Variation Used in Darwinian theory as complementary to heredity, representing the tendencies towards variety of forms in living organisms, while heredity tends to perpetuate fixed types. Darwin held that species denotes merely a temporal cross section through a continuously flowing stream of gradual variation; but further study has shown that there is no such continual, uniform, and unidirectional flow of variation, but that there are reversions to original type and comparatively sudden emergence of new types.

The causes assigned by Darwin for variation, though he premises the existence within the organism of a susceptibility to variation, are physical, being responses to environment. Such causes, purposeless and chaotic, could not produce ordered results; the facts indicate an intricate design and manifold purposes in nature, originating in spiritual and ethereal entities belonging to nature's hierarchical structure.

Nature in fact is composed of living beings, and the ultimate cause of variation is to be sought in the operations of cosmic ideation, which reproduce their effects finally in physical organisms throughout nature.

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

Kamarupa (Sanskrit). Metaphysically, and in our esoteric philosophy, it is the subjective form created through the mental and physical desires and thoughts in connection with things of matter, by all sentient beings, a form which survives the death of their bodies.

After that death three of the seven "principles" - or let us say planes of senses and consciousness on which the human instincts and ideation act in turn - viz., the body, its astral prototype and physical vitality, - being of no further use, remain on earth; the three higher principles, grouped into one, merge into the state of Devachan (q.v.), in which state the Higher Ego will remain until the hour for a new reincarnation arrives; and the eidolon of the ex-Personality is left alone in its new abode. Here, the pale copy of the man that was, vegetates for a period of time, the duration of which is variable and according to the element of materiality which is left in it, and which is determined by the past life of the defunct.

Bereft as it is of its higher mind, spirit and physical senses, if left alone to its own senseless devices, it will gradually fade out and disintegrate. But, if forcibly drawn back into the terrestrial sphere whether by the passionate desires and appeals of the surviving friends or by regular necromantic practices - one of the most pernicious of which is medium- ship - the "spook" may prevail for a period greatly exceeding the span of the natural life of its body. Once the Kamarupa has learnt the way back to living human bodies, it becomes a vampire, feeding on the vitality of those who are so anxious for its company. In India these eidolons are called Pisachas, and are much dreaded, as already explained elsewhere.

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

Dwarf of Death. In the Edda of the Norsemen, Iwaldi, the Dwarf of Death, hides Life in the depths of the great ocean, and then sends her up into the world at the right time. This Life is Iduna, the beauti- ful maiden, the daughter of the "Dwarf".

She is the Eve of the Scandinavian Lays, for she gives of the apples of ever-renewed youth to the gods of Asgard to eat ; but these, instead of being cursed for so doing and doomed to die, give thereby renewed youth yearly to the earth and to men, after every short and sweet sleep in the arms of the Dwarf.

Iduna is raised from the Ocean when Bragi (q.v.), the Dreamer of Life, without spot or blemish, crosses asleep the silent waste of waters. Bragi is the divine ideation of Life, and Iduna living Nature - Prakriti, Eve.

(See also: Dwarf of Death , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Vitality The jiva or life-force which manifests through the different principles of the human septenary being, as well as through the multiform hierarchies of nature. It animates the cosmic entity in which we live as vital monadic units and in man manifests as the pranas: "there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our [solar] system, of which the Sun is the heart -- the same as the circulation of the blood in the human body . . ." (SD 1:541).

The lowest principle of cosmic jiva is diffused through all nature and, among its innumerable activities on all the cosmic planes, on our plane produces all living beings and entities -- man, beast, plant, mineral, and the three kingdoms of the elemental world. "The animal tissues only absorb it according to their more or less morbid or healthy state," matter being the necessary vehicle for its manifestation on this plane (SD 1:537).

On cosmic planes of consciousness, the corresponding aspects of jiva are the vehicles of cosmic thought or ideation which manifest more or less consciously in entities, and automatically as the laws of nature. Likewise, in the human being the psychoelectric field of life-currents, vital fluids, or pranas provides the vehicles or avenues for transmitting his thought, feeling, emotion, and instincts. The tension of this life principle -- in one sense the liquor vitae of Paracelsus -- may be too high or too low, owing to the nervous changes in the matter it invests. Thus, an equilibrium of the vital currents of the body means a state of health, as disturbed or disordered conditions make for disease.

