Mother Dictionary

Eve Hawwah (Hebrew) (from hawah to breathe, live)

Mystically the mother of all living, an allegorical yet actual figure in all archaic cosmogonies. Genesis describes three Eves:

1)    the archetypal Eve, the feminine aspect of the divine androgyne which is on the one hand `Adam Qadmon, and on the other hand Sephirah-Eve (ch. l);

2)    the Eve of the early third root-race, after the separation of the sexes but before the awakening of mind (ch. 2); and

3)    Eve the mother of Abel and of Seth, here beginning the course of human history after the awakening of mind.

The first Eve was no woman but, like the first Adam, the spiritual feminine aspect of an archetypal spiritual host; the second was no woman but womankind; while the third was woman and mother as now known. They companion and correspond to the three Adams: the first, the spiritual albeit masculine type of the archetypal host; the second, the mindless first human race; and the third, "the race that (had fully)

separated, whose eyes are opened" (SD 2:46n). Between the Eve of Genesis and Eve the mother of Seth (Genesis 4) passed long ages, involving millions of years during which the archetypal preparation of the globe for human habitation was followed by distinct root-races and three Edens, with millions of years between even these latter.

The original from which the Hebrew Genesis was later compiled is lost. Yet even as the latter has reached us -- first veiled, then probably remodeled by Ezra with shiftings that confuse the chronology -- despite important words and clauses mistranslated by European scholars, its resemblance to the esoteric account is unmistakable. For Jehovah, who gave the human body and (physical) breath of life, is the hyparxis of Saturn and an earthly, not a celestial, hierarchy.

The human mind and spirit are essentially emanations from the immortal spiritual monad coeval with the universe, and subsequent human evolutionary development was both from and aided by the elohim, a spiritual host. Adam and Eve, once mind appeared in them, enter the path of self-directed evolution, a reference to the second and third Eves mentioned above. The eating of the fruit of the tree is the awakening or lighting of mind in man. It shows Eve as consorting with spiritual, not demoniacal, forces and incidentally reconciles the two creation stories.

Like the serpent, the tree is an ancient and universal symbol of sacred and esoteric knowledge. To eat of its fruit is to acquire the knowledge that only the gods possess, and the possession confers immortality under the law.

There is neither relationship nor historic nor philosophic resemblance between Eve and Lilith, Adam's "first wife."

(See also: Eve, Hawwah , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Pregnancy

Pregnancy has two points of entry into our dream lives. The first is dreaming of oneself as being pregnant. The second is that you actually become pregnant in waking life and that trigger event creates this particular dream content.

In dreams, anyone can get pregnant. It is not an experience that is limited by gender or age. Generally, it is a herald of creativity, virility, or wealth. However, there are numerous underlying themes that need additional interpretation.

If you are a younger woman who dreams of getting pregnant, but has no waking intention of doing so, it is likely that you are working through an archetypal transition into a new self-awareness. One of Jung's archetypes is the archetype of parenting or preserving the species. To see oneself engaged in such activity is to grow from being a child to identifying more prominently with adults.

If you are sexually active, but without the intention for pregnancy, your dreams of pregnancy may occur in harmony with your monthly cycle. In these dreams, there may be a certain amount of "what-if" anxiety that needs resolution.

A man who dreams of being pregnant himself is often in a situation where his virility or creative participation in the world is in question. This occurs most among men who see themselves as less creative than they would like to be. The dream serves as a form of compensation to illuminate the more creative facets of their personality. Men who are pregnant do not give birth exclusively to children, but a wide range of objects that somehow support their mission in the world.

Becoming pregnant in waking life can conjure a huge variety of dream events. These range from the violent to the hilarious and almost everything in between. Since pregnancy conjures a wide variety of feelings in waking life, from euphoria to tremendous anxiety, this is not too surprising.

Other dreams that are prevalent during pregnancy include dreams of marital infidelity, death of the partner, chronic health problems, birth defects in the child, losing the pregnancy through accident or miscarriage, having twins or multiples, and dreams of heightened fertility where additional conceptions and gestations occur frequently or despite prevention.

Infidelity and death of the partner dreams often are played out in response to feelings of insecurity due to appearance changes or changes in sexual relationships during pregnancy.

Dreams of chronic health problems and birth defects represent negative wish-fulfilment anxiety on the part of the woman.

