A Theosophical definition of Devachan :

Devachan

[Tibetan, bde-ba-can, pronounced de-wa-chen] A translation of the Sanskrit sukhavati, the "happy place" or god-land. It is the state between earth-lives into which the human entity, the human monad, enters and there rests in bliss and repose.

When the second death after that of the physical body takes place  - and there are many deaths, that is to say many changes of the vehicles of the ego  - the higher part of the human entity withdraws into itself all that aspires towards it, and takes that "all" with it into the devachan; and the atman, with the buddhi and with the higher part of the manas, become thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Devachan as a state applies not to the highest or heavenly or divine monad, but only to the middle principles of man, to the personal ego or the personal soul in man, overshadowed by atma-buddhi. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. Yet devachan is not a locality, it is a state, a state of the beings in that spiritual condition.

Devachan is the fulfilling of all the unfulfilled spiritual hopes of the past incarnation, and an efflorescence of all the spiritual and intellectual yearnings of the past incarnation which in that past incarnation have not had an opportunity for fulfillment. It is a period of unspeakable bliss and peace for the human soul, until it has finished its rest time and stage of recuperation of its own energies.

In the devachanic state, the reincarnating ego remains in the bosom of the monad (or of the monadic essence) in a state of the most perfect and utter bliss and peace, reviewing and constantly reviewing, and improving upon in its own blissful imagination, all the unfulfilled spiritual and intellectual possibilities of the life just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the devachanic entity.

Man here is no longer a quaternary of substance-principles (for the second death has taken place), but is now reduced to the monad with the reincarnating ego sleeping in its bosom, and is therefore a spiritual triad. (See also Death, Reincarnating Ego)

See also: Devachan, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Dharana :

Dharana

(Sanskrit) A state in the practice of yoga as taught in Hindustan when the mind or percipient intelligence is held with inflexible firmness, with fortitude of soul, and with indomitable resolution upon the object of investigation to be attained through this form of yoga practice. (See also Samadhi)

See also: Dharana, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Dharma :

Dharma

(Sanskrit) A noun derived from the verbal root dhri. The meaning is right religion, right philosophy, right science, and the right union of these three; hence the Law per se. It also means equity, justice, conduct, duty, and similar things. It has also a secondary meaning of an essential or characteristic quality or peculiarity; and here its significance approaches closely to that of svabhava. The duty of a man, for instance, is his dharma, that which is set or prescribed or natural to him to do.

See also: Dharma, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Dhyana :

Dhyana

(Sanskrit) A term signifying profound spiritualintellectual contemplation with utter detachment from all objects of a sensuous and lower mental character. In Buddhism it is one of the six paramitas of perfection.

One who is adept or expert in the practice of dhyana, which by the way is a wonderful spiritual exercise if the proper idea of it be grasped, is carried in thought entirely out of all relations with the material and merely psychological spheres of being and of consciousness, and into lofty spiritual planes. Instead of dhyana being a subtraction from the elements of consciousness, it is rather a throwing off or casting aside of the crippling sheaths of ethereal matter which surround the consciousness, thus allowing the dhyanin, or practicer of this form of true yoga, to enter into the highest parts of his own constitution and temporarily to become at one with and, therefore, to commune with the gods.

It is a temporary becoming at one with the upper triad of man considered as a septenary, in other words, with his monadic essence. Man's consciousness in this state or condition becomes purely buddhi, or rather buddhic, with the highest parts of the manas acting as upadhi or vehicle for the retention of what the consciousness therein experiences. From this term is drawn the phrase dhyani-chohans or dhyani-buddhas  - words so frequently used in theosophical literature and so frequently misconceived as to their real meaning. (See also Samadhi)

See also: Dhyana, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Ethics :

Ethics

The theosophical teachings are essentially and wholly ethical. It is impossible to understand the sublime wisdom of the gods, the archaic wisdom-religion of the ancients, without the keenest realization of the fact that ethics run like golden threads throughout the entire system or fabric of doctrine and thought of the esoteric philosophy. Genuine occultism, divorced from ethics, is simply unthinkable because impossible. There is no genuine occultism which does not include the loftiest ethics that the moral sense of mankind can comprehend, and one cannot weigh with too strong an emphasis upon this great fact.