Vitality is not created by the nutrition and functional activities which afford conditions for its play in the body. Too much or too little of the lifestream may produce fatal convulsions or collapse, it being a neutral force with a potential action for both life and death -- for death is but a manifestation of life, and can as easily supervene from a vital excess which tears the body to pieces in time, as through a pranic defect therein. When its cohesive role is neutralized after death, it begins its dispersive "work on the atoms chemically" (SD 1:538).

The source of jiva manifesting as the human pranas is in the divine monad or atman, a reflection of the same fact on the cosmic scale where cosmic jiva originates in Brahman or paramatman.

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

Seed The essence or germ of an entity, imbodying its svabhava (essential nature) and determining the forms produced from it, partly by the accretion of various elements but mainly by the emanating stream working from within outwards or above downwards.

The seed of a plant is a globule of physical matter, but the actual seed is ultra-physical. All seeds strictly speaking are the vital life-forces working in and through the physical germs, and hence these true seeds are ethereal organisms, structures composed of a higher order of matter (SD 1:201). Thus there is a succession of vital seeds pertaining to one individual entity, each such seed being the ultimate unit of that organism on a particular plane.

There is the physical seed of a plant, containing the astral seed -- a unit on its own plane containing a still subtler seed belonging to a higher plane, and so forth. Ultimately a seed is a life-atom, in itself the expression on a particular plane of a monad which is a thought in divine ideation.

(See also: Seed , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Yaho (Hebrew, Jewish). Fürst shows this to be the same as the Greek Iao. Yaho is an old Semitic and very mystic name of the supreme deity, while Yah (q.v.) is a later abbreviation which, from containing an abstract ideal, became finally applied to, and connected with, a phallic symbol - the lingham of creation.

Both Yah and Yaho were Hebrew "mystery names" derived from Iao, but the Chaldeans had a Yaho before the Jews adopted it, and with them, as explained by some Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, it was the highest conceivable deity enthroned above the seven heavens and representing Spiritual Light (Atman, the universal), whose ray was Nous, standing both for the intelligent Demiurge of the Universe of Matter and the Divine Manas in man, both being Spirit.

The true key of this, communicated to the Initiates only, was that the name of IAO was "triliteral and its nature secret ", as explained by the Hierophants. The Phœnicians too had a supreme deity whose name was triliteral, and its meanings secret, this was also IAO; and Y-ha-ho was a sacred word in the Egyptian mysteries, which signified "the one eternal and concealed deity" in nature and in man; i.e., the "universal Divine Ideation", and the human Manas, or the higher Ego.

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

Upadhi (Sanskrit) Limitation, peculiarity, disguise, vehicle; in theosophy, " 'that which stands forth following a model or pattern,' as a canvas, so to say, upon which the light from a projecting lantern plays. An 'upadhi' therefore, mystically speaking, is like a play of shadow and form, when compared with the ultimate Reality, which is the cause of this play of shadow and form. Man may be considered as being composed of three (or even four) essential upadhis or bases" (OG 178).

According to the classification of the Taraka-Raja-Yoga philosophy, man is divided into three upadhis which are synthesized by, and are the vehicle of, the highest principle or atman. These three upadhis are: karanopadhi, the upadhi of the causal or spiritual mind; sukshmopadhi, the upadhi of the higher and lower manas plus the astral vehicle and the life-essence combined with kama; and the sthulopadhi, the physical body, which thus is the general vehicle or upadhi of the six principles composing the human constitution.

Mulaprakriti (primordial physical matter) in Hindu philosophy is the upadhi or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental, or psychic. "Matter is Eternal. It is the Upadhi (the physical basis) for the One infinite Universal Mind to build thereon its ideations" (SD 1:280). An upadhi, then, is the vehicle, carrier, or means by which a higher or superior energy of whatever plane is enabled to manifest its characteristics and qualities on the lower plane, out of the substance of which lower plane the upadhi is built.