Dreams of multiple-order birth and repeated gestation are the most complex dreams. Often, pregnancy is overwhelming at some level for the woman. These feelings most often stem from fear to adequately mother. The onslaught of pregnancies may be a visual representation of this anxiety.

Source: iVillage, http://www.ivillage.co.uk

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

Trinity The divine powers at the head of every theogony. In the Christian Trinity, the original idea of a triune divinity is preserved but has become confused and adapted to theological speculation. If the Holy Ghost is regarded as feminine, as it was in primitive Christianity, we have the trinity of Father-Mother-Son.

The present manner of the procession of the Holy Ghost in the Occident is due to the early theological quarrels which was one of the main causes of the final rupture between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches -- the filioque ("and from the son") controversy. The Orthodox held with the original procession of Father, Holy Ghost, and Son, while in the West the Holy Ghost or Spirit has become a kind of emanation from the Father or Son, or both of them, and is scarcely distinguishable in its attributes from the Son; while the place of Mother has been filled in the Roman Catholic Church by Mary who, though the mother of Jesus, nevertheless is not a member of the Trinity.

But there is another trinity besides that of Father-Mother-Son, that of the one divine root and its dual aspects -- a conception altogether lost in Christianity. The Christian God is at best but a Demiourgos or inferior creative power, and his necessary attributes clash irreconcilably with those pertaining to the supreme hierarch of our universe; but in many of the sayings of Jesus and in the Epistles of Paul is clear evidence of the true teachings as to the Trinity and the relation of the Father and the Son.

In the orthodox Christian view of its theological Trinity the three persons of the Godhead are not three gods but one God, and yet three Persons or individuals. So that we have one Godhead who is three-in-one, and yet one-in-three, which is not three gods, nor yet one God, but both. Moslems aver that the Christian Trinity is not one God in three aspects, but actually three gods manifesting as one, and the strict monotheism of Islam refuses to admit the logical monstrosity. The Christian Churches lost sight of the mystical origin of its own trinity out of the neo-Pythagorean and Neoplatonic mysticism.

All the great religious and philosophical systems of antiquity contained a divine or spiritual triadic unity as the cosmic source and focus of all beings and things, out of which emanate the universe and all that is in it. Examples are the Osiris-Isis-Horus of Egypt or the Brahma-Vishnu-Siva of India; yet these triads of gods are emanated reflections or representatives on lower planes of the still more sublime and ineffable triadic mystery above and beyond them.

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

GAIA/GAEA -

1. the Greek Goddess of the Earth.

2. seeing the Earth as one giant self regulating organism of which we are a inextricable part; hypotheses that treats the planet as a living being. (James Lovelock & Lynn Margolis, 1972)

3. adj. Gaian of humanity as one body. (NAD)

4. Greek Goddess, (Earth Mother or Mother Earth). Environmental action group use this term. (TRASB)

(See also: GAIA, GAEA , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Holy of Holies Equivalent to the Latin Sanctum sanctorum, referring to the sacred place in temples or churches from which all but the chief priest or hierophant were excluded. In pre-Christian times the ancient temples each had its especial sanctuary, in which was placed an altar or receptacle of some kind, be it ark, box, or some similar thing, perhaps even a sarcophagus.

The Holy of Holies in theory was the seat, residence, or sanctuary of the god or goddess to whom the temple had been consecrated; and piety always considered that the divine power was present there. A similar series of ideas clothes the chancel and its contained altar in Christian Churches even today.

The Holy of Holies, however, must not be confused with initiation chambers also contained in many temples and caves of antiquity, in which during the rites of initiation the neophyte entered, was initiated, and thereafter left the sacred precincts as reborn. In ancient Egypt the holy of holies par excellence of this latter type was the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid; and the coffer there was the sarcophagus used for initiation purposes. The sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle, as from the feminine principle of nature, as a mother, was born the new "child" or disciple, now become a twice-born. The idea of the twice-born was that the physical birth came from the human mother, while the mystic birth took place from the womb of nature, of which the initiation chamber was the emblem. Hence at a much later date arose the phallic idea of the Jews that the human female womb was the maqom (the place).

Although part of the Hindu ceremonies necessitated a passing through the golden cow, as an emblem of Mother Nature, the neophyte did this in the same stooping position that was done in passing through the gallery in the ancient pyramids of Egypt.

