Introduction and links to related topics Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Samskaras - Impressions of past actions or thought which remain in the unconscious and are stored in the sushumna, the central nerve channel in the subtle body. They are brought to the surface and eliminated by the action of the awakened Kundalini energy.
Kundalini - (lit. "coiled one") The supreme Power, the primordial shakti or Energy, which lies coiled at the base of the spine, in the muladhara chakra of every human being. When this extremely subtle force is awakened, it begins to purigy the whole system.
Electricity - Electricity Theosophy regards electricity not as a mere effect but as an entity or cosmic force named fohat, also spoken of distributively as the sons of fohat. In correlating electricity with these cosmic forces, we find the term given either to the one great energy from which the others differentiate, or to a particular one of such differentiations: e.g., kundalini-sakti, which is characterized by spiral or serpentine motion and is thus related to electromagnetic phenomena, although kundalini might better be called vital electricity or magnetism, for electricity and magnetism are alter egos.
Electricity as we know it is the end product of a chain of appearances on various cosmic planes. It is said in old occult works that Father-Mother is the primordial aether or akasa, sometimes called svabhavat, which was homogeneous before the evolution of the Son -- fohat or cosmic electricity. Electricity is also mentioned as a form of cosmic vitality, emanating chiefly from the various suns in the universe, but also in a less degree from all other cosmic entities; and behind all such vital activities is the all-permanent cosmic intelligence unfolding itself into the vital web of the minor cosmic intelligences. Electricity on our earth-plane is one of the lowest forms of spirit-light or daiviprakriti.
The Secret Doctrine states that electricity is atomic, as signifying infinitesimal particles, which obtains confirmation from modern research and theory. Again, the statement that electricity is intimately involved in the manifestations of all forms of life is being elucidated by investigations relative to the currents which accompany vital actions in living organisms.
The standpoint of occultism is that no cosmic force, or manifestations of any cosmic force, is different from cosmic life itself -- except in its svabhava or characteristic attributes; and furthermore, that no smallest particle or point of infinite space is lifeless, so that the grossest matter is to be looked upon as a dense composite of vital action. From these two postulates it follows that electricity is not only vitality, but vitality controlled by intelligence, and our own inability to sense the intelligence in electric action lies solely in our ignorance of how cosmic intelligence acts, for it is all-permeant and virtually infinite in its manifestations, whereas our own ideas of vital action are limited to the very small compass of our acquaintance with particular units which we call living.
Kundalini - The primordial cosmic energy located in the individual.
Unstruct Sound - Kundalini is characterized by three different types of energy as it rises through various spiritual centers (known as chakras). At the beginning the energy is said to be gross, and the yogi''s consciousness reflects the seeming diversity of the universe. At the intermediate level the energy is subtler and the yogi''s consciousness becomes attuned to the unity within the diversity. At this stage the yogi begins to hear what are known as unstruct sounds.
Among other things, these sounds may resemble that of a hand-bell, a flute, a buzzing bee ... As the kundalini continues to rise, the energy becomes subtler still and it''s almost as if the yogi becomes absorbed in the subtlest of sounds, a sound which is no sound. At this point the yogi''s consciousness stops perceiving diversity altogether. All that remains is I am.
Kundalini - Potential energy lying dormant at the base of the spine.
Mooladhara Chakra - lowest energy centre in the human body where the kundalini shakti (serpent power) resides - situated in the perineal floor in men and the cervix in women.
Kundalini - The elemental energy of the human body which, like a serpent, rests coiled at the base of the spine.
Kundalini - man''s retained energy or potential energy and consciousness
Attraction And Repulsion - Attraction and Repulsion Two forces ever in operation during periods of manifested activity, called by Empedocles love and hate. In physics attraction is an effect, whose cause cannot be mechanically explained without circular reasoning, and which must therefore be assumed. Newton in speaking of gravitational attraction treats it mathematically as an effect and does not dogmatize on its real nature. These two aspects of the manifestation of universal unity arise out of the polarity inherent in cosmic manifestation as between spirit and matter generally, between the higher hierarchies and the lower. Physical attraction is a manifestation of a cosmic principle which has manifestations on all planes, spiritual, mental, and psychic, so that its influence is seen in our thoughts and feelings.
In The Secret Doctrine (1:103), three great universal causes of manifestation are named in connection with intelligent cosmic motion, namely the breath, love or attraction, and hate or repulsion, the latter being merely polar antitheses of the same underlying cosmic energy. Through the interaction of these three, universes and worlds come into being, have their periods of manvantaric growth, and finally decay and disappear, only to reappear after a period of rest or pralaya. Herbert Spencer intuitively refers to manvantara and pralaya, and what takes place within each: "the universally co-existent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes -- produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, causes universal diffusion -- alternate eras of Evolution and dissolution" (SD 1:12).
