Natural Medicine Path (the Medicine of the South, the Natural Medicine of the South): Mode of Cherokee healing. The Natural Medicine Path is an animistic form of herbalism.

(See also: Natural Medicine Path, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Intermediate Nature In a threefold division of the human constitution, such as the Christian spirit, soul, and body, the intermediate nature would correspond to soul and would represent the intermediate duad -- manas and kama. The upper duad (atman, buddhi) would correspond to spirit; and the lower triad (prana, linga-sarira, sthula-sarira) to body.

It is the intermediate nature, our human portion, which reincarnates: it is a ray of the spiritual part or upper duad, and by repeated incarnations, through unfolding of the latent spirituality within itself, it finally "ascends" to reach the status of its parent, the upper duad. Hence, the intermediate nature is often referred to as the human soul.

(See also: Intermediate Nature, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Natural Hygiene (Hygienic Health System, Life Science): Variation of Nature Cure represented by proponents as the legacy of Sylvester Graham (1794-1851). Graham, the originator of the graham cracker, began his career as a Presbyterian minister and temperance lecturer.

He professed the following.

(a)           Frequent involuntary discharges of semen presage debility.

(b)           Ingestion of improper foods or overeating cause seminal discharges.

(c)           Masturbation brings on pimples and potentially fatal sores.

(d)           Digestion entails an expenditure of vital force.

(e)           Diet is a means of economizing the vital force.

(f)             A diet is healthful if it narrowly prompts the digestive organs to function normally.

According to Hygienic literature, the first hygienic doctor was Isaac Jennings, M.D. (1788-1874), who taught that obedience to physical law facilitates obedience to moral law. Natural Hygiene's principle is that disease is a process of purification and repair. The major Hygienic practices are fasting, food combining, and a form of veganism that emphasizes uncooked foods. Some Professional Natural Hygienists do not subscribe to food combining.

(See also: Natural Hygiene, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Mother Nature The productive and generative powers of cosmic spirit, considered from the human standpoint as a feminine agent in universal nature, and hence often called the Great Mother, the Immaculate Virgin, space, the cosmic deep, mula-maya or root-maya, etc.

The first stage of manifestation is the representation of the plain or empty disk, cosmic infinitude; the second stage is the First Logos or the disk with the central point; and the third stage, to which Mother Nature refers, is the disk with the horizontal diameter, or the Second or Manifest-Unmanifest Logos.

(See also: Mother Nature, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Prakriti-nature:  referring either to one's individual nature (body type) or to Nature as a whole

(See also: Prakriti-nature, Ayurveda, Ayurvedic Dictionary, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Definition and meaning of Natural Resources

Natural Resources - [World Geography]

A natural resource is any physical material that constitutes part of Earth and which people need and value. There are three basic natural resources: air, land, and water, but anything that humans consider valuable qualifies as a resource. Natural resources can be categorized as: renewable -- they replenish themselves, e.g., plants, animals, nonrenewable -- only used once, e.g., fossil fuels, or flow -- must be used as, when, and where they are, e.g., wind, water, sunlight. A resource as a thing of value is a cultural concept; the value attached to any given resource varies from culture to culture, from time to time. The value of a resource depends upon human needs and the technology available to extract and use it. Crude oil was once perceived as a worthless nuisance until technology allowed it to be refined to a form used in lamps. Whale oil, thus, was no longer valued as a resource. The location of resources influences the distribution of people and their activities on Earth. People live where they can earn a living. Human migration and settlement are linked to the availability of resources ranging from fertile soils and supplies of fresh water to deposits of metals or pools of natural gas. The demand for resources increases with population and helps to drive national and international patterns of trade.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Definition and meaning of Natural Resources

Natural Resources - [World Geography]

A natural resource is any physical material that constitutes part of Earth and which people need and value. There are three basic natural resources: air, land, and water, but anything that humans consider valuable qualifies as a resource. Natural resources can be categorized as: renewable -- they replenish themselves, e.g., plants, animals, nonrenewable -- only used once, e.g., fossil fuels, or flow -- must be used as, when, and where they are, e.g., wind, water, sunlight. A resource as a thing of value is a cultural concept; the value attached to any given resource varies from culture to culture, from time to time. The value of a resource depends upon human needs and the technology available to extract and use it. Crude oil was once perceived as a worthless nuisance until technology allowed it to be refined to a form used in lamps. Whale oil, thus, was no longer valued as a resource. The location of resources influences the distribution of people and their activities on Earth. People live where they can earn a living. Human migration and settlement are linked to the availability of resources ranging from fertile soils and supplies of fresh water to deposits of metals or pools of natural gas. The demand for resources increases with population and helps to drive national and international patterns of trade.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Fundamental nature of enlightenment

(Jpn.: gampon-no-hossho)

Enlightenment to the fundamental nature of all things and phenomena. It is contrasted with fundamental darkness. Also, the Buddha nature that is inherent in life.

