Yehidah (Hebrew) [from masculine yahid the one, the only, the unique from the verbal root yahad oneness, union; cognant with the Hebrew 'ehad one]

In the Qabbalah, the highest human principle, as being the unique or single and indivisible individuality of the constitution, and therefore corresponding to the spiritual monad. Blavatsky places this term in context of the entire person, as presented in the Qabbalistic system: yehidah is

"esoterically, the highest individuality or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, when united in one. . . . At the time of the conception, the Holy 'sends a d'yook-nah, or the phantom of a shadow image' like the face of a man. It is designed and sculptured in the divine tzelem, i.e., the shadow image of the Elohim. 'Elohim created man in his (their) tzelem' or image, says Genesis (i. 27). It is the tzelem that awaits the child and receives it at the moment of its conception, and this tzelem is our linga sharira. 'The rua'h forms with the Nephesh the actual personality of the man,' and also his individuality, or, as expressed by the Kabbalist, the combination of the two is called, if he (man) deserves it, Yeheedah.

This combination is that which the Theosophist calls the dual Manas, the higher and the Lower Ego, united to Atma-Buddhi and become one. For as explained in the Zohar (i., 205b, 206a, Brody Ed.): 'Neshamah, soul (Buddhi), comprises three degrees, and therefore she has three names, like the mystery above: that is, Nephesh, Rua'h, Neshamah,' or the Lower Manas, the Higher Ego, and Buddhi, the Divine Soul. 'It is also to be noted that the Neshamah has three divisions'; says Myer's Qabbalah, 'the highest is the Ye-hee-dah' -- or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the latter once more as a unit; 'the middle principle is Hay-yah' -- or Buddhi and the dual Manas; 'and the last and third, the Neshamah, properly speaking' -- or Soul in general. 'They manifest themselves in Ma'hshabah, thought, Tzelem, phantom of the image, Zurath, prototypes (mayavic forms, or rupas), and the D'yooknah, shadow of the phantom image. The D'mooth, likeness or similitude (physical body), is a lower manifestation' (p. 392)" (TG 377-8; cf SD 2:633).

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

Ialdabaoth (Gnostic) (from Shem ilda + baoth)

Child from the egg (of Chaos); the spirit of matter, the chief of the lower 'elohim and father of the six dark stellar spirits or terrestrial angels, and thus one of the lower group of the Qabbalistic Sephiroth, the shadow or reflection on the lower four cosmic planes of the arupa or formless higher Sephirothic range. These emanations from the stellar spirits become darker and more material as they recede in descent from their sources, and are thus properly represented as the seven planetary (and global) genii or rectors.

Ialdabaoth's mother, Sophia Achamoth (wisdom of the lower four of the cosmic planes) is the daughter or manifested reflection of the Heavenly Sophia -- divine wisdom, or the mahat-side of akasa. Therefore Ialdabaoth is equivalent to the Nazarene Demiourgos of the Codex Nazaraeus, which makes him identical with the Hebrew Jehovah, the creator of the physical earth and the material side of the rector of the planet Saturn. He is also identical with Tsebaoth-Adamas, "the Pthahil of the Codex Nazaraeus, the Demiurge of the Valentinian system, the Proarchose of the Barbelitae, the Great Archon of Basilides and the Elohim of Justinus, etc. Ialdabaoth (the Child of Chaos) was . . . the Chief of the Creative Forces and the representative of one of the classes of Pitris" (BCW 13:43n). In the Ophite scheme he is the first of the superior septenate.

As a creative spirit, Ialdabaoth generates six sons (the lower terrestrial angels or stellar spirits) without assistance of any female, and when these sons strive with him he creates Ophiomorphos, the serpent-shaped spirit of all that is basest in matter. When Ialdabaoth proclaims that he is Father and God, and that none is above him, Sophia tells him that the first and second Anthropos (heavenly man) are above him. So Ialdabaoth's sons create a man, Adam, to whom Ialdabaoth gives the breath of life, emptying himself of creative power. Having rebelled against his mother, his production is mindless and has to be endowed with mind by Sophia Achamoth -- a reference to the descent of the manasaputras. The man, thus informed, aspires away from his producer, who thereupon becomes his adversary, produces the three lower kingdoms of beings, and imprisons man in a house of clay (flesh). Ialdabaoth also makes Eve (Lilith) to deprive the man of his light powers. Sophia sends the serpent or intelligence to make Adam and Eve transgress the commands of Ialdabaoth, who casts them from Paradise into the world along with the serpent. Sophia deprives Adam and Eve of their light power, but eventually restores this power so that they awoke mentally. Here there is much the same confusion that surrounds the various meanings of Satan and the serpent.

