Svarupa-sakti - Sri Bhagavan’s divine potency. It is called svarupasakti because it is situated in His form. This potency is cinmaya, fully conscious, and thus it is the counterpart and antithesis of matter. Consequently it is also known as cit-sakti, potency which embodies the principle of consciousness.

Because this potency is intimately connected with the Lord, being situated in His form, it is further known as antaranga-sakti, the internal potency. Because it is superior to His marginal and external potencies both in form and glory, it is known as para-sakti, the superior potency. Thus, by its qualities, this potency is known by different names - svarupa-sakti, citsakti, antaranga-sakti, and para-sakti.

The svarupa-sakti has three divisions:

(1) sandhini, the potency which accommodates the spiritual existence of Krsna and all of His associates;

(2) samvit, the potency which bestows transcendental knowledge of Him; and

(3) hladini, the potency by which Krsna enjoys transcendental bliss and bestows such bliss upon His bhaktas (see sandhini, samvit, and hladini). The supreme entity known as Parabrahma is composed of saccid- ananda. These features (eternal existence, full-cognizance, and supreme bliss) can never be separated from each other. Similarly sandhini, samvit, and hladini are always found together. No one of these potencies can ever be separated from the other two. However, they are not always manifest in the same proportion. When sandhini is prominent in visuddha-sattva, it is known as svarupa-sakti predominated by sandhini. When samvit is prominent, it is known as svarupa-sakti predominated by samvit. And when hladini is prominent, it is known as svarupa-sakti predominated by hladini.

(See also: Svarupa-sakti , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Esse (Latin) Being, essence; in esse is sometimes contrasted with in posse, as actual existence is contrasted with potential existence.

Esse is also contrasted with existere, in the same way as being is contrasted with existence. Alexander Wilder defined genesis as a coming from esse into existere, from Be-ness into being, from the eternal into kosmos and time.

See also BE-NESS; ESSENCE

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

animate-inanimate: From the Latin animatus, "to make alive, fill with breath." These terms indicate the two poles of manifest existence, that which has movement and life (most expressly animals and other "living" beings) and that which is devoid of movement (such as minerals and, to a lesser degree, plants). From a deeper view, however, all existence is alive with movement and possessed of the potent, divine energy of the cosmos. See: tattva.

(See also: Animate-inanimate , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Abhava (Abhâva) (Sanskrit) (from a not + bhava being from the verbal root bhu to be, become)

Nonexistence, nonentity, negation; applied to the material universe, noumenal substance, or subjectivity. In Kananda's system of negation of individual beings or objects, abhava is classed as seventh in his categories. In Vedanta philosophy, first of the six pramanas (means of obtaining knowledge), and as such corresponds to the fifth pramana, abhava-pratyaksha, nonperception when applied to the physical, but more accurately apprehension of subjective or spiritual being.

Ordinary usage has attached the meaning of death or annihilation to abhava, but only because to the materialistic mind that which cannot be cognized by the sense organs has no existence. Like other philosophical terms, it has a dual meaning: nonbeing or nonexistence, when taken objectively; mystically, the only true being, that of spirit which is nonbeing to those who do not accept spiritual realms and their life.

According to Sankaracharya: "Those who say that there is such a thing as Abhava on earth, are neither Srotis (those who understand the Srutis), knowers of Sastras, knowers of Truth, nor Sadhus. Listen! both Bhava and Abhava (existence and nonexistence) are also Brahma" (Maha-avakyadarpanam, vv. 129-30). Thus Brahman is essentially the source or foundation of all that is: both becoming or being, and nonbecoming or nonbeing; and because bhava and abhava exist in the universe, both are Brahman.

A more subtle, deeply philosophical concept is the application of abhava to the unmanifest -- that state of the cosmic essence before "becoming" began its work of differentiation into hierarchical orders, thus bringing about bhava.

See also ASAT; BHAVA; SAT

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

Ayatana (Sanskrit) (from a towards + the verbal root yat to rest in or on, make effort in or on)

A resting place, seat, or abode; an altar, place of the sacred fire; a sanctuary, inner or outer. In Buddhism, the six ayatanas (shadayatanas), enumerated as the five senses plus manas, are regarded as the inner seats or foci of the lower consciousness, functioning through the ordinary five sense organs plus the manasic organ in the body, the brain. They are therefore classed as one of the twelve nidanas (bonds, halters, links) composing the chain of causation or lower causes of existence.

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

Paramarthika (Sanskrit) [from parama highest + arthika true substance of a thing, real]

Relating to a high or spiritual object or to supreme truth; real, essential verity; in Vedantic philosophy, one of the three kinds of existence: the only real or true existence.