"The ceremony of passing through the Holy of Holies (now symbolized by the cow), in the beginning through the temple Hiranya gharba (the radiant Egg) -- in itself a symbol of Universal, abstract nature -- meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the individual and his regeneration: the stooping man at the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the matrix of mother nature, or the physical creature ready to re-become the original spiritual Being, pre-natal Man" (SD 2:469-70).

Holy of Holies has a specific meaning in connection with the Jewish tabernacle, as explained in Exodus, referring to the inner part, the western division of the tabernacle. Three of the sides of the holy place were the walls of the tabernacle itself, while the fourth or eastern end of the sanctum was closed by a curtain or veil -- upon which were the figures of the cherubim -- suspended from four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold. The intention was to have this Holy of Holies in the shape of a perfect cube, the length, breath, and height being each ten cubits. In this sanctuary was placed the Ark of the Covenant or Testament, made of shittim wood overlaid with gold.

Upon the Ark was the golden mercy-seat (the kapporeth), also two golden cherubim facing towards the center. Instead of being a "sarcophagus (the symbol of the matrix of Nature and resurrection) as in the Sanctum sanctorum of the pagans, they had the ark made still more realistic in its construction by the two cherubs set up on the coffer or ark of the covenant, facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a perfect yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol had its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, namely ; or  meaning Jod (membrum Virile, see Kabala);  (He, the womb);  (Vau, a crook or a hook, a nail), and  again, meaning also 'an opening'; the whole forming the perfect bisexual emblem or symbol or Y(e)H(o)V(a)H, the male and female symbol" (SD 2:460). However, "the worship of the 'god in the ark' dates only from David; and for a thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah" (SD 2:469).

See also ARK

(See also: Holy Ghost , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Anima Mundi (Latin) World-soul, world-mother; the divine-spiritual-astral-physical source of emanations, the cosmic generative and animating principle of all beings, the creative Third Logos in its female aspect. In its highest and intermediate portions, it corresponds to the alaya of Northern Buddhism and hence to akasa.

Identified variously with Isis, Sephira, Sophia, the Holy Ghost, mahat, mulaprakriti, etc., but used in a hazy and often materializing sense, so that it cannot be accurately regarded as a synonym for any one of these. "It is in a sense the 'seven-skinned mother' of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine, the essence of seven planes of sentience, consciousness and differentiation, moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana, in its lowest Astral Light. It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes.

Of igneous, ethereal nature in the objective world of form (and then ether), and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself form the Anima Mundi, it means, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It, which is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal Absolute" (TG 22-3).

Theosophically, anima mundi may be regarded as a synonym of different other words, rather than as indicative of any definite entity or principle apart from others. The higher human egos or manasaputras are essentially identical with the higher portions of anima mundi; and similarly the various life-atoms in the lower spheres may be considered as in essence identical with the lower portions of the anima mundi. It is in short the life-consciousness-essence of the universe from the divine to the physical.

(See also: Anima Mundi , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cow The ancients employed certain animals as symbols to convey specific aspects of philosophical and religious teachings to the multitude, and "the cow-symbol is one of the grandest and most philosophical among all others in its inner meaning" (SD 2:470).

Generally, the cow represents the fructifying power in nature -- the Divine Mother or feminine principle. Among the Scandinavians that which first appeared at the birth of the universe was the divine cosmic cow, Audhumla, from whom flowed four streams of milk, providing sustenance to all the beings that followed.

Among the Greeks the founding of a new race was associated with the cow -- as instances, Io and Europa. In Egypt the goddesses representing the aspect of the Universal Mother are associated with cow symbols, principally Hathor and Isis. In India the cow symbol is reverenced: Kamaduh or Surabhi (the cow of plenty) represents the nourishing and sustaining vital and productive principle in nature. The goddesses of lunar type are found to be connected in symbology with the cow.

"The cow was in every country the symbol of the passive generative power of nature, Isis, Vach, Venus -- the mother of the prolific god of love, Cupid, but, at the same time, that of the Logos whose symbol became with the Egyptians and the Indians -- the bull -- as testified to by Apis and the Hindu bulls in the most ancient temples. In esoteric philosophy the cow is the symbol of creative nature, and the Bull (her calf) the spirit which vivifies her, or 'the Holy Spirit' " (SD 2:418n).