Ialdabaoth, who is lion-headed or in the form of a lion, represents the kama principle, the false light that draws the soul into matter and struggles against its rise again to spirit. Some Gnostics held that Sophia sent Christos to help humankind when Ialdabaoth and his forces were shutting out the divine light, and Ialdabaoth, "discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his kingdom of Matter, stirred up the Jews, his own people, against Him, and Jesus was put to death" (BCW 14:161).

See also JEHOVAH

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

Pantacle (Ancient Greek). The same as Pentalpha; the triple triangle of Pythagoras or the five-pointed star.

It was given the name because it reproduces the letter A (alpha) on the five sides of it or in five different positions - its number, moreover, being composed of the first odd ( and the first even (2) numbers. It is very occult. In Occultism and the Kabala it stands for man or the Microcosm, the "Heavenly Man", and as such it was a powerful talisman for keeping at bay evil spirits or the Elementals.

In Christian theology it refers to the five wounds of Christ; its interpreters failing, however, to add that these "five wounds" were themselves symbolical of the Microcosm, or the "Little Universe", or again, Humanity, this symbol pointing out the fall of pure Spirit (Christos) into matter (Iassous, "life", or man).

In esoteric philosophy the Pentalpha, or five-pointed star, is the symbol of the EGO or the Higher Manas. Masons use it, referring to it as the five-pointed star, and connecting it with their own fanciful interpretation.

(See the word "Pentacle" for its difference in meaning from "Pantacle".)

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

Aeschylus One of the three greatest Greek tragic poets, born at Eleusis (525-456 BC), the seat of the Mysteries of Demeter, into which he undoubtedly was initiated. Of his perhaps 90 plays, only seven survive. Plato accuses him of impiety and Cicero describes him as almost a Pythagorean. He profaned the Mysteries in the eyes of the Athenians (e.g. in the real meaning of the allegories present in Prometheus Bound and The Eumenides) and has been accused of introducing antagonism among the celestial powers, transferring the political radicalism and demagogy of Athens from the agora to Olympus. His works introduced a second actor, thus creating true dramatic dialogue; he also introduced masks and imposing headdresses and costumes for the actors.

His portrayal of Zeus in different dramas is inconsistent, since there were two Zeuses: the abstract deity of Grecian thought, and the Olympic Zeus. While the former represents the head of the hierarchy of divinities, the latter is, in man, the human soul or kama-manas. Prometheus, who steals fire from heaven and brings it to mankind in a fennel-stalk, is buddhi-manas, mankind's savior. Zeus is the serpent, the intellectual tempter of humanity, which nevertheless begets in due time the man-savior, the solar Dionysus (SD 2:419-20).

Harmony results from the equilibrium of contraries, and the drama of evolution as depicted in man shows the clash of descending and reascending cycles, the antimony of law and free will. These dramas have been immortalized for all generations by Aeschylus who, in his daring and self-sacrificing enthusiasm, may himself by styled a Prometheus offending the powers that be in order to bring light to mankind.

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

fate: From the Latin fatum, "prophetic declaration, oracle." In Western thought, fate is the force or agency, God or other power, outside man's control, believed to determine the course of events before they occur. According to Hindu thought, man is not ruled by fate but shapes his own destiny by his actions, which have their concomitant reactions.

The Hindu view acknowledges fate only in the limited sense that man is subject to his own past karmas, which are a driving force in each incarnation, seemingly out of his own control. But they can be mitigated by how he lives life, meaning how he faces and manages his prarabdha ("begun, undertaken") karmas and his kriyamana ("being made") karmas.

See: adrishta, karma, destiny.

