Most world leaders, international organisations and so-called peace summits tend to define peace in the shadow of war, as 'a situation where there is no war"between nations.

By doing so they are actually taking a negative view. By viewing the positive element in contrast to the negative, we will end up underrating the former'spotential. By defining light as the 'absence of darkness"or, life as the 'absence of death", we assign greater importance to the powers of darkness and death, or in the case of peace, to war, rather than peace.

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

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Peace Is More Than No War

The recent killings in the land of the Mahatma, the apostle of peace and non- violence, raises a very serious question. Is human consciousness being governed by the tenets of a few religious texts or is it capable of transcending all barriers for the sake of universal brotherhood?

Christians have killed Jews. Jews and Muslims are fighting all the time. Hindus have a long history of wars going back to the time of the Mahabharata. Despite the advancement of science, people continue to fight on national, religious or racial criteria.

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

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Channel Destructive

A Theosophical definition of Atman :

Atman

(Sanskrit) The root of atman is hardly known; its origin is uncertain, but the general meaning is that of "self." The highest part of man  - self, pure consciousness per se. The essential and radical power or faculty in man which gives to him, and indeed to every other entity or thing, its knowledge or sentient consciousness of selfhood. This is not the ego.

This principle (atman) is a universal one; but during incarnations its lowest parts take on attributes, because it is linked with the buddhi, as the buddhi is linked with the manas, as the manas is linked to the kama, and so on down the scale.

Atman is also sometimes used of the universal self or spirit which is called in the Sanskrit writings Brahman (neuter), and the Brahman or universal spirit is also called the paramatman.

Man is rooted in the kosmos surrounding him by three principles, which can hardly be said to be above the first or atman, but are, so to say, that same atman's highest and most glorious parts.

The inmost link with the Unutterable was called in ancient India by the term ``self,'' which has often been mistranslated "soul." The Sanskrit word is atman and applies, in psychology, to the human entity. The upper end of the link, so to speak, was called paramatman, or the ``self beyond,'' i.e., the permanent SELF  - words which describe neatly and clearly to those who have studied this wonderful philosophy, somewhat of the nature and essence of the being which man is, and the source from which, in beginningless and endless duration, he sprang. Child of earth and child of heaven, he contains both in himself.

We say that the atman is universal, and so it is. It is the universal selfhood, that feeling or consciousness of selfhood which is the same in every human being, and even in all the inferior beings of the hierarchy, even in those of the beast kingdom under us, and dimly perceptible in the plant world, and which is latent even in the minerals. This is the pure cognition, the abstract idea, of self. It differs not at all throughout the hierarchy, except in degree of self-recognition. Though universal, it belongs (so far as we are concerned in our present stage of evolution) to the fourth kosmic plane, though it is our seventh principle counting upwards.

See also: Atman , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

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

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

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Waging Peace With An Awakened Mind

The preamble to the United Nations Charter sums up the existential dilemma of today:

"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defences of peace must be constructed".

 In a land where history had sought to be sketched in an arc from Gautama to Gandhi, it is appropriate reflect on such defences and revive them today when war and terrorism have cast their shadow on the world.

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

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: War and Peace

Advocates of peace all over the world continue with their avowed mission. They are working towards creating greater awareness of the need for promoting universal feelings of amity and compassion.

The annual Maramon Convention held recently in Kerala - which was first organised in 1896 by the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, an ancient Christian community of India - is one such collective effort to bring out the spiritual essence of the Word of God.

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

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Community Efforts For Amity And Peace

Adam's Earth. See ADAMIC EARTH

(See also: Adam's Earth , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Wars happen when intolerance reaches epic proportions, when the reasons for war become greater than the sanctity of peace. Wars happen when we fail to realise the value of being alive. World leaders try to bring peace, but it is not an issue of institutions. It is human beings who start wars. Before a war begins outside, it starts inside.

The war on the inside is more dangerous because it is a fire that may never be put out. Wars are being fought because peace is not being found within, because it is not being allowed to unfold.

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

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Give Peace a Chance - Don't Go to War

Role of Taste

It is as important to realise that every food's unique combination of attributes will influence its taste and the action it causes in the body. With every taste having a different action – as detailed below. Astanga Hrdayam clearly describes the characteristics of each of the six tastes and problems that might be experienced from its habitual over-consumption. Most foods being a combination of two or more of these tastes e.g. coffee is bitter and pungent.

Sour

Comprised of the elements earth & fire, it increases pitta and kapha and is good for heart and digestion. Stimulates agni, moves inactive Vata energy down the pelvic cavity, sets the teeth on edge and increases salivation. Excess use may cause looseness and flabbiness, loss of strength, giddiness, itching, irritation, a whitish yellow pallor, herpetiform lesions, swelling thirsts and fever, and diseases arising from excess pitta and kapha.

