Definition and meaning of organism:

organism - any form of unicellular or multicellular life; a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently

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

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

ORGANISM

Whitehead's vision (as shared by Shaw in Back to Methuselah) that life pervades nature, not as Bergson's "vitalism" did (by squeezing into matter osmotically from outside), but by definition: Nature is alive: "bodies" are alive, and the mind is more alive still. All nature (including inorganic matter) is a single organism, one living body composed of biological cells (that is, events). This is not hylism, on the contrary, but pneumism or spiritism.

(See also: ORGANISM , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

Gaia philosophy is a broadly inclusive term for related concepts that living organisms on a planet will affect the nature of their environment - to make it more suitable for life. This set of theories holds that all organisms on a planet regulate the biosphere to the benefit of the whole. The Gaia concept draws a connection between the survivability of a species, (hence its evolutionary course) and their usefulness to the survival of other species.

Read more here: » Gaia: The Gaia philosophy - an overivew

A group of senior managers was asked to associate words for 'organisation'. Their responses included these words: Hard, rules, procedural, hierarchy, top-down, pressure, challenges.

When asked to give associative words for 'organism', they offered these: Living, evolving, responsive, death, change, linked, inter-dependent. But we don't have sufficient operating images of 'organism' to guide our planning and decisions. To be effective organisations should apply the principles of biology, seeing the organisation as organism.

(See also: Spiritual Management , God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Spiritual Management: Organise Naturally For Best Results  

Evolution (from Latin evolutio unrolling, opening)

The unfolding or bringing into manifestation of the inherent, already inwardly existing characteristics of a being; it is therefore growth from within, development. The process is universal, since the universe consists of living beings, all of which are growing because unfolding. Evolution presupposes two main factors: the entity which is evolving, and the form which is evolved. These two are related as spirit to matter, as the monad to its organism.

Every one of the countless beings which constitute the universe is essentially a spark of the universal divine fire, life, or spirit; and at any time is at one stage or another of a continuous career of unfolding growth. Every spark creates for itself a succession of forms by which it expresses more or less of its inherent qualities. The physical vehicles are merely the physical end-products; before these physical imbodiments are engendered, there are other imbodiments made of subtler grades of matter or consciousness-substance on intermediate planes, and astral stuff on the lower plane close to the physical. Evolution is a continual reaction between what is within and what is without: environment modifies growth; but without the urge of the indwelling monad, there could be no action upon environment, nor any reaction by environment.

Evolution is not a process of accretion from without; such accretion could not produce an organism unless the full plan of that organism existed already latently in ideation. Nor is evolution in the vegetable and animal kingdoms a process of mere transformism by which one physical organism changes into another. The changes take place because of the unfolding growth of the indwelling entity, each new evolutional enfoldment of the latter impacting on the body, and therefore more or less modifying it; and this indwelling entity in this manner builds for itself new forms suitable to its own changed or more largely unfolded states.

Theosophy does not hold to the idea of a single-track, end-on evolution from a protoplasmic speck to human being, without inner astral, mental, and spiritual urge from within. Rather, the plan of evolution as represented by the different classes and orders of beings on earth may be represented by a tree, whose main trunk is the human stem, from which (so far as this manvantara is concerned) the various animal types have issued like branches, each of them then entering upon a special unfolding development and differentiation of its own. Indeed, the same observation applies with equal force to the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, although their root-types issued from the human stem long aeons before the animal types appeared on earth.

Evolution is an ancient and cardinal tenet of the archaic wisdom and was formerly called emanation. In mankind, three distinct, principal lines of evolution take place and converge; the spiritual, the mental or manasic, and the astral-vital-physical. The manasic factor is derived from the perfected humanity of a previous manvantara, whose entrance into the human stock of the third root-race brought about the union of the heavenly and the terrestrial so as to make a complete self-conscious being who thereafter mirrors every plane in nature. In humankind, the divine monad, a spark of the universal spirit, emanates from itself its first vehicle, and thus is formed the spiritual monad, atma-buddhi. This monad, emanating from itself in its turn another vehicle, becomes the higher human soul or reimbodying ego; and the emanational process is continued throughout the human constitution by the formation of the astral-vital soul which in its turn emanates or oozes forth the physical body.