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

Shen (Chinese) In Taoism, when employed in relation to yang, it refers to the celestial or spiritual, hence the gods; in relation to man it is generally translated soul. Yang is defined as a supreme, universal shen -- living, creating, dividing itself into an infinite number of shen -- depositing the shen in the various beings of the worlds. "The shen are omnipresent; it is they which perform the unfathomable work of the Yang and the Yin. These two vital breaths (of the universe) create the beings; their peregrinating hwun (or shen) are the causes of the changes (in nature), from which, accordingly, we may learn the actions and manners of the kwei and the shen" (I Ching, Hi-ts'ze 1).

With regard to man, the Li Chi states that "Man is a product of the beneficial operation of the Yang and the Yin, and the union of a kwei with a shen; he consists of the finest breath which the five elements contain" (Li yun 3).

See also KWEI

(See also: Shen , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Orphism, Orphic Mysteries [from Greek orphikos]

Orphism originally taught of the Causeless Cause on which all speculation is impossible; the periodical appearance and disappearance of all things, from atom to universe; reimbodiment; cyclic law; the essential divinity of all beings and things; and the duality in manifestation of the universe. It postulated seven emanations from the Boundless: aether (spirit) and chaos (matter), from which two spring the world egg, out of which is born Phanes, the First Logos; then Uranus (and Gaia) the Second Logos, with Kronos (and Rhea, mother of the Olympian gods) a later phase of the Second Logos; and Zeus, the Third Logos or Demiurge -- who starts a minor sevenfold hierarchy of emanation by begetting Zagreus-Dionysos the god-man, the divine son.

Characteristic of Orphic cosmogony is the important place given to the number seven. "The rise of the Orphic worship of Dionysos is the most important fact in the history of Greek religion, and marks a great spiritual awakening. Its three great ideas are (1) a belief in the essential Divinity of humanity and the complete immortality or eternity of the soul, its pre-existence and its post-existence; (2) the necessity for individual responsibility and righteousness; and (3) the regeneration or redemption of man's lower nature by his own higher Self" (F. S. Darrow).

The Orphic teachings were kept intact by the Golden or Hermetic Chain of Succession down to the days of the Neoplatonists after which (as symbolically told in the archaic story of Eurydice) they were killed -- obscured or lost, so far as the public was concerned. Their keynote was consecration to the mandates of the god within: perfect purity, perfect impersonal love, perfect understanding, and devotion to the interests of humanity.

The three Orphic mystery-gods were Zeus, the divine All-father; Demeter-Kore, the earth goddess as both mother and maid; and Zagreus-Dionysos, the divine son. This trinity finds its counterpart in Egyptian, Indian, Chaldean, Christian, and other religions. There were two forms of baptism, one purification by water, later adopted into the Christian ritual; and the other a ceremony in which the face of the neophyte was cleansed with a mixture of earth and bran, symbolizing the washing away of stains from the soul.

The ceremony of the Eucharist was also adopted by the Christians and as Orphic ritual forbade the use of wine (substituting for it a mead of honey and milk), in the rite as adopted by the primitive Christians the neophyte drank not only wine but also milk and honey. Under Orphism, the honey symbolized not only purification and preservation, or endless life and bliss, but the secret knowledge obtained during initiation. Bees, the gatherers of honey, were emblems of the reincarnating soul, as was the butterfly; and as the bees gathered the nectar from flowers and made it into honey, so the human soul in its various peregrinations gathers from the beings and things of life the mystic experience and stores it away in the chambers of the soul. Milk symbolized knowledge, which fed the inner man, as a child of eternity, just as milk feeds the human child.

Orphism flourished from before the 14th until the 6th century BC, and again, after some five centuries of obscuration, during the first four centuries of the Christian era. Plato, Empedocles, the Pythagorean teachings, some of the Greek dramatists and poets are our main source material for the earlier period, as well as the various Orphic fragments including the Orphic Tablets.

These Tablets, with the Orphic Hymns, consist of eight gold plates containing inscriptions, dating from about the 4th century BC. They consist of instructions given to the soul for its journey through the afterdeath worlds or states very reminiscent of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The keynote is spoken by the soul: "I am a child of earth and of starry Heaven, but my race is of Heaven (alone). . . . Lo, I am parched with thirst . . ." For the later period we have the writings of the Neoplatonists and their opponents, the early Christian Fathers.