Ethics in the theosophical philosophy are not merely the products of human thought existing as a formulation of conventional rules proper for human conduct. They are founded on the very structure and character of the universe itself. The heart of the universe is wisdom-love, and these are intrinsically ethical, for there can be no wisdom without ethics, nor can love be without ethics, nor can there be ethics deprived of either love or wisdom.

The philosophic reason why the ancients set so much store by what was commonly known as virtus among the Latins, from which we have our modern word "virtue," is because by means of the teaching originating in the great Mystery schools, they knew that virtues, ethics, were the offspring of the moral instinct in human beings, who derived them in their turn from the heart of the universe  - from the kosmic harmony. It is high time that the Occidental world should cast forever into the limbo of exploded superstitions the idea that ethics is merely conventional morality, a convenience invented by man to smooth the asperities and dangers of human intercourse.

Of course every scholar knows that the words morals and ethics come from the Latin and Greek respectively, as signifying the customs or habits which it is proper to follow in civilized communities. But this fact itself, which is unquestionable, is in a sense disgraceful, for it would almost seem that we had not yet brought forth a word adequately describing the instinct for right and truth and troth and justice and honor and wisdom and love which we today so feebly express by the words ethics or morals. "Theosophist is who Theosophy does," wrote H. P. Blavatsky, and wiser and nobler words she never wrote. No one can be a theosophist who does not feel ethic-ally and think ethically and live ethically in the real sense that is hereinbefore described. (See also Morals)

See also: Ethics, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Evolution :

Evolution

As the word is used in theosophy it means the "unwrapping," "unfolding," "rolling out" of latent powers and faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generally speaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception is svabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merely topped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations  - not at all; for this would make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without an essential unity or indeed any unifying principle.

In theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everything that the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man from the universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringing forth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances  - nature, to use the popular word  - is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function, upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reaction invariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolving entity.

There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of it as ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers of consciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endless course of unceasing growth.

Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but the expression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual word evolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a general term, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.

Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days the concept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an important one, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in any actual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word for theosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident, that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into and manifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity.

Theosophists, therefore, are, strictly speaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists; and from this remark it becomes immediately obvious that the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses and details there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin's theory adopted and adapted from the Frenchman Lamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of every organic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in various vehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, but also the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man's entire constitution extending from the divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolving entity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself  - therefore evolution is a bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. (See also Involution)

See also: Evolution, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Exoteric :

Exoteric

This word, when applied particularly to the great philosophical and religious systems of belief, does not mean false. The word merely means teachings of which the keys have not been openly given. The word seems to have originated in the Peripatetic School of Greece, and to have been born in the mind of Aristotle. Its contrast is "esoteric."

Exotericism  - that is to say, the outward and popular formulation of religious and philosophic doctrines  - reveils the truth; the self-assurance of ignorance, alas, always reviles the truth; whereas esotericism reveals the truth. (See also: Esoteric)

A Theosophical definition of Fohat :

Fohat

An extremely mystical term used in the occultism of Tibet for what in Sanskrit is called daiviprakriti, which means "divine nature" or "primordial nature," and which also can be called "primordial light." In one sense of the word fohat may be considered as almost identical with the old mystical Greek eros, but fohat as a technical term contains within itself a far wider range of ideas than does the Greek term.

