Six-pointed Star The double triangle or Solomon's Seal; in India called the sign of Vishnu, where it "is the emblem of the Trimurti three in one. The triangle with its apex upward indicates the male principle, downward the female; the two typifying, at the same time, spirit and matter."

(IU 2:270; cf also diagrams in IU 2:264-5, 452-3) The six-pointed star is found in symbolical representations of the earliest cosmogonies. When the six-pointed star is formed of two interlaced equilateral triangles -- one light with the apex pointing upward, the other dark with the apex pointing downward, both triangles being symmetrically placed with regard to one central point -- and the double figure is surrounded by a circle, the sign represents the universe, spirit and matter, the alpha and omega in the cosmos, and involution and evolution. In the Qabbalistic presentation of the figure, instead of a circle surrounding the star a serpent is portrayed as swallowing its tail, as in the seal of the Theosophical Society:

This is the Egyptian symbol of time and eternity, and of ever-recurring cycles: of birth and death, manvantara and pralaya, to which the universe and every entity within it are subject. In theosophy it symbolizes further the six forces or powers of nature, the six cosmic planes, principles, etc., all synthesized by the seventh, or central point within the star.

The apex of the light triangle symbolizes the spiritual-divine monad, having its habitat in the spiritual-divine realms; the apex of the dark triangle, the human monad, having its habitat in the middle realm of conflict between spirit and matter, the apex itself being in the worlds of manifestation, the two sides extending from it reaching upwards towards the spiritual realm and representing evolution through aspiration and efforts towards a spiritual life. On the other hand, the two sides extending downwards from the apex of the light triangle represent the rays streaming from the spiritual-divine monad to enlighten, inspire, and uplift all beings in the manifested worlds. In the case of man, the human monad represented by the apex of the dark triangle is the reflection or child of the spiritual-divine monad or inner god.

The central geometrical point, having neither length, breadth, nor thickness, represents the invisible spiritual sun, the light of the unmanifested deity. Sometimes instead of a geometrical point, a crux ansata with a circle as its zenith appears -- symbol of limitless, uncreated space, as is a cross within a circle.

Again, the pentagram or five-pointed star may take the place of the central point, in which case the pentagram symbolizes the microcosm or man, within the macrocosm or universe. "The double triangle representing symbolically, the Macrocosm, or great universe, contains in itself besides the idea of the duality (as shown in the two colours, and two triangles -- the universe of Spirit and that of Matter) -- those of the Unity, of the Trinity, of the Pythagorean Tetractys -- the perfect Square -- and up to the Dodecagon and the Dodecahedron" (BCW 3:313).

See also SENARY; SEAL OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

(See also: Six-pointed Star , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Races :

Races

During evolution on our earth (and on the other six manifest globes of the planetary chain of earth correspondentially), mankind as a life-wave passes through seven evolutionary stages called root-races. Seven such root-races form the evolutionary cycle on this globe earth in this fourth round through the planetary chain; and this evolutionary cycle through our globe earth is called one globe round. We are at the present time in the fourth subrace of our present fifth root-race, on globe D or our earth.

Each root-race is divided in our teachings into seven minor races, and each one of these seven minor races is again in its turn subdivided into seven branchlet or still smaller racial units, etc.

The student who is interested in the matter of tracing the evolutionary arrangement or history of the seven root-races on our globe earth is referred primarily to H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, and secondarily to Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy.

Each one of the seven root-races reaches its maximum of material efflorescence and power at about its middle point. When half of the cycle of any one of the seven root-races is run, then the racial cataclysm ensues, for such is the way in which nature operates; and at this middle racial point, at the middle point of the fourth subrace of the mother-race or root-race, a new root-race begins or is born out of the preceding root-race, and pursues its evolution from birth towards maturity, side by side with, or rather in connection with, the latter half of the preceding mother-race or root-race. It is in this fashion that the root-races overlap each other, a most interesting fact in ethnological or racial history. This overlapping likewise takes place in the cases of the minor and branchlet races.