See also PRATIBHASIKA; VYAVAHARIKA

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

adhibhuta:

adhibhuta - the principle of objective existence

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

Beelzebub, Beelzebul ba`al zebub (Hebrew) (from ba`al lord + zebub fly)

Lord of the flies; a god of the Philistines, popularly worshiped as the destroyer of flies, to whom was erected a temple at Ekron. The mythical zoology of the ancients points directly to an inner and mystical significance: "flies" is used not in the sense of the insect, but for a certain class of elementals whose "flying" around and through the earth is governed directly by lunar influences. Thus Beelzebub is in this connection a lunar divinity.

Ba`al-zebul, a form in the Old and New Testaments, is translated as Lord of the High House or Lord of the Habitation, the reference here being to the moon as the habitation or receptacle of these elemental souls at a certain time of their existence.

In Christian demonology, Beelzebub is one of the gubernatores of the infernal kingdom under Lucifer: thus in Milton's Paradise Lost he is second to Satan. In Matthew 12:24, Beelzebub is referred to as the prince of the devils.

(See also: Beelzebub, Beelzebul, ba`al zebub , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

reincarnation: "Re-entering the flesh." Punarjanma; metempsychosis. The process wherein souls take on a physical body through the birth process.

Reincarnation is one of the fundamental principles of Hindu spiritual insight, shared by the mystical schools of nearly all religions, including Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism (and even by Christianity until it was cast out by the Nicene Council in 787). It is against the backdrop of this principle of the soul's enjoying many lives that other aspects of Hinduism can be understood. It is a repetitive cycle, known as punarjanma, which originates in the subtle plane (Antarloka), the realm in which souls live between births and return to after death. Here they are assisted in readjusting to the "in-between" world and eventually prepared for yet another birth.

The quality and nature of the birth depends on the merit or demerit of their past actions (karma) and on the needs of their unique pattern of development and experience (dharma). The mother, the father and the soul together create a new body for the soul. At the moment of conception, the soul connects with and is irrevocably bound to the embryo. As soon as the egg is fertilized, the process of human life begins. It is during the mid-term of pregnancy that the full humanness of the fetus is achieved and the soul fully inhabits the new body, a stage which is acknowledged when the child begins to move and kick within the mother's womb. (Tirumantiram, 460: "There in the pregnant womb, the soul lay in primordial quiescence [turiya] state. From that state, Maya [or Prakriti] and Her tribe aroused it and conferred consciousness and maya's evolutes eight- desires and the rest. Thus say scriptures holy and true.")

Finally, at birth the soul emerges into earth consciousness, veiled of all memory of past lives and the inner worlds. The cycle of reincarnation ends when karma has been resolved and the Self God (Parasiva) has been realized. This condition of release is called moksha. Then the soul continues to evolve and mature, but without the need to return to physical existence. How many earthly births must one have to attain the unattainable? Many thousands to be sure, hastened by righteous living, tapas, austerities on all levels, penance and good deeds in abundance.

See: reincarnation, evolution of the soul, karma, moksha, nonhuman birth, samsara, soul.

(See also: Reincarnation , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

NIRVANA

As sickness, age and death impel us to recede ever more deeply into ourselves and we discover that the illusory world outside is but the creation of our own minds, we begin to realize the bitter truth that there is no death either. If life is agony, there is no resting, for no sooner dead than ... reborn! And the torment of life must be endured again and again, until even amnesia wears thin and we find that we are nothing more nor less than hapless old Sisyphus himself. And if we pursue things far enough, it must be admitted that there even comes a time when we must accept our identity with the terrible Abraxas. (The final, ironic punishment of the atheist is that he himself, in mournful solitude, must bear the yoke of immortal godhood.)

Now it is that we remember the message of the Buddha -- that there is a way out of the endless cycle of birth and redeath. We can step off the wheel of Karma into Nirvana. Buddhism's goal is Nirvana, or release form the bonds of existence. The Sanskrit word means "blown away" or "blown out," i.e., extinguished, and since rebirth is the result of desire, freedom from rebirth is attained by the removal of desire, so that, for lack of fuel, the torch of rebirth blows out and is no longer passed on. Therefore, we can achieve Nirvana now, in this life. The elimination of egoism and selfless aspiration are some of the ways. That means the end of material existence, the attainment of Being, rather than becoming, and union with Ultimate Reality. The Buddha calls this "unborn, unoriginated, uncreated, unformed," as opposed to the born, originated, created and formed phenomenal world.

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

Psychic Powers Powers pertaining to the lower intermediate human nature -- i.e, between the mental-emotional and the physical -- including powers of perception such as astral vision, the lower clairvoyance and clairaudience, the lower psychometry and seership, etc.; and lower biases or tendencies such as hypnotism, the power to produce minor occult phenomena of many kinds, and in connection with the power of automatic astral projection.