A capital mistake made by modern science and philosophy, producing momentous consequences in theory, has been the arbitrary division of natural forces into disjunct and unrelated energies. All forces of nature originally spring from a common source, a cosmic spiritual unit, which is the heart of nature itself, and hence it is no more possible to divorce attraction from its alter ego repulsion than it would be to have a stick which has only one end. This principle applies directly to such forces as gravitation, which is bipolar exactly as electricity is recognized to be, its two forms being attraction and repulsion, though the last has been ignored in scientific experimentation and deduction. Just as human beings, because of the bipolarity in their vital auras feel attracted to, repelled by, or both from other human beings, producing the strong sympathies and antipathies which are so well known, so does gravity operate. Celestial bodies are not only strongly or weakly attracted to each other, but are likewise strongly or weakly repelled by each other.
The universal life principle which manifests everywhere in nature, and which under one of its forms is called kundalini-sakti, of necessity includes the two great forces of attraction and repulsion. Attraction and repulsion being of cosmic origin are therefore of necessity likewise manifest in the manifold conditions of human life; but this does not imply that the individual should passively or negatively accept disturbances caused by inharmony when it is within his power as an offspring of the higher divinities to restore it -- insofar as his energies and knowledge permit -- to the harmony or cosmic unity from which these cosmic energies themselves spring. Hence the teaching of the greatest sages and seers of history has been to rise above the elements of personal attraction or repulsion, and to blend the two into the compassionate mastery which the indomitable human will, when trained and practiced, can acquire over not merely moods but all conditions in life. Thus he becomes a friend to all, and an enemy to none, repelling evil and attracting good, until these by association may themselves blend or marry into that mystic unity which is the achievement or culmination of evolution, whether human or cosmic.
Kundalini - (lit., coiled one) The primordial Shakti, or cosmic energy, that lies dormant in a coiled form in the muladhara chakra at the base of the spine. Through the descent of grace (shaktipat), this extremely subtle force, also described as the supreme goddess, is awakened and begins to purify the entire being. As Kundalini travels upward through the central channel, She pierces the various chakras, finally reaching the sahasrara at the crown of the head. There, the individual soul merges into the supreme Self and attains the state of Self-realization. See also CHAKRA, SHAKTIPAT.
Tapas - (Sanskrit) "Warmth, heat," hence psychic energy, spiritual fervor or ardor.
Purificatory spiritual disciplines, severe austerity, penance and sacrifice. The endurance of pain, suffering, through the performance of extreme penance, religious austerity and mortification. By comparison, sadhana is austerity of a simple, sustained kind, while tapas is austerity of a severe, psychetransforming nature. Tapas is extreme bodily mortification, long term sadhanas, such as meditating under a tree in one place for 12 years, taking a lifetime vow of silence and never speaking or writing, or standing on one leg for a prescribed number of years. Scriptures warn against extreme asceticism that harm the body.
On a deeper level, tapas is the intense inner state of kundalini "fire" which stimulates mental anguish and separates the individual from society. Life does not go on as usual when this condition occurs. The association with a satguru, Sadasiva, brings the devotee into tapas; and it brings him out of it. The fire of tapas burns on the dross of sanchita karmas. This is the source of heat, dismay, depression and striving until final and total surrender, prapatti. The individual can mollify this heated condition by continuing his regular sadhana as outlined by the guru. The fires of self-transformation may be stimulated by the practice of tapas, or come unbidden. One can "do" tapas, but the true tapas is a condition of being and consciousness which is a state of grace, bringing positive change, transformation and purification of one''s nature. Guru bhakti is the only force that can cool the fires of tapas.
See: kundalini, penance, sadhana.
Shaktipat - (lit., descent of grace) Yogic initiation in which the Siddha Guru transmits spiritual energy to the aspirant, thereby awakening the aspirant''s dormant kundalini shakti.
Magnetism - Magnetism (from Greek lithos magnetes Magnesian stone, magnetic oxide of iron, found in Magnesia in Thessaly)
Scientifically, magnetic force is due to the movement of electric charges. While physics is concerned only with mineral magnetism, older thought saw the analogy between the various planes of nature and used magnetism in a wiser sense. The term animal magnetism is not so fanciful: The Secret Doctrine speaks of biune creative magnetism as acting in the constitution of man and animals in the form of the attraction of contraries as in sexual polarization; of there being seven forms of kosmic magnetism; of electricity and magnetism being manifestations of kundalini-sakti; of the world-soul as represented by a sevenfold cross whose arms are light, heat, magnetism, etc.
