Mysticism Glossary - P

Angel of the Face In Roman Catholicism, a term for the archangel Michael; identical with Jehovah, and the host brought forth from the Great Mother (SD 2:479-80; 1:434n, 459).

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Continents. In the Buddhist cosmogony, according to Gautama Buddha’s exoteric doctrine, there are numberless systems of worlds (or Sakwala) all of which are born, mature, decay, and are destroyed periodically. Orientalists translate the teaching about "the four great continents which do not communicate with each other", as meaning that "upon the earth there are four great continents" (see Hardy’s Eastern Monachism, p. 4), while the doctrine means simply that around or above the earth there are on either side four worlds, i.e., the earth appearing as the fourth on each side of the arc.

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Brahma's Day, Night, Age, Year, Life A Day of Brahma, a cosmic manvantara or out-breathing of Brahma, represents a period where worlds are evolved and pass through their allotted ages of manvantaric existence.

Each Day of Brahma consists of 1,000 aggregates of four yugas or 1,000 mahayugas (great ages). In a smaller sense it is also a mahamanvantara or kalpa of a planetary chain, composed of seven rounds, a period of 4,320,000,000 terrestrial years. A Night of Brahma, a cosmic pralaya, inbreathing of Brahma, or planetary paranirvana, is of equal length.

Seven Days of Brahma or seven planetary cycles make one solar kalpa. One Year of Brahma consists of 360 Divine Days and Nights, each Day of which is the duration of the imbodiment of a planetary chain, with Nights of equal length.

The Life of Brahma or of the solar system consists of 100 Divine Years (311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years). The current Life of Brahma is about half completed -- a period of about 155,520,000,000,000 of our years having passed away since our solar system first began its mahamanvantara. There remain, therefore, fifty more Years of Brahma before the system sinks into cosmic pralaya. As only half the grand evolutionary period is accomplished, we are at the bottom of the cosmic cycle, i.e., on the lowest plane.

See also FOUR

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Beverage, Sacred. See SOMA

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Memory {SD, BCW}

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Aeonology of the Marcians Given by Blavatsky in her "Commentary on the Pistis Sophia" (BCW 13:53) as: First Tetractys -- 1) Arrhetos (ineffable) with 7 elements; 2) Sige (silence) with 5 elements; Pater (father) with five elements; and 4) Aletheia (truth) with 7 elements, for a total of 24 elements. Second Tetractys -- 1) Logos (word) with 7 elements; 2) Zoe (life) with five elements; 3) Anthropos (man) with five elements; and 4) Ekklesia (assembly) with 7 elements, for a total of 24 elements, which together with Christos gives a total of 49 elements. (could reproduce chart given in BCW)

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Angels of the Presence In Christianity, the seven Virtues or personified attributes of God, which were created by him and became the archangels. Equivalent to the seven manus produced by the ten prajapatis created by Brahma.

"As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the 'Builders' reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognise in the Seven 'Planetary Spirits' or the 'Spirits of the Stars;' for thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation" or of Plato's divine thought (SD 1:104) (SD 2:237, 573).

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Manifestation.

See MANVANTARA

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Master, Masters Adopted in theosophical literature to designate those human beings further progressed on the evolutionary pathway than the general run of humanity, from which are drawn the saviors of humanity and the founders of the world-religions.

These great human beings (also known by the Sanskrit term mahatma, "great self") are the representatives in our day of a brotherhood of immemorial antiquity running back into the very dawn of historic time, and for ages beyond it.

It is a self-perpetuating brotherhood formed of individuals who, however much they may differ among themselves in evolution, have all attained mahatmaship, and whose lofty purposes comprise among other things the constant aiding in the regeneration of humanity, its spiritual and intellectual as well as psychic guidance, and in general the working of the best spiritual, intellectual, psychic, and moral good to mankind. From time to time members from their ranks, or their disciples, enter the outside world publicly in order to inspire mankind with their teachings.

Two of Blavatsky's teachers became publicly known under the names of Master M (Morya) and Master KH (Koot Hoomi). Some of their correspondence with one of Blavatsky's earlier theosophical helpers has been published as The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett.

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Light Light ranges from the arcana of cosmic being to the physical light that turns the vanes of some scientific mill.

As the opposite of darkness, evil, ignorance, sleep, and death, it signifies wisdom, goodness, and life. In one sense it is a permutation of mulaprakriti, and as such is that root-substance which can never become objective to mortals in this race or round. It is objective only in relation to that Darkness which is absolute Light. Otherwise it includes both spirit and matter.

Three kinds are enumerated: the abstract and absolute, which is darkness; the light of the unmanifest-manifest or Second Logos; and the latter reflected in the dhyani-chohans, minor logoi, and thence shed upon the lower and more objective planes. In a high aspect, it is daiviprakriti or the light of the Logos, the synthesis of the seven cosmic forces; descending through the planes of manifestation, it condenses into forms; physical matter itself is a condensation of light. Through light everything is thus brought into being. Being a root of mental self, it also therefore is the root of physical self (SD 1:430).