Fohat may be considered as the essence of kosmic electricity, provided, however, that in this definition we endow the term electricity with the attribute of consciousness; or, to put it more accurately, provided that we understand that the essence of electricity is indeed consciousness. It is ever-present and active from the primordial beginnings of a manvantara to its last end, nor does it then actually pass out of existence, but becomes quiescent or latent as it were, sleeping or dormant during the kosmic pralaya. In one sense of the word it may be called kosmic will, for the analogy with the conscious will in human beings is exceedingly close. It is the incessantly active, ever-moving, impelling or urging force in nature, from the beginning of the evolution of a universe or of a solar system to its end.

H. P. Blavatsky, quoting one of the ancient mystically occult works, says in substance: "Fohat is the steed and thought is the rider." If, however, we liken fohat to what the conscious will is in the human being, we must then think only of the lower or substantial parts  - the pranic activities  - of the human will, for behind the substantial parts stands always the directing and guiding consciousness. Fohat being incessantly active is therefore both formative and destructive, because it is through the ceaseless working of fohat that unending change continues  - the passing of one phase of manifested existence to another phase, whether this manifested existence be a solar system or a planetary chain or a globe or human being or, indeed, any entity.

Fohat is as active among the electrons of an atom and among the atoms themselves as it is among the suns. In one sense it may be called the vital force of the universe, corresponding from this viewpoint to the pranic activity on all the seven planes of the human constitution.

See also: Fohat, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Globe :

Globe

Every one of the physical globes that we see scattered over the fields of space is accompanied by six  - really eleven  - invisible and superior globes, forming what in theosophy is called a chain. This is the case with every sun or star, with every planet, and with every moon of every planet. It is likewise the case with the nebulae and the comets: all are septiform entities in manifestation; all have a sevenfold  - indeed twelvefold  - constitution, even as man has, who is a copy in the little of what the universe is in the great. The seven manifested globes for purposes of convenience are enumerated as A, B, C, D, E, F, and G; but reference is sometimes made more mystically to the globes from "A to Z," here hinting at but not specifying all the twelve globes of the chain.

The life-waves circle around these globes in seven great cycles which are called rounds. Each life-wave first enters globe A, runs through its life cycle there, and then passes on to globe B. Finishing its cycle on globe B, it passes on to globe C, and then to globe D, the lowest of the manifested seven. In our own planetary chain, globe D is our earth. Three globes precede it on the downward arc, and three globes follow it on the ascending arc of evolution  - referring here to the manifested seven.

The passing through or traversing of any one of these seven globes by the life-wave is a globe round; and during any one globe round on a globe, seven root-races are born, attain their efflorescence, and then pass away. (See also Round)

See also: Globe, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Gods :

Gods

The old pantheons were builded upon an ancient and esoteric wisdom which taught, under the guise of a public mythology, profound secrets of the structure and operations of the universe which surrounds us. The entire human race has believed in gods, has believed in beings superior to men; the ancients all said that men are the "children" of these gods, and that from these superior beings, existent in the azure spaces, men draw all that in them is; and, furthermore, that men themselves, as children of the gods, are in their inmost essence divine beings linked forever with the boundless universe of which each human being, just as is the case with every other entity everywhere, is an inseparable part. This is a truly sublime conception.

One should not think of human forms when the theosophist speaks of the gods; we mean the arupa  - the "formless"  - entities, beings of pure intelligence and understanding, relatively pure essences, relatively pure spirits, formless as we physical humans conceive form. The gods are the higher inhabitants of nature. They are intrinsic portions of nature itself, for they are its informing principles. They are as much subject to the wills and energies of still higher beings  - call these wills and energies the "laws" of higher beings, if you will  - as we are, and as are the kingdoms of nature below us.

The ancients put realities, living beings, in the place of laws which, as Occidentals use the term, are only abstractions  - an expression for the action of entities in nature; the ancients did not cheat themselves so easily with words. They called them gods, spiritual entities. Not one single great thinker of the ancients, until the Christian era, ever talked about laws of nature, as if these laws were living entities, as if these abstractions were actual entities which did things. Did the laws of navigation ever navigate a ship? Does the law of gravity pull the planets together? Does it unite or pull the atoms together? This word laws is simply a mental abstraction signifying unerring action of conscious and semi-conscious energies in nature.