It will be between sixteen thousand and twenty thousand years more before the racial cataclysm will ensue which will cut our own fifth root-race in two  - exactly as the same racial cataclysmic occurrence happened to the fourth-race Atlanteans who preceded us, and to the third-race Lemurians who preceded them; and as it will happen to the two root-races which will follow ours, the sixth and seventh  - for we are now approaching the middle point of our own fifth root-race, because we are nearing the middle point of the fourth subrace of this fifth root-race. (See also Globe, Planetary Chain, Round)

See also: Races , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Planetary Chain Every kosmic body or globe, be it sun or planet, nebula or comet, atom or electron, is a composite entity comprised of inner and invisible energies and substances, and of an outer and often visible physical body. These elements all together, whether enumerated as seven or twelve, are the principles or elements of every self-contained entity or individual life-center. What theosophy calls a planetary chain is an entity composed of seven or twelve such multiprincipled globes, and which taken as a unit form one planetary chain. All celestial bodies are multiprincipled entities as man is, who is a copy in the small of what the universe is in the great, there being one life and one system of laws in that universe. Every entity in the universe is an inseparable part of it, therefore whatsoever the whole contains, is found in miniature in every part.

Our own earth-chain is composed of seven or twelve globes, of which only one, our physical earth, exists on this plane, perceptible to our physical sense apparatus because that apparatus is evolved to cognize this earth-plane and none other. But the life-waves of all the globes of the earth-chain pass in succession, following each other, from globe to globe, thus gaining experience of energy, matter, and consciousness on all the various planes and spheres that this chain comprises.

Limiting our explanation only to the manifest seven globes of the complete twelve, the six globes other than the earth exist, according to one diagrammatic delineation, two by two, on the three planes of the solar system more ethereal than the physical plane. These three superior planes or worlds are each one superior to the world or plane immediately beneath it. Our earth-globe is the fourth and most material of all the manifest globes of the earth-chain. Three globes precede it on the descending or shadowy arc and three globes follow it on the ascending or luminous arc of evolution.

(See also: Planetary Chain , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Anthropogenesis That stage of theogony when the spiritual monads of the central spiritual fire are passing through the human kingdom. If under human being everything was included from the primal spark to the culminating point of evolution, then anthropogenesis would become coextensive with cosmogenesis.

The two cannot be sharply separated, for not only is man involved in those cosmic kingdoms which are at other stages than the human, but the human being, in common with every other organism, is an epitome of the universe. Three lines of evolution converge in humankind: the monadic or divine-spiritual, the intellectual from the manasa-dhyanis, and the vital-astral-physical. But we are not a mere product generated by external forces or creative powers outside of ourselves; it is the growth outwards from our own inner essence that is fundamental.

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

Sin (Chaldean) The moon; also the Babylonian and Assyrian moon deity called Enzu (the lord of wisdom) and Nannar (the illuminer). The wisdom is that of the lower manas, the reflection of the higher, and this wisdom can all too often become the dark wisdom of evildoing and sorcery.

Temples to Sin were erected in all the principal cities of the two empires, named E-gish-shir-gal (house of the great light). The worship of the moon deity predominated at Ur and Harran, and he was portrayed as an old man with flowing beard, having the crescent as his symbol and 30 as his number. Sin was known as father of the gods, creator of all things; and some of the ancient nations held that the moon was parent of the sun, and that the moon in its turn was once eons ago a sun itself.

The name is likewise found in the Hebrew Sinay, commonly written Sinai -- a moon-mountain, referring indirectly to the fact that all such places in ancient times which were named mountain of the moon or a similar title, were then centers of occult training and initiation, whether good or bad.

Referring to the forming of mankind, the Stanzas of Dzyan say: "Who perfects the last body? Fish, Sin, and Soma." Soma was in Hindustan also a name of the moon, and fish refers to a similar fact -- fishes often being taken as symbols of the productive power of the lunar influence because of their great fecundity. Fish, Sin, and the moon conjointly are the three symbols of the immortal Being (SD 1:263). As these symbols, among other things, stand for Pisces, karma, and the mother of terrestrial life, it would seem that the pilgrimage of the human monad through the halls of experience, and the completing of its evolution thereby, is indicated.

(See also: Sin , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Chohan (Tibetan) (poss from chšs 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)

Fall With reference to Christian theology and thought, the fall of the angels; or the fall of man.

The former in theosophy refers to the descent of those dhyanis whose mission was intellectually to enlighten nascent mankind, and in a sense also the lower kingdoms of nature.

The latter refers to the descent of human beings into matter, when they became clothed in coats of skin, and incidentally began to reproduce by sexual generation. Both of these events in the cycle of evolution have been perverted by ecclesiastical error into calamities.

