A Wisdom Archive on Impressed

Samskara (Sanskrit). Lit., from Sam and Kri, to improve, refine, impress. In Hindu philosophy the term is used to denote the impressions left upon the mind by individual actions or external circumstances, and capable of being developed on any future favourable occasion - even in a future birth.
 
The Samskara denotes, therefore, the germs of propensities and impulses from previous births to be developed in this, or the coming janmas or reincarnations. In Tibet, Samskara is called Doodyed, and in China is defined as, or at least connected with, action or Karma. It is, strictly speaking, a metaphysical term, which in exoteric philosophies is variously defined; e.g., in Nepaul as illusion, in Tibet as notion, and in Ceylon as discrimination. The true meaning is as given above, and as such is connected with Karma and its working.

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

Aziluth (Hebrew, Jewish) The name for the world of the Sephiroth, called the world of Emanations Olam Aziluth. It is the great and the highest prototype of the other worlds. "Atzeelooth is the Great Sacred Seal by means of which all the worlds are copied which have impressed on themselves the image on the Seal; and as this Great Seal comprehends three stages, which are three zures (prototypes) of Nephesh (the Vital Spirit or Soul), Ruach (the moral and reasoning Spirit), and the Neshamah (the Highest Soul of man), so the Sealed have also received three zures, namely Breeah, Yetzeerah, and Aseeyah, and these three zures are only one in the Seal" (Myer’s Qabbalah). The globes A, Z, of our terrestial chain are in Aziluth. (See Secret Doctrine.)

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

Plastic Soul. Used in Occultism in reference to the linga sharira or the astral body of the lower Quaternary. It is called "plastic" and also "Protean" Soul from its power of assuming any shape or form and moulding or modelling itself into or upon any image impressed in the astral light around it, or in the minds of the medium or of those present at séances for materialization. The linga sharira must not be confused with the mayavi rupa or "thought body" - the image created by the thought and will of an adept or sorcerer ; for while the "astral form" or linga sharira is a real entity, the "thought body" is a temporary illusion created by the mind.

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

Antahkarana (Sanskrit)., or Antaskarana. The term has various meanings, which differ with every school of philosophy and sect. Thus Sankaracharya renders the word as "understanding"; others, as "the internal instrument, the Soul, formed by the thinking principle and egoism"; whereas the Occultists explain it as the path or bridge between the Higher and the Lower Manas, the divine Ego, and the personal Soul of man.
 
It serves as a medium of communication between the two, and conveys from the Lower to the Higher Ego all those personal impressions and thoughts of men which can, by their nature, be assimilated and stored by the undying Entity, and be thus made immortal with it, these being the only elements of the evanescent Personality that survive death and time. It thus stands to reason that only that which is noble, spiritual and divine in man can testify in Eternity to his having lived.

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

Ark of Isis. At the great Egyptian annual ceremony, which took place in the month of Athyr, the boat of Isis was borne in procession by the priests, and Collyrian cakes or buns, marked with the sign of the cross (Tat), were eaten.
 
This was in commemoration of the weeping of Isis for the loss of Osiris, the Athyr festival being very impressive. "Plato refers to the melodies on the occasion as being very ancient," writes Mr. Bonwick (Eg. Belief and Mod. Thought). " The Miserere in Rome has been said to be similar to its melancholy cadence, and to be derived from it Weeping, veiled virgins followed the ark. The Nornes, or veiled virgins, wept also for the loss of our Saxon forefathers’ god, the ill-fated but good Baldur."

 
(See also: Ark of Isis, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

Umbra (Latin) A shade; the kama-rupic spook which remains in the lower regions of the astral light after physical death and often hovers in the neighborhood of the tomb. "The ancient Latin races . . . believed that after death Anima, the pure divine soul, ascended to heaven, a place of bliss; Manes (the Kama Rupa) descended into Hades (Kama Loka); and Umbra (or astral double, the Linga Sharira) remained on earth hovering about its tomb, because the attraction of physical, objective matter and affinity to its earthly body kept it within the places which that body had impressed with its emanations. Therefore, they said that nothing but the astral image of the defunct could be seen on earth, and even that faded out with the disintegration of the last particle of the body which had been so long its dwelling" (TG 353).

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

Vidya-dhara (Sanskrit) A possessor of magical knowledge; a kind of ethereal being almost always of astral habitat,
 
"also called Nabhas-chara, ''moving in the air,'' flying, and Priyam-vada, ''sweet-spoken.'' They are the Sylphs of the Rosicrusians; inferior deities inhabiting the astral sphere between the earth and ether; believed in popular folk-lore to be beneficent, but in reality they are cunning and mischievous, and intelligent Elementals, or ''Powers of the air.'' They are represented in the East, and in the West, as having intercourse with men (''intermarrying,'' as it is called in Rosicrucian parlance . . .). In India they are also called Kama-rupins, as they take shapes at will. It is among these creatures that the ''spirit-wives'' and ''spirit-husbands'' of certain modern spiritualistic mediums and hysteriacs are recruited. These boast with pride of having such pernicious connexions (e.g., the American ''Lily,'' the spirit-wife of a well-known head of a now scattered community of Spiritualists, of a great poet and well-known writer, and call them angel-guides, maintaining that they are the spirits of famous disembodied mortals. These ''spirit-husbands'' and ''wives'' have not originated with the modern Spiritists and Spiritualists, but have been known in the East for thousands of years, in the Occult philosophy, under the names above given, and among the profane as -- Pishachas" (TG 364).
 
Their name is not given to them because they are the possessors of cosmic wisdom, since these vidya-dharas are hierarchical ranges below the gods who are the holders of cosmic wisdom; but they are called the possessors of at least a certain portion of the instinctive or innate magical knowledge of the realms of maya, and for this reason have always been looked upon as among the most dangerous and misleading beings in the multifarious interacting hierarchies of the universe. They are, in fact, a species of semi-intelligent, or in their higher grades intelligent, cosmic elementals or genii, and may be either beneficent or highly maleficent to mankind, depending upon mankind''s innate strength of resistance or innate weakness to impressions received from them.

 
(See also: Vidya-dhara, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )