Dream Dictionary including the meaning of dreams about: Dagger, Dahlia, Dairy, Daisy, Damask Rose, Damson, Dance, Dancing Master, Dandelion, Danger, Dark, Dates, Daughter, Daughter-in-law, David, Day, Daybreak, Dead, Death, Debt, December, Deck, Decorate, Deed, Deer, Delay,

Dream Dictionary Index including links to 10.000 dream interpretations: Dream Dictionary Index

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

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)

A Theosophical definition of Death :

Death

Death occurs when a general break-up of the constitution of man takes place; nor is this break-up a matter of sudden occurrence, with the exceptions of course of such cases as mortal accidents or suicides. Death is always preceded, varying in each individual case, by a certain time spent in the withdrawal of the monadic individuality from an incarnation, and this withdrawal of course takes place coincidently with a decay of the seven-principle being which man is in physical incarnation. This decay precedes physical dissolution, and is a preparation of and by the consciousness-center for the forthcoming existence in the invisible realms. This withdrawal actually is a preparation for the life to come in invisible realms, and as the septenary entity on this earth so decays, it may truly be said to be approaching rebirth in the next sphere.

Death occurs, physically speaking, with the cessation of activity of the pulsating heart. There is the last beat, and this is followed by immediate, instantaneous unconsciousness, for nature is very merciful in these things. But death is not yet complete, for the brain is the last organ of the physical body really to die, and for some time after the heart has ceased beating, the brain and its memory still remain active and, although unconsciously so, the human ego for this short length of time, passes in review every event of the preceding life. This great or small panoramic picture of the past is purely automatic, so to say; yet the soul-consciousness of the reincarnating ego watches this wonderful review incident by incident, a review which includes the entire course of thought and action of the life just closed. The entity is, for the time being, entirely unconscious of everything else except this. Temporarily it lives in the past, and memory dislodges from the akasic record, so to speak, event after event, to the smallest detail: passes them all in review, and in regular order from the beginning to the end, and thus sees all its past life as an all-inclusive panorama of picture succeeding picture.

There are very definite ethical and psychological reasons inhering in this process, for this process forms a reconstruction of both the good and the evil done in the past life, and imprints this strongly as a record on the fabric of the spiritual memory of the passing being. Then the mortal and material portions sink into oblivion, while the reincarnating ego carries the best and noblest parts of these memories into the devachan or heaven-world of postmortem rest and recuperation. Thus comes the end called death; and unconsciousness, complete and undisturbed, succeeds, until there occurs what the ancients called the second death.

The lower triad (prana, linga-sarira, sthula-sarira) is now definitely cast off, and the remaining quaternary is free. The physical body of the lower triad follows the course of natural decay, and its various hosts of life-atoms proceed whither their natural attractions draw them. The linga-sarira or model-body remains in the astral realms, and finally fades out. The life-atoms of the prana, or electrical field, fly instantly back at the moment of physical dissolution to the natural pranic reservoirs of the planet.

This leaves man, therefore, no longer a heptad or septenary entity, but a quaternary consisting of the upper duad (atma-buddhi) and the intermediate duad (manas-kama). The second death then takes place.

Death and the adjective dead are mere words by which the human mind seeks to express thoughts which it gathers from a more or less consistent observation of the phenomena of the material world. Death is dissolution of a component entity or thing. The dead, therefore, are merely dissolving bodies  - entities which have reached their term on this our physical plane. Dissolution is common to all things, because all physical things are composite: they are not absolute things. They are born; they grow; they reach maturity; they enjoy, as the expression runs, a certain term of life in the full bloom of their powers; then they "die." That is the ordinary way of expressing what men call death; and the corresponding adjective is dead, when we say that such things or entities are dead.

Do you find death per se anywhere? No. You find nothing but action; you find nothing but movement; you find nothing but change. Nothing stands still or is annihilated. What is called death itself shouts forth to us the fact of movement and change. Absolute inertia is unknown in nature or in the human mind; it does not exist.

See also: Death , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Attainment of Buddhahood in the remote past

(Jpn.: kuon jitsujo)

Shakyamuni's original attainment of enlightenment in the inconceivably remote past as related in the "Life Span" (sixteenth) chapter of the essential teaching (latter fourteen chapters) of the Lotus Sutra. In this chapter, Shakyamuni discloses that he actually attained enlightenment in the distant past. He then illustrates in rather awe-inspiring detail the cosmic proportions of the time that has elapsed since then, the magnitude of which is abbreviated as "numberless major world system dust particle kalpas." Nothing Shakyamuni had taught until this point challenged people's basic assumption that he had attained enlightenment in his present lifetime after sitting in meditation under the bodhi tree near Gaya, India.