 The descent of the manasaputric dhyanis has been transformed in Occidental theology into a rebellion of Satan and his host against God, through which Satan becomes a perpetual foe to God and mankind. The War in Heaven is allegorical and means the natural opposition and resistance of lower nature and its hosts to the progress of unfolding beings which is essential to evolution.

The fall of mankind includes the natural human evolutionary passage into physical corporeality, and also the misuse of human intelligence; but does not refer to the natural use of procreative functions or to innate sinfulness.

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

Thalamus, Optic [from Greek optikos visual from op to see + thalamos chamber]

The optic thalami are the two great posterior ganglia at the base of the brain, forming part of the wall of the third ventricle. They are the bed from which the optic fibers arise, as well as a special center for the correlation and transmission of sensory, motor, and ideational impressions which, consciously and subconsciously, interact between the body and the brain. The thalami are a central station for the reception, condensation, and transmission of all the intercommunicating lines between the conscious, thinking person and the external world.

Embryology shows the optic thalami playing an early and leading part in connection with the pineal gland, then at the apex of the developing head, a biological review of early racial conditions when the pineal gland functioned as the only eye of vision. At that stage of evolution, the human was as unselfconscious in personality and as gelatinous in physical structure as the embryo now is at first. Nevertheless, he was a spiritual being, as he now is, being the reincarnating ego which directs the evolution of its marvelous body from the unit of a fertilized cell.

The embryo repeats the gradual growth and dominating position of the cerebral hemispheres which, in the history of the third root-race, gave play to intellectual faculties at the expense of spiritual vision. Then the pineal "eye," no longer active, retired to the hollow of the brain where the optic thalami became concerned with the development of the two eyes of physical vision. "It is a curious fact that it is especially in human beings that the cerebral hemispheres and the lateral ventricles have been developed, and that the optic thalami, corpora quadrigemina, and corpora striata are the principal parts which are developed in the mammalian brain" (SD 2:301).

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

Creation (from Latin, cf Greek krainein, Sanskrit kri to make, do)

The Ever-existent, which in its transcendent aspect is the eternally embracing Boundless, is the source as well as the sum total of all beings and things; hence in essence all beings and things are eternal and have never been created in the Christian sense, for they are of the very stuff, essence, and be-ness of the Boundless itself.

Yet the word creation has a legitimate use in the original sense of coming forth from being into existence, not as something produced from nothing but in the ordinary sense of production of something out of something else.

A human being can be said to be created in that he is brought into being as such, not from nothing but from the various elements which when combined form the human constitution, conjoined with the contemporaneous evolution of the powers and substances of the monad by which it acquires its various sheaths; worlds also can be said to be created out of primordial matter, and compound elements from simpler ones.

Hermes says that matter becomes; formerly it was -- profound expressions indeed; and Fichte expresses the same idea in his distinction between Seyn and Daseyn. In this sense, matter or worlds may be said to be brought forth or created, with the significance of becoming.

See also PRIMARY CREATION; SECONDARY CREATION

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

Siva, Shiva (Sanskrit) The third god of the Hindu Trimurti (trinity): Brahma the evolver; Vishnu the preserver; and Siva the regenerator or destroyer.

Siva is one of the three loftiest divinities of our solar system, and in his character of destroyer stands higher than Vishnu for he is "the destroying deity, evolution and PROGRESS personified, who is the regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life under another more perfect type" (SD 2:182). As the destroyer of outward forms he is called Vamadeva. Endowed with so many powers and attributes, Siva possesses a great number of names, and is represented under a corresponding variety of forms. He corresponds to the Palestinian Ba`al or Moloch, Saturn, the Phoenician El, the Egyptian Seth, and the Biblical Chiun of Amos, and Greek Typhon.

"In the Rig Veda the name Siva is unknown, but the god is called Rudra, which is a word used for Agni, the fire god . . ."; "In the Vedas he is the divine Ego aspiring to return to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that divine ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce passions make of him the 'roarer,' the 'terrible' " (SD 2:613, 548).

Siva is often spoken of as the patron deity of esotericists, occultists, and ascetics; he is called the Mahayogin (the great ascetic), from whom the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained. Here he is "the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man -- mystically . . . Siva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the preserver; and both are the regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions and senses of man must first die before his body does. 'To live is to die and to die is to live,' has been too little understood in the West. Siva, the destroyer, is the creator and the Saviour of Spiritual man, as he is the good gardener of nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual, man" (SD 1:459&n).