Sometimes upadhi is interchangeable with vahana (vehicle); thus manas is spoken of as the upadhi or vahana of buddhi. But the more frequent use of upadhi is as a foundation or base. For instance, Blavatsky speaks of hydrogen as the upadhi of both air and water; and of akasa as the upadhi of divine thought. "Cosmic Ideation focussed in a principle or upadhi (basis) results as the consciousness of the individual Ego. Its manifestation varies with the degree of upadhi, e.g., through that known as Manas it wells up as Mind-Consciousness; through the more finely differentiated fabric (sixth state of matter) of the Buddhi resting on the experience of Manas as its basis -- as a stream of spiritual intuition" (SD 1:329n).

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

Typhon (Egypt, Egyptian). An aspect or shadow of Osiris.

Typhon is not, as Plutarch asserts, the distinct " Evil Principle " or the Satan of the Jews; but rather the lower cosmic "principles " of the divine body of Osiris, the god in them - Osiris being the personified universe as an ideation, and Typhon as that same universe in its material realization.

The two in one are Vishnu-Siva. The true meaning of the Egyptian myth is that Typhon is the terrestrial and material envelope of Osiris, who is the indwelling spirit thereof. In chapter 42 of the Ritual (" Book of the Dead"), Typhon is described as "Set, formerly called Thoth".

Orientalists find themselves greatly perplexed by discovering Set-Typhon addressed in some papyri as "a great and good god ", and in others as the embodiment of evil. But is not Siva, one of the Hindu Trimurti, described in some places as "the best and most bountiful of gods ", and at other times, "a dark, black, destroying, terrible " and " fierce god"? Did not Loki, the Scandinavian Typhon, after having been described in earlier times as a beneficent being, as the god of fire, the presiding genius of the peaceful domestic hearth, suddenly lose caste and become forthwith a power of evil, a cold-hell Satan and a demon of the worst kind? There is a good reason for such an invariable transformation. So long as these dual gods, symbols of good and necessary evil, of light and darkness, keep closely allied, i.e., stand for a combination of differentiated human qualities, or of the element they represent - they are simply an embodiment of the average personal god.

No sooner, however, are they separated into two entities, each with its two characteristics, than they become respectively the two opposite poles of good and evil, of light and darkness ; they become in short, two independent and distinct entities or rather personalities. It is only by dint of sophistry that the Churches have succeeded to this day in preserving in the minds of the few the Jewish deity in his primeval integrity. Had they been logical they would have separated Christ from Jehovah, light and goodness from darkness and badness. And this was what happened to Osiris Typhon ;but no Orientalist has understood it, and thus their perplexity goes on increasing. Once accepted - as in the case of the Occultists -  as an integral part of Osiris, just as Ahriman is an inseparable part of Ahura Mazda, and the Serpent of Genesis the dark aspect of the Elohim, blended into our "Lord God " - every difficulty in the nature of Typhon disappears. Typhon is a later name of Set, later but ancient - as early in fact as the fourth Dynasty; for in the Ritual one reads: " 0 Typhon-Set ! I invoke thee, terrible, invisible, all-powerful god of gods, thou who destroyest and renderest desert ". Typhon belongs most decidedly to the same symbolical category as Siva the Destroyer, and Saturn - the "dark god ". In the Book of the Dead, Set, in his battle with Thoth (wisdom)_who is his spiritual counterpart  -  is emasculated as Saturn-Kronos was and Ouranos before him. As Siva is closely connected with the bull Nandi - an aspect of Brahma-Vishnu, the creative and preserving powers - so is Set-Typhon allied with the bull Apis, both bulls being sacred to, and allied with, their respective deities. As Typhon was originally worshipped as an upright stone, the phallus, so is Siva to this day represented and worshipped as a lingham. Siva is Saturn. Indeed, Typhon-Set seems to have served as a prototype for more than one god of the later ritualistic cycle, including even the god of the Jews, some of his ritualistic observances having passed bodily into the code of laws and the canon of religious rites of the "chosen people". Who of the Bible-worshippers knows the origin of the scape-goat (ez or aza) sent into the wilderness as an atonement ? Do they know that ages before the exodus of Moses the goat was sacred to Typhon, and that it is over the head of that Typhonic goat that the Egyptians confessed their sins, after which the animal was turned into the desert?