This is the assumption upheld in the theoretical teaching (first fourteen chapters) of the Lotus Sutra and in the other sutras. Through this revelation in the "Life Span" chapter, however, Shakyamuni demolishes the belief that he attained enlightenment for the first time in his present lifetime. The "Life Span" chapter says: "In all the worlds the heavenly and human beings and asuras all believe that the present Shakyamuni Buddha, after leaving the palace of the Shakyas, seated himself in the place of meditation not far from the city of Gaya and there attained supreme perfect enlightenment. But good men, it has been immeasurable, boundless hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, millions of nayutas of kalpas since I in fact attained Buddhahood."

(See also: Attainment of Buddhahood in the remote past , Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment Dictionary)

A dream dictionary with dream-symbols and their meanings.

A spiritual view on dreams and the meaning of dreams by Sri Swami Sivananda, an authority in the vedic sciences and traditions.

Dream Interpretation Dictionary including the meaning of dreams about: Dropsy, Drouth, Drowning, Drum, Ducks, Duet, Dulcimer, Dumb, Dun, Dungeon, Dunghill, Dusk, Dust, Dwarf, Dye, Dying, Dynamite, Dynamo.

Dream Dictionary Index including links to 10.000 dream interpretations: Dream Dictionary Index

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

death: Death is a rich concept for which there are many words in Sanskrit, such as: mahaprasthana, "great departure;" samadhimarana, dying consciously while in the state of meditation; mahasamadhi, "great merger, or absorption," naming the departure of an enlightened soul.

Hindus know death to be the soul's detaching itself from the physical body and continuing on in the subtle body (sukshma sharira) with the same desires, aspirations and occupations as when it lived in a physical body. Now the person exists in the in-between world, the subtle plane, or Antarloka, with loved ones who have previously died, and is visited by earthly associates during their sleep.

Hindus do not fear death, for they know it to be one of the most glorious and exalted experiences, rich in spiritual potential. Other terms for death include panchatvam (death as dissolution of the five elements), mrityu (natural death), prayopavesha (self-willed death by fasting), marana (unnatural death, e.g., by murder).

See: reincarnation, suicide, videhamukti.

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

A Theosophical definition of Devachan :

Devachan

[Tibetan, bde-ba-can, pronounced de-wa-chen] A translation of the Sanskrit sukhavati, the "happy place" or god-land. It is the state between earth-lives into which the human entity, the human monad, enters and there rests in bliss and repose.

When the second death after that of the physical body takes place  - and there are many deaths, that is to say many changes of the vehicles of the ego  - the higher part of the human entity withdraws into itself all that aspires towards it, and takes that "all" with it into the devachan; and the atman, with the buddhi and with the higher part of the manas, become thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Devachan as a state applies not to the highest or heavenly or divine monad, but only to the middle principles of man, to the personal ego or the personal soul in man, overshadowed by atma-buddhi. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. Yet devachan is not a locality, it is a state, a state of the beings in that spiritual condition.

Devachan is the fulfilling of all the unfulfilled spiritual hopes of the past incarnation, and an efflorescence of all the spiritual and intellectual yearnings of the past incarnation which in that past incarnation have not had an opportunity for fulfillment. It is a period of unspeakable bliss and peace for the human soul, until it has finished its rest time and stage of recuperation of its own energies.

In the devachanic state, the reincarnating ego remains in the bosom of the monad (or of the monadic essence) in a state of the most perfect and utter bliss and peace, reviewing and constantly reviewing, and improving upon in its own blissful imagination, all the unfulfilled spiritual and intellectual possibilities of the life just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the devachanic entity.

Man here is no longer a quaternary of substance-principles (for the second death has taken place), but is now reduced to the monad with the reincarnating ego sleeping in its bosom, and is therefore a spiritual triad. (See also Death, Reincarnating Ego)

See also: Devachan , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A dictionary of Parapsycology. Please note that words in grey are hyperlinked to a corresponding archive with articles related to that particular topic.

Dictionary on Dreams Meaning including the meaning of dreams about: Ditch, Dividend, Diving, Divining Rods, Divorce, Docks, Doctor, Dogs, Dolphin, Dome, Dominoes, Donkey, Doomsday, Door, Door Bell, Doves, Dowry, Dragon, Drama, Dram-drinking, Draw-knife, Dressing, Drinking, Driving, Dromedary.

Dream Dictionary Index including links to 10.000 dream interpretations: Dream Dictionary Index

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

Death

1. An imminent transition, perhaps a move, or change of job or lover.

2. An impending death in the world of the dreamer—usually a relative, friend, or admired public figure. The dreamer's death, however, is never shown.