Though Siva is often called Maha-kala (great time) which, while being the great formative factor in manvantara is also the great dissolving power, to the Hindu mind destruction implies reproduction; so Siva is also called Sankara (the auspicious), for he is the reproductive power which is perpetually restoring that which has been dissolved, and hence is also called Mahadeva (the great god). Under this character of restorer he was often represented by the symbol of the linga or phallus: "the Lingham and Yoni of Siva-worship stand too high philosophically, its modern degeneration notwithstanding, to be called a simple phallic worship" (SD 2:588). It is under the form of the linga, either alone or combined with the yoni (female organ, the representative of his sakti or female energy), that Siva is so often worshiped today in India.

In the Linga-Purana, Siva is said to take repeated births, in one kalpa possessing a white complexion, in another that of a black color, in still another that of a red color, after which he becomes four youths of a yellow color. This allegory is an ethnological account of the different races of mankind and their varying types and colors (cf SD 1:324).

Siva is known under more than a thousand names or titles and is represented under many different forms in Hindu writings. As the god of generation and of justice, he is represented riding a white bull; his own color, as well as that of the bull, is generally white, referring probably to the unsullied purity of abstract justice. He is sometimes seen with two hands, sometimes with four, eight, or ten; and with five faces, representing among other things his power over the five elements.

He has three eyes, one placed in the centre of his forehead, and shaped as a vertical oval. These three eyes are said to denote his view of the three divisions of time: past, present, and future. He holds a trident in his hand to denote his three great attributes of emanator, destroyer, and regenerator, thus combining all the usual qualities or functions attributed to the Trimurti. In his character of time, he not only presides over its beginning and its extinction, but also over its present functioning as represented in astronomical and astrological calculations.

A crescent or half-moon on his forehead indicates time measured by the phases of the moon; a serpent forms one of his necklaces to denote the measure of time by cycles, and a second necklace of human skulls signifies the extinction and succession of the races of mankind. He is often pictures as entirely covered with serpents, which are at once emblems of spiritual immortality and his standing as the patron of the nagas or initiates. He is often mystically personated by Mount Meru, which esoterically is both the cosmic and terrestrial axis with their respective poles.

According to the belief of most Advaita-Vedantists, Sankaracharya, the great Indian philosopher and sage, is held to be an avatara of Siva.

See also Shiva, Siva

(See also: Siva, Shiva , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Man :

Man

Man is in his essence a spark of the central kosmic spiritual fire. Man being an inseparable part of the universe of which he is the child  - the organism of graded consciousness and substance which the human constitution contains or rather is  - is a copy of the graded organism of consciousnesses and substances of the universe in its various planes of being, inner and outer, especially inner as being by far the more important and larger, because causal.

Human beings are one class of "young gods" incarnated in bodies of flesh at the present stage of their own particular evolutionary journey. The human stage of evolution is about halfway between the undeveloped life-atom and the fully developed kosmic spirit or god.

From another point of view, man is a sheaf or bundle of forces or energies. Force and matter, or spirit and substance being fundamentally one, hence, man is de facto a sheaf or bundle of matters of various and differing grades of ethereality, or of substantiality; and so are all other entities and things everywhere.

Man's nature, and the nature of the universe likewise, of which man is a reflection or microcosm or "little world," is composite of seven stages or grades or degrees of ethereality or of substantiality; or, kosmically speaking, of three generally inclusive degrees: gods, monads, and atoms. And so far as man is concerned, we may take the New Testament division of the Christians, which gives the same triform conception of man, that he is composed of spirit, soul, body  - remembering, however, that all these three words are generalizing terms.

Man stands at the midway point of the evolutionary ladder of life: below him are the hosts of beings less than he is; above him are other hosts greater than he is only because older in experience, riper in wisdom, stronger in spiritual and in intellectual fiber and power. And these beings are such as they are because of the evolutionary unfoldment of the inherent faculties and powers immanent in the individuality of the inner god  - the ever-living, inner, individualized spirit.