Magnetism, like other forces, is a manifestation of the activities of living beings. These forces are at the same time the physical counterparts, reflections, or phases of the universal cosmic electromagnetism, life-energy, or fohat. Magnetism, which is the alter ego of electricity, is that aspect or functioning of cosmic electromagnetism, mainly known to us as causing attraction and repulsion, and distinguished by bipolarity.
Both physical and physiological analogies suggest that terrestrial magnetism is inherent in some of the ultra-physical constituents of our globe, and that it must be powerfully influenced by the magnetism of other globes of the earth-chain, as well as by cosmic sources belonging to the solar system and even beyond. The position of the magnetic poles of the earth varies, and with this variation go variations in the magnetic inclination, declination, intensity, and distribution; which variations have cycles that are under study by scientists. What is called the north pole of a magnet should be called its south pole, since it is attracted and not repelled by the north pole of the earth; thus some writers call the north pole of a magnet the north-seeking pole.
"We know of no phenomenon in nature entirely unconnected with either magnetism or electricity . . . All the phenomena of earth currents, terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric electricity, are due to the fact that the earth is an electrified conductor, whose potential is ever changing owing to its rotation and its annual orbital motion, the successive cooling and heating of the air, the formation of clouds and rain, storms and winds, etc. . . . Science would be unwilling to admit that all these changes are due to akasic magnetism incessantly generating electric currents which tend to restore the disturbed equilibrium" (ML 160).
All electromagnetism is rooted in or takes its rise from the akasa, and the bipolarity of magnetism and electricity is simply a reproduction in our sphere -- and even in human beings when they manifest themselves -- of the fundamental bipolarity in cosmic structure inherent in the akasa, out of the womb of which the worlds are born. Magnetism might be considered the more subtle part of electricity, and electricity the grosser aspect of the fundamental force which is both. Both are fluids, emanations, from the akasa, and are really two aspects of the underlying fohat.
Sakti - Sakti (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sak to be powerful, energetic, have force]
Universal energy, the feminine aspect of fohat; one of the seven forces of nature, of which six are manifest and the seventh partly manifest. It is energy that proceeds through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the one that produces it. Popularly, the wives or consorts of the gods -- the energies or active powers of these deities represented as feminine influences.
"These anthropomorphic definitions are unfortunate, because misleading. The Saktis of Nature are really the veils, or sheaths, or vehicular carriers, through which work the inner and ever-active energies. As substance and energy, or force and matter, are fundamentally one, . . . it becomes apparent that even these Saktis, or sheaths, or veils, are themselves energic to lower spheres or realms through which they themselves work.
"The crown of the astral light, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, is the generalized Sakti of Universal Nature in so far as our solar system is concerned" (OG 150).
Sakti in another sense is soul-power, the mental-psychic energy of the god as of the adept. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi, the wife or sakti of the five Pandava brothers, represents a spiritual power they all possessed in common. In legends and tales of the ancient peoples, the wives of the great heroes mystically represent the aggregate of the saktis or spiritual powers that the heroes had individually attained.
Considering the saktis as more or less conscious forces in nature, gives a picture of not only the turbulent and ever-active movements in the lower planes of nature, but likewise the calm and stately measures of spiritual activity. It is common in the West to associate power, activity, energy, and force with masculine correlations; but this is quite arbitrary, and an impassionate viewing of nature will show it to be continuously moved by vehicular as well as inspiriting causes.
Cosmically sakti or the saktis originate in the summit of the astral light or akasa, which in one sense may be considered as not only the womb of the cosmic saktis, but as their playground and in another sense as the saktis collectively themselves. In man, sakti is the buddhi in its higher aspect, and the activities of the various pranas in the human constitution in its lower aspect. There is no essential distinction between any divinity and its consort, between Brahman and pradhana, Brahma and prakriti, or between parabrahman and mulaprakriti. Furthermore, all the saktis are either conscious entities in nature, or vital effluxes or emanations, cosmic fluids, with which nature is infused throughout.
The reason the occultist of all ages looks askance at the tantric practices, or the Tantras dealing largely with the saktis, is because these tantric books and practices are almost wholly occupied in relations and correlations both in nature and in man of the saktis in their lower aspect. The kundalini, for instance, is likewise born in the buddhi in man, but descending through the human constitution has its pranic or psychovital physical representations in the various chakras or vital centers of the human frame, and thus the kundalini is an example of sakti or of its fluidic effluxes in the lower portions of the human constitution.