"And Aaron shall take the scapegoat (Azazel) and lay his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel . . . and shall send him away . . . into the wilderness" (Levit., xvi.). And as the goat of the Egyptians made an atonement with Typhon, so the goat of the Israelites "made an atonement before the Lord" (Ibid., v. 10). Thus, if one only remembers that every anthropomorphic creative god was with the philosophical ancients the "Life-giver" and the "Death-dealer " - Osiris and Typhon, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, etc., etc. - it will be easy for him to comprehend the assertion made by the Occultists, that Typhon was but a symbol for the lower quaternary, the ever conflicting and turbulent principles of differentiated chaotic matter, whether in the Universe or in Man, while Osiris symbolized the higher spiritual triad. Typhon is accused in the Ritual of being one who "steals reason from the soul ". Hence, he is shown fighting with Osiris and cutting him into fourteen (twice seven) pieces, after which, left without his counterbalancing power of good and light, he remains steeped in evil and darkness. I

n this way the fable told by Plutarch becomes comprehensible as an allegory. He asserts that, overcome in his fight with Horus, Typhon "fled seven days on an ass, and escaping begat the boys Ierosolumos and Ioudaios ". Now as Typhon was worshipped at a later period under the form of an ass, and as the name of the ass is AO, or (phonetically) IAO, the vowels mimicking the braying of the animal, it becomes evident that Typhon was purposely blended with the name of the Jewish God, as the two names of Judea and Jerusalem, begotten by Typhon - sufficiently imply.

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

Yah, Yaho 'yahu, yeho (Hebrew) Yah is an abbreviation of Jehovah, but equally well Jehovah could be said to be merely an enlargement of the original form Yah. The Zohar says that the 'Elohim used this word to form the world.

"To screen the real mystery name of ain-soph -- the Boundless and Endless No-Thing -- the Kabalists have brought forward the compound attribute-appellation of one of the personal creative Elohim, whose name was Yah and Jah, the letters i or j or y being interchangeable, or Jah-Hovah, i.e., male and female; Jah-Eve an hermaphrodite, or the first form of humanity, the original Adam of Earth, not even Adam-Kadmon, whose 'mind-born son' is the earthly Jah-Hovah, mystically. And knowing this, the crafty Rabbin-Kabalist has made of it a name so secret, that he could not divulge it later on without exposing the whole scheme; and thus he was obliged to make it sacred" (SD 2:126).

Both Yah and Yaho were Hebrew mystery-names; Yah is "a later abbreviation [of Yaho] which, from containing an abstract ideal, became finally applied to, and connected with , a phallic symbol -- the lingham of creation" (TG 374). Thus Yaho and Yah are two forms of the same original Shemitic god-name found throughout Asia Minor, and which appeared in its Greek form as Iao.

The Gnostics revived the Chaldean and Phoenician mystery-god Iao, placing it above the seven heavens as representing spiritual light. Its ray was nous, standing for the Demiurge as well as the divine manas. "Y-ha-ho was a sacred word in the Egyptian mysteries, which signified 'the one eternal and concealed deity' in nature and in man; i.e., the 'universal Divine Ideation,' and the human Manas, or the higher Ego" (TG 375).

Yaho in consequence must not be confused with Yehowah or Jehovah, for Jehovah was merely the inferior reflection in the higher material worlds of the spiritual light called Yaho. Yaho, therefore, is equivalent in type, standing, and character to atman, the universal, of theosophical literature.

(See also: Yah, Yaho 'yahu, yeho , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Vairaja(s) (Sanskrit) [from viraj widely shining one]

A class of gods emanating from Brahma in his aspect of creator collectively as Viraj, the Third Logos; hence, the celestial beings immediately derived from Viraj. Identified with the kumaras and the manasaputras, as well as the agnishvattas. They are the hierarchies of cosmic conscious and self-conscious dhyani-chohans who spring forth directly from the Third Logos, and furnish the intellectual background and vital urge of the hierarchies of beings who later produce the manifested universe from the ideation emanating from the Third Logos and the vairajas.