The process of evolution cannot be considered as ending. Just as below human beings there are less evolved kingdoms, so above are beings in whom fuller self-consciousness has been achieved than we have yet achieved, and still more of the divine potentialities realized. All evolution beneath humankind tends towards humanhood as its objective; but humanity itself has ever greater heights still before it to attain in the future.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

nonhuman birth: The phenomenon of the soul being born as nonhuman life forms, explained in various scriptures.

For example, Saint Manikkavasagar's famous hymn (Tiruvasagam 8.14):

"I became grass and herbs, worm and tree. I became many beasts, bird and snake. I became stone and man, goblins and sundry celestials. I became mighty demons, silent sages and the Gods. Taken form in life, moveable and immovable, born in all, I am weary of birth, my Great Lord."

The Upanishads, too, describe the soul's course after death and later taking a higher or lower birth according to its merit or demerit of the last life (Kaush. U. 1.2, ‚hand. U. 5.35.10, Brihad. U. 6.2).

These statements are sometimes misunderstood to mean that each soul must slowly, in sequential order incarnate as successively higher beings, beginning with the lowest organism, to finally obtain a human birth. In fact, as the Upanishads explain, after death the soul, reaching the inner worlds, reaps the harvest of its deeds, is tested and then takes on the appropriate incarnation - be it human or nonhuman - according to its merit or demerit.

Souls destined for human evolution are human-like from the moment of their creation in the Sivaloka. This is given outer expression in the Antarloka and Bhuloka, on earth or other similar planets, as the appropriate sheaths are developed. However, not all souls are human souls. There are many kinds of souls, such as genies, elementals and certain Gods, who evolve toward God through different patterns of evolution than do humans.

One cause of unclarity is to confuse the previously mentioned scriptural passages with the theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin (1809 -1882), which states that plant and animal species develop or evolve from earlier forms due to hereditary transmission of variations that enhance the organism's adaptability and chances of survival. These principles are now considered the kernel of biology. Modern scientists thus argue that the human form is a development from earlier primates, including apes and monkeys.

The Darwinian theory is reasonable but incomplete as it is based in a materialistic conception of reality that does not encompass the existence of the soul. While the Upanishadic evolutionary vision speaks of the soul's development and progress through reincarnation, the Darwinian theory focuses on evolution of the biological organism, with no relation to a soul or individual being.

See: evolution of the soul, kosha, reincarnation, soul.

(See also: Nonhuman birth , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

In science, a Gaia theory is a class of scientific models of the biosphere in which life fosters and maintains suitable conditions for itself by affecting Earth's environment. The first such theory was created by the English atmospheric scientist James Lovelock in 1969. He hypothesized that the living matter of the planet functioned like a single organism and named this self-regulating living system after the Greek goddess Gaia.

Read more here: » Gaia Theory: The Gaia Theory in Science

Physical Organs Natural history reveals that the organs of the body acquire a greater individual importance, and in some cases occupy a larger proportion of the organism, as we ascend from the lower to the higher animal forms. G. de Purucker points out that "Every one of the organs of the human physical body, both collectively and distributively, is the organic representative in man's physical sheath or body of one part or portion of his complex inner and invisible constitution. . . . every one of the monadic centers in man's being . . . has its own corresponding organ in the physical body, each such organ functioning in the body as much as it can according to the characteristic or type-activity of its inner and invisible cause. Thus the heart, the brain, the liver, the spleen, etc., is, each one, the expression on the physical plane and in the human physical body of a corresponding consciousness-center in the invisible constitution of the sevenfold man" (ET 961-2n).

There are manasic as well as kamic organs. The brain and heart are "the organs of a power higher than the Personality" (BCW 12:367; or St in Oc 89). The liver is called the kamic organ; the spleen is the vehicle of the linga-sarira. Of the rhythmic tides of vital air in the chest, it is said: "The primeval current of the life-wave is then the same which assumes in man the form of the inspiratory and expiratory motion of the lungs, and this is the source of the evolution and involution of the universe" (q from Nature's Finer Forces Rama Prasad, BCW 12:356 or Studies in Occultism 76). The uterus, within which a new manifestation of life appears, corresponds physically to the universal matrix -- cosmic space -- the fertilized cell being the point in the circle where differentiation begins. The eyes, from one standpoint at least, are the most occult of our senses. The fibers of the large optic nerves are interrelated with special organs of the senses and sensations -- optic thalami, pineal and pituitary glands, etc. -- which are grouped around the center of the brain.