3. The need for change in some department of the dreamer's life. As to what: Watch for other symbols in the dream.

Astrological parallel: Scorpio.

Tarot parallel: Death.

Source: Astrocenter, http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/DreamDictionary.aspx

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Death , Meaning of Dreams about Death , Dream Interpretation Death )

DEATH –

1. life’s other side, afterlife, discarnate realm of existence.

2. end of this life, cessation of the vital functions.

3. Tarot #13; transformation.

4. sleep; field of service and learning; entrance into fuller life; freedom from the handicaps of the fleshly vehicle; continuance of the living process in consciousness and carrying forward of the interests and tendencies of the life (Bailey)

5. that which is fixed, petrified, attached (Joseph Campbell)

6. process of dissolving ourselves to become more harmonious on another level (Michio Kushi) (NAD)

(See also: DEATH , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Heaven and Hell :

Heaven and Hell

Every ancient exoteric religion taught that the so-called heavens are divided into steps or grades of ascending bliss and purity; and the so-called hells into steps or grades of increasing purgation or suffering. Now the esoteric doctrine or occultism teaches that the one is not a punishment, nor is the other strictly speaking a reward.

The teaching is, simply, that each entity after physical death is drawn to the appropriate sphere to which the karmic destiny of the entity and the entity's own character and impulses magnetically attract it. As a man works, as a man sows, in his life, that and that only shall he reap after death. Good seed produces good fruit; bad seed, tares  - and perhaps even nothing of value or of spiritual use follows a negative and colorless life.

After the second death, the human monad "goes" to devachan  - often called in theosophical literature the heaven-world. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest.

What becomes of the entity, on the other hand, the lower human soul, that is so befouled and weighted with earth thought and the lower instincts that it cannot rise? There may be enough in it of the spirit nature to hold it together as an entity and enable it to become a reincarnating being, but it is foul, it is heavy; its tendency is consequently downwards. Can it therefore rise into a heavenly felicity? Can it go even into the lower realms of devachan and there enjoy its modicum of the beatitude, bliss, of everything that is noble and beautiful? No. There is an appropriate sphere for every degree of development of the ego-soul, and it gravitates to that sphere and remains there until it is thoroughly purged, until the sin has been washed out, so to say.

These are the so-called hells, beneath even the lowest ranges of devachan; whereas the arupa heavens are the highest parts of the devachan. Nirvana is a very different thing from the heavens. (See also Kama-Loka, Avichi, Devachan, Nirvana)

See also: Heaven and Hell , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A dictionary of parapsychology. Please note that words in grey are hyperlinked to a corresponding archive with articles related to that particular topic.

Buddha Skt., Pali, lit., Òawakened one.Ó

 1. A person who has achieved the enlightenment that leads to release from the cycle of existence (samsara) and has thereby attained complete liberation (nirvana). The content of his teaching, which is based on the experience of enlightenment, is the four noble truths. A buddha has overcome every kind of craving (trishna); although even he also has pleasant and unpleasant sensations, he is not ruled by them and remains innerly untouched by them. After his death he is not reborn again.

 Two kinds of buddhas are distinguished: the pratyeka-buddha, who is completely enlight ened but does not expound the teaching; and the samyak-sambuddha, who expounds for the wel fare of all beings the teaching that he has discov ered anew. A samyak-sambuddha is omniscient (sarvajnata) and possesses the ten powers of a buddha (dashabala) and the four certainties. The buddha of our age is Shakyamuni. (See also Buddha 2.)

 Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, is not the first and only buddha. Already in the early Hinayana texts, six buddhas who preceded him in earlier epochs are mentioned: Vipashyin (Pali, Vipassi), Shikin (Sikhi), Vishvabhu (Vessabhu), Krakuchchanda (Kakusandha), Konagamana, and Kashyapa (Kassapa). The buddha who will follow Sh?kyamuni in a future age and renew the dharma is Maitreya. Be yond these, one finds indications in the litera ture of thirteen further buddhas, of which the most important is Dipamkara, whose disci ple Shakyamuni was in his previous existence as the ascetic Sumedha. The stories of these leg endary buddhas are contained in the Buddhavamsa, a work from the Khuddaka nikaya.

 2. The historical Buddha. He was born in 563 BCE, the son of a prince of the Shakyas, whose small kingdom in the foothills of the Himalayas lies in present-day Nepal. His first name was Siddhartha, his family name Gauta ma. Hence he is also called Gautama Buddha. (For the story of his life, see Siddhartha Gauta ma.) During his life as a wandering ascetic, he was known as Shakyamuni, the ÒSilent Sage of the Shakyas.Ó In order to distinguish the historical Buddha from the transcendent buddhas (see buddha 3), he is generally called Shakyamuni Buddha or Buddha Shakyamuni.