That the entire Orphic mythogony is intentionally allegorical does not invalidate that a great prehistoric religious reformer named Orpheus lived, worked, taught, and founded a religion as the outgrowth of a genuine Mystery school.

(See also: Orphism, Orphic Mysteries , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Adamas (Greek) Adamant, inflexible; used by Greek and Latin writers for a stone (as a diamond) of impenetrable hardness. One of the main mystical type-figures of the Gnostic system. In The Gospel of the Egyptians (3: 2), "the incorruptible man Adamas" is a light which radiated from the light; he is "the eye of the (light)

. For (this is)

the first man, he through whom and to whom everything became, (and) without whom nothing became" (Nag Hammadi Library 198n).

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

A Theosophical definition of Soulless Beings :

Soulless Beings

"We elbow soulless men in the streets at every turn," wrote H. P. Blavatsky. This is an actual fact. The statement does not mean that those whom we thus elbow have no soul. The significance is that the spiritual part of these human beings is sleeping, not awake. Soulless Beings are animate humans with an animate working brain-mind, an animal mind, but otherwise "soulless" in the sense that the soul is inactive, sleeping; and this is also just what Pythagoras meant when he spoke of the "living dead."

Soulless Beings are everywhere, these people. We elbow them, just as H. P. Blavatsky says, at every turn. The eyes may be physically bright, and filled with the vital physical fire, but they lack soul; they lack tenderness, the fervid yet gentle warmth of the living flame of inspiration within. Sometimes impersonal love will awaken the soul in a man or in a woman; sometimes it will kill it if the love become selfish and gross. The streets are filled with such "soulless" people; but the phrase soulless people does not mean "lost souls." The latter is again something else.

The term soulless people therefore is a technical term. It means men and women who are still connected, but usually quite unconsciously, with the monad, the spiritual essence within them, but who are not self-consciously so connected. They live very largely in the brain-mind and in the fields of sensuous consciousness. They turn with pleasure to the frivolities of life. They have the ordinary feelings of honor, etc., because it is conventional and good breeding so to have them; but the deep inner fire of yearning, the living warmth that comes from being more or less at one with the god within, they know not. Hence, they are "soulless," because the soul is not working with fiery energy in and through them.

A lost soul, on the other hand, means an entity who through various rebirths, it may be a dozen, or more or less, has been slowly following the "easy descent to Avernus," and in whom the threads of communication with the spirit within have been snapped one after the other. Vice will do this, continuous vice. Hate snaps these spiritual threads more quickly than anything else perhaps. Selfishness, the parent of hate, is the root of all human evil; and therefore a lost soul is one who is not merely soulless in the ordinary theosophical usage of the word, but is one who has lost the last link, the last delicate thread of consciousness, connecting him with his inner god. He will continue "the easy descent," passing from human birth to an inferior human birth, and then to one still more inferior, until finally the degenerate astral monad  - all that remains of the human being that once was  - may even enter the body of some beast to which it feels attracted (and this is one side of the teaching of transmigration, which has been so badly misunderstood in the Occident); some finally go even to plants perhaps, at the last, and will ultimately vanish. The astral monad will then have faded out. Such lost souls are exceedingly rare, fortunately; but they are not what we call soulless people.

If the student will remember the fact that when a human being is filled with the living spiritual and intellectual fiery energies flowing into his brain-mind from his inner god, he is then an insouled being, he will readily understand that when these fiery energies can no longer reach the brain-mind and manifest in a man's life, there is thus produced what is called a soulless being. A good man, honorable, loyal, compassionate, aspiring, gentle, and true-hearted, and a student of wisdom, is an "insouled" man; a buddha is one who is fully, completely insouled; and there are all the intermediate grades between.

See also: Soulless Beings , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Vedanta: (Sanskrit) "Ultimate wisdom" or "final

conclusions of the Vedas." Vedanta is the system of

thought embodied in the Upanishads (ca 1500-600 bce),

which give forth the ultimate conclusions of the Vedas.

Through history there developed numerous Vedanta

schools, ranging from pure dualism to absolute monism.

The first and original school is Advaita Ishvaravada,

"monistic theism" or panentheism, exemplified in the

Vedanta-Siddhanta of Rishi Tirumular (ca 250 bce) of the Nandinatha Sampradaya in his Tirumantiram, which is a

perfect summation of both the Vedas and the Agamas.

