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In the simplest sense, our reality consists of our four-dimensional world: height, width, depth and time. What happens when we lose one of these dimensions from our reality? What if we lose depth, for instance? Most people would reply that we'd then have a cinematic effect, as in a movie. When we view a motion picture, what we are watching has height, width and time, but no depth. One dimension of our reality is missing. What happens if we remove the fourth dimension? Here we have a photograph. A photo has height and width, but no tim ...

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Vikara (Sanskrit) [from vi change + the verbal root kri to act, make]
 
A change of form or nature, an alteration or deviation from any natural state. A change from the naturally quiescent and peaceful condition of the inner being to a worse state, thus signifying deterioration; hence, mental or other perturbation, emotion, or passionate feeling. In the Sankhya philosophy, vikara is a result or evolution of an entity from its source or prakriti. Thus, we have as the originants or sources one or other of the various prakritis, and then the vikara derivative from the former. On a cosmic scale, then, the manifested universe is a vikara in all its quasi-infinity of details from the originant seven or ten cosmic prakritis.

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

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Ye-damma, Ye-dhamma (Pali) Ye-dharmah (Sanskrit) Generally, laws or established procedures in nature, meaning by extension the phenomenal world.

 
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Variation Used in Darwinian theory as complementary to heredity, representing the tendencies towards variety of forms in living organisms, while heredity tends to perpetuate fixed types. Darwin held that species denotes merely a temporal cross section through a continuously flowing stream of gradual variation; but further study has shown that there is no such continual, uniform, and unidirectional flow of variation, but that there are reversions to original type and comparatively sudden emergence of new types.
 
The causes assigned by Darwin for variation, though he premises the existence within the organism of a susceptibility to variation, are physical, being responses to environment. Such causes, purposeless and chaotic, could not produce ordered results; the facts indicate an intricate design and manifold purposes in nature, originating in spiritual and ethereal entities belonging to nature''s hierarchical structure.
 
Nature in fact is composed of living beings, and the ultimate cause of variation is to be sought in the operations of cosmic ideation, which reproduce their effects finally in physical organisms throughout nature.

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

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Yana (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root ya to go]
 
Path, road, vehicle; there are two recognized paths of action in nature, the pratyeka-yana (the path of each one for himself) and the amrita-yana (the immortal vehicle or path of immortality). There are also two schools of philosophy in India using this term: the Hinayana (the lesser, inferior, or defective vehicle) and the Mahayana (the greater or superior vehicle).
 
This contrast is an exoteric rather than an esoteric one. It is a recognition of the fact that the religion of Gautama Buddha has separated into two general paths of action; but both the Hinayana and the Mahayana are recognized because known to possess each one its own particular value in training. The combination of the two is what one might call the esoteric path.
 
The Hinayana is that portion of the esoteric path in which the mystic traveler takes the lower passional and elemental sides of himself into strict discipline and self-control, the while following certain simple rules of day-to-day procedure; whereas the Mahayana aspect includes rather the training of the spiritual, intellectual, and higher psychic parts of the human constitution, such as is brought about by a profound study of philosophy, of the truths of nature, the mystical side of religion, and the higher parts of kosmic philosophy -- all these collected together around the heart of the Mahayana which is mystical study and aspiration.

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

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Vigridsslatten (Icelandic, Scandinavian) [from vigr battle or vigan to bear high, consecrate + slett (Swedish slatt) battlefield]
 
Plain of consecration; in Norse mythology, the plain where the battle of life is fought daily. Corresponding to the Hindu dharmakshetra (Bhagavad-Gita), it is where the Valkyries search for Allfather Odin''s fallen heroes who have earned entrance to Valhalla (the hall of the chosen), where they are regaled at the end of each day''s struggle. They are those who have died to their lower nature and entered on a larger life as champions of the gods.
 
Odin''s two ravens, Hugin and Munin (mind and memory), fly over the battlefield and report back to Odin on the events taking place there.

 
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Wand The wand of Hermes or caduceus, the magician''s wand, the rods of Moses and Aaron, the scepter of kings which shows the force of temporal power, and the crosier of a bishop, are prototypes and antitypes of a universal principle -- the straight line, representing the masculine, active, positive power in nature. The magician may be said to possess a magic wand -- a name for the power he can wield -- and there may be various material copies of this, ranging from an actual magic wand supposedly prepared according to secret formulas, down to the humble stick or cudgel with which the ruffian enforces his will. The words rod and staff are often used figuratively as well as literally in the Bible.
 
In the four symbolic suits of the Tarot, the first is that of the batons, now become the clubs.