See also: Gods, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Guru :

Guru

(Sanskrit) Sometimes gurudeva, "master divine." The word used in the old Sanskrit scriptures for teacher, preceptor. According to the beautiful teachings of the ancient wisdom, the guru acts as the midwife bringing to birth, helping to bring into the active life of the chela, the spiritual and intellectual parts of the disciple  - the soul of the man. Thus the relationship between teacher and disciple is an extremely sacred one, because it is a tie which binds closely heart to heart, mind to mind.

The idea is, again, that the latent spiritual potencies in the mind and heart of the learner shall receive such assistance in their development as the teacher can karmically give; but it does not mean that the teacher shall do the work that the disciple himself or herself must do.

The learner or disciple must tread his own path, and the teacher cannot tread it for him. The teacher points the way, guides and aids, and the disciple follows the path.

See also: Guru, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Infinite :

Infinite

A term meaning that which is not finite. The expression is used sometimes with almost absurd inaccuracy, and is one which in all probability representing as it does imperfect understanding could never be found in any of the great religious or philosophical systems of the ancients. Occidental writers of the past and present often use the word infinite as applying to beings or entities, such as in the expression "an infinite personal deity"  - a ludicrous joining of contradictory and disparate words. The ancients rejected the phantom idea that this term involves, and used instead expressions such as the Boundless, or the Frontierless, or the Endless, whether speaking of abstract space or abstract time  - the latter more properly called unending duration. (See also Absolute)

See also: Infinite, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Initiates :

Initiates

Those who have passed at least one initiation and therefore those who understand the mystery-teachings and who are ready to receive them at some future time in even larger measure. Please note the distinction between initiant and initiate. An initiant is one who is beginning or preparing for an initiation. An initiate is one who has successfully passed at least one initiation. It is obvious therefore that an initiate is always an initiant when he prepares for a still higher initiation.

The mystery-teachings were held as the most sacred treasure or possession that men could transmit to their descendants who were worthy postulants. The revelation of these mystery-doctrines under the seal of initiation, and under proper conditions to worthy depositaries, worked marvelous changes in the lives of those who underwent successfully the initiatory trials. It made men different from what they were before they received this spiritual and intellectual revelation. The facts are found in all the old religions and philosophies, if these are studied honestly. Initiation was always spoken of under the metaphor or figure of speech of "a new birth," a "birth into truth," for it was a spiritual and intellectual rebirth of the powers of the human spirit-soul, and could be called in all truth a birth of the soul into a loftier and nobler self-consciousness. When this happened, such men were called "initiates" or the reborn. In India, such reborn men were anciently called dvija, a Sanskrit word meaning "twice-born." In Egypt such initiates or reborn men were called "Sons of the Sun." In other countries they were called by other names.

See also: Initiates, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Initiation :

Initiation

In olden times there were seven  - and even ten  - degrees of initiation. Of these seven degrees, three consisted of teachings alone, which formed the preparation, the discipline, spiritual and mental and psychic and physical  - what the Greeks called the katharsis or "cleansing." When the disciple was considered sufficiently cleansed, purified, disciplined, quiet mentally, tranquil spiritually, then he was taken into the fourth degree, which likewise consisted partly of teaching, but also in part of direct personal introduction by the old mystical processes into the structure and operations of the universe, by which means truth was gained by first-hand personal experience. In other words, to speak in plain terms, his spirit-soul, his individual consciousness, was assisted to pass into other planes and realms of being, and to know and to understand by the sheer process of becoming them. A man, a mind, an understanding, can grasp and see, and thereby know, only those things which the individual entity itself is.