Further, "every human organ and each cell in the latter has a key-board of its own, like that of a piano, only that it registers and emits sensations instead of sounds. Every key contains the potentiality of good or bad, of producing harmony or disharmony" according as the impulse comes from the higher or lower nature (BCW 12:368-9 or St in Oc 91). Memory has no special organ of its own in the brain, but has seats in every organ of the body. The whole body is a vast sounding board in which each cell bears a long record of impressions connected with its parent organ, and also it has a memory and consciousness of its own kind. These impressions are, according to the nature of the organ, physical, psychic, mental, or again mixed, as they relate to this or another plane, there being states of instinctual, mental, and purely abstract or spiritual consciousness. The physiological functions and reciprocal workings of cells and organs are in the body automatically directed by a "universally diffused mind" throughout that body, which is beyond all material analysis. Because of this intelligence operating throughout the organism, physiology is destined someday "to become the hand-maiden of Occult truths" (BCW 12:139; or Studies in Occultism 105).

On a larger scale, each organ has its own rhythm or vibratory rate of response to cosmic eternal motion. The response is animated by a "vital principle without which no molecular combinations could ever have resulted in a living organism, least of all in the so-called 'inorganic' matter of our plane of consciousness" (SD 1:603). The breaking of the normal rhythm of one organ disturbs that of all the rest, which accounts for the many reflex symptoms that often appear.

The general principles of occult physiology underlie and coordinate the numerous details of chemical, microscopic, and biological research. The human organism illustrates the modern scientific view of the electronic nature of matter. In man, the positive and negative phases of the one Life unite to manifest in functional currents of vitality; all of which has a significant bearing on the prevailing medical recourse to organotherapy, the end results of which are not recognized, as such, since they operate on inner lines of force. Each animal body -- human or beast -- is a complex organism whose various parts are vibrating in consonance with the synthetic character of its own evolutionary status of vital matter and conscious force -- its selfhood. Hence, the injection of the physiologic essence of any one creature's organs into the life-currents of another, aiming to give a certain impetus to functional reaction, inevitably adds a subtly disturbing foreign element. The same physical matter composes all animal bodies, so that the human and beast life-atoms are interchangeable, but such interchange is governed or regulated by extremely occult causal relations which raise their action outside or above the plane of human interference. Organotherapy, as at present understood and practiced, is a divergence from nature's normal processes, having no analog in nature which, in turn, provides resources of wholesome remedial matter. These artificial mixtures of both physical and superphysical forces, involve vital issues beyond the ken of research laboratories. The end results of unbalanced forces might be sought among the increase in cases of malignant, degenerative, and mental and nervous disorders, with their unequilibrated operation of functioning vitality and of consciousness.

Pi The mathematical symbol for the incommensurable ratio of the circumference of a circle to the length of its diameter, and for corresponding ratios in plane and solid geometry. Its incommensurability is a particular instance of the impossibility of expressing geometrical magnitudes exactly in number. Bearing in mind that there is a geometrical key to interpretation of cosmic law and structure, and that the facts of geometry cannot possibly be arbitrary or meaningless but must be faithful representations of general laws; then we shall understand that the ratio {pi sym}, involving such radial and important elements as the straight line and the circle, must be of paramount importance. The figures, either for approximate decimal evaluations or approximate fractional ratios, play an important part in the symbology of the ancient mystery-language. These figures and the numbers which they make are found in the numerical values of letters and words in the Hebrew and Greek alphabets. The problem of squaring the circle by a purely geometrical construction does not involve the use of {pi sym} at all.