 
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Waters of Space Chaos, the great deep, the great cosmic Mother, the universal cosmic matrix. According to Thales and other ancient philosophers, the water of cosmic space was the first principle emanating from the spatial deeps of spirit and producing the universe through emanational evolution. Various Greek philosophers have represented aether, fire, air, or water as the primordial cosmic principle; and each of these was true, though giving only a part of the truth. These philosophies as aspects of a whole in much the same way as the several great schools of Hindu philosophy are.
 
Thus the waters of space are equivalent to the veil of cosmic spirit. Water in ancient cosmogonies corresponded to the Hindu prakriti or pradhana, and like the Greek Second Logos was endowed with feminine or productive characteristics. Thus the archaic Greeks in one form of their cosmogonical philosophy taught that all things, including the gods, came forth from Ocean and his wife Tethys:
 
"Ocean is the immeasurable space (Spirit in Chaos), which is the Deity . . .; and Tethys is not the Earth, but primordial matter in the process of formation" (SD 2:65).
 
"But there are two distinct aspects in universal Esotericism, Eastern and Western, in all those personations of the Female Power in nature, or nature -- the noumenal and the phenomenal. One is its purely metaphysical aspect, . . . the other terrestrial and physical, and at the same time divine from the stand-point of practical human conception and Occultism. They are all the symbols and personifications of Chaos, the ''Great Deep'' or the Primordial Waters of Space, the impenetrable veil between the Incognisable and the Logos of Creation" (SD 1:431).

 
(See also: Waters of Space, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

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Will The ensouling creative essence of abstract, eternal motion throughout the kosmos. As an eternal principle it is neither spirit nor substance but everlasting ideation. In its abstract sense, it is a hierarchy of intelligent forces emanating from the aggregate of the hosts of beings, visible and invisible, which are nature itself.
 
The so-called laws of nature are the action and interaction of the combined consciousnesses and wills which pervade the kosmos. The will pours forth in floods of light and life from the primal Logos. These floods, following the pathways of universal circulation, come to us from the central heart of the solar system -- insofar as our solar universe is concerned. They thus descend, plane by plane and cycle by cycle, into the depths of matter, from which finally they arise again towards their primal source.
 
 In this progressive descent and ascent, will is made to manifest in keeping with each plane or state of consciousness which it enters. There is, therefore, the one fundamental kosmic will-ideation, breaking into innumerable streams of willing entities during periods of manifestation, and thus it operates in myriad ways, in every round of the endless ladder of life.
 
Divine or universal thought and will come into manifestation through the collective hosts of spiritual beings, the dhyani-chohans, who are the vehicles through which the unmanifested appears. "They are the Intelligent Forces that give to and enact in Nature her ''laws,'' while themselves acting according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers; but they are not ''the personifications'' of the powers of Nature, as erroneously thought" (SD 1:38). The natural law which preserves the balanced motion of planetary rotation was explained by Herschel''s saying "that there is a will needed to impart a circular motion and another will to restrain it" (SD 1:503).
 
In the composite human being -- the microcosm -- there are the divine, spiritual, intellectual, emotional, animal, astral, and even physical wills. The old maxim "behind will stands desire" accounts for the paradoxical influence of this colorless force which is used to energize both good and evil motives. Thus, as it operates through the intermediate human nature, the individual consciously and unconsciously gives it a right or wrong direction, according to his use of free will in choosing his course of conduct. The divine will is expressed in the sublime, impersonal desires of lofty celestial deities; while at the opposite pole, selfish, sensual, animal desires too often direct the action of the human will. The origin of good and evil lies respectively in the harmony and the conflict of wills in the kosmos.
 
The special physical organ of the human will is the pituitary gland. The brain and body show the different action of the conscious, positive, volitional will and of the negative, automatic, vegetative will. The latter energizes the mysteries of organic functions carried on by various conscious or semiconscious elemental entities who themselves act instinctively under the intelligent, harmonious laws of nature for the body''s welfare.
 
Will power is a mighty, colorless force or energy which can be set in motion by one who has the power and knowledge to do so. In India, in combination with abstract desire, it is mentioned as one of six primary powers (ichchhasakti) by which the adept accomplishes many of his wonders. "The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one''s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result . . . For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of the primordial divine Light and eternal Life "(SD 2:173). The occult power of will explains many scientific problems of animate and inanimate matter. In human beings, it may consciously and unconsciously act upon other human wills and upon that of beasts; likewise, it may act upon physical and astral substance to produce various phenomena such as levitation, fire-walking, birthmarks, etc. "Paracelsus teaches that ''determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain'' " (TG 370).