After the fourth degree, there followed the fifth and the sixth and the seventh initiations, each in turn, and these consisted of teachings also; but more and more as the disciple progressed  - and he was helped in this development more and more largely as he advanced farther  - there was evolved forth in him the power and faculties still farther and more deeply to penetrate beyond the veils of maya or illusion; until, having passed the seventh or last initiation of all of the manifest initiations, if we may call them that, he became one of those individuals whom theosophists call the mahatmas.

See also: Initiation, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Involution :

Involution

The reverse process or procedure of evolution. As evolution means the unfolding, the unwrapping, the rolling forth, of what already exists and is latent, so involution means the inwrapping, the infolding, the ingoing of what previously exists or has been unfolded, etc. Involution and evolution never in any circumstances can be even conceived of properly as operative the one apart from the other: every act of evolution is an act of involution, and vice versa.

To illustrate, as spirit and matter are fundamentally one and yet eternally coactive and interactive, so involution and evolution are two names for two phases of the same procedure of growth, and are eternally coactive and interactive.

As an example, the so-called descent of the monads into matter means an involution or involving or infolding of spiritual potencies into material vehicles which coincidently and contemporaneously, through the compelling urge of the infolding energies, unfold their own latent capacities, unwrap them, roll them forth; and this is the evolution of matter. Thus what is the involution of spirit is contemporaneously and pari passu the evolution of matter. Contrariwise, on the ascending or luminous arc when the involved monadic essences begin to rise towards their primordial spiritual source they begin to unfold or unwrap themselves as previously on the descending arc they had infolded or inwrapped themselves. But this process of unfolding or evolution of the monadic essences is contemporaneous with and pari passu with the infolding and inwrapping, the involution, of the material energies and powers.

Human birth and death are outstanding illustrations or examples of the same thing. The child is born, and as it grows to its full efflorescence of power it evolves or rolls forth certain inherent characteristics or energies or faculties, all derived from the human being's svabhava or ego. Contrariwise, when the decline of human life begins, there is a slow infolding or inwrapping of these same facilities which thus seem gradually to diminish. These facilities and energies thus evolved forth in earth-life are the working of the innate spiritual and intellectual and psychical characteristics impelling and compelling the vehicular or body sides of the human constitution to express themselves as organs becoming more and more perfect as the child grows to maturity.

After death the process is exactly the reverse. The material or vehicular side of the being grows less and less strong and powerful, more and more involved, and becoming with every step in the process more dormant. But contemporaneously and coincidently the distinctly spiritual and intellectual powers and faculties themselves become released from the vehicles and begin to expand into ever larger efflorescence, attaining their maximum in the devachan. It is only the usual carelessness in accurate thinking that induces the idea that evolution is one distinct process acting alone, and that involution  - about which by the way very little is heard  - is another process acting alone. The two, as said above, are the two phases of activity of the evolving monads, and these phases exist contemporaneously at any moment, each of the two phases continually acting and interacting with the other phase. They are inseparable.

Just so with spirit and matter. Spirit is not something radically distinct from and utterly separate from matter. The two are fundamentally one, and the two are eternally coactive and interactive.

There are several terms in Sanskrit which correspond to what the theosophist means by evolution, but perhaps the best general term is pravritti, meaning to "revolve" or to "roll forwards," to unroll or to unwrap. Again, the reverse procedure or involution can probably best be expressed in Sanskrit by the term nivritti, meaning "rolling backwards" or "inwrapping" or "infolding." A term which is frequently interchangeable with evolution is emanation. (See also Evolution)

See also: Involution, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Isvara :

Isvara

(Sanskrit) Isvara means "lord," and is a term which is frequently applied in Hindu mythology not only to kosmic divinities, but to the expression of the cosmic spirit in the human being. Consequently, when reference is had to the individual human being, Isvara is the divine individualized spirit in man  - man's own personal god. It may be otherwise described as the divine ego, the child of the divine monad in a man, and in view of this fact also could be used with reference to the dhyani-buddha or to the immanent Christ in a man. In India it is a title frequently given to Siva and other gods of the Hindu pantheon.