Man, then, like everything else  - entity or what is called "thing"  - is, to use the modern terminology of philosophical scientists, an "event," that is to say, the expression of a central consciousness-center or monad passing through one or another particular phase of its long, long pilgrimage over and through infinity, and through eternity. This, therefore, is the reason why the theosophist often speaks of the monadic consciousness-center as the pilgrim of eternity.

Man can be considered as a being composed of three essential upadhis or bases: first, the monadic or divine-spiritual; second, that which is supplied by the Lords of Light, the so-called manasa-dhyanis, meaning the intellectual and intuitive side of man, the element-principle that makes man Man; and the third upadhi we may call the vital-astral-physical.

These three bases spring from three different lines of evolution, from three different and separate hierarchies of being. This is the reason why man is composite. He is not one sole and unmixed entity; he is a composite entity, a "thing" built up of various elements, and hence his principles are to a certain extent separable. Any one of these three bases can be temporarily separated from the two others without bringing about the death of the man physically. But the elements that go to form any one of these bases cannot be separated without bringing about physical dissolution or inner dissolution.

These three lines of evolution, these three aspects or qualities of man, come from three different hierarchies or states, often spoken of as three different planes of being. The lowest comes from the vital-astral-physical earth, ultimately from the moon, our cosmogonic mother. The middle, the manasic or intellectualintuitional, from the sun. The monadic from the monad of monads, the supreme flower or acme, or rather the supreme seed of the universal hierarchy which forms our kosmical universe or universal kosmos.

See also: Man , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Planet Usually refers to the visible satellites of our sun, though in its general sense including the planets belonging to other solar systems, and planets belonging to the universal solar system, whether visible or not on our plane.

One particular meaning is that of the seven sacred planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and two secret planets for which the Sun and Moon are substituted exoterically. Uranus and Neptune do not belong to this group, although circulating around our Sun; Neptune while belonging to our universal solar system does not cosmogonically belong to our own minor solar system, and hence is what from our standpoint may be called a capture.

Each planet, like all other celestial orbs, is composed of seven or twelve globes, in coadunation but not in consubstantiality, forming a planetary chain on the various cosmic planes, only those on our particular physical plane being visible to us. Planets are the outer shell of living beings and have evolved from cosmic seeds, passing through various stages including that of comets. They are inhabited by denizens adapted to their conditions.

 Each planet of the solar system is in its own particular stage of planetary evolution, one planet being in one round of its own evolutionary course, another in a different round of its evolutionary development; and the substances or matters composing them are in respectively different states of materiality, ethereality, or spirituality.

The periods of the planetary movements and of their nodes and apses are regulated by mathematical law originally impressed not only in the structure of the solar system, but in the svabhava or characteristic nature of each individual planet in the system, and these periods mark innumerable cycles of time, great and small. They shed influence on the earth and its inhabitants both as time indicators and by virtue of their quality as living beings. Each celestial body is the mansion, vehicle, or house of what is in its essence a divine entity; and these regents or governors, each one of its own sun or planet, are themselves undergoing courses of evolutionary unfolding in time periods so vast that mathematics of cosmic extent are required to compass them.

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

A Theosophical definition of Mahatma :

Mahatma

(Mahatman, Sanskrit) "Great soul" or "great self" is the meaning of this compound word (maha, "great"; atman, "self").

The mahatmas are perfected men, relatively speaking, known in theosophical literature as teachers, elder brothers, masters, sages, seers, and by other names. They are indeed the "elder brothers" of mankind. They are men, not spirits  - men who have evolved through self-devised efforts in individual evolution, always advancing forwards and upwards until they have now attained the lofty spiritual and intellectual human supremacy that now they hold. They were not so created by any extra-cosmic Deity, but they are men who have become what they are by means of inward spiritual striving, by spiritual and intellectual yearning, by aspiration to be greater and better, nobler and higher, just as every good man in his own way so aspires. They are farther advanced along the path of evolution than the majority of men are. They possess knowledge of nature's secret processes, and of hid mysteries, which to the average man may seem to be little short of the marvelous  - yet, after all, this mere fact is of relatively small importance in comparison with the far greater and more profoundly moving aspects of their nature and lifework.

Especially are they called teachers because they are occupied in the noble duty of instructing mankind, in inspiring elevating thoughts, and in instilling impulses of forgetfulness of self into the hearts of men. Also are they sometimes called the guardians, because they are, in very truth, the guardians of the race and of the records  - natural, racial, national  - of past ages, portions of which they give out from time to time as fragments of a now long-forgotten wisdom, when the world is ready to listen to them; and they do this in order to advance the cause of truth and of genuine civilization founded on wisdom and brotherhood.