(See also: Fundamental nature of enlightenment, Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment Dictionary)

Definition and meaning of natural selection:

natural selection - a natural process by which organisms (and their genes) that adapt to their environment survive while those that do not adapt become eliminated progressively

(Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) )

Also see these pages: Oceanography, Oceanography Sitemap, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,

Definition and meaning of Nature Conservancy, The:

Nature Conservancy, The - a private, international conservation group whose mission is to preserve plants, animals, and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive

(Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) )

Also see these pages: Oceanography, Oceanography Sitemap, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,

Nature Spirits Those imperfectly evolved elementals or elemental spirits which in their unthinkably vast aggregate form the entire background of all the manifested cosmos in its seven-, ten-, or twelve-fold ranges of being.

The beings in hierarchies further advanced in evolution than the human kingdom are termed dhyani-chohans. The nature spirits of the three higher cosmic planes are of incomprehensibly greater power as well as even possibly of lofty spiritual and intellectual development than those of the four lower cosmic planes, although unevolved monads or spiritual elementals exist in multitudinous hosts on these three spiritual cosmic planes likewise.

Hence it is that the harmonious work of all the cosmic planes depends upon their interactions and interrelations, under the guidance of highly evolved cosmic spirits or dhyani-chohans. The nature spirits therefore are as much present and active in the visible world as they are in the invisible spheres.

Called in different ages by a host of names, they are best known in Europe by the terms given by the medieval Fire-philosophers: salamanders (beings of the element fire); sylphs (denizens of the element air); undines (the water elementals); and gnomes (beings of he element earth). These are all general terms for elementals, whether of spiritual or material worlds, though most commonly used for the more material elementals.

(See also: Nature Spirits, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Natural Selection In Darwinian theory, an important factor in biological evolution. If, for example, a number of animals of one species are exposed to an unduly cold climate, many will die, and the survivors will be the hardier ones.

These hardier ones are said to transmit their hardiness to their posterity, whereby the species becomes modified to that extent. A continual succession of such small changes, provoked by changes of environment, was supposed to act cumulatively, thus eventually producing the differences distinguishing one species from another. From this, in combination with other kinds of selection, such as sexual selection, the higher animal types have in the course of ages been derived from the lower.

The theory is open to grave objections on several grounds. There is a complete lack of evidence of the existence of any such permanently cumulative effect; further, such variations are temporary, and procreation tends to a reversion to the standard type as soon as the environmental influence is withdrawn. Again, such a process would tend to produce the greatest diversity and divergence among the species, each variety differentiating more and more widely in its own special direction, without any tendency toward a mounting scale of perfection from ameba to man. Such natural selection in itself is but a process or a result, and cannot become operative as a cause or agent except in connection with some purposeful directive energy from within or without. When novel varieties of fruit and flowers are bred, a breeder is at work, with energy and ideas in his mind.

The Mendelian principle of heredity and the combining of the genes in the germ-cells have been found so important in determining variations that the old "natural selection of chance variations" plays a far smaller part in thought concerning evolution than formerly. But the old question still stands: what brings about the combination of genes, or other outward mechanism, that results in the building of the ladder of life from the lowest known to the highest known manifestations of consciousness?

Many modern biologists are looking upon evolution as the interaction of life and environment; but life is far more than the physicochemical properties of the genes, the supposed units of heredity. Natural selection, then, is inadequate to yield the results demanded of it; and it still remains to show how any evolution, any response or adaptation to environment, can take place without a pre-formed plan or an innate vital urge within the organism.

(See also: Natural Selection, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Natural disasters

The radical annihilation of the world is a theme that seems to recur in many of the world's cultures, cults, and religions. Sometimes there is a subsequent reordering and renewal of the world that includes a particular group being placed in supremacy. Other times, there is a mystical translation of chosen inhabitants into a structured paradise. Another option is unrelenting chaos and loss of this world without recourse.

Sometimes, the premonition feeling that you get after these dreams leaves you feeling very eerie. You may be scared that what just happened in dreamland may be about to happen out in waking life. The means may be different for any given dreamer depending on your worldview, but the feeling is roughly the same ? that time seems short for this world.

There can be several different approaches to seeking meaning in this dream. The origins of these approaches are in personal psychology, cultural tensions, and religious or spiritual revelation.