See also: Isvara, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Jagrat :

Jagrat

(Sanskrit) The state of consciousness when awake, as opposed to  svapna, the dreaming-sleeping state of consciousness, and different again from sushupti when the human consciousness is plunged into profound self-oblivion. The highest of all the states into which the consciousness may cast itself, or be cast, is the turiya ("fourth"), which is the highest state of samadhi, and is almost a nirvanic condition.

All these states or conditions of the consciousness are affections or phases of the constitution of man, and of beings constructed similarly to man. The waking state, or jagrat, is the state or condition of consciousness normal to the imbodied human being when not asleep. Svapna is the state of consciousness more or less freed from the sheath of the body and partially awake in the astral realms, higher or lower as the case may be.

Sushupti is the state of self-oblivion into which the human being is plunged when the percipient consciousness enters into the purely manasic condition, which is self-oblivion for the relatively impotent brain-mind; whereas the turiya state, which is a practical annihilation of the ordinary human consciousness, is an attainment of union with atma-buddhi overshadowing or working through the higher manas. Actually, therefore, it is becoming at one with the monadic essence.

See also: Jagrat, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Jiva :

Jiva

(Sanskrit) This is a word meaning essentially a living being per se, apart from any attributes or qualities that such living being may have or possess. It therefore is the exactly proper equivalent of the theosophical term monad. In one sense, therefore, jiva could be also used for a life-atom, provided that the emphasis be laid on the word life, or rather life-entity  - not an "atom of life," but a being whose essence is pure living individuality. Monad in its divine-spiritual essence, and life-atom in its pranic-astral-physical being  - such is a jiva; and between these two extremes are the numerous planes or sheaths on and in which the individualized consciousness works.

See also: Jiva, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Hierarchy :

Hierarchy

The word hierarchy merely means that a scheme or system or state of delegated directive power and authority exists in a self-contained body, directed, guided, and taught by one having supreme authority, called the hierarch.

The name is used by theosophists, by extension of meaning, as signifying the innumerable degrees, grades, and steps of evolving entities in the kosmos, and as applying to all parts of the universe; and rightly so, because every different part of the universe  - and their number is simply countless  - is under the vital governance of a divine being, of a god, of a spiritual essence; and all material manifestations are simply the appearances on our plane of the workings and actions of these spiritual beings behind it.

The series of hierarchies extends infinitely in both directions. If he so choose for purposes of thought, man may consider himself at the middle point, from which extends above him an unending series of steps upon steps of higher beings of all grades  - growing constantly less material and more spiritual, and greater in all senses  - towards an ineffable point. And there the imagination stops, not because the series itself stops, but because our thought can reach no farther out nor in. And similar to this series, an infinitely great series of beings and states of beings descends downwards (to use human terms)  - downwards and downwards, until there again the imagination stops, merely because our thought can go no farther.

The summit, the acme, the flower, the highest point (or the hyparxis) of any series of animate and "inanimate" beings, whether we enumerate the stages or degrees of the series as seven or ten or twelve (according to whichever system we follow), is the divine unity for that series or hierarchy, and this hyparxis or highest being is again in its turn the lowest being of the hierarchy above it, and so extending onwards forever  - each hierarchy manifesting one facet of the divine kosmic life, each hierarchy showing forth one thought, as it were, of the divine thinkers.

Various names were given to these hierarchies considered as series of beings. The generalized Greek hierarchy as shown by writers in periods preceding the rise of Christianity may be collected and enumerated as follows: (1) Divine; (2) Gods, or the divine-spiritual; (3) Demigods, sometimes called divine heroes, involving a very mystical doctrine; (4) Heroes proper; (5) Men; (6) Beasts or animals; (7) Vegetable world; (8) Mineral world; (9) Elemental world, or what was called the realm of Hades. The Divinity (or aggregate divine lives) itself is the hyparxis of this series of hierarchies, because each of these nine stages is itself a subordinate hierarchy. This (or any other) hierarchy of nine, hangs like a pendant jewel from the lowest hierarchy above it, which makes the tenth counting upwards, which tenth we can call the superdivine, the hyperheavenly, this tenth being the lowest stage (or the ninth, counting downwards) of still another hierarchy extending upwards; and so on, indefinitely.