In their nature they are morally neutral, being susceptible of use or misuse just as are physical powers. If used with an evil or selfish purpose, the action is black magic; and even if used without such motive or with good intention, they may prove confusing and therefore misleading for one who ventures to use them.

The existence of such powers should be recognized and we should hope some day to be able to avail ourselves properly of them, but a prime requisite in discipleship is equal and harmonious development. We may attain psychic powers by observing the conditions under which they may safely and profitably be allowed to develop.

The presence of vanity, ambition, self-assertion, egoism, and similar qualities prove a bar, and the aspirant who is sincerely desirous of eliminating these defects will not willingly adopt a course likely to enhance them. There is no hard-and-fast division of powers into psychic, physical, mental, etc.: we may contemplate the gradual development of our mental faculties without defining a point where we have stepped out of the ordinary into the occult; and our perceptions may become refined by gradual stages without any sudden jump from one plane to another.

Theosophy enjoins students to let psychic powers alone, until they develop normally and naturally in the progress of the student along the path of wisdom and self-mastery. The craze for psychic powers and attempts in their cultivation arise almost invariably out of ignorance of the existence in ourselves of far higher and more powerful forces which can always be employed with safety, and even profit, to the individual.

These greater powers are those classed as spiritual and intellectual-aspirational -- powers which ennoble and dignify man, containing in themselves capacities for amazing effects. Their use is always safe once they are understood and studied. By their side the psychic powers, attributes, and faculties are like the puny efforts of children to copy adults.

(See also: Psychic Powers , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Occultism:

Esoteric systems of belief and practice that assume the existence of mysterious forces and entities.

(See also: Occultism , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

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

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

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

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

See also MAYA

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

Naimittika Pralaya and Naimittika Manvantara (Sanskrit) [from naimittika occasional, unusual, due to external cause from nimitti]

Occasional dissolution or manifestation; in Hindu literature, pralayas or manvantaras which are unusual or occasional because occurring at wide intervals, either of time or circumstance, especially those separated by Brahma's Days and Nights. A naimittika pralaya occurs when Brahma slumbers: it is the destruction of all that lives and has form, but not of the substance, which remains more or less in statu quo till the new dawn after that Night of Brahma.

At the end of a Day of Brahma there occurs what is called in the Puranas a recoalescence of the universe, called Brahma's "contingent or naimittika recoalescence or pralaya," because Brahma is this universe itself. A naimittika pralaya is thus similar to the bhaumika or planetary pralaya (cf SD 1:371-2, 376-7).

As another example of its usage, when a human being through a series of high initiation casts off the chains of material existence although retaining sufficient attraction to bring about a return to such existence, this could be called a naimittika event.

(See also: Naimittika Pralaya, Naimittika Manvantara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Magic. The great "Science". According to Deveria and other Orientalists, "magic was considered as a sacred science inseparable from religion" by the oldest and most civilized and learned nations.

The Egyptians, for instance, were one of the most sincerely religious nations, as were and still are the Hindus. "Magic consists of, and is acquired by the worship of the gods", said Plato. Could then a nation, which, owing to the irrefragable evidence of inscriptions and papyri, is proved to have firmly believed in magic for thousands of years, have been deceived for so long a time. And is it likely that generations upon generations of a learned and pious hierarchy, many among whom led lives of self-martyrdom, holiness and asceticism, would have gone on deceiving themselves and the people (or even only the latter) for the pleasure of perpetuating belief in " miracles" ?

Fanatics, we are told, will do anything to enforce belief in their god or idols. To this we reply: in such case, Brahmans and Egyptian Rekhget-amens (q.v.) or Hierophants would not have popularized belief in the power of man by magic practices to command the services of the gods: which gods, are in truth, but the occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests themselves, in which they reverenced only the attributes of the one unknown and nameless Principle. As Proclus the Platonist ably puts it: "Ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity......and applied for occult purposes, both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode".

Magic is the science of communicating with and directing supernal, supramundane Potencies, as well as of commanding those of the lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature known to only the few, because they are so difficult to acquire, without falling into sins against nature. Ancient and medieval mystics divided magic into three classes - Theurgia, Goëtia and natural Magic. "Theurgia has long since been appropriated as the peculiar sphere of the theosophists and metaphysicians", says Kenneth Mackenzie.

Goëtia is black magic, and "natural (or white) magic has risen with healing in its wings to the proud position of an exact and progressive study". The comments added by our late learned Brother are remarkable. "The realistic desires of modern times have contributed to bring magic into disrepute and ridicule. . . . Faith (in one’s own self) is an essential element in magic, and existed long before other ideas which presume its pre-existence. It is said that it takes a wise man to make a fool; and a man’s ideas must be exalted almost to madness, i.e., his brain susceptibilities must be increased far beyond the low, miserable status of modern civilization, before he can become a true magician; (for) a pursuit of this science implies a certain amount of isolation and an abnegation of Self ".