Feeling dramatically out of control in your personal life can trigger apocalypse dreams. This may be caused by hormones in adolescence, the death of a loved one (especially parent), or divorce and other significant relationship losses. The ending world is an escape mechanism to avoid dealing with a world so dramatically changed by new circumstances. This world-ending dream often features the dreamer alone amongst generally unrecognized figures. This reveals that all people close to the dreamer are gone. Cultural cues for world-ending dreams come out of a collective angst about the frailty of our planet or the human race. These dreams may be triggered in times of global hopelessness and unpredictability. A millennial change generates this kind of dreaming for some people. Damaging news about the earth, global warming, and cosmic collision potentials will do it for others.

Economic uncertainty will make some people extremely anxious. Whenever instability or insecurity becomes themes of cultural awareness, apocalyptic dreams increase. When interpreting this type of dream you should ask yourself, "How is the world ending and who is to blame?" This dream may be a calling for you to protect yourself against a risk that is beyond your comfort zone, become more involved in a particular cause, or to think again about the rationale of your fears.

Religious or spiritual revelation that heralds the end of the world is a powerful image. Usually, the dreamer will see some significant icons of their faith initiating or withstanding the destruction. Another scenario is that adherents to the mysticism are identified in a particular way and survive the destruction because of their association. In these dreams, the world is often reordered. Often, these dreams will accompany a time in the dreamer's life when he or she feels that the entire world is against them and only their association with something larger than themselves can provide a resolution to the struggles being faced. (Or, they may just be receiving an oracle about the conclusion of this world?)

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

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

Zdorovye-Nature's Legacy (Slavic Natural Health System, Zdorovye Health System): A health philosophy and a system of Somatic Engineering (Body-work). it is the integrated synergy of body, mind, and spirit. Its first premise is that natural abundant health is one's birthright.

(See also: Zdorovye-Nature's Legacy, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Natural Chi-gong: An American-style, scientific form of Qigong that isa brain exercise. It involves using the Bio-Energizer (Chi-Gong Helper Machine) to intensify one's chi energy. Truman Yeh invented the Bio-Energizer and introduced the method.

(See also: Natural Chi-gong, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Natural Health Program: New York Open Center course that provides a way to empower persons to improve their health. The course encompasses the five elements theory, spiritual nutrition (see Rainbow Diet), and means of detoxifying and protecting human energy fields.

(See also: Natural Health Program, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Natural and Macrobiotic Medicine: A group of methods that encompasses acupuncture, astrological diagnosis, aura and vibrational diagnosis, consciousness and thought diagnosis, environmental diagnosis, herbal medicine, macrobiotic palm healing, meridian diagnosis, prayer, pressure diagnosis, shiatsu massage, and spiritual diagnosis.

(See also: Natural and Macrobiotic Medicine, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Definition and meaning of Natural Premium :

Natural Premium: The pure mortality cost of Life Insurance for one year at any given age. See also Pure Premium. (LI)

(Source: InsWeb)

Also see these pages: Natural Premium , Life Insurance, Life Insurance Sitemap,  Insurance, Insurance Sitemap, Insurance Dictionary - N

A Theosophical definition of Nature :

Nature

The consciousness side of nature is composed of vast hierarchies of gods, developed cosmical spirits, spiritual entities, cosmic graduates in the university of life.

The material side of nature is the heterogeneous matter, the material world in its many various planes, in all stages of imperfection  - but all these stages filled with armies of entities evolving and growing.

The proper term for nature in modern theosophical usage is prakriti or still more accurately mulaprakriti  - the ever-living kosmic producer, the eternally fecund mother, of the universe. When a theosophist speaks of nature, unless he limits the term to the physical world, he never means the physical world alone, but the vast reaches of universal kosmos and more particularly the inner realms, the causal factors of the boundless All.

Hence, a growing understanding of nature in this sense  - which is another way of saying an understanding of reality  - obviously provides the only basis of a religion founded on the changeless realities.

See also: Nature , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Definition and meaning of natural climate record:

natural climate record - a record of climatic events found by examining the natural environment (e.g., coral growth bands, tree rings, layers of ice in glaciers)

(Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) )

Also see these pages: Oceanography, Oceanography Sitemap, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,

Definition and meaning of Natural Heritage Network:

Natural Heritage Network - the network of Conservation Data Centers and Natural Heritage Programs throughout the Americas. All network members use the same methodology and database to track the rare elements of biodiversity in their jurisdictions

(Source: US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) )

Also see these pages: Oceanography, Oceanography Sitemap, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,