Sweet

Related to earth & water, it mitigates pitta and vata, producing greater strength in the tissues and of value to the aged, wounded, emaciated and children. Universally liked, it often adheres to the inside of the mouth, giving a feeling of pleasure, contentment and comfort. Good for the complexion, hair, senses and ojas, it also increases breast milk and helps unite broke parts like bones. By its virtue it prolongs life and helps life activities. In excess however it may cause diseases arising from fat and excess kapha e.g. obesity, dyspepsia, unconsciousness, diabetes, enlargement of neck glands or malignant tumors.

Salt

The water & fire in salty taste increases pitta and kapha. It clears obstruction of channels and pores and increases the digestive activity and salivation. Also responsible for lubrication and sweating, it penetrates the tissues. An excess of it may cause baldness and graying of the hair, wrinkles, thirst, skin diseases, blood disorders, herpetiform leisons and loss of body strength

Pungent

Fire & air in pungent increases vata and pitta and mitigates kapha. Increases hunger, is digestive, causes irritation, brings secretion from the eyes, nose & mouth, and gives a burning sensation to the mouth. Dilating the channels and breaking up the hard masses. But an excess use of it may cause thirst, depletion of reproductive tissue and strength, fainting, contracture, tremors, pain in the waist and back, and other disorders related to excess of pitta and kapha.

Bitter

Air & space being its elements, it mitigates pitta and kapha. Drying up moisture from fat, muscles, faeces and urine. It cleans the mouth and destroys the perception of taste. It is said to cure anorexia, worms, bacteria, parasites, thirst, skin diseases, loss of consciousness, fever, nausea, burning sensation. But in excess, it increases vata, causing diseases of vata origin and depletion of tissues.

Astringent

Air & earth increases vata and mitigates increased pitta and kapha. It cleans the blood and causes healing of ulcers. Like bitter, it too dries up moisture from fat. It absorbs water, causing constipation and hindering digestion of undigested food. Its excess use causes stasis of food without digestion, flatulance, pain in the cardiac region, emaciation, loss of virility, obstruction of channels and constipation.

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

EARTH DEITIES - Asasaya (Ashanti), Bhumi (Sanskrit), Coatlicue (Nahuatl), Estanatlehi (Navajo), Gaia (Greek), Geb (Egypt), Geo (Greek), Jord (Norse), NuWa (Chinese), Tara (Tibetan). (NAD)

(See also: EARTH DEITIES , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Jose Arguelles

(1939 - ) New Age author whose book The Mayan Factor, published early 1987, argued that during a critical time (August 16-17 of that year) the prophecies of the Bible, Aztec and Mayan calendars indicated that the world would either begin a new age or be destroyed.

If 144,000 self-chosen people were "resonating" with peace during this important time, worldwide, though especially at the "power centers" like Mount Shasta, Arguelles believed the world could be saved from destruction. (see Harmonic Convergence).

He has a distinguished career as an educator, he taught at Princeton University, University of California, Evergreen State College, San Francisco State University, San Francisco Institute of Art, the Naropa Institute, the University of Colorado, and The Union Graduate School.

His pioneering books resulting from investigations into human whole systems include: Mandala (1972), A Psychophysical Aesthetic (1972), The Transformative Vision: Reflections on the Nature and History of Human Expression (1975) (1992), and, Earth Ascending: An illustrated Treatise on the Law Governing Whole Systems (1984, 1988). As one of the founders of Earth Day, 1970 (First Whole Earth Festival, Davis, California. 1970), Arguelles is a career activist for peace and the planetary transformation of consciousness.

With his wife and partner, Lloydine, they founded the Planet Art Network (1983), promoting the revival of the Nicholas Roerich Peace Pact and Banner of Peace (1935). Combining investigations of the Roerich Peace Pact with his lifetime study of the mathematics and prophesies of the Mayan Calendar.

(See also: Jose Arguelles , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Adamic Earth or Adam's Earth The "original matter" of alchemy; undifferentiated matter on our plane. Called the true oil of gold or the primal element in alchemy, "it is but one remove from the pure homogeneous element" (TG 6). It is the "next-door neighbor to the alkahest, and one of the most important secrets of the alchemists. . . . 'it would explain the eagles of the alchemists, and how the eagles' wings are clipped,' a secret that it took Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes) twenty years to learn" (IU 1:51).

(See also: Adamic Earth, Adam's Earth , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Reincarnation Reimbodiment; specifically reinfleshment, the repeated imbodiment of the reincarnating ego in vehicles of human flesh on this earth. The unexhausted desire for earth-life draws the ego back to this globe, where it gathers to itself the material for a reincarnation and thus is finally born from a human womb. The process is repeated almost numberless times until the evolution of the inspiriting monad has reached a stage when reincarnation is no longer required. The interval between successive incarnations may be roughly estimated at 100 times the length of the preceding earth-life -- a rule obviously subject to many exceptions.