(See also: Physical Organs , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

Epigenesis (from Greek epi upon + genesis production)

A biological theory of generation which holds that the embryo is created from the original germinal elements by a process of gradual evolution, i.e., by a passage from a relatively homogeneous condition to a specialized condition through a process of differentiation. This replaced the older idea of encasement according to which the future organism existed entire, but of microscopic dimensions, within the ovum, and was afterwards merely enlarged; and it also replaced the idea that the organism was formed by a relatively sudden accretion of parts derived from the corresponding organs in the parents. It thus accommodated embryology to the modern theory of evolution. It is open to the objections that by attempting to view growth as a purely physical process, development is made to appear as a process of accretion or adding together, instead of as a process of unfolding; and suggests the notion that something entirely new can be formed by such an additive process. But nothing can be formed unless it has previously existed in entirety, though on a subtler plane of materiality; and the coming together of physical elements is merely the filling in of a plan that has already been sketched. The astral prototype of the physical organism, seeking incarnation, draws together the physical elements required, using the procreative processes as a means. The older theory of encasement contains as much truth as the epigenesis theory, though distorted by a too physical and theological view of the process.

See also EMBRYO

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

Transformism Adopted from the French, it is the process of evolution as understood by Lamarck and Darwin, as distinguished from evolution in its true etymological sense as used in theosophy. It means the supposed transformation of one kind of organism into another kind of organism, by purely physical processes.

Evolution means that a living monad or soul unfolds itself from within outwards, thus producing the forms by which it manifests itself on the physical planes; and clothing itself in a graduating and constantly improving succession of forms, according to changes in its own growth and requirements.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

Seven cities in India correspond to seven centres or chakras in our body: ÒAyodhya, Mathura, Maya, Kashi, Kanchi, Avantika, Puri drawaravati chaiva, Saptaide moksha dayikaÓ. The seven cities are companioned  with seven sacred rivers; Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Godavari, Narmada, Sindhu and Kaveri

The microcosm and the macrocosm are interlinked. Planet earth, home to many organisms, is itself a large organism. It is not just a place for living beings; it is a living organism as a whole. This is what the Gaia theory says. Materialism considers everything as objects. Spirituality, on the other hand, discovers life in everything.

Read more here: » Gaia Theory: Chakras and the Seven Sacred Cities

According to Ayurveda everything in life is composed of the Panchamahabhutas – Akash (Space), Vayu (Air), Jal (Water), Agni (Fire) and Prithvi (Earth). Omnipresent, they are mixed in an infinite variety of relative proportions such that each form of matter is distinctly unique. Although each element has a range of attributes, only some get evident in particular situations. Constantly changing and interacting with each other, they create a situation of dynamic flux that keeps the world going.

Within a simple, single living cell for example the earth element predominates by giving structure to the cell. The water element is present in the cytoplasm or the liquid within the cell membrane. The fire element regulates the metabolic processes regulating the cell. While the air element predominates the gases therein. The space occupied by the cell denoting the last of the elements.

In the case of a complex, multi-cellular organism as a human being for instance, akash corresponds to spaces within the body (mouth, nostrils, abdomen etc.); vayu denotes the movement (essentially muscular); agni controls the functioning of enzymes (intelligence, digestive system, metabolism); jal is in all body fluids (as plasma, saliva, digestive juices); and prithvi manifests itself in the solid structure of the body (bones, teeth, flesh, hair et al).

The Panchmahabhutas therefore serve as the foundation of all diagnosis & treatment modalities in Ayurveda and has served as a most valuable theory for physicians to detect and treat illness of the body and mind successfully.

(See also: Panchamahabhutas , Ayurveda, Ayurvedic Dictionary, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

The Chakras are centres of Shakti as vital force. In other words, these are centres of Pranashakti manifested by Pranavayu in the living body, the presiding Devatas of which are the names for the Universal Consciousness as It manifests in the form of these centres. The Chakras are not perceptible to the gross senses. Even if they were perceptible in the living body which they help to organise, they disappear with the disintegration of organism at death.

Read more here: » Chakras and Kundalini: The gradational ascent of the mind

A dictionary of Parapsycology. Please note that words in grey are hyperlinked to a corresponding archive with articles related to that particular topic.

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Group-souls The idea that there are entities which express themselves through the collectivity of the individuals of a race or nation, or other similar group, somewhat as the soul of a person may express itself through the collectivity of the living units which compose his organism.