See also BULL; CALF

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

A dictionary Of Siddha Yoga Terminology. From Abhanga to Yogini.

Please note that all words in grey, like "enlightenment" or "kundalini" are hyperlinked to archives further explaining the term. At the corresponding archive you will also find articles related to the term.

Womb The productive and reproductive powers of nature have often been symbolized by peoples in world history; and as production or reproduction is perhaps most familiar in the sacred function of motherhood, to many minds the womb has seemed an especially suggestive emblem in the small of nature's reproductive principles on the macrocosmic scale.

There are various applications of the emblem; mystically as well as historically, the moon is one such, being not only the cosmic mother of the earth, but in fact its former material imbodiment. Hence both moon and womb are considered to have been, or to be, the containers and nourishers of the seeds of life. Very frequently instead of the womb, nature itself is considered. In a personified sense, it is called the Great Mother, mother-space, or primeval chaos. In a somewhat less clear application, nature's womb is considered to be the waters of space, as found for instance in Genesis, for the manifested universes are conceived and nourished therein.

Still another emblem is that of the ark or argha, well known in the Occident from the Bible story, the ark here meaning the container or seeds of lives left by a departed life-wave or group of life-waves, remaining stored in the womb of nature for the generation of new races.

In a more mystical sense, the same series of ideas is connected with emblems such as the solar boat of ancient Egypt carrying the seeds of life across the waters of space from one cosmic world to another; even the navis or nave of a temple or church was connected with the original idea of the birth of the new person, the nave being but a later popular appearance of the initiation chamber of the sanctuary, which was the womb of the new life giving birth to the reborn -- the dvijas of ancient India.

In archaic Sanskrit writings the same general ideas are frequently noted, as in the Sanskrit compound hiranyagarbha (golden womb), the life-germ enclosed in the golden light or womb of space, and more mystically for the individual, the golden womb of his inner consciousness, out of which regeneration of character into the new life is born.

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

Rebecca, Rebekah Ribeqah (Hebrew) In the Bible the wife of Isaac, mother of Esau and Jacob. When Rebecca was about to become a mother, she felt that the children were struggling within her, so she inquired of the Lord as to the meaning of this, and received the answer: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23). Rebecca gave birth to twins, "and the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau" (25:25); and the other was called Jacob.

Genesis 25:24-34 contains "the allegorical history of the birth of the Fifth Race," as explained in Jewish allegorical fashion; and "Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Aryan" (SD 2:705).

(See also: Rebecca, Rebekah, Ribeqah , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Triad A group of three, a triple unity, three-in-one, the number three; it represents the limits of ratiocinative thought, for we cannot go beyond the duality of subject and object, and must postulate a unitary essence common to both.

A triad stands at the head of all great cosmogonies and philosophies: spirit-matter, Purusha-prakriti, subject-object, male-female, father-mother, motion-space, etc., plus the fundamental unity and source enclosing each emanated duad -- the ineffable, parabrahman, 'eyn soph, etc. Theosophy shows three distinct triadic representations of the universe, making nine, or with a synthesis ten: the ever-existing, the pre-existing, and the phenomenal, allegorized as the initial, the manifested, and the creative triads.

Another form of the triad is that in which the unit is considered as the offspring of the duad, as in the familiar triad Father-Mother-Son; and thus we get a quaternary of the primordial triad with the manifested universe as Son. These two triads or triangles represent fire and water respectively; interlaced they make Solomon's seal or the seal of Vishnu.

The triad and quaternary together make the septenate; the higher triad in man is atma-buddhi-manas; kama, prana, and linga-sarira make a lower triad. The triad and the quaternary here repeat the duality of spirit and matter, metaphysical and physical. The Qabbalistic Sephirothal Tree shows an upright triad, two inverted triads, and a synthesizing unit below called Malchuth.

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

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)

Parvati:

Daughter of king Himalaya and consort of Siva; a manifestation of Divine Mother.

(See also: Parvati , Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Rohini (Sanskrit) [from rohita red]

A red cow, represented as a daughter of Surabhi and mother of cattle, especially of Kamapdhenu (the cow of plenty). Also the ninth lunar asterism, personified as a daughter of Daksha and favorite wife of the moon. Again, the mother of Bala-Rama and of a wife of Krishna -- a common name for many personages of Hindu mythology.