Never  - such is the teaching  - since the human race first attained self-consciousness has this order or association or society or brotherhood of exalted men been without its representatives on our earth.

It was the mahatmas who founded the modern Theosophical Society through their envoy or messenger, H. P. Blavatsky, in New York in 1875.

See also: Mahatma , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Hiranyagarbha (Sanskrit) (from hiranya imperishable substance, golden + garbha womb, embryo, fetus, also the interior of anything, hence a temple)

Golden egg or womb; the matrix of imperishable substance.

"The luminous 'fire mist' or ethereal stuff from which the Universe was formed" (TG 142); applied to Brahma, described in the Rig-Veda as born from a golden egg formed out of the seed deposited in the waters when they were produced as the first vikaras of the Self-existent; according to Manu (1:9) this seed became a golden egg, resplendent as the sun, in which the self-existent Brahman while remaining transcendent in its higher parts, evolved into Brahma the Creator, who is therefore regarded as a manifestation of the Self-existent. Having continued a year in the egg, Brahma divided it into two parts by his mere thought, and with these two he formed the heavens and the earth; and in the middle he placed the sky, the eight regions, and the eternal abode of the waters.

"The 'Mundane Egg' is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. . . . The mystery of apparent self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in miniature the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully the selection of this graphic symbol. The 'Virgin Egg' is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype -- the 'Virgin Mother' -- Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the Virgin female, the immaculate root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Cosmos as receptive Nature is an Egg fructified -- yet left immaculate; once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water), 'four ready, three secret'" (SD 1:65).

In Vedantic philosophy, used somewhat equivalently to sutratman, atman invested with the sukshma-sarira, as well as with the other sariras flowing forth from this and permeating and infilling them all as the thread-self.

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

Pitri, Pitris pitr (Sanskrit) Fathers; referring to the merely human deceased father and grandparents; also to the progenitors of the human race. The pitris (progenitors) are of seven classes: three classes of arupa-pitris or higher dhyanis, which in our own solar system we call the solar pitris or agnishvattas; and the four lower classes known as barhishads or lunar pitris. The lunar pitris came from the moon-chain, while the solar pitris are those dhyan-chohans which have all the spiritual-intellectual fires, although they are too spiritual to have the physical creative fire. In preceding manvantaras they had finished their physical and astral evolution, but by cyclic necessity, enlightened the lunar pitris which had only the physical creative fire.

The pitris "are called 'Fathers' because they are more particularly the actual progenitors of our lower principles; whereas 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.

". . . the Lunar Pitris may briefly be said to be those consciousness-centers in the human constitution which feel humanly, which feel instinctually, and which possess the brain-mind mentality. The Agnishwatta-Pitris are those monadic centers of the human constitution which are of a purely spiritual type" (OG 125-6). These pitris were not forefathers of present humanity, but of our distantly remote ancestors named formerly by some writers the Adamic races.

The evolution of the first root-race of mankind from the astral bodies of the pitris took place on seven distinctly separated regions of the earth existing then at the arctic pole (cf SD 2:329). Of the succession of the root-races the Stanzas of Dzyan say: "First come the SELF-EXISTENT on this Earth. They are the 'Spiritual Lives' projected by the absolute WILL and LAW, at the dawn of every rebirth of the worlds. These LIVES are the divine 'Sishta,' (the seed-Manus, or the Prajapati and the Pitris)" (SD 2:164). As progenitors of the various human root-races, pitris refer pointedly to the life-waves, manus, prajapatis, and sishtas.

Brahma occasionally, as the generalized Progenitor, stands in Hindu literature for the pitris collectively, and is thus called Father.

(See also: Pitri, Pitris, pitr , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hiranyagarbha (Sanskrit) (from hiranya imperishable substance, golden + garbha womb, embryo, fetus, also the interior of anything, hence a temple)

Golden egg or womb; the matrix of imperishable substance.