However, the living units of our body do not of themselves engender a unitary entity but, having been drawn together by similarity of karma and by the vital magnetism of the imbodied soul, form the vehicle for the expression of the entity of a higher order. The individuals of a race or nation, though drawn by similarity of karma and character into the same race or nation, do not thereby constitute a vehicle for the manifestation of any entity of a higher order which is the predominant and almost exclusive factor in the case.

There are, nonetheless, such things as the national genius, which can be metaphysically explained by calling it a minor ray from the logos, to which belong the already relatively highly evolved individual units of the group thus overenlightened. Such a national or racial aggregation of individuals of like karma and character likewise create a vital atmosphere, a manifestation of the genius, which exists in the creative ideation of the planetary spirit, both as an imbodied idea and as an abstract spiritual entity. It is in this sense that such expressions were used in ancient Greek and other mythologies when speaking of nature spirits, genii loci, or denoting families and races by an eponym, ancestor, or the name of a god.

A misunderstanding of certain teachings has also given rise in some minds to the idea that animals, when they die, become merged in a group-soul, which is entirely erroneous when connected with the implication that they lose their individuality and do not reappear as the same partially egoic individuals. Every animal, as also every organism down to an atom, has its monad or permanent individuality, which is on the path of evolution just as human monads are, though at a lower stage.

This individuality cannot be lost. Yet the manifested quality of individuality is so little developed in the animals, as compared with human beings, that their monads to our minds, although not in themselves, are much more alike than are human monads, so that they seem to us to fall together more readily into a group. But the word group here is a collective noun and denotes an entity, but of an extremely abstract -- to us -- type.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

Phylogeny [from Greek phylo race + geneia producing]

The racial history of an organism, as contrasted with ontogeny or the individual history. Phylogenesis is applicable to the process. This branch of biology takes into account the racial affinities of an organism, and forms an important part of the science of evolution.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the DNA, presented what he called the “Astonishing Hypothesis”: Human behaviour is merely the sum of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. But, can human consciousness be explained in physical terms?

Those who embrace challenge the validity of Crick’s astonishing hypothesis.

Scientists, however, claim that mind and consciousness are only a pack of neurons, made up of a chain of lifeless molecules and atoms. Therefore, it can be fully explained in terms of “lower level sciences” of chemistry and physics.

(See also: Consciousness , God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Consciousness: Can Consciousness Be Reduced To Matter?  

This is a sitemap for Oceanography - O . Click on a link and you will find multiple definitions and articles related to the word. The sitemap(s) covers over 5.184 different Oceanography terms.

oak foundation, obis, obligate mutualism, obligatory, oblong, observational learning, observing system, obtuse, occam's razor, ocean, ocean acidification, ocean biogeographic information system, ocean color, ocean color sensor, ocean.us, oceanic, oceanic crust, oceanic island, oceanic reef, oceanic zone, oceanodromous, oceanography, ocellus, ochre, octocorallia, octopus, ocular, oculina banks, odontophore, office of insular affairs, official index, official list, off-reef, offshore current, offshore wind, oia, oligomer, oligonucleotide, oligosaccharide, oligotrophic, omega animal, omegoid, omnivore, oncogene, oncology, onomatophore, onshore, onshore wind, ontogenesis, ontogeny, oocyte, ooe, ooecium, oogamous, oogamy, oogenesis, oolitic limestone, open circuit scuba, open circulatory system, open coast, open sea, open system, opendap, open-source project for a network data access protocol, operant conditioning, operational taxonomic unit, operator gene, opercular spine, operculate, operculum, operon, ophiopluteus larva, opisthobranch, opportunistic feeder, optical oceanography, optimum, oral, oral brooder, oral cavity, oral disc, orbit, order, organ, organ system, organelle, organic, organic act, organic enrichment, organic molecule, organically polluted, organism, organized territory, organogenesis, organophosphate, organ-pipe coral, orientation, original description, original diagnosis, original spelling, ornamental, ornithology, orphan receptor, ortholog, orthologous genes, orthology, oscillation, oscillator, osculum, osm, osmole, osmoregulation, osmosis, osmotic pressure, osmotroph, osseus, ossicle, ossified, ostium, ostracitoxin, otolith, otu, outbreak, outcrop, outer slope, outfall, outlying area, outrigger, overexploitation, overfishing, overwash, ovicell, ovigerous, oviparity, oviposition, ovoid, ovoviviparity, ovulation, ovum, oxidant, oxidation, oxidative stress, oxygen isotope ratio, oxygen isotopes, oyster reef, ozone, ozone shield,