(See also: Rohini , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Fetahil, Ptahil (Gnostic) With the Nazarene Gnostics, the builder of the material worlds. In the Codex Nazaraeus, Abatur, the Father, opens a gate and walks to the dark water (chaos) and looks down into it. The darkness reflects the image, whereupon a son appears or is emanated, the Logos or Demiurge, Fetahil. Because Fetahil is thus produced in order to bring forth the worlds of manifestation, the Codex describes him as being immersed in the abyss of primordial stuff or matter (chaos), soliloquizing on his inability alone to produce it.

Whereupon Spiritus (the Gnostic "Mother") appears and unites with Karabtanos, cosmic kama involved in primordial matter, thus bringing forth seven stellars. These are, however, seven imperfect figures "which represent also the seven capital sins, the progeny of an astral soul separated from its divine source (spirit) and matter, the blind demon of concupiscence. Seeing this, Fetahil extends his hand towards the abyss of matter, and says: -- 'Let the Earth exist, just as the abode of the powers has exited.' Dipping his hand in the chaos, which he condenses, he creates our planet" (SD 1:195).

The first Gnostic trinity, equivalent to the Christian Father-Mother-Son is composed of Ferho, Chaos, and Fetahil -- this first triad is concealed or nonmanifest -- a pure abstraction to us (IU 2:227).

In the Codex Nazaraeus Fetahil is also presented as one of the creative powers who were commanded to form man, and who tried to obey but failed because he was too pure; whereupon other and lower powers -- Iukabar Zivo -- had to be called to complete the work. In the hierarchical structure of the universe, all so-called creative powers of too high a rank are unable because of their spiritual purity and lofty state to form the lower planes until the intermediate ranges, in the gradually descending ladder of life, have been evolved or emanated into manifestation.

(See also: Fetahil, Ptahil , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

joint family: Kutumba or kula.

The Hindu social unit consisting of several generations of kindred living together under the same roof or in a joining compound. Traditionally, joint families live in a large single home, but in modern times accommodations are often in individual, nuclear homes within a shared compound. The joint family includes the father and mother, sons, grandsons and great-grandsons with their spouses, as well as the daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters until they are married - thus often comprising several married couples and their children.

The head of the joint family, called kutumba mukhya (also mukhya or kartri), is the father, supported by the mother, and in his absence, the elder son, guided by his mother and supported by his spouse. From an early age, the eldest son is given special training by his father to assume this future responsibility as head of the family. In the event of the father's death, sacred law does allow for the splitting of the family wealth between the sons.

Division of family assets may also be necessary in cases where sons are involved in different professions and live in different towns, when there is an inability for all to get along under one roof, or when the family becomes unmanageably large. The main characteristics of the joint family are that its members 1) share a common residence, 2) partake of food prepared in the same kitchen, 3) hold their property in common and, 4) ideally, profess the same religion, sect and sampradaya. Each individual family of husband, wife and children is under the guidance of the head of the joint family. All work together unselfishly to further the common good. Each joint family extends out from its home to include a second level of connections as an "extended family (brihatkutumba or mahakutumba)."

See: extended family, grihastha dharma.

(See also: Joint family , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Woman

A woman or women generally represent intuition, creativity, nurturing, and love. At times they can also represent the negative attributes which are given to women and include physical and emotional weakness, gossip, martyrdom, passivity, moodiness, temptation, and guilt. The content of the dream is to be considered, as well as the emotional tone. If the dream is sexual in nature, look up sex. If the woman in your dream was a stranger and you are a man, she could be symbolic of your feminine side or your attitude about women. If you are a woman, this stranger may be symbolic of different parts of your character or personality. Carl Jung believed that the unknown woman in a man's dream is the Anima. It is the "personification of the animated psychic atmosphere; the autonomous activity of the unconscious." Thus, when you meet an unknown woman in your dreams, pay close attention to what she is saying and doing. It is Carl Jung who suggested that women in dreams represent our collective unconscious and men collective consciousness. Thus, the woman is that force or current inside of you that nudges you on and inspires you. It is your intuition and the knowledge that in not necessarily attached to words. Men, on the other hand, represent the active part that uses the information received to create the physical reality of our lives. When the two are working together well we have balance and experience awareness that leads to peace and productivity.