One of the noblest of the theosophical teachings, and one of the most far-reaching in its import, is that of the hierarchical constitution of universal nature. This hierarchical structure of nature is so fundamental, so basic, that it may be truly called the structural framework of being. (See also Planes)

See also: Hierarchy, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Hypnotism :

Hypnotism

Derived from a Greek word hypnos, which means "sleep," and strictly speaking the word hypnotism should be used only for those psychological-physiological phenomena in which the subject manifesting them is in a condition closely resembling sleep. The trouble is that in any attempt to study these various psychological powers of the human constitution it is found that they are many and of divers kinds; but the public, and even the technical experimenters, usually group all these psychologicalphenomena under the one word hypnotism, and therefore it is a misnomer.

One of such powers, for instance, which is well known, is called fascination. Another shows a more or less complete suspension of the individual will and of the individual activities of him who is the sufferer from such psychological power, although in other respects he may show no signs of physical sleep. Another again  - and this perhaps is the most important of all so far as actual dangers lie  - passes under the name of suggestion, an exceedingly good name, because it describes the field of action of perhaps the most subtle and dangerous side-branch of the exercise of the general power or force emanating from the mind of the operator.

The whole foundation upon which this power rests lies in the human psychological constitution; and it can be easily and neatly expressed in a few words. It is the power emanating from one mind, which can affect another mind and direct or misdirect the latter's course of action. This is in nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand a wrong thing to do; and this fact would readily be understood by everybody did men know, as they should, the difference between the higher and the lower nature of man, the difference between his incorruptible, death-defying individuality, his spiritual nature, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the brain-mind and all its train of weak and fugitive thoughts.

Anyone who has seen men and women in the state of hypnosis must realize not only how dangerous, how baleful and wrong it is, but also that it exemplifies the trance state perfectly. The reason is that the intermediate nature, or the psychomental apparatus, of the human being in this state has been displaced from its seat, in other words, is disjoined or dislocated; and there remains but the vitalized human body, with its more or less imperfect functioning of the brain cells and nervous apparatus. H. P. Blavatsky in her Theosophical Glossary writes: "It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as it interferes with the nerve-fluid and the nerves controlling the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels." (See also Mesmerism)

See also: Hypnotism, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Immortality :

Immortality

A term signifying continuous existence or being; but this understanding of the term is profoundly illogical and contrary to nature, for there is nothing throughout nature's endless and multifarious realms of being and existence which remains for two consecutive instants of time exactly the same. Consequently, immortality is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusory phantom of reality. When the student of the esoteric wisdom once realizes that continuous progress, i.e., continuous change in advancement, is nature's fundamental procedure, he recognizes instantly that continuous remaining in an unchanging or immutable state of consciousness or being is not only impossible, but in the last analysis is the last thing that is either desi

rable or comforting. Fancy continuing immortal in a state of imperfection such as we human beings exemplify  - which is exactly what the usual acceptance of this term immortality means. The highest god in highest heaven, although seemingly immortal to us imperfect human beings, is nevertheless an evolving, growing, progressing entity in its own sublime realms or spheres, and therefore as the ages pass leaves one condition or state to assume a succeeding condition or state of a nobler and higher type; precisely as the preceding condition or state had been the successor of another state before it.

