Fruit

Fruit represents abundance and prosperity. As a result of the seeds that they carry, they may also represent new beginnings. In biblical stories, mythology and literature in general, fruits have enjoyed much symbolic meaning. They may represent sexual desires and the search for wealth and immortality. In order to understand the meaning of the fruit in your dreams, consider your current strivings and psychological space. Also, consider whether the fruit was ripe, rotting or bitter. All of the details will help you to understand whether you have a lustful heart, are at a new frontier, or have missed opportunities for growth and pleasure.

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

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

Khuddaka-patha (Pali) (from khuddaka little one + patha reading, text)

A Buddhist scripture given to neophytes upon joining the Samgha (the Buddhist brotherhood); first book in the Khuddaka-Nikaya -- a collection of short canonical Buddhist books. This brief text contains some of the most beautiful poems in Buddhist literature, and the reverential feelings evoked by reading it are unquestionably the principal reason for its use. It opens with a profession of faith in the Buddha, in the Doctrine, and in the Order.

See also GEMS, THREE PRECIOUS

(See also: Khuddaka-patha , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Aditattva (Sanskrit) (from adi first + tattva thatness, essence)

Original principle; used in theosophical literature to denote the first or highest of seven tattvas or principles in the descending arc of nature's structure; in the numeration of the kosmic principles aditattva corresponds to the First Logos.

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

Neophyte [from Greek neophytos newly-grown]

One who, precisely because he has newly grown, is newly reborn, signifying one who has already passed successfully at least the first degree in initiation. Used for a novice in the Greek Septuagint and the New Testament, and often used for a candidate for initiation into the Mysteries, though not found in Greek literature in that sense; mystae, for example, describes neophytes or beginners who have already passed the first stages in initiation and who are therefore sworn to silence.

(See also: Neophyte , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Adept (from Latin adeptus from ad toward + apiscor to reach, attain)

One who has attained; in theosophical literature, one who has attained mastery in the art and science of living, an initiate or mahatma.

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

Suka (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root subh to shine]

The bright one; applied to several Hindu mythological characters. In Buddhist literature, a Brahmin ascetic said to have been a maharshi, who became of jivanmukta.

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

Book of Dzyan (probably from Sanskrit dhyana intense spiritual meditation, wisdom, divine knowledge)

An archaic work of enormous antiquity upon which Blavatsky based her Secret Doctrine. Dzyan has been variously spelled or transliterated, and under this form is a derivative of the Tibetan. Dzyan, dzen, or ch'an is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature.

Blavatsky describes the Book of Dzyan, saying: "An Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water, fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the writer's eye. On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On the following page, the same disk, but with a central point" (SD 1:1).

"The 'very old Book' is the original work from which the many volumes of Kiu-ti were complied. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta but even the Sepher Jezirah, the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabbalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China's primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume.

Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our) race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from the Devas of the 2nd and 1st Races. . . . The old book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the races from the First down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no further" (SD 1:xliii).

See also STANZAS OF DZYAN.

(See also: Book of Dzyan , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Manjusri (Sanskrit) [from manju beautiful + sri an epithet of holiness, dignity, and reverence]

The holy beautiful one; a name of the dhyani-bodhisattvas, the guardians and Silent Watchers of the globes of our planetary chain. Another title is Vajrapanins.

In exoteric Buddhist literature, Manjusri is looked upon as the god of wisdom because the title is personalized or anthropomorphized as an individual, but "It is erroneous to take literally the worship of the human Bodhisattvas, or Manjusri. It is true that, exoterically, the Mahayana school teaches adoration of these without distinction, and that Hiuen-Tsang speaks of some disciples of Buddha as being worshipped. But esoterically it is not the disciple or the learned Manjusri personally that received honours, but the divine Bodhisattvas and Dhyani Buddhas that animated . . . the human forms" (SD 2:34n).

(See also: Manjusri , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Kashmir Saivism: (Sanskrit) In this mildly theistic and intensely monistic school founded by Vasugupta around 850, Siva is immanent and transcendent. Purification and yoga are strongly emphasized.

Kashmir Saivism provides an extremely rich and detailed understanding of the human psyche, and a clear and distinct path of kundalini-siddha yoga to the goal of Self Realization. The Kashmir Saivite is not so much concerned with worshiping a personal God as he is with attaining the transcendental state of Siva consciousness. Sadhana leads to the assimilation of the object (world) in the subject (I) until the Self (Siva) stands revealed as one with the universe. The goal- liberation- is sustained recognition (pratyabhijna) of one's true Self as nothing but Siva.