See also: Meaning of Dreams about People, Old Woman, and Mother

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

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

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)

Anjana:

Anjana - the name of the mother of Hanuman

(See also: Anjana , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Abba Amona (Hebrew, Jewish). Lit., "Father-Mother"; the occult names of the two higher Sephiroth, Chokmah and Binah, of the upper triad, the apex of which is Sephira or Kether. From this triad issues the lower septenary of the Sephirothal Tree.

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

Space Usually the universe as perceived by our physical senses. It is disputed whether space exists apart from objects or is a property of objects, and also whether it is objective or subjective. Such difficulties arise from our attempt to abstract extension from the reality of which it is an aspect, just as we attempt to abstract matter and energy. The physical basis of our universe appears under these three aspects, and the attempt to conceive each of the three as separate existences and to construct the universe out of them is to court contradiction and to proceed in the inverse order.

In most arguments about the nature of space, space is unconsciously assumed at the outset of the inquiry, so that the reasoning becomes viciously circular. Is space the ultimate residue left after we have removed everything conceivable? In that case how can we define it in terms of anything which is supposed to be derived from it? We must either leave it undefined, as a primary postulate, or else define it in terms of something which lies beyond the physical plane altogether.

Again, the question whether the dimensions belong to space or to material objects arises from a false separation between these two, so that we speak of objects being in space, just as we speak of life as being in matter. We think of space as an absence of matter, as we think of darkness as an absence of light, and silence as absence of sound; and having thus created vacuums we proceed to fill them. In the view of occultism it would be nearer the truth to say that light is the absence of darkness, sound the absence of silence, and matter a form of the presence of space; and this is true in the sense that those things which appear to us most real are derived from those which seem to us most unreal, because not immediately physically perceivable. In theosophy, space is the infinite, eternal background of Being, Being itself, the ever-lasting substratum of, as well as the presence of, the universe; its apparent vacuity is due only to its lack of physical qualities to which our senses respond, and also to its perfect unity and uniformity. Space is living, incomprehensibly conscious, and hence a divinity; it is the only real world, while our manifested world born from and in it is a mayavi (illusory) one.

Theosophy, regarding the physical universe as merely one of many planes of kosmos, applies the term space to a much larger range. Yet it has the same characteristic meaning in all its applications: it figures, for instance, as one aspect of the trinity of space, energy, matter which is equivalent to the primordial unity. The fundamental hypostases are all derivative from ever-enduring, frontierless space, and Be-ness is symbolized by space, which no mind can either exclude nor conceive, and motion. In this conception are combined abstract space, motion, and duration.

Space is symbolized by the circle; a central point denotes spiritual monadic activity arising within abstract space. It is equivalent to akasa or aether, water or the waters; Chaos as the spatial deeps. Sometimes space in its manifestation is represented as a serpent with seven heads or as the great sea or deep. Occasionally called aupapaduka (parentless), because it is primary and the source of all, it is spoken of both as mulaprakriti and as parabrahman. In its manifested aspect it is bright space, son of dark space, the former being the ray dropped into cosmic depths. Parent space is the eternal ever-present cause of all -- the incomprehensible divinity, whose invisible robes are the mystic root of all matter and of the universe. Space is called Mother before its cosmic activity, and Father-Mother at the first stage of reawakening of manifestation.

In this connection a very clear distinction is drawn between abstract space, the limitless, frontierless, beginningless, and endless encompasser, container of all the various manifested spaces, which as individuals appear from and in its fathomless womb; and these latter spaces which are its offspring and which are collectively and individually the spatial ranges comprised within the boundaries of any manifested universe, such as a galaxy or solar system. Thus, we have the boundless spatial All or abstract space, and the innumerable universe or limited spaces arising within it. The former is absolute infinity and eternity; the later are the innumerable, relative spaces or universe scattered over the fields of the Boundless, called the spawn of the Great Mother.

Physical space is said to have six directions, the four cardinal points plus the zenith and nadir; or eight directions given by the axes joining the opposite corners of a cube. The six and the eight combine in the cube and octahedron. Nothing in the definition of geometrical space excludes the possibility of other spatial constructions, coexistent with our space and interblended with it and with each other. This helps in understanding such matters as chains of globes -- which, when we attempt to represent them by drawn diagrams, seem so confusing and contradictory -- and the manner in which other planes of consciousness and of objectivity may be related to the physical.

(See also: Space , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)