get through an ordinary day's work in a  state approximating to sleep. Most of his routine tasks are carried out by the  'robot.' There is neither the need or the opportunity to use the will."

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

 Abhyasa:

steady effort

(See also:  Abhyasa , Body Mind and Soul)

A Dream Dictionary including dreams about:

Ambush , America, Amethyst, Ammonia, Ammunition, Amorous, Amputation, Anchor, Andirons, Anecdote , Angels, Anger, Angling, Annoy, Antelope, Ants, Anvil, Anxiety, Apes, Apparel, Apparition , Apples, Apprentice, Apricot, April , Apron, Arch

For more dream interpretation, see: Dream Dictionary

For more about dreams, see: Dreams.

Bread and Wine "The outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace," bread and wine stand at once for the actual elements used in initiation ceremonies and for the attainments of which they are symbolic.

Taking the Bacchic Mysteries as an example, wine was given as the blood of the grape and of Bacchus, blood signifying life, and Bacchus representing the mystic Logos which "was made flesh." So the whole rite means the imparting to the candidate of the divine life by conscious union of his lower self with the god within -- a union brought about by the self-devised efforts of the lower self. In the same way, bread or grain symbolized the intellectual aspect of the attainment, intellect being the "body" of the spiritual influx.

The Christian sacrament was adopted from the pagan rite. The Protestant Churches administer the sacrament in both bread and wine as the symbol of a divine grace received by the devout participant.

The Catholic Church teaches that the sacred elements are actually transubstantiated by miraculous means into the blood and body of Christ, denying the cup or the wine to the laity, and regarding the rite as propitiatory for the sins of the participants and of mankind in general.

The old pagan rite contained the idea that partaking of the wine meant allying oneself with the vital energy of the spiritual divinity within the neophyte, and the partaking of the bread was symbolic of a similar union of the neophyte's mentality with the cosmic mind for which the bread stood.

See also SOMA; WINE

(See also: Bread and Wine , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma (bodhi-pakkhiya-dhammaa): "Wings to Awakening" - seven sets of principles that are conducive to Awakening and that, according to the Buddha, form the heart of his teaching:

(1)         the four frames of reference (see satipatthana);

(2)         four right exertions (sammappadhana) - the effort to prevent unskillful states from arising in the mind, to abandon whatever unskillful states have already arisen, to give rise to the good, and to maintain the good that has arisen;

(3)         four bases of success (iddhipada) - desire, persistence, intentness, circumspection;

(4)         five dominant factors (indriya) - conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment;

(5)         five strengths (bala) - identical with

(6)         seven factors for Awakening (bojjhanga) - mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, persistence, rapture (see piti), serenity, concentration, equanimity; and

(7)         the eightfold path (magga) - Right View, Right Attitude, Right Speech, Right Activity, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.

 (See also: Bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Buddhism

A variety of religions founded by a man named Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha (“Enlightened One”). An outgrowth of Vedic Paleopagan mysticism, rooted in the “Four Noble Truths:”

(1) Existence is suffering,

(2) Suffering is caused by desire,

(3) Desire can be overcome,

(4) by following the Eightfold Path (right belief, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right meditation).

(See also: Buddhism , Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)