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

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Virgin Birth Often applied to any kind of reproduction which is not sexual, including that of human races before the separation of the sexes. In a mystical sense, it applies to some of the rites of initiation, where the candidate has to go through by an anticipatory process the experiences which mankind will live through in the course of the next two root-races. Among these was the experience of the mystical virgin birth. The corresponding fact concerning mankind of the future is, that there will be in due course of evolutionary time no more sexual birth, which will then have run its course and will have disappeared, but instead, reproduction will be by the power of kriyasakti: by thought and will.
 
The mystic Christ, by whatever name, is said to be virgin-born, as emanating from the higher nature of the individual, not engendered by the terrestrial nature. The symbol has often been materialized, so that the divine quickening or overshadowing of a human virgin, whether man or woman, is spoken of as being a virgin-born.

 
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Vis (Latin) Force, energy; synonymous with energia naturae (energy of nature). According to ancient thought all the various forms of vis -- vis formativa (formative force), vis generatrix (force that brings forth or generates), vis viva (living force) -- are inherently living, so that vis viva means not so much living force as live in active rather than passive manifestation.

 
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Vibration, Vibrations Motion is a fundamental principle in universal nature, coeval with boundless space, ceasing not even during pralaya; and we can form only a relative idea of its real nature, yet can have intuitions of it through its manifestations, the most fundamental of which is vibration. The essential characteristic of vibration is periodicity or cyclic motion. It appears in the alternation of manvantara and pralaya in the cosmic Great Breath and in the most rapid oscillations of minutest particles. The relative periodicity of various vibrations is found to constitute a mathematical scale, according to which phenomena may be classified.
 
The principle of sympathetic vibration involves mysteries relating to the tremendous potency of sound, some of which are familiar to physicists. The discoveries of John Worrell Keely (cf SD 1:555-66) were of this nature. He was able to develop enormous energy in an engine without using the principle of pressure; but his discoveries were premature and their results were frustrated.
 
Sound is a universal principle which manifests itself physically as vibrations in the mass and particles of bodies. Physicists, by a logical confusion, have called the effects "sound," whereas they are only one of the productions of causal sound. We might as well define fear as a trembling of the body; whereas we know that the trembling is an effect produced by the emotion. The same applies to heat, light, and others of the list of physical forces which manifest themselves in vibrations.
 
Vibration, in all its myriad manifestations, is the consequence of inner hidden causal agencies. The vibrations ensuing from such inner movements expressing themselves through bodies or veils, are always in accordance with the causal rhythms and mathematics involving quantities such as rate, intensity, and quality, there being vibrations of as many kinds as there are different causal agents. Thus there are vibrations as effects on our gross physical plane, other vibrations which manifest themselves on the astral, emotional, and psychological or lower mental planes. There are again vibrations of higher type which originate in the intellectual and spiritual monads of the human constitution.
 
Furthermore, because it is an expression of energy, all vibration is force and energy itself, and hence capable of arousing energies or forces of exactly the same quality or rate of intensity in other beings which they affect -- this being the reason behind sympathetic vibration. When vibrations thus interlock and synchronize in rate, intensity, and quality, we have what is called sympathy, love, or attraction, and such sympathetic vibration is operative on all the planes of universal nature. Not only is this the case in all relations of humans with each other, but likewise sympathetic vibration plays an enormous part in such matters as mob psychology, quick electrical sympathies affecting audiences, hates and rebellions -- even what is known as health and disease are communicated by means of vibrations, the one first affected being able to communicate his "affection" of whatever kind to others who are at the time negative to the vibrational impact and in time vibrating synchronously with the impacting energy. There is, of course, such a thing as resistance, which expresses itself in manifold ways, such as being able to throw off the vibration affecting it, and even to return it upon the sender, consciously or unconsciously; and herein lies the secret of the old medieval saying that curses come home to roost, or that if the magician is not stronger than the elementals or nature spirits he attempts to control, he is almost invariably destined to become their victim.
 
All vibrational activity of whatever rate, intensity, or attributive characteristic is always an effect, although always capable of becoming in its turn a cause producing effects of its own type. In other words, there is always the originating or causal agent for any specific instance of vibration; thus the thinker produces mental vibrational activity which we call thinking or thoughts, or emotion or feeling.
 
Indeed, every entity or thing in the universe is in incessant motion or vibrational activity arising from force inherent in the entity or thing itself; and these interblending activities of vibration produce the vast diversity of the universe around us. Thus every atom, electron, molecule, or being anywhere, sings its own vibrational note, which is the sound production of its own characteristic svabhava or individuality; so that our physical bodies, could we but hear their mystical music, would sound like a vast and marvelous symphony of interblended sound. For this reason Pythagoras spoke of the music of the spheres, ascribing to each celestial body its own dominant note, and pointing out that from the blending of such individual notes or sounds arise the harmony of the spheres.

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

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