There are three upaya, or stages of attainment of God consciousness: anavopaya (yoga), shaktopaya (spiritual discrimination), shambhavopaya (attainment through the guru's instruction) and anupaya, or "no means" (spontaneous realization without effort). Kashmir Saivite literature is in three broad divisions: Agama Shastras, Spanda Shastras and Pratyabhijna Shastras. Today various organizations promulgate the esoteric teachings. While the number of Kashmir Saivite formal followers is uncertain, the school remains an important influence in India.

See: Saivism, upaya.

(See also: Kashmir Saivism , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Druid

(Celtic, "true seer") A member of the priestly and intellectual elite of the Celts.

Druids were the religious and legal authorities in Gaul before its conquest by the Romans (51 BC) and were celebrated for their esoteric knowledge. The druid survived as a stock figure in medieval Irish literature. A priestly caste of the ancient Celtic people of France and the British Isles. They were the keepers of oral history and law, and officiates of religious practices.

Modern Druids are various new religious traditions that attempt to incorporate the insights of ancient Druidism, Celtic history and lore, and romanticized notions of the ancient Druids formed in the eighteenth century. In England today, there are the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, and the Ancient Order of Druids, among others.

While there is no scholarly connection between the Druids and Stonehenge, the Ancient Order of Druids used Stonehenge for their rituals until instances of vandalism by the curious closed the ancient site.

In the United States, the Reformed Druids of North America (RDNA) began in 1963 as a satirical protest against required attendance at chapel at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The RDNA developed rituals and lore from Celtic history, poetry, and anthropology, and the movement continued and became more serious, even after the chapel attendance requirement was dropped. The RDNA considered Druidism a philosophy of life, not a religion.

In 1966 the New Reformed Druids of North America (NRDNA) reformed Druidism as a Neo- Pagan religion. A few chapters of both groups still exist. Other current American Druidic groups include Ar nDraiocht Fein ("Our Own Druidism"), founded by Isaac Bonewits in 1983. Currently the largest American revivalist Druid organization, it sees itself as a Neo-Pagan religion based on the beliefs and practices of the ancient Indo-Europeans but adapted to modern needs and sensibilities, such as the preservation of the earth and excellence in arts and scholarship.

(See also: Druid , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Qabbalah (Hebrew) [from qabal to receive, hand down]

Also Cabala, Kabala, Kabbalah, etc. Tradition, that which is handed down; the theosophy of the Jews. Originally these truths were passed on orally by one initiate to chosen disciples, hence were referred to as the Tradition. The first one historically alleged to have reduced a large part of the secret Qabbalah of the Chaldees into systematic, and perhaps written, form was the Rabbi Shim`on ben Yohai, in the Zohar; but the work of this name that has come down to the present day -- through the medieval Qabbalists -- is but a compilation of the 13th century, presumably by Moses de Leon.

The principal doctrines of the Qabbalah deal with the nature of the divine incomprehensible All ('eyn soph); the divine emanations of the Sephiroth; cosmogony; the creation or emanation of angels and men, and of their destiny. The Jewish Qabbalah was derived from the Chaldean Qabbalah, and "mistaken is he who accepts the Kabalistic works of to-day, and the interpretations of the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine Kabalistic lore of old! For no more to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the Kabala accessible to Europe and America, contain much more than 'ruins and fragments, much distorted remnants still of that primitive system which is the key to all religious systems' . . . The oldest system and the Chaldean Kabala were identical. The latest renderings of the Zohar are those of the Synagogue in the early centuries" (SD 2:461-2).

Blavatsky refers to a work no longer extant, the Chaldean Book of Numbers, as the basis for the Qabbalah. Tentative mention is also made of an alleged manuscript left by Count Saint-Germain giving keys for interpreting the Qabbalah.

"The kabalist is a student of 'secret science,' one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabalah, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical. This secret doctrine is identical with that of the Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or 'magic.' History catches glimpses of famous kabalists ever since the eleventh century. The Mediaeval ages, and even our own times, have had an enormous number of the most learned and intellectual men who were students of the Kabala . . . The most famous among the former were Paracelsus, Henry Khunrath, Jacob Bohmen, Robert Fludd, the two Van Helmonts, the Abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardinal Nicolao Cusani, Jerome Carden, Pope Sixtus IV., and such Christian scholars as Raymond Lully, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Guillaume Postel, the great John Reuchlin, Dr. Henry More, Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), the erudite Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Christian Knorr (Baron) von Rosenroth; then Sir Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Lord Bacon, Spinosa, etc., etc., the list being almost inexhaustible. As remarked by Mr. Isaac Myer, in his Qabbalah [p. 170], the ideas of the Kabalists have largely influenced European literature. 'Upon the practical Qabbalah, the Abbe de Villars (nephew of de Montfaucon) in 1670, published his celebrated satirical novel, "The Count de Gabalis," upon which Pope based his "Rape of the Lock." Qabbalism ran through the Mediaeval poems, the "Romance of the Rose," and permeates the writings of Dante.' No two of them, however, agreed upon the origin of the Kabala, the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah, etc. Some show it as coming from the Biblical Patriarchs, Abraham, and even Seth; others from Egypt, others again from Chaldea. The system is certainly very old; but like all the rest of systems, whether religious or philosophical, the Kabala is derived directly from the primeval Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, the Upanishads, Orpheus and Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians. Whatever its source, its substratum is at any rate identical with that of all the other systems from the Book of the Dead down to the later Gnostics" (TG 167-8).

