Mudra (Sanskrit). Called the mystic seal. A system of occult signs made with the fingers. These signs imitate ancient Sanskrit characters of magic efficacy. First used in the Northern Buddhist Yogacharya School, they were adopted later by the Hindu Tantrikas, but often misused by them for black magic purposes.

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Arasa Maram (Sanskrit). The Hindu sacred tree of knowledge. In occult philosophy a mystic word.

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Phallic (Ancient Greek). Anything belonging to sexual worship; or of a sexual character externally, such as the Hindu lingham and yoni - the emblems of the male and female generative power - which have none of the unclean significance attributed to it by the Western mind.

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Touch Second in serial order in the evolution of the elements and senses, corresponding with the element air.

See also SENSES

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Three Faces Generally refers to the Hindu Trimurti -- the three-faced deity known as Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; but also refers to the Qabbalistic Faces or Heads: the Long Face (Macroprosopus), the first Sephirah; the Short Face (Microprosopus), the lower nine Sephiroth; and the White Face (or White Head), from which the other two faces originate. The three Faces have a close analog in the three persons of the Christian Trinity in the original form of the procession -- Father, Holy Ghost, and Son -- and whether Faces or Persons, they are the three veils, masks, or personae of the one godhead: one in three, and three in one. There are similar triads in other mystically religious systems. "There are two Faces, one in Tushita (Devachan) and one in Myalba (earth); and the Highest Holy unites them and finally absorbs both" (TG 333).

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Dawn Frequently denotes the beginning of a new cycle, of greater or less extent. Venus-Lucifer is called the luminous son of morning or of manvantaric dawn; and the builders are the luminous sons of manvantaric dawn.

In Greek mythology Apollo (the sun) has two daughters, Hilaira and Phoebe (evening twilight and dawn); Eos is the dawn, as is Aurora in Latin. In Hindu mythology, the wife of Surya (the sun) is Ushas (dawn), and she is also his mother. In the Vishnu-Purana, Brahma, for purposes of world formation, assumes four bodies -- dawn, night, day, and evening twilight.

Man is said to come from the body of dawn, for dawn signifies light, the intelligence of the intellect of the universe often called mahat, the ultimate progenitor, and indeed the final cosmic goal, of the Hierarchy of Light of which the human hierarchy is a small portion.

See also SANDHI

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kasmalam:

kasmalam (kashmalam). Faintheartedness, impurity.

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Cross. Mariette Bey has shown its antiquity in Egypt by proving that in all the primitive sepulchres "the plan of the chamber has the form of a cross". It is the symbol of the Brotherhood of races and men; and was laid on the breast of the corpses in Egypt, as it is now placed on the corpses of deceased Christians, and, in its Swastica form (croix cramponnée) on the hearts of the Buddhist adepts and Buddhas. (See "Calvary Cross".)

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Personality. In Occultism - which divides man into seven principles, considering him under the three aspects of the divine, the thinking or the rational, and the animal man - the lower quaternary or the purely astrophysical being; while by Individuality is meant the Higher Triad, considered as a Unity. Thus the Personality embraces all the characteristics and memories of one physical life, while the Individuality is the imperishable Ego which re-incarnates and clothes itself in one personality after another.

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Time Theosophy speaks of absolute undivided time or duration, and of manifested or divided time: the former as causal or noumenal, the latter as effectual or phenomenal, and therefore mayavi or illusional. "Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but 'lies asleep' " (SD 1:37). Duration is `olam (occult or hid) in the Qabbalah, signifying duration in eternity or endless perpetuity. Among the Greeks it was called Chronos and even Kronos, and sometimes referred to as Saturn among the Latins; yet its occult or eternally secret activities during periods of manifestation were at times referred to in Hindu philosophic thought as Rudra-Siva, or occasionally as Vishnu.