Continuous or unending immutability of any condition or state of an evolving entity is obviously an impossibility in nature; and when once pondered over it becomes clear that the ordinary acceptance of immortality involves an impossibility. All nature is an unending series of changes, which means all the hosts or multitudes of beings composing nature, for every individual unit of these hosts is growing, evolving, i.e., continuously changing, therefore never immortal. Immortality and evolution are contradictions in terms. An evolving entity means a changing entity, signifying a continuous progress towards better things; and evolution therefore is a succession of state of consciousness and being after another state of consciousness and being, and thus throughout duration. The Occidental idea of static immortality or even mutable immortality is thus seen to be both repellent and impossible.

This doctrine is so difficult for the average Occidental easily to understand that it may be advisable once and for all to point out without mincing of words that just as complete death, that is to say, entire annihilation of consciousness, is an impossibility in nature, just so is continuous and unchanging consciousness in any one stage or phase of evolution likewise an impossibility, because progress or movement or growth is continuous throughout eternity. There are, however, periods more or less long of continuance in any stage or phase of consciousness that may be attained by an evolving entity; and the higher the being is in evolution, the more its spiritual and intellectual faculties have been evolved or evoked, the longer do these periods of continuous individual, or perhaps personal, quasi-immortality continue. There is, therefore, what may be called relative immortality, although this phrase is confessedly a misnomer.

Master KH in The Mahatma Letters, on pages 128-30, uses the phrase ``panaeonic immortality" to signify this same thing that I have just called relative immortality, an immortality  - falsely so called, however  - which lasts in the cases of certain highly evolved monadic egos for the entire period of a manvantara, but which of necessity ends with the succeeding pralaya of the solar system. Such a period of time of continuous self-consciousness of so highly evolved a monadic entity is to us humans actually a relative immortality; but strictly and logically speaking it is no more immortality than is the ephemeral existence of a butterfly. When the solar manvantara comes to an end and the solar pralaya begins, even such highly evolved monadic entities, full-blown gods, are swept out of manifested self-conscious existence like the sere and dried leaves at the end of the autumn; and the divine entities thus passing out enter into still higher realms of superdivine activity, to reappear at the end of the pralaya and at the dawn of the next or succeeding solar manvantara.

The entire matter is, therefore, a highly relative one. What seems immortal to us humans would seem to be but as a wink of the eye to the vision of super-kosmic entities; while, on the other hand, the span of the average human life would seem to be immortal to a self-conscious entity inhabiting one of the electrons of an atom of the human physical body.

The thing to remember in this series of observations is the wondrous fact that consciousness from eternity to eternity is uninterrupted, although by the very nature of things undergoing continuous and unceasing change of phases in realization throughout endless duration. What men call unconsciousness is merely a form of consciousness which is too subtle for our gross brain-minds to perceive or to sense or to grasp; and, secondly, strictly speaking, what men call death, whether of a universe or of their own physical bodies, is but the breaking up of worn-out vehicles and the transference of consciousness to a higher plane. It is important to seize the spirit of this marvelous teaching, and not allow the imperfect brain-mind to quibble over words, or to pause or hesitate at difficult terms.

See also: Immortality, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Individuality :

Individuality

Theosophists draw a sharp and comprehensive distinction between individuality and personality. The individuality is the spiritual-intellectual and immortal part of us; deathless, at least for the duration of the kosmic manvantara  - the root, the very essence of us, the spiritual sun within, our inner god. The personality is the veil, the mask, composed of various sheaths of consciousness through which the individuality acts.

The word individuality means that which cannot be divided, that which is simple and pure in the philosophical sense, indivisible, uncompounded, original. It is not heterogeneous; it is not composite; it is not builded up of other elements; it is the thing in itself. Whereas, on the contrary, the intermediate nature and the lower nature are composite, and therefore mortal, being builded up of elements other than themselves. Strictly speaking, individuality and monad are identical, but the two words are convenient because of the distinctions of usage contained in them; just as consciousness and self-consciousness are fundamentally identical, but convenient as words on account of the distinctions contained in them. (See also Monad)

See also: Individuality, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)