The Jewish Qabbalah even in its present partial or mutilated form is a more or less faithful echo of that once universal archaic wisdom-religion of mankind, which as the Qabbalah itself plainly states was originally delivered by " 'Divinity' to a select company of angels in Paradise," and from these angels -- occult initiates or adepts -- disseminated as the ages passed more or less faithfully among the different races of mankind.

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

Palingenesis [from Greek palin again + genesis becoming]

One type of reimbodiment or self-generation, the transmission of an identic life in cyclically recurring phases, whereby at each transformation a new manifestation or result is produced. This result can also be called a palingenesis or new-becoming of the life-stream.

The word is used similarly by Schopenhauer, who regards all phenomena as a continual and repeated palingenesis of one reality -- the Will. Transmigration, however, means the reappearance of a living entity in different forms adapted to specific conditions.

Palingenesis does not occur in Greek literature, as far as is known; palingenesia is used in the New Testament for spiritual regeneration. With the alchemists the word meant the artificial reproduction of the spectrum of a plant from its ashes. In biology palingenesis means reappearance of ancestral characteristics, instead of new characteristics (cenogenesis).

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

Sarpa (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root srip to wriggle, creep, crawl]

Serpent; the serpent has ever symbolized in occultism wisdom, immortality -- therefore renewed birth -- and secret knowledge; hence sarpa is applied to an initiate, as is naga (Sanskrit serpent). "There is a notable difference esoterically between the words Sarpa and Naga, though they are both used indiscriminately. Sarpa (serpent) is from the root Srip, serpo to creep; and they are called 'Ahi,' from Ha, to abandon. 'The sarpa was produced from Brahma's hair, which, owing to his fright at beholding the Yakshas, whom he had created horrible to behold, fell off from the head, each hair becoming a serpent. They are called Sarpa from their creeping and Ahi because they had deserted the head' (Wilson). But the Nagas, their serpent's tail notwithstanding, do not creep, but manage to walk, run and fight in the allegories" (SD 2:181-2n).

Sarpa was the original Sanskrit term for a snake or serpent, whereas naga, although likewise signifying a snake or serpent -- which it does consistently throughout the range of Sanskrit literature -- nevertheless early became identified in mystical thought with initiates because of their power of casting off physical body after physical body almost at will. Both terms therefore signify serpent or snake, and both later were used almost indiscriminately to signify initiates; nevertheless, because of habit or use, naga is the more common term for a full initiate, sarpa in this sense being of less frequent usage.

Just as the forces of nature are in themselves neutral, and become "good" or "bad" as they are used by individuals, similarly so is a symbol usable in a good or a bad sense. In the use of nagas and sarpas, the Brothers of Light are properly called nagas, and the Brothers of Darkness are more properly called sarpas, as the root srip which means to wriggle, hence to insinuate, to creep in by stealth and deceive.

Both the Brothers of Light and of Darkness are focuses of power, subtlety, wisdom, and knowledge; in the one case rightly and nobly applied, and in the other wrongly applied. The former are the nagas or serpents of light: subtle, wise, and with power to cast off the garment or vehicle when the body has grown old and to assume another at will. The latter are more strictly the sarpas or serpents of darkness, insinuating, worldly wise, selfishly shrewd, deceitful, venomous, and dangerous, and yet possessing the same powers, but in less degree, and using them wrongly, thus deceiving human hearts and succeeding in their work often by lies and misrepresentations. Nevertheless, precisely because nagas and sarpas are used almost indiscriminately, either word may apply both to the servants of light or of darkness.

(See also: Sarpa , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Apple

This simple and basic fruit is a powerful symbol in religious writings, literature and in dreams. It fundamentally represents knowledge and the freedom that is associated with it. With knowledge and freedom we are in a position to make positive or negative choices. The apple should be interpreted with the consideration of all the other details in the dream. Is the apple a symbol of positive movement and spiritual and emotional liberation, or is it a symbol of runaway passions and the resulting negativity? Are you giving into temptation and making hurtful choices or are being wise and enjoying the fullness of life?

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

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

A Hinduism dictionary with the most common spiritual words from P-Z. Also see these links: Hinduism, Spirituality, Enlightenment, Spiritual Dictionary and Hinduism Dictionary.