"In the popular belief, semi-divine beings, shades of saints, inconsumable by fire, impervious to water, who dwell in Tapo-loka with the hope of being translated into Satya-loka -- a more purified state which answers to Nirvana. The term is explained as the aerial bodies or astral shades of 'ascetics, mendicants, anchorites, and penitents, who have completed their course of rigorous austerities.' [Vishnu-Purana, Wilson, 2:229]

Now in esoteric philosophy they are called Nirmanakayas, Tapo-loka being on the sixth plane (upward) but in direct communication with the mental plane. The Vairajas are referred to as the first gods because the Manasaputras and the Kumaras are the oldest in theogony, as it is said that even the gods worshipped them (Matsya Purana); those whom Brahma 'with the eye of Yoga beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods' (Vayu Purana)" (TG 358).

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

T'ien Hsin (Chinese) The heaven of mind or that which is absolute, referring to the ideal or subjective heaven, and therefore to the state or condition of the Absolute of any hierarchy. "Universal Ideation and Mahat, when applied to the plane of differentiation" (TG 345).

(See also: T'ien Hsin , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Tiqqun (Chaldean) [from the verbal root taqan to prepare, establish, set in order, make form or solid]

The first manifestation or Third Logos: the Logos of creative activity or the Demiourgos (world-builder). If one adds the philosophical idea always connected with the Third Logos of the immanent karma from the past manvantara guiding through divine ideation the operations of the creative Logos, the deep significance of the term becomes clear. Tiqqun may be called the first born from the active-passive field of logoic activity which in connection with its emanated hierarchies is termed in the Qabbalah the Heavenly Man, 'Adam Qadmon.

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

Chnouphis (Ancient Greek). Nouf in Egyptian. Another aspect of Ammon, and the personification of his generative power in actu, as Kneph is of the same in potentia. He is also ram-headed.

 If in his aspect as Kneph he is the Holy Spirit with the creative ideation brooding in him, as Chnouphis, he is the angel who "comes in" into the Virgin soil and flesh. A prayer on a papyrus, translated by the French Egyptologist Chabas, says; ‘ 0 Sepui, Cause of being, who hast formed thine own body! 0 only Lord, proceeding from Noum ! 0 divine substance, created from itself! 0 God, who hast made the substance which is in him! 0 God, who has made his own father and impregnated his own mother."

This shows the origin of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and immaculate conception. He is seen on a monument seated near a potter’s wheel, and forming men out of clay. The fig-leaf is sacred to him, which is alone sufficient to prove him a phallic god - an idea which is carried out by the inscription: "he who made that which is, the creator of beings, the first existing, he who made to exist all that exists." Some see in him the incarnation of Ammon-Ra, but he is the latter himself in his phallic aspect, for, like Ammon, he is " his mother’s husband", i.e., the male or impregnating side of Nature.

His names vary, as Cnouphis, Noum, Khem, and Khnum or Chnoumis. As he represents the Demiurgos (or Logos) from the material, lower aspect of the Soul of the World, he is the Agathodemon, symbolized sometimes by a Serpent ; and his wife Athor or Maut (Mot mother), or Sate, "the daughter of the Sun", carrying an arrow on a sunbeam (the ray of conception), stretches "mistress over the lower portions of the atmosphere". below the constellations, as Ne?th expands over the starry heavens. (See "Chaos".)

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

Trisharana (Sanskrit). The same as" Triratna "and accepted by both the Northern and Southern Churches of Buddhism.

After the death of the Buddha it was adopted by the councils as a mere kind of formula fidei, enjoining "to take refuge in Buddha ", "to take refuge in Dharma ", and "to take refuge in Sangha ", or his Church, in the sense in which it is now interpreted; but it is not in this sense that the "Light of Asia" would have taught the formula. Of Trikaya, Mr. E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, tells us in his Handbook of Chinese Buddhism that this "tricho-tomism was taught with regard to the nature of all Buddhas.

Bodhi being the characteristic of a Buddha"  - a distinction was made between "essential Bodhi" as the attribute of the Dharmakaya, i.e., "essential body"; "reflected Bodhi" as the attribute of Sambhogakaya; and "practical Bodhi" as the attribute of Nirmanakaya. Buddha combining in himself these three conditions of existence, was said to be living at the same time in three different spheres.