"The luminous 'fire mist' or ethereal stuff from which the Universe was formed" (TG 142); applied to Brahma, described in the Rig-Veda as born from a golden egg formed out of the seed deposited in the waters when they were produced as the first vikaras of the Self-existent; according to Manu (1:9) this seed became a golden egg, resplendent as the sun, in which the self-existent Brahman while remaining transcendent in its higher parts, evolved into Brahma the Creator, who is therefore regarded as a manifestation of the Self-existent. Having continued a year in the egg, Brahma divided it into two parts by his mere thought, and with these two he formed the heavens and the earth; and in the middle he placed the sky, the eight regions, and the eternal abode of the waters.

"The 'Mundane Egg' is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. . . . The mystery of apparent self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in miniature the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully the selection of this graphic symbol. The 'Virgin Egg' is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype -- the 'Virgin Mother' -- Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the Virgin female, the immaculate root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Cosmos as receptive Nature is an Egg fructified -- yet left immaculate; once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water), 'four ready, three secret'" (SD 1:65).

In Vedantic philosophy, used somewhat equivalently to sutratman, atman invested with the sukshma-sarira, as well as with the other sariras flowing forth from this and permeating and infilling them all as the thread-self.

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

Chain Used in modern theosophy to designate the visible and invisible globes which form the interior and exterior structure of any celestial body. The kosmos as a whole is a living organism, subdivided into almost innumerable subordinate series of hierarchical units; hence the kosmos is an assemblage of beings of many kinds, each of which is a compound unit, and in order to signify that the elements composing each such unit are linked together as an individual, the word chain is applied to celestial bodies.

The teaching is that every celestial body whatever, visible or invisible, forms a unity with companion globes on invisible planes. When referring to the chains of globes forming a solar system, it is customary to call them planetary chains; thus we have the earth-chain, the lunar chain, the Mercury-chain, etc., each consisting of seven such globes on the manifested plane, to which the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G are applied.

The globes of a chain are said to be in coadunation but not in consubstantiality, which means that, though of different grades of materiality, they form a catenary unit. Although each chain consists of seven or twelve globes, the only one visible to the human eye on earth is that which is on the same plane of materiality. Of the twelve globes to each chain, seven belong to the manifested worlds and five to the unmanifested. The seven manifested globes are distributed on four planes, and the twelve globes on seven planes, as shown in the diagram.

The left-hand side of the diagram represents the descending or shadowy arc of evolution, the right side the ascending or luminous arc. Our universe is also described as one of a cosmic chain of universes.

In other particular uses of the word, the Hermetic Chain is the succession of teachers of the esoteric wisdom who preserve and pass on the sacred knowledge from generation to generation.

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

Transformation The process by which a substance takes on a new form, as for example when oxide of hydrogen appears first as water and then as steam. Colloquially we say that the water has changed into steam, but it would be more accurate to say that something which manifested as water manifests now as steam.

The distinction is important because of the serious errors made by overlooking it. As applied to evolution it means that a soul takes on different bodies. It is the soul or monad that is transformed, rather than the form. Wherever there is change of form there is an underlying substance, power, or essence which remains the same throughout the changes, the same in essence but different in form. The Greek equivalent is metamorphosis.

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

Unlucky Numbers Even numbers, and preeminently the binary, have been regarded by Pythagoras, Gnostics, and others as pertaining to matter; hence even numbers have shared the obloquy so often attached to this side of nature, as illustrated by such epithets as evil and unlucky. The primordially odd numbers stood for the unfolding or evolution of spirit and were considered good and propitious.

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

Manvantara (Sanskrit) [from manu + antara between]

Between two manus; a period of activity or manifestation. Manu is the entities collectively aggregated into a unity which appear first at the beginning of manifestation and from which, like a cosmic tree, everything is derived or born. A manvantara, therefore, is the period of activity between any two manus, on any plane, since in any such period there is a root-manu at the beginning of evolution and a seed-manu at its close, preceding a pralaya.

One has to gather from context what the meaning of the manvantara referred to is, remembering that what is applicable to a lesser period applied also to a greater, and conversely. When speaking of a manvantara of our planet, a period of one round of the planetary chain is usually meant. There is also the manvantara of any globe of the planetary chain. Seven rounds of the planetary chain make a mahamanvantara of a planet, a Day of Brahma. A solar manvantara is a period of seven Days of Brahma. The Life of Brahma is a mahamanvantara or mahakalpa of the solar system. A minor or globe manvantara is the duration of the seven root-races on any particular globe of the planetary chain. Even a root-race is sometimes called a manvantara because there is a root-manu and seed-manu to each race. The period of a human life is sometimes called a paurusha manvantara; the period of a planet's life, a bhaumika manvantara; the life period of the solar system, a saurya manvantara, the life period of the universe, a prakritika manvantara, which last can become synonymous with the saurya manvantara.