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

Oceanography, Coral Reef, Environment, Sustainability, Climate Change,

Read more here: » Oceanography Sitemap I - O

A Theosophical definition of Man :

Man

Man is in his essence a spark of the central kosmic spiritual fire. Man being an inseparable part of the universe of which he is the child  - the organism of graded consciousness and substance which the human constitution contains or rather is  - is a copy of the graded organism of consciousnesses and substances of the universe in its various planes of being, inner and outer, especially inner as being by far the more important and larger, because causal.

Human beings are one class of "young gods" incarnated in bodies of flesh at the present stage of their own particular evolutionary journey. The human stage of evolution is about halfway between the undeveloped life-atom and the fully developed kosmic spirit or god.

From another point of view, man is a sheaf or bundle of forces or energies. Force and matter, or spirit and substance being fundamentally one, hence, man is de facto a sheaf or bundle of matters of various and differing grades of ethereality, or of substantiality; and so are all other entities and things everywhere.

Man's nature, and the nature of the universe likewise, of which man is a reflection or microcosm or "little world," is composite of seven stages or grades or degrees of ethereality or of substantiality; or, kosmically speaking, of three generally inclusive degrees: gods, monads, and atoms. And so far as man is concerned, we may take the New Testament division of the Christians, which gives the same triform conception of man, that he is composed of spirit, soul, body  - remembering, however, that all these three words are generalizing terms.

Man stands at the midway point of the evolutionary ladder of life: below him are the hosts of beings less than he is; above him are other hosts greater than he is only because older in experience, riper in wisdom, stronger in spiritual and in intellectual fiber and power. And these beings are such as they are because of the evolutionary unfoldment of the inherent faculties and powers immanent in the individuality of the inner god  - the ever-living, inner, individualized spirit.

Man, then, like everything else  - entity or what is called "thing"  - is, to use the modern terminology of philosophical scientists, an "event," that is to say, the expression of a central consciousness-center or monad passing through one or another particular phase of its long, long pilgrimage over and through infinity, and through eternity. This, therefore, is the reason why the theosophist often speaks of the monadic consciousness-center as the pilgrim of eternity.

Man can be considered as a being composed of three essential upadhis or bases: first, the monadic or divine-spiritual; second, that which is supplied by the Lords of Light, the so-called manasa-dhyanis, meaning the intellectual and intuitive side of man, the element-principle that makes man Man; and the third upadhi we may call the vital-astral-physical.

These three bases spring from three different lines of evolution, from three different and separate hierarchies of being. This is the reason why man is composite. He is not one sole and unmixed entity; he is a composite entity, a "thing" built up of various elements, and hence his principles are to a certain extent separable. Any one of these three bases can be temporarily separated from the two others without bringing about the death of the man physically. But the elements that go to form any one of these bases cannot be separated without bringing about physical dissolution or inner dissolution.

These three lines of evolution, these three aspects or qualities of man, come from three different hierarchies or states, often spoken of as three different planes of being. The lowest comes from the vital-astral-physical earth, ultimately from the moon, our cosmogonic mother. The middle, the manasic or intellectualintuitional, from the sun. The monadic from the monad of monads, the supreme flower or acme, or rather the supreme seed of the universal hierarchy which forms our kosmical universe or universal kosmos.

See also: Man , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

For more dictionary entries, see » Organism Dictionary

The Chakras are centres of Shakti as vital force-in other words, these are centres of Pranashakti manifested by Pranavayu in the living body, the presiding Devatas of which are the names for the Universal Consciousness as it manifests in the form of these centres. The Chakras are not perceptible in the gross senses. Even if they were perceptible in the living body which they help to organise they disappear with the disintegration of organism at death.

From "Kundalini Yoga" by Sri Swami Sivananda

Read more here: » Chakras: The Gradational Ascent Of The Mind