Now, this shows how greatly misunderstood is the purely pantheistical and philosophical teaching. Without stopping to enquire how even a Dharmakaya vesture can have any "attribute" in Nirvana, which state is shown, in philosophical Brahmanism as much as in Buddhism, to be absolutely devoid of any attribute as conceived by human finite thought - it will be sufficient to point to the following  -

(1) the Nirmanakaya vesture is preferred by the "Buddhas of Compassion" to that of the Dharmakaya state, precisely because the latter precludes him who attains it from any communication or relation with the finite, i.e., with humanity;

(2) it is not Buddha (Gautama, the mortal man, or any other personal Buddha) who lives ubiquitously in "three different spheres, at the same time ", but Bodhi, the universal and abstract principle of divine wisdom, symbolised in philosophy by Adi-Buddha.

It is the latter that is ubiquitous because it is the universal essence or principle. It is Bodhi, or the spirit of Buddhaship, which, having resolved itself into its primordial homogeneous essence and merged into it, as Brahma (the universe) merges into Parabrahm, the ABSOLUTENESS - that is meant under the name of "essential Bodhi ". For the Nirvanee, or Dhyani Buddha, must be supposed - by living in Arupadhatu, the formless state, and in Dharmakaya - to be that " essential Bodhi" itself. It is the Dhyani Bodhisattvas, the primordial rays of the universal Bodhi, who live in "reflected Bodhi" in Rapadhatu, or the world of subjective "forms" ; and it is the Nirmanakayas (plural) who upon ceasing their lives of " practical Bodhi", in the "enlightened" or Buddha forms, remain voluntarily in the Kamadhatu (the world of desire), whether in objective forms on earth or in subjective states in its sphere (the second Buddhakshetra). This they do in order to watch over, protect and help mankind.

Thus, it is neither one Buddha who is meant, nor any particular avatar of the collective Dhyani Buddhas, but verily Adi-Bodhi - the first Logos, whose primordial ray is Mahabuddhi, the Universal Soul, ALAYA, whose flame is ubiquitous, and whose influence has a different sphere in each of the three forms of existence, because, once again, it is Universal Being itself or the reflex of the Absolute. Hence, if it is philosophical to speak of Bodhi, which "as Dhyani Buddha rules in the domain of the spiritual" (fourth Buddhakshetra or region of Buddha); and of the Dhyani Bodhisattvas "ruling in the third Buddhakshetra "or the domain of ideation; and even of the Manushi Buddhas, who are in the second Buddhakshetra as Nirmanakayas - to apply the "idea of a unity in trinity" to three personalities - is highly unphilosophical.

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

Verbum (Latin) Word; adopted by later Latin-speaking philosophers and Christian theologians to represent the cosmic Logos (word), often used in the more concrete sense as the spoken word in reference to the vibratory power of sound; or in its application to Christos in theology.

Whether the Greek logos or Latin verbum is used, the philosophical meaning is the same and arose from the fact that a word is the audible expression of the inner, ever-active but silent idea. Hence cosmic spirit, the field of cosmic ideation, by its very activity of producing cosmic thought manifests itself as the word -- or words. A person has a thought to which he gives utterance as a word; similarly the cosmic Logos was metaphorically spoken of in Greek philosophy, especially by the Platonists, as the cosmic Word of the secret idea or thought of the cosmic intelligence. Parallel also to the Hindu Vach.

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

Cosmocratores Kosmokratores (Greek) (from kosmos world + kratores lords)

World lords; it occurs in Orphic literature, and in the New Testament Paul uses it of evil powers. In theosophy it is applied to the planetary regents who fabricated the solar system and who were hierarchically superior to the ones who fabricated our material earth (SD 2:23).

The word is especially used in reference to three principal groups, corresponding to similar groups of dhyan-chohans and lipikas. The first group rebuilds worlds after pralaya, the second builds our planetary chain, and the third are the progenitors of humanity.