This is a dipolar reconciliation of monism and dualism

which, as philosopher-statesman Dr. S. Radhakrishnan

(18881975)

declared, best depicts the philosophy of the

Upanishads. After about 700 ce, many other schools

developed, each establishing itself through written

commentaries on the major Upanishads, the Bhagavad

Gita and the Brahma Sutras. The latter text, by

Badarayana (ca 400 bce), is the earliest known

systematization of Vedanta, but its extremely terse

aphorisms are philosophically illusive without

commentary. During the "scholastic era" (7001700),

three main variations of the original Vedanta were

developed: 1) Advaita Vedanta, or pure nondualism,

exemplified by Shankara (788820);

2) Vishishtadvaita

Vedanta, or qualified nondualism, most fully expressed by

Ramanuja (10171137);

and 3) Dvaita Vedanta,

expounded by Madhva (11971278).

Panentheism is embodied in those qualified nondual

Vedanta schools that accept the ultimate identity of

the soul and God. Examples are the Vishishtadvaita

of Bhaskara (ca 950), the Shuddha Advaita, "pure

nondualism," of Vallabha (ca 14751530)

and, to a

lesser degree, the Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja.

In summary: Madhva, the dualist, conceives

Brahman to be the Personal God. In his philosophy,

the universe, souls and God are all separate from one

another and real. Ramanuja, the qualified nondualist,

also conceives Brahman to be the Personal God. In

his philosophy, God must not be considered apart

from the world and souls, for the three together form

a one whole. The world and souls are real as the

body of God, and the individual soul feels himself to

be part of God. Shankara, the strict advaitist,

conceives Brahman to be the Impersonal God, the

Absolute. Shankara does not deny the existence of

the Personal God, known as Ishvara, but declares

Ishvara to be equally as unreal as the universe and

the individuality of the soul. In truth, the only

Reality is the Absolute, and man is that Absolute. To

Rishi Tirumular, the panentheist, there is an eternal

oneness of God and man at the level of their inner Being, but a difference is acknowledged during the

evolution of the soul. Ultimately even this difference

merges in identity. Thus, there is perfectly

beginningless oneness and a temporary difference

which resolves itself in perfect identity.

Vedanta is one of the six classical philosophies (shad

darshanas) along with Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Sankhya,

Yoga and Mimamsa. Vedanta is also called Uttara

Mimamsa, "upper or later examination," as

distinguished from Purva Mimamsa, which

concerned itself solely with the earlier portions of the

Veda. Other important schools of Vedanta include

the Dvaitadvaita, "dual-nondualism,"of Nimbarka (ca

1150), and the Achintya Bhedabheda, "unthinkable

difference-nondifference," of Chaitanya (14851534).

See: acosmic pantheism, Advaita Isvaravada,

dvaita-advaita, monistic theism, Madhva,

panentheism, Ramanuja, Tirumantiram, Vallabha.

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

Amshaspands (Pahlavi) Also Amshaspends. The seven bright and glorious ones, Pahlavi version of the Avestic Amesha-Spenta. They refer to the six attributes of Ahura Mazda, both in the spiritual and mental worlds.

The first three -- Vohu-Man (Bahman), Asha-Vahishta (Ordibehesht), and Khshathra-Vayria (Shahrivar) -- are the three aspects of truth. Spenta-Armaiti (Spandar-Maz or Esphand), Haurvata (Khordad), and Ameretat (Amordad) are reflections of the first male trinity in the mental world. The total sum of the six is kherad (intellect), man's liberating force, which is not to be mistaken as Ahura Mazda, the supreme creator.

The Amshaspands in ancient Persian theology bore the same general relation to the universe that the seven or ten prajapatis have in the Hindu scriptures, or that the seven or ten Sephiroth have in the Hebrew Qabbalah.

See also Amesha-Spenta.

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

Marcionites Followers of Marcion, a reformer of Christianity of the 2nd century who, failing to bend the Church to his views, founded a society of his own in Rome, whence it spread to Asia Minor, gaining great influence and for a time seriously competing with the established Church.