When the time arrives for the re-opening of a planetary manvantara, the planet

"descends again into manifestation through the inner divine planetary thirst for active life and is directed to the same solar system, and to the same spot, relatively speaking, that its predecessor (its former self) had, attracted thither by magnetic and other forces on the lower planes. It forms, in the beginning of its course or journey downwards, a planetary nebula; after many aeons it becomes a comet, following ultimately an elliptical orbit around the sun of our solar system, thus being 'captured,' as our scientists wrongly say, by the sun; and finally condenses into a planet in its earliest physical condition. The comets of short periodic time are on their way to rebecoming planets in our solar system, provided they successfully elude the many dangers that beset such ethereal bodies before condensation and hardening of their matter shield them from destruction" (Fund 63).

In a similar manner at the re-opening of a solar manvantara, a cosmic nebula is gradually formed of the principles of the former cosmos with its sun and planets, etc. Then

"this cosmic nebula drifts from the place where it first was evolved, the guiding impulse of karma directing here and directing there, this luminous nebulosity moving circularly, and contracting, passing through other phases of nebular evolution, such as the spiral stage and the annular, until it becomes spherical, or rather a nebular series of concentric spheres. The nebula in space, as just said, takes often a spiral form, and from the core, the center, there stream forth branches, spiral branches, and they look like whirling wheels within wheels, and they whirl during many ages. When the time has come -- when the whirling has developed pari passu with the indwelling lives and intelligences within the cosmic nebula -- then the annular form appears, a form like a ring or concentric rings, with a heart in the center, and after long aeons, the central heart becomes the sun or central body of the new solar system, and the rings the planets. These rings condense into other bodies, and these other bodies are the planets circulating around their elder brother, the sun; elder, because he was the first to condense into a sphere" (Fund 61-2).

In the first half of a manvantara (planetary as well as human) there is the descent of spirit into matter, and in the second half an ascent of spirit at the expense of matter. A manvantara or period of material manifestation is a temporary spiritual death, whereas the dawn of the succeeding pralaya is spiritual birth.

(See also: Manvantara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Ambrosia (Greek) (from ambrotos immortal from a not + mortos or brotos mortal; cf Sanskrit amrita from a not + the verbal root mri to die; Latin immortalus from in not + mors death)

In Classical myths variously the food, drink, or unguent of the gods or divine wisdom, connected with nectar; anything that confers or promotes immortality. Equivalent to the Sanskrit amrita and soma and the northern European mead. In a Chinese allegory, the flying Dragon drinks of ambrosia and falls to earth with his host.

The laws of evolution entail a so-called curse or fall upon virtually all the hosts of monads frequently called angels, whereby they are cast down to the nether pole and undergo peregrinations in the realms of matter; in the case of many such "fallen angels," this involves imbodiment or incarnation on earth. Man himself at a stage of his evolution experiences a similar "descent" and speeding-up, due to the impulses of the immortal urge within his breast to grow, progress, evolve, and become cognizant of larger reaches of truth. This is evident in the highly mystical Hebrew story of the forbidden Tree and in the various legends pertaining to soma in Hindu literature.

Yet on the upward arc of an evolutionary cycle, partaking of this sacred ambrosial food signifies initiation, the partaking by the initiant in the Mysteries of the "drink" of spiritual immortality. This drink is symbolized by the cup and its contained liquid, but actually is the receiving into the consciousness from the inner nature of the life-giving streams, the draught of everlasting life, or the elixir of life.

After partaking of this ambrosial elixir, brought about by lives of selflessness and by final initiation, the adept learns to live in the minor and intermediate spheres of the solar system as a fully self-conscious co-laborer with the gods in their cosmic work. Such are the higher nirmanakayas, true buddhas, etc.

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

According to ancient Mayan beliefs the Cosmos was made up by Nine Underworlds. This fundamental idea was expressed very powerfully through their most important pyramids, the Pyramid of the Plumed Serpent in Chichen-Itza, the Pyramid of the Jaguar in Tikal and the Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque, which were all built with Nine different stories.

Read more here: » Mayan Calendar: The Pyramid of Consciousness