The early Christians looked upon the Holy Spirit as of distinctly feminine characteristics, influence, or svabhava, as the center not only of vital but of spiritual and intellectual activity, whether in the universe or man, so that the Holy Spirit corresponds to a divine sakti. A notable instance in Hinduism is the Sakti or goddess Durga, having both a lofty or spiritual, and an inferior or distinctly material, function in nature, and therefore a beneficent as well as a terrible action therein -- the very name Durga meaning "terrible in action," or "terrible in going." And yet Durga is the consort or sakti of Siva, often called the Mahesvara (Great Lord); and the name of this goddess arises from the utterly impartial, infinitely just, and yet often simply terrific action of the forces in nature, particularly when karmically directed to works of regeneration, often called destruction. Cosmic operations or cosmic justice are often indeed to human vision terrible in their operation, which can never be set aside, stayed, or diverted. Hence Durga is often represented in iconography as surrounded with a necklace of skulls or by similar ghastly emblems -- a series of ideas which the pragmatic West misinterprets and consequently depicts as horrible and revolting.
Kundalini Shakti - refers to the human''s potential energy lying dormant in mooladhara (base) chakra like a coiled serpent. When awakened it rises up through the sushumna nadi.
Chakra - A center of energy located in the subtle body where the subtle nerve channels converge like the spokes of a wheel. Six major chakras lie within the central channel. When awakened, kundalini shakti flows upward from the base of the spine through these six centers to the seventh chakra, the sahasrara, at the crown of the head.
Serpent - Serpent One of the most fundamental and prolific symbols of the mystery-language. Its most basic meaning is of the eternal, alternating, cyclic motion during cosmic manifestation.
For motion, which to the physicist and the philosopher alike seems an abstraction, is for the ancient wisdom a primordial principle or axiom, of the same order as space and time, existing per se. Never does motion cease utterly even during kosmic pralaya. And motion is essentially circular: where physics would derive circular motion from a composition of rectilinear motions, the opposite procedure would be that of the ancient wisdom. This circular motion, compounding itself into spirals, helixes, and vortices, is the builder of worlds, bringing together the scattered elements of chaos; motion per se is essential cosmic intelligence. This circular motion, returning upon itself like a serpent swallowing its tail, represents the cycles of time.
This conscious energy in spirals whirls through all the planes of cosmos as fohat and his innumerable sons -- the cosmic energies and forces, fundamentally intelligent, operating in every scale or grade of matter. The caduceus of Hermes, twin serpents wound about a staff, represents cosmically the mighty drama of evolution, in its twin aspects, the staff or tree standing for the structural aspect, the serpent for the fohatic forces that animate the structure.
The serpent is characteristically a dual symbol. In the beginnings of creation two poles were emanated, spirit and matter; and forthwith began interaction between the downward forces of the one and the upward forces of the other. Hermes, Mercury, intelligence, may represent a sage or a thief; the serpentine wisdom may work in every plane of materiality. The perverse will of man may turn natural forces to evil purposes, and thus we speak of the good serpent and the bad, of Agathodaemon and Kakodaemon, of Ophis and Ophiomorphos. A serpent can be a sage or a sorcerer.
The dragon is the eternally vigilant one, guardian of the sacred treasures; but he is the ruthless destroyer of him who attempts to gain by force the riches to which he has not won a title. To gain knowledge, we must know how to tame the serpent which rules the nether worlds, as the Christ refuses to make obeisance to Satan.
The seven sacred planets, or again the seven human principles, form a serpent, often collocated with the sun and moon as making a triad. One form of this spiraling conscious energy, when manifesting in man, is kundalini-sakti, the serpentine power, which in the ordinary person today lies relatively sleeping and performing merely automatic vital functions; but when aroused can ether waft to sublime heights of vision and power or blast like a lightning-stroke.
The power which a serpent has of casting its old skin is analogous to what the earth does at the commencement of each round, and to the clothing of the human jiva with a new body when it enters the womb. Again, the astral light is called a serpent; its lowest strata are dangerous and deceptive, while it extends through all planes up to the highest akasa, the vehicle of divine wisdom.
In early Christianity there arose more than one Gnostic sect using the snake as a symbol, such as the Ophites, which in the vision of certain ecclesiastic Fathers was designated devil worship, or by other uncomplimentary names.
See also NAGA; WORLD-SERPENT
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