Though often described as a Gnostic, he holds a position rather between the Gnostics and those who sought to establish a less philosophical and more concrete system -- a church. He had known Christianity at a time when the Gnostic teachings still formed a recognized element; but he found the existing Church too far along the path of materialization of metaphysical ideas and adaptation to mundane politics, and he sought to restore the doctrine and ritual to an older, purer form.

He favored the teachings of Paul, whom he regarded as the true interpreter of Christianity, and condemned the Old Testament as being a corrupting influence, while regarding the historical view of the Gospels as a literalization and carnalization of metaphysical allegories and symbolic teaching. His teachings contain many Gnostic elements: man is formed by the God of the Old Testament, who lays upon him laws which he cannot obey, so that he falls under the power of the lower Demiourgos. But another God, the God of Mercy, sends his son into the world to save man. Yet this son appears in the reign of Tiberius and is crucified in Palestine. The lower Demiourgos, the adversary of man and of the God of Mercy, is at the same time an agent of that God.

Among the many varieties of Christianity which had vogue, Marcionism was one of the best attempts to find a workable adjustment between the ancient teachings and the conditions of the world at that time. But the spirit of a declining age prevailed in favor of the Church; the influence of Marcion can be traced for a few centuries, but his association finally lost its identity amid divergences and absorptions into other systems, especially Manichaeism.

(See also: Marcionites, Marcion , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Purushasukta purusasukta [from Purusha man, heavenly man + sukta vedic hymn]

The Purusha hymn, or hymn of the Rig-Veda (10:90) describing the cosmic soul or source of the universe. This hymn, harmonious and corroborative of the esoteric doctrines, relates to some of the earliest chapters of cosmogony, and also on the human scale to the earliest race or races of mankind.

(See also: Purushasukta, purusasukta , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Seven The fundamental number of manifestation, frequently found in the different cosmogonies as well as in many religious dogmas and observances of the different ancient peoples.

Although ten was called one of the perfect numbers by the Pythagoreans, seven was unique in their series of numbers because it has all the "perfection of the Unit -- the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade can beget or produce it" (SD 2:582). Seven is the number of the manifested universe, while ten or twelve is the number of the unmanifested universe.

Pythagoras taught that seven was composed of the numbers three and four, explaining that "on the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: 'Father-Mother-Son'; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane" (ibid.). Further, seven was called by the Pythogoreans the vehicle of life for it consisted of body and spirit: the body was held to consist of four principal elements, while the spirit was in manifestation triple, comprising the monad, intellect or essential reason, and mind.

There are innumerable instances of sevening -- the seven days of the week, the seven colors of the spectrum, the seven notes of the musical scale -- while special emphasis is placed upon the seven human and cosmic principles; the seven senses (five senses now in manifestation and two more to be attained in the future through evolutionary unfolding); the seven cosmic elements; the seven root-races and seven subraces; the seven kingdoms, human and below; the seven rounds; the seven lokas and talas; the seven manifested globes of the planetary chain; the seven sacred planets; the seven racial buddhas; the seven dhyani-bodhisattvas and -buddhas; the seven Logoi; etc.

Man as well as nature is called saptaparna (seven-leaved plant), symbolized by the triangle above the square {illust}. While the senary was applied to man in all ranges from the physical to the spiritual, when completed by the atman, thus making the septenary, the latter signified the entire range of the constitution, whether of man or nature, crowned by the immortal spirit.

In Hindu literature the number seven continually appears: the saptarshis (the seven sages), the seven superior and inferior worlds, the seven hosts of deities, the seven holy cities, the seven holy islands, seas, or mountains, the seven deserts, the seven sacred trees, etc. In Greece seven was often connected with the gods and goddesses: Mars had seven attendants, seven was sacred to Pallas Athene and to Phoebus Apollo -- the latter with his seven-stringed lyre playing hymns to septenary nature as well as to the seven-rayed sun; Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, etc.

Apart from mythological considerations, in physical life manifestations of the number seven occur continuously: "if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the Kingdoms of the Animal, mammalia and man -- why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development?" (SD 2:623n).

Seven is indeed the sacred number of life, and with the circle and the cross it forms a triad of primordial symbols of the ancient wisdom.