Theosophy divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal time, and a conditioned or periodic or "broken" one (SD 1:62). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite endless time (Kala); the other its phenomenon, appearing periodically. The symbol of causal or relatively boundless time, so far as the universe is concerned, is often given as a circle, which mathematically is a beginningless and endless line. A spiral line represents time returning upon itself in cycles, and yet transcending itself at each cyclic sweep, devouring its children, as Kronos among the Greeks is said to do; and the serpent with its tail in its mouth often stands for the same ideas. Time, meaning divided or phenomenal time, or manvantaric cycles, is often mentioned as an offspring of space, the latter considered as a container of manifestation. Mystically, theosophy looks upon present and past as well as future as being illusional effects of that beginningless and endless Now, eternal duration.

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Senses. The ten organs of man. In the exoteric Pantheon and the allegories of the. East, these are the emanations of ten minor gods, the terrestrial Prajapati or " progenitors ". They are called in contradistinction to the five physical and the seven superphysical, the "elementary senses". In Occultism they are closely allied with various forces of nature, and with our inner organisms, called cells in physiology.

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Depth. See BYTHOS

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Buddhist:

Buddhist. Follower of Buddhism.

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Siva (Sanskrit). The third person of the Hindu Trinity (the Trimurti). He is a god of the first order, and in his character of Destroyer higher than Vishnu, the Preserver, as he destroys only to regenerate on a higher plane. He is born as Rudra, the Kumara, and is the patron of all the Yogis, being called, as such, Mahadeva the great ascetic, His titles are significant Trilochana, "the three-eyed", Mahadeva, "the great god ", Sankara, etc., etc., etc.

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Voice The concrete expression of an abstract thought; a creative power that has quality besides energy, given as a septenate of logoi represented by seven mysterious vowels, uttered vocally, as in the Gnostic Pistis Sophia and the Christian Revelation. Abstract thought and concrete voice together make the Word (SD 1:99).

The Qabbalistic Sepher Yetsirah says that the Holy Spirit is Voice-Spirit-Word. The gandharvas in India are (physically) the noumenal causes of sound and the voices of nature (SD 1:523), i.e., the seven tones of Pythagoras and his music of the spheres. In Simon Magus' teachings the six radicals are given as mind, intelligence, voice, name, reason, thought -- all emanating from the seventh or highest, spiritual fire. Synonymous are Vach in India and Kwan-yin in China.

At a certain stage of initiation a voice speaks audibly to the candidate, as discussed in The Voice of the Silence. The Bath Qol (daughter of the voice) of the Qabbalah is a spiritual communication of somewhat the same kind; and Deity often communicates in a voice in the Old Testament. Voice is one way in which a divine presence manifests itself to a mind, as when, according to the Bible, the Lord manifested himself to Elijah in a still small voice.

The Army of the Voice of The Secret Doctrine is the prototype of the Host of the Logos, or the logoi, the sevenfold expression of divine thought.

See also LOGOS; VACH; VERBUM

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N - Letter N - The 14th letter in both the English and the Hebrew alphabets. In the latter tongue the N is called Nun, and signifies a fish. It is the symbol of the female principle or the womb. Its numerical value is 50 in the Kabalistic system, but the Peripatetics made it equivalent to 900, and with a stroke over it (900) 9,000. With the Hebrews, however, the final Nun was 700.

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Cycle. From the Greek Kuklos. The ancients divided time into end less cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or the end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical.

There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle, referring to the ethnological change of races, lasting 120,000 years, and the cycle of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods - a fact entirely lost sight of by modern astrologers.

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Tsela` (Hebrew) A rib, side; a quarter of the heavens; a part or division. Used in reference to the Biblical allegory of the formation of Eve or woman from a rib, side, or portion of Adam (Genesis 2:21-3), who was the first man only in the sense of first humanity or mankind.

The Biblical allegory refers to the teaching that the third root-race was androgynous or hermaphrodite -- that the individuals of humanity were dual-sexed -- so that when the sexes separated into the distinct male and female portions of mankind, as mankind is at present, the Jewish writers described this biological and historical physiological event as the separation of woman from man.