Collectively they are the formative Logos, grouped under various names among different peoples, such as Osiris, Brahma-prajapati, Elohim, Adam-Qadmon, and Ormuzd. Again, "the Ases of Scandinavia, the rulers of the world which preceded ours, whose name means literally the 'pillars of the world,' its 'supports,' are thus identical with the Greek Cosmocratores, the 'Seven Workmen or Rectors' of Pymander, the seven Rishis and Pitris of India, the seven Chaldean gods and seven evil spirits, the seven Kabalistic Sephiroth synthesized by the upper triad, and even the seven Planetary Spirits of the Christian mystics" (SD 2:97). Following the plan of divine ideation they fashion systems out of primordial material, called aether, ilus, protyle, etc.

The cosmocratores, as the Masons of the World, work in the vehicular or matter side of nature and receive the impress for their work from the hierarchy that works in the spirit side, the dhyani-buddhas or architects.

In another aspect the cosmocratores relate to the genii or rectors of the seven sacred planets, and stand as the world-builders of the earth planetary chain.

(See also: Cosmocratores, Kosmokratores , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Divine Thought. See IDEATION; LOGOS

(See also: Divine Thought , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Nut (Egyptian) Also Noot, Noun, Nout, Nu. Goddess of the sky or cosmic space -- whether of the solar system or the galaxy -- daughter of Shu and Tefnut, wife of Seb (the cosmic earth or outspread space), mother of Osiris and Isis, and of Set and Nephthys or Neith; the heavens personified.

Some manuscripts distinguish between Nut, the day sky, and Naut, the night sky, although the two are but lower and higher aspects of one cosmic divinity. Her attributes partake of those of the other nature goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon: she is addressed as Lady of Heaven, who gave birth to all the gods. The favorite representation of Nut is of a woman bending so that her body forms a semicircle -- a part of the endless circle of space -- upon which the stars are portrayed, while her consort, Seb, prostrate beneath her, completes the circle. Again, the solar boat is represented sailing up over the lower limbs, in order to pursue its journey over the day sky; and sailing down her arms to complete its cycle in the night sky.

Nut is an important goddess of the Underworld and figures largely in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. She is one of the twelve deities who judge the deceased. Her office was to supply food and water, enabling the one entering the Underworld (Tuat) to rise in a renewed body, even as Ra, the sun god, arose from the egg produced by Seb and Nut. Thus, wherever possible, the sarcophagus had the figure of the goddess represented upon it, her protective wings spread over the deceased, her hands holding the emblems of celestial water and air.

The Greek nous

"was the designation given to the Supreme deity (third logos) by Anaxagoras. Taken from Egypt where it was called Nout, it was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious AEon which, with the Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third 'principle' (from above) or manas, in man. . . .

"In the Pantheon of the Egyptians it meant the 'One-only-One,' because they did not proceed in their popular or exoteric religion higher than the third manifestation which radiates from the Unknown and the Unknowable, the first unmanifested and the second logoi in the esoteric philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindu Brahma, the first manifested Deity -- 'the Mind or Spirit self-potent'; this creative Principle being of course the primum mobile of everything in the Universe -- its Soul and Ideation" (TG 234).

Some of the most abstract attributes connected with Nut place her at times as the Second Logos; but because the Second contains the Third Logos, and therefore the Mother being in a sense identical with her Daughter, it follows that not infrequently the attributes of Nut place her as the higher portion of the Third Logos.

(See also: Nut , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

bhava-nasana:

bhava-nasana (bhaava-naashana). The end of ideation.

(See also: bhava-nasana , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Fohat (Tibetan-Mongolian) (from Mon pho, fo buddha, buddhi)

Cosmic life or vitality; in theosophy, bipolar cosmic vital electricity, equivalent to the light of the Logos, daiviprakriti, eros, the fiery whirlwind, etc. As the bridge between spirit and matter, fohat is the collectivity of intelligent forces through which cosmic ideation impresses itself upon substance, thus forming the various worlds of manifestation.

In the manifested universe, it "is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law. . . . Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power which causes the One to become Two and Three . . . then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine" (SD 1:109).

There are many fohats working on the cosmic, terrestrial, and human planes. In the human constitution it corresponds to the pranas. ()

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

nir-vikalpa:

nir-vikalpa. Undifferentiated, without ideation.

(See also: nir-vikalpa , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)