Light does not necessarily imply heat, as heat is one of the effects produced by the action of light on matter. The term cool radiance has its physical application in the light of phosphorescence. Light becomes relative on manifested planes, its correlative being darkness, which to other beings may be light, while our light may be their darkness. Again, what is light to beings on a higher plane of perception, may be darkness to us, because it does not impress our senses.

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Ancestors. See PITRIS

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Manvantara (Sanskrit). A period of manifestation, as opposed to Pralaya (dissolution, or rest), applied to various cycles, especially to a Day of Brahma, 4,320,000,000 Solar years - and to the reign of one Manu -  308,448,000. (See Vol. II. of the Secret Doctrine, p. 68 et. seq.) Lit., Manuantara - between Manus.

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Depth. See BYTHOS

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prapatti: (Sanskrit) "Throwing oneself down."

Bhakti - total, unconditional submission to God, often coupled with the attitude of personal helplessness, self-effacement and resignation. A term especially used in Vaishnavism to name a concept extremely central to virtually all Hindu schools. In Saiva Siddhanta, bhakti is all important in the development of the soul and its release into spiritual maturity.

The doctrine is perhaps best expressed in the teachings of the four Samayacharya saints, who all shared a profound and mystical love of Siva marked by

1)    deep humility and self-effacement, admission of sin and weakness;

2)    total surrender in God as the only true refuge and

3)    a relationship of lover and beloved known as bridal mysticism, in which the devotee is the bride and Siva the bridegroom.

The practice of yoga, too, is an expression of love of God in Saiva Siddhanta, and it is only with God's grace that success is achieved. Rishi Tirumular states: "Unless your heart melts in the sweet ecstasy of love - my Lord, my treasure-trove, you can never possess" (Tirumantiram 272). It is in this concept of the need for self-effacement and total surrender, prapatti, that the members of all sects merge in oneness, at the fulfillment of their individual paths. Similarly, they all meet in unity at the beginning of the path with the worship of Lord Ganesha.

See: bhakti, grace, pada, surrender.

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Marriage {SD 1:614-15n; 2:467n; BCW}

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Labarum (Latin). The standard borne before the old Roman Emperors, having an eagle upon it as an emblem of sovereignty. It was a long lance with a cross staff at right angles. Constantine replaced the eagle by the christian monogram with the motto en touty nika which was later interpreted into In hoc signo vinces. As to the monogram, it was a combination of the letter X, Chi, and P, Rho, the initial syllable of Christos.

But the Labarum had been an emblem of Etruria ages before Constantine and the Christian era. It was the sign also of Osiris and of Horus who is often represented with the long Latin cross, while the Greek pectoral cross is purely Egyptian. In his "Decline and Fall" Gibbon has exposed the Constantine imposture. The emperor, if he ever had a vision at all, must have seen the Olympian Jupiter, in whose faith he died.

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Incas (Peruvian). The name given to the creative gods in the Peruvian theogony, and later to the rulers of the country. "The Incas, seven in number have repeopled the earth after the Deluge ‘, Coste makes them say (I. iv., p. 19). They belonged at the beginning of the fifth Root-race to a dynasty of divine kings, such as those of Egypt, India and Chaldea.

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Agnus-Castus Plant A species of Vitex, a willow-like tree sometimes called the chaste tree (from hagnos chaste vs agnos willow-like)

. "Prometheus is represented as crowned with the Agnus-Castus plant (logos), the leaves of which formed the Crown of the Victors in the 'Agonia' of the Olympic games; . . . This Agnus-Castus plant was used also in the fete of the Thesmophoria, in honour of Demeter -- the law -- 'nomos' -- bringer, whose priestesses slept on its leaves as encouraging chaste desires. In Christian times this custom survived among Nuns, who used to drink a water distilled from its leaves, and Monks used knives with handles made of its wood with the same intention of encouraging chastity" (BCW 9:267). (also BCW 10:90)

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Nagkon Wat (Siam.). Imposing ruins in the province of Siamrap (Eastern Siam), if ruins they may

be called. An abandoned edifice of most gigantic dimensions, which, together with the great temple of Angkortham, are the best preserved relics of the past in all Asia.

After the Pyramids this is the most occult edifice in the whole world. Of an oblong form, it is 796 feet in length and 588 in width, entirely built of stone, the roof included, but without cement like the pyramids of Ghizeh, the stones fitting so closely that the joints are even now hardly discernible.

 It has a central pagoda 250 feet in height from the first floor, and four smaller pagodas at the four corners, about 175 feet each. In the words of a traveller, (The Land of the White Elephant, Frank Vincent, p. 209) "in style and beauty of architecture, solidity of construction, and magnificent and elaborate carving and sculpture, the great Nagkon Wat has no superior, certainly no rival, standing at the present day." (See Isis Unv., Vol. I. pp. 561-566.)

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Cause(s). See KARMA; NIDANA; FIRST CAUSE

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Mysticism:

Religious or spiritual doctrines which argue that the human mind or soul can directly experience the divine. See also mystical experience, transpersonal psychology.

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Adamic Races Used of early humanity after the incarnation of the manasaputras and the full separation of the sexes several million years ago (SD 1:406-7, 2:91n, 289n, 315; IU 1:305).

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