(See also: Seven , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Nous :

Nous

(Greek) This is a term frequently used by Plato for what in modern theosophical literature is usually called the higher manas or higher mind or spiritual soul, the union and characteristics of the buddhi-manas in man overshadowed by the atman.

The distinction to be drawn between the nous on the one hand, and the animal soul or psyche and its workings on the other hand, is very sharp, and the two must not be confused. In occultism the kosmic nous is the third Logos, and in the case of man's own constitution, or in human pneumatology, the nous is the buddhi-manas or higher manas or spiritual monad.

See also: Nous , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Dream Interpretation Castration

It is a very disturbing dream for any man, and more likely it relates to impotence or fear of it, or anxiety that he might not be able to satisfy a particular woman. The dream might also refer to a fear that someone wants to emasculate you not necessarily in a sexual content. For a woman a dream of castrating a man expresses very powerful emotions. It usually reflects her desire to posses and subdue her partner and feel superior.

Source: Dream-Land, http://www.dream-land.info

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

Ida or Ila (Sanskrit) Refreshment, flow; the goddess of sacred speech, similar to Vach; in the Rig-Veda called the instructress of Manu, instituting the rules for the performing of sacrifices. The Satapatha-Brahmana represents Ida as arising from a sacrifice which Manu had performed for the purpose of obtaining offspring.

Although claimed by the gods Mitra and Varuna, she became the wife of Manu, giving birth to the race of manus. In the Puranas, she is daughter of Vaivasvata-Manu, wife of Budha (wisdom), and mother of Pururavas. In some accounts she is born a woman, becomes a man named Sudyumna, then rebecomes a woman before finally becoming a man again. This refers to the androgynous third root-race, as well as to the later part of the second root-race.

"In their most mystical meaning, the union of Swayambhuva Manu with Vach-Sata-Rupa, his own daughter (this being the first 'euhemerization' of the dual principle of which Vaivasvata Manu and Ila are a secondary and a third form), stands in Cosmic symbolism as the Root-life, the germ from which spring all the Solar Systems, the worlds, angels and the gods" (SD 2:148).

See also ILA

(See also: Ida, Ila , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Alchemy:

An ancient "psuedo-science" commonly recalled for experiments to transmute base metals into gold, the formulation of a universal cure to remedy all known diseases, the indefinite extension of life through chemical and magical means, and the production of artificial life forms in a laboratory setting.

Richly illustrated in symbolism and steeped in arcane traditions, the practice of alchemy eventually led to the formation of accepted sciences such as chemistry. Today, sometimes regarded as a symbolic philosophy for the evolution of the human spirit from 'base man' to 'enlightened man' through the use of alchemical symbolism and imagery.

(See also: Alchemy , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Cosmic Humanism - N

In contrast to normative humanism that sees man as the measure of all things, cosmic humanism sees man as having virtually unlimited potential because of his inner divinity.

(See also: Cosmic Humanism , New Age, Body mind and Soul)

Ramayana

"The most ancient Sanskrit epic poem, written by the sage Valmiki. It is estimated to have been composed about 500 B.C., and contains approximately 50,000 lines. The Ramayana describes the life of Sri Rama: his banishment from Ayodhya; life in the forest with his faithful wife Sita; Sita's abduction by Ravana; the war of Rama and his allies against Ravana; defeat of Ravana and rescue of Sita; Rama's return to Ayodhya as ruler; slander of Sita by the people of Ayodhya and her banishment from the kingdom; her subsequent exoneration and final ascent to heaven, where she is joined by Rama."

-- Ramakrishna-Vedanta Wordbook

"The Ramayana is a work of the same essential kind as the Mahabharata; it differs only by a greater simplicity of plan, a more delicate ideal temperament and a finer glow of poetic warmth and colour. The main bulk of the poem in spite of much accretion is evidently by a single hand and has a less complex and more obvious unity of structure. There is less of the philosophic, more of the purely poetic mind, more of the artist, less of the builder. The whole story is from beginning to end of one piece and there is no deviation from the stream of the narrative. At the same time there is a like vastness of vision, an even more wide-winged flight of epic sublimity in the conception and sustained richness of minute execution in the detail.