One could equally say that man was separated from woman, or that man was made from a rib or side of woman. The ridiculous supposition that the female part of mankind was born from the male part of mankind because the first woman was separated from the first man by the Lord God taking one of the ribs of the latter and forming a woman out of it, arose from the error of understanding the Hebrew word Adam as signifying one individual human being of the present male type.

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Birs Nimrud (Chald.). Believed by the Orientalists to be the site of the Tower of Babel. The great pile of Birs Nimrud is near Babylon. Sir H. Rawlinson and several Assyriologists examined the excavated ruins and found that the tower consisted of seven stages of brick-work, each stage of a different colour, which shows that the temple was devoted to the seven planets. Even with its three higher stages or floors in ruins, it still rises now 154 feet above the level of the plain. ("See Borsippa".)

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Spirit Cosmically, the homogeneous emanation from the universal cosmic monad; in man, the direct emanation of his spiritual monad, the immortal element in us which never was born and which retains through the mahamanvantara its own quality, essence, and characteristics. It sends its ray through the laya-centers of all the various sheaths of consciousness-substance, and is itself a ray of the all-spirit is used specifically for the union of the higher part of manas with atma-buddhi.

"The lack of any mutual agreement between writers in the use of this word has resulted in dire confusion. It is commonly made synonymous with soul; and the lexicographers countenance the usage. In Theosophical teachings the term 'Spirit' is applied solely to that which belongs directly to Universal Consciousness, and which is its homogeneous and unadulterated emanation. Thus, the higher Mind in Man or his Ego (Manas) is when linked indissolubly with Buddhi, a spirit; while the term 'Soul,' human or even animal (the lower Manas acting in animals as instinct), is applied only to Kama-Manas, and qualified as the living soul. This is nephesh, is Hebrew, the 'breath of life.' Spirit is formless and immaterial, being, when individualised, of the highest spiritual substance -- Suddasatwa [Suddha-sattva], the divine essence, of which the body of the manifesting highest Dhyanis are formed. Therefore, the Theosophists reject the appellation 'Spirits' for those phantoms which appear in the phenomenal manifestation of the Spiritualists, and call them 'shells,' and various other names. (See 'Suksham Sarira [sukshma-sarira].) Spirit, in short, is no entity in the sense of having form; for, as Buddhist philosophy has it, where there is a form, there is a cause for pain and suffering. But each individual spirit -- this individuality lasting only throughout the manvantaric life-cycle -- may be described as a centre of consciousness, a self-sentient and self-conscious centre; a state, not a conditioned individual. This is why there is such a wealth of words in Sanskrit to express the different States of Being, Beings and Entities, each appellation showing the philosophical difference, the plane to which such unit belongs, and the degree of its spirituality or materiality. Unfortunately these terms are almost untranslatable into our Western tongues" (TG 306-7).

When paired with matter, it denotes the active, positive, or energic side of dual manifestation; and saying that spirit and matter are one means they are one essentially, being different only as aspects of one fundamental unity. In many languages the same word means both spirit and breath or wind; spirit is related to air among the subtle cosmic elements (maha-tattvas or mahabhutas).

Spirit, considered as the cosmic Ens (being) or Brahman is not the cosmic primordial root, but its first manifestation, corresponding to the Greek First Logos -- either parabrahman-mulaprakriti, when applied to the galaxy; or Brahman-pradhana when applied to our solar system.

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Twilight When used in theosophic philosophy, refers to the sandhya or sandhi, an interval between the light and dark, or dark and light, part of a cycle, smaller or greater, thus the cosmic cycle called an Age of Brahma is 311,040,000,000,000 years, of which 2 percent is the sum of the twilights.

Also used for the four bodies Brahma assumed at creation: night, evening twilight, day, and morning twilight; archaic Hindu legend states that the three higher classes of pitris were born in the body of night, the four lower classes from the body of evening twilight, gods from the body of day, and men from the morning twilight.

In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux were day and night, and their consorts Phoebe and Hilaira were the twilights.

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Brahman (Sanskrit) The highest of the four castes in India, one supposed or rather fancying himself, as high among men, as Brahman, the ABSOLUTE of the Vedantins, is high among, or above the gods.

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