A very great isolation, certainly, the achievement of which constitutes a wonderful phenomenon, a miracle in itself. Withal magic is not something supernatural. As explained by Jamblichus, "they through the sacerdotal theurgy announce that they are able to ascend to more elevated and universal Essences, and to those that are established above fate, viz., to god and the demiurgus: neither employing matter, nor assuming any other things besides, except the observation of a sensible time".

Already some are beginning to recognise the existence of subtle powers and influences in nature of which they have hitherto known nought. But as Dr. Carter Blake truly remarks, "the nineteenth century is not that which has observed the genesis of new, nor the completion of old, methods of thought"; to which Mr. Bonwick adds that "if the ancients knew but little of our mode of investigations into the secrets of nature, we know still less of their mode of research".

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

A Christian theological definition of Natural knowledge according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

"

Natural knowledge

See also: Natural knowledge , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Suspended Animation Cases of extreme insensibility where the vital activity has temporarily ceased, and the person appears to be dead. Outstanding examples are seen in persons resuscitated from drowning; in cases of those Oriental fakirs who are revived after being buried alive for days or weeks; and in those spiritual adepts who leave their body at will, and consciously go thousands of miles in their mayavi-rupa (thought-body).

In the higher degrees of initiation, the trained initiant leaves his protected body while, in his higher nature, he traverses extraterrestrial spheres of existence. The adept comes and goes when the occasion justifies the effort, because his lives of training and aspiration have made him master of his lower nature, and enabled him to live and act in his liberated spiritual principle. These and other states of suspended animation show that the conscious existence of the inner man is not dependent upon his physical body.

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

Liberation In theosophy, freedom from conditioned existence; in its strictest sense the state of a monad which has become the Brahman of its hierarchy, and therefore is free, released, perfected -- a jivanmukta -- for what seems to us an eternity. Synonymous with moksha, nirvana, emancipation.

Liberation of the self from the causes of illusion is sometimes spoken of in relation to the seven sensitive and sensory veils, especially with reference to the human manas principle. Emancipation consists in recognizing that these veils, of which the lower four are by far the most illusory, are the perceivers, and that the function of the true self is those higher faculties which collate and discriminate among perceptions of all kinds and which reach final and true judgment. The self sees or ascertains truth; the veils perceive and are caught by the webs of illusion.

The one who has achieved this is said to have attained the fire of knowledge, which destroys not only illusion but even destroys the causes leading to the planes of illusion. Vishnu, among the Vaishnavas in India, and Siva among the Saivas, or indeed of any other divinity, can be considered the cause of final emancipation when used for the true self, exactly as Christians may claim with perfect truth that the Christ (in man) is the shower of final emancipation. The successive emancipation from the seven veils marks seven stages of initiation. Buddhi, from this standpoint the highest, most diaphanous, and therefore the closest to reality of the veils, is said to be transformed into the tree whose fruit is emancipation.

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

Aleuromancy:

From the Greek 'aleuron' and 'manteia' (divination), the divinatory practice of utilizing flour to forecast future events. One method involved mixing flour and water in a bowl and then interpreting the patterns left at the bottom and sides of the vessel.

Another practice involved writing sentences upon slips of paper, which were then baked into balls of dough and divided amongst participants to learn their fates. The practice is still in existence in the form of Chinese fortune cookies.

(See also: Aleuromancy , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Pneumatology The study of gases; the study of beings intermediate between God or other divinity and man, including in the lower ranges angels, daimones, etc., and still lower possibly even demons and ghosts, etc.; the Christian theological doctrine of the Holy Ghost. G. de Purucker uses the term etymologically for the science of the pneuma or spirit, just as psychology is strictly speaking the science of the psyche.

The psyche is the lower intermediate nature of man, kama-manas; pneuma pertains to the higher duad, atma-buddhi. Modern psychology and psychoanalysis unfortunately deal mainly with the activities of the lower quaternary of the septenary being that is man, and ignores the activities or even the existence of anything else higher.

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

Nirvana - extinction, disappearance, dissolution; final emancipation from matter and re-union with the Supreme Spirit; Mayavada conception - absolute extinction or annihilation of individual existence.

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

MUNDANE: refers to the everyday, such as Mundane or 'civil' 'Name' would be your birthname of JOHN; nickname JOHNNY; Magick Name SEAHAWK. Goes for other items as well, a Priest's mundane 'job' would be a carpenter, for example. The UNmagickal things & side of one's existence.

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