 3. The Òbuddha principle,Ó which manifests itself in the most various forms. Whereas in Hinayana only the existence of one buddha in every age is accepted (in which case the Buddha is considered an earthly being who teaches hu mans), for the Mahayana there are countless transcendent buddhas. According to the Mahayana teaching of the trikaya, the buddha principle manifests itself in three principal forms, the so-called three bodies (trikaya). In this sense the transcendent buddhas represent embodiments of various aspects of the buddha principle.

 4. A synonym for the absolute, ultimate reality devoid of form, color, and all other propertiesÑbuddha-nature.

From The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen,

By Michael S. Diener, Franz-Karl Erhard, Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber

Translated by Michael H. Kohn

 (See also: Buddha , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

DEATH

We should not dwell on the psychic envelopes that remain behind for those wraiths, ghosts, apparitions and so on who must make their way the best they can from the clues of their predecessors. Nor should we dally with the shells of the qlipoth attending the sephiroth. The normal soul for whom, from below, the gates appear as the gates of extinction and from above the gates of birth (or vice-versa) has no time for leisurely observation. Nor does the yogin, for whom death is merely a higher state of medi tation, require distraction. But we magicians should stop for a moment at the pylons themselves, at the door of the Abyss, the pause before lingam joins yoni, we should linger and observe the transitional threshold.

Death and sex are not merely metaphorically identical, but physically so. Since death (the second, total death, after the yesodic stage) results in instant rebirth, it is obvious that birth and death are the entrance and withdrawal motions of cosmic coit us on a slow-action timescale over successive reincarnations.

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

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,)

King's Chamber (Pyramid of Cheops) An initiation chamber and holy of holies of the Egyptian Mysteries, a symbol of the womb of nature and of regeneration through rebirth.

"On the days of the Mysteries of Initiation, the candidate, representing the solar god, had to descend into the Sarcophagus, and represent the energizing ray, entering into the fecund womb of Nature. Emerging from it on the following morning, he typified the resurrection of life after the change called Death. In the great Mysteries his figurative death lasted two days, when with the Sun he arose on third morning, after a last night of the most cruel trials. While the postulant represented the Sun -- the all-vivifying Orb that 'resurrects' every morning but to impart life to all -- the Sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle" (SD 2:462; cf. SD 2:466&n).

See also INITIATION

(See also: King's Chamber , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Near-Death Experience, NDE:

Experiences of people after they have been pronounced clinically dead, or been very close to death. Typical features of the NDE are an OBE, life review, a tunnel experience, light, coming to a boundary (marking death), seeing dead friends and relatives, experiencing a loving or divine presence, and making a choice (or being told) to return. Occasionally NDEs can be frightening and distressing. NDEs often have profound effects on the person's later life.

See also Cerebral Anoxia, Survival .

(See also: Near-Death Experience, NDE , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

BUDDHISM

Since we waste our youth suffering from boundless ignorance and unfulfilled desire and since age is mostly a time of physical hardship and blunted hopes, it seems clear that life, for all its promises, is more a burden than a joy. Since, however, to die is to be instantly reborn into life, death is apparently an even more absolute cheat. Considering also that all things have arisen in the Mind, in the midst of the Void, and since we are ourselves our own creators and gods (in a multiplicity of aspects and a simultaneous gallimaufry of forms), there is no escaping from the inevitability of either the existing or the potential cosmos. Indeed, it is this very weariness which Reality seeks to assuage by confusing itself as to its own identity.

The Buddha, sensing the horror and outrage of life on earth, wants to lead us to the perfection of the Absolute.

He teaches that birth and death (the wheel of Samsara), together with the Karmic burden, can be dropped in enlightenment and we can enter into Nirvana directly. In an even deeper understanding we are shown that Samsara and Nirvana are already one so there is not even any need for enlightenment! (But of course you have to be enlightened before you can understand that you are already enlightened!)

To the average westerner this seems fairly tame stuff and much too intellectual for his taste. He doesnt want contemplation, he wants action. But he should understand that Buddhism is a discipline of conscious mind and is meant to accompany action, not to take its place. It is serenity of the mind which enables creative work to be done and acceptance of life to take place. The other thing the westerner sometimes fails to recognize is that death and reincarnation are as much a part of his belief system as they are that of a Hindu philosopher. What, after all, is Heaven but the prospect of rebirth on a higher plane? What is Hell but the karma of past lives?

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