...The eopic poet has taken here also as his subject an Itihasa, an ancient tale or legend associated with an old Indian dynasty and filled it in with detail from myth and folklore, but has exalted all into a scale of grandiose epic figure that it may bear more worthily the high intention and significance. The subject is the same as in the Mahabharata,, the strife of the divine with the titanic forces in the life of the earth, but in more purely ideal forms, in frankly supernatural dimensions and an imaginative heightening of both the good and the evil in human character. On one side is portrayed an ideal manhood, a divine beauty of virtue and ethical order, a civilization founded on the Dharma and realising an exaltation of the moral ideal which is presented with a singularly strong appeal of aesthetic grace and harmony and sweetness; on the other are wild and anarchic and almost amorphous forces of superhuman egoism and self-will and exultant violence, and the two ideas and powers of mental nature living and embodied are brought into conflict and led to a decisive issue of the victory of the divine man over the Rakshasa. All shade and complexity are omitted which would diminish the single urity of the idea, the representative force in the outline of the figures, the significance of the temperamental colour and only so much admitte as is sufficient to humanise the appeal and the significance.

The poet makes us conscious of the immense forces that are behind our life and sets his action in a magnificent epic scenery, the great imperial city, the mountains and ocean, the forest and wilderness, described with such a largeness as to make us feel as if the whole world were the scene of his poem and its subject the whole divine and titanic possibility of man imaged in a few great or monstrous figures. The ethical and the aesthetic mind of India have here fused themselves into a harmonious unity and reached an unexampled pure wideness and beauty of self-expression. The Ramayana embodied for the Indian imagination its highest and tenderest human ideals of character, made strength and courage and gentleness and purity and fidelity and self-sacrifice familiar to it in the suavest and most harmonious forms..."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture,

SABCL Vol 14 pp. 289-90

(See also: Ramayana , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Word In religious and philosophical usage, a translation of the Greek logos or Latin verbum. Its meaning here is that of reason manifested, employed mainly in a cosmogonic sense. "The esoteric meaning of the word Logos (speech or word, Verbum) is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting divine mind, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in the Universe of Pleroma, so man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his Universe, the Earth" (SD 2:25). This word was chosen because human thought, or immanent conscious intelligence or mind, manifests itself through words. It is familiar to Christians through the opening verse of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (1:1, 14). In the former quotation the meaning is entirely cosmogonic; in the latter, it has been diminished to signify the innate Word or divinity in man, which when in full control of the human adept can, by a stretch of metaphor, mean that the innate Christ, Buddha, or god in man so controls the human personality as to have become the latter, and thus to manifest among men.

Cosmogonically, theosophy considers the universe and all in it, from its first divine appearance to its last material modification, as being in toto as well as in all manifested details an emanation from the universal mind. This emanation takes place at the beginning of a manvantara in three separate stages or degrees: the First or unmanifest Logos; the Second or manifest-unmanifest Logos; and finally the Third or manifest Logos. Logos is applicable to these three stages because each is the manifesting of the wisdom in its divine predecessor, each stage carrying within itself, on the principle of the emanational scheme, the attributes or qualities of its predecessors. The Second Logos has invariably been considered feminine, and the Third Logos is regarded as the creative power.

Corresponding to the three Logoi in the Hindu scheme are Brahman, Brahma, and Isvara emanating originally from parabrahman-mulaprakriti. In the highly philosophical visioning of Mahayana Buddhism is adi-buddha, mahabuddhi, and the celestial buddha, occasionally indirectly called dharmakaya. On a scale of less magnitude, Hindu thought has developed the triad Brahma, the emanator or original emanation; Vishnu, the supporter or sustainer, a feminine characteristic nevertheless; and Siva at once the regenerator and producer in the sense of destroying but to regenerate. Still a third Hindu scheme is found in the series of paramatman, mahabuddhi or alaya, and mahat or cosmic creative mind.

A somewhat similar usage in the Qabbalah is Meimra, or 'imrah (word, particularly from divinity) [both from Hebrew verbal root amar to say, speak, use words]. One of the Stanzas of Dzyan refers to the Army of the Voice, which is explained to be "the prototype of the 'Host of the Logos,' or the 'word' of the Sepher Jezirah, called in the Secret Doctrine 'the One Number issued from No-Number' -- the One Eternal Principle" (SD 1:94).

See also LOGOS

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