A Wisdom Archive on encounter

ENCOUNTER GROUP - sensitivity training and experience movement devoted to interpersonal relationships, contact and sharing with others, direct experience of feelings. (NAD)

 
(See also: ENCOUNTER GROUP, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary )

If we meet no Gods, its because we harbour none, said Emerson. For us, God is not a remote, abstract figure; He is a living, loving Presence. The nirguna or formless God of Shankara’s Advaita is difficult to relate to - but give Him a sweet form and through saguna upasana or worship He can become your very own because of the wonderful ease it creates in human divine encounter.
 
The predominant religious motif of practising Hinduism is this archanam andpadasevanam - the worship and adoration of a God made visible to our eyes in beautiful images, in homes and in temples. It is the ornamental centrepiece of the Vaishnav bhakti tradition set in motion by acharyas like Ramanuja, Madhava and Vallabha.

 
(See also: Hindu Worship, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul )

Read more here: » Hindu Worship: Devotional Worship And Service to All  

PAST-LIFE REGRESSION: Act of using meditation or guided meditation to pass through the veil of linear time and perceive experiences encountered in a previous existence.

 
(See also: PAST-LIFE REGRESSION, Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary )

In the alienated and fragmented world we live in today, the human heart cries out for friendship or affirmation from others. That is because we are meant to see in the human faces we encounter, the face of God.
 
Tell someone that I am here, is the cry of the human heart. Fernando Silva, who runs a children's hospital in Managua, reports the incident of a lonely child in the hospital in search of a human hand to grasp. One Christmas eve, when he stayed in working late into the night amidst revelry, he heard footfalls behind him. On turning, he recognised the sick child who had no one in the world. Fernando drew close to the child and touched him lightly with his hand. The child whispered: "Please tell someone that I am here".

 
(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul )

Read more here: » Love and Happiness: True Friends are God's Angels

DREAMSCAPE - archetypal space or landscape encountered in dreaming. (NAD)

 
(See also: DREAMSCAPE, Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary )

LARVAE
Involutional astral entities, of two types. The first are those created by wicked imagination. They can infect and enter human beings as vampires or leeches. The way to deal with such an invader is to reject it utterly and to substitute a better image. When encountered on the physical plane, a larva was, in ages past, destroyed with a magical sword. Today it would be more effective to use a laser beam. The second type of larvae are the shades of those who have lived on earth but who have, according to HPB, "refused all spiritual light, remained and died deeply immersed in the mire of matter, and from whose sinful souls the immortal spirit has gradually separated."
 
 

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

JUSTICE
The 11th or 8th Arcanum, lettered lamedh. This pathway concerns itself with redressing the build-up of Karma. Crowley calls it Adjustment and assigns it the number 8, not only to displace Strength to the number eleven spot, but to emphasize that balance cannot end on an uneven number. It is useful to observe several things depicted by the figure of Justice. First of all, she is seated, which is an indication, from the beginning, that the process of correction is passive, not aggressive. Secondly, she bears the scales of justice in one hand, but a sword in the other. That means that there are times when the proper response is not justice or balance, but violence. Finally, the pillars on either side are a continuation of those first encountered in the High Priestess.
 

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

KAMA LOKA
The receiving station of the astral plane; the so-called "desire-world" where the dead first arrive. It is this place that the NDE people refer to as "the other side." It takes on the illusory character of anything the newly arrived spirit most desires. Muslims immediately believe they have entered Paradise, Xtians invariable encounter Jesus here. After a very short time, these errors of perception are corrected.
 

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

Astral Travel: The experience of moving around through the environments encountered during astral projection. This may include moving at the speed of thought to any location in the physical world, universe, or on the various more ethereal planes of the astral worlds
 
Also See: Astral Projection

 
(See also: Astral Travel, Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca )

TEONANACATL
"Flesh of the Gods," A series of sacred Mexican mushrooms (including agarics like psilocybin), giving rise to shamanic visions, less violently upsetting (if objective judgment is possible) than those of peyotl. All psychedelics, in their extremity, succeed in "Osirizing" the participant, who then must "put himself back together again." It is in the restructuring that the shaman encounters his strengths and weaknesses and is able to transform them.
 

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

Satyavrata
A sage who encountered Lord Matsya, the fish incarnation of Vishnu, and later became the current Manu, Vaivasvata.

 
(See also: Satyavrata, Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul )

SANKHYA
The ancient Hindu philosophy which exerted the strongest influence on Buddhism. Created by Kapila in 600 B.C., it reveals how the Kosmos has been engaged in a dualistic war between Prakriti (physical nature, matter or reality) and Purusha ("Person," Soul of the Universe, Archetypal man, Brahma, spirit, etc.). In the end, Purusha and Prakriti must be re-united in order to set in motion the world''s evolution. Essential teaching is also encountered in Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism and contemporary psychiatry. The hallmarks of Prakriti, as follows, are known as gunas and they can be related perfectly to Alchemy:
 
TAMAS: The mineral nature characterized by heaviness, inertia,  indifference, inactivity, and delusion. (Salt, in alchemy.)
RAJAS: The vegetal nature shown by movability. (Sulphur, in alchemy.)
SATTVAS: The animal nature as lit by balance, harmony, luminosity. The  guna of transcendence. (In alchemy: mercury.)

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

NECROMONICON: was the literary invention of writer, H.P.Lovecraft. This author is reknown for his wonderful fiction HOWEVER, he lost the rights to this work and others turned this fictional work into a 'religion' for the gullible. PERHAPS after these many years of 'worship', it can now be entitled to the title of religion. But only by a VERY LONG STRETCH of that definition!
 
As such, it deals with altering & predicting life by use of 'entities' from other planes. And deals with 'portals' in time & dimensions. All kinds of nifty role-playing, fantasy & sci-fi stuff! It's also deals with all kinds of gruesome things - which is so sickening & repulsive to this person, as to make me wonder what kind of people would involve themselves in this. Though so far my encounters with 'practitioners' of necromancy, have been young persons. And they seem oblivious to the fact they are making some money-mongers VERY HAPPY! I most wholeheartedly urge everybody to STAY AWAY from this subject. To those who think they know better, good luck. The arguments FOR this practice only cause more REVULSION, and show the ignorant arrogance involved with it.

 
(See also: NECROMONICON, Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary )

JOHN THE BAPTIST
The mystical son of Zacharias, born at the summer solstice and complement of Christ whose opposite birth was the winter solstice. In the deepest sense, John the Baptist was both the real and symbolic Christ, dwelling in the wilderness, wearing camel skins and eating locusts and wild honey. It was he who preached, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" It was he who said, long before Christ, "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." It was he who said, "Do violence to no man!" It was he who denied the Pharisees his baptism, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"
 
But then we encounter the inevitable Xtian interpolation, added into the Bible a century later: "I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire!" (Note the reference to the usual magical elements - Fire, Spirit, etc. - John, born under the sign of the Crab, being the baptiser by Water.)
 
John met his fate supposedly because he spurned the advances of Salome and her mother. Eventually they succeeded in convincing Herod to have him beheaded (i.e., removed the spirit from the body). The Jesus who came after was considered by some to be the reincarnation of John (or the resurrected spirit thereof).
 

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