(See also: Reincarnation , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Earth Changes

New Age term for the cataclysmic events predicted by Edgar Cayce and others to happen as the earth moves from the Piscean Age into the Aquarian Age.

(see Edgar Cayce,)

(See also: Earth Changes , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Adamic Earth (Alch.). Called the "true oil of gold" or the "primal element" in Alchemy. It is but one remove from the pure homogeneous element.

(See also: Adamic Earth , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

A Dictionary of Spiritual Terms. From Acupuncture to Zoroaster.

Please note that all words in grey, like "yoga", "enlightenment" or "kundalini" are hyperlinked to archives further explaining the term. At the corresponding archive you will also find articles related to the term.

A Theosophical definition of Yuga :

Yuga

(Sanskrit) A word meaning an "age," a period of time. A yuga is a period of mundane time, and four of these periods are usually enumerated in "divine years":

1. Krita or Satya Yuga. . . . . . . 4,000

Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .  400

Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . ..  . . . 4,800

2. Treta Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 3,000

Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . .  .  . 300

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 3,600

3. Dvapara Yuga. . . . . . . . .  . . 2,000

Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . .200

Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . ..  . 200

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2,400

4. Kali Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1,000

Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .  100

Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 1,200

TOTAL . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .  . . 12,000

This rendered in years of mortals equals:

4,800 x 360 = 1,728,000

3,600 x 360 = 1,296,000

2,400 x 360 = 864,000

1,200 x 360 = 432,000

. . . . . .Total 4,320,000

Of these four yugas, our present racial period is the fourth or kali yuga, often called the "iron age" or the "black age." It is stated to have commenced at the moment of Krishna's death, usually given as 3,102 years before the Christian era. There is a very important point of the teaching in connection with the yugas which must not be forgotten. It is the following: The four yugas as above outlined refer to what modern theosophical philosophy calls a root-race, although indeed a root-race from its individual beginning to its individual ending is about double the length of the composite yuga above set forth in columnar form. The racial yugas, however, overlap because each new great race is born at about the middle period of the parent race, although the individual length of any one race is as above stated. Thus it is that by the overlapping of the races, a race and its succeeding race may for a long time be contemporaneous on the face of the globe.

As the four yugas are a reflection in human history of what takes place in the evolution of the earth itself and of the planetary chain, therefore the same scheme of yugas applies also on a cosmic scale  - there exist the four series of satya yuga, treta yuga, dvapara yuga, and kali yuga, in the evolution of the earth, and on a still larger scale in the evolution of a planetary chain. Of course these cosmic yugas are very much longer than the racial yugas, but the same general scheme of 4, 3, 2 applies throughout. For further details of the teaching concerning the yugas, the student should consult H. P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, and the work by the present author, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy.

See also: Yuga , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

ELEMENTS -

1.the four alchemical elements once thought to make up the entire universe. These are Earth, Air, Fire and Water plus the fifth element of pure spirit in, of, and outside them all. Each Pagan tradition has their own directions, tools and correspondences for each of these. (CMM)

2. Earth, Air, Water and Fire including also Spirit/Akasha. Each has a direction within a circle or working: East-Air, South-Fire, West-Water, North-Earth, Center-Spirit/Akasha. (TRASB)

3. fundamental constituents of the material world, earth, air, fire, water and sometime ether. Substance that cannot be separated into different substances except by nuclear disintegration. Frequencies of energy found in all living things. Atoms and compounds, the orderly manifestation of subatomic particles into spirallic atomic structures. (NAD)

(See also: ELEMENTS , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Reincarnating Ego :

Reincarnating Ego

In the method of dividing the human principles into a trichotomy of an upper duad, an intermediate duad, and a lower triad  - or distributively spirit, soul, and body  - the second or intermediate duad, manas-kama, or the intermediate nature, is the ordinary seat of human consciousness, and itself is composed of two qualitative parts: an upper or aspiring part, which is commonly called the reincarnating ego or the higher manas, and a lower part attracted to material things, which is the focus of what expresses itself in the average man as the human ego, his everyday ordinary seat of consciousness.

When death occurs, the mortal and material portions sink into oblivion; while the reincarnating ego carries the best and noblest parts of the spiritual memory of the man that was into the devachan or heaven world of postmortem rest and recuperation, where the 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, constantly reviewing and improving upon in its own blissful imagination all the unfulfilled spiritual yearnings and longings of the life just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the entity now in the devachan.

But the monad above spoken of passes from sphere to sphere on its peregrinations from earth, carrying with it the reincarnating ego, or what we may for simplicity of expression call the earth-child, in its bosom, where this reincarnating ego is in its state of perfect bliss and peace, until the time comes when, having passed through all the invisible realms connected by chains of causation with our own planet, it slowly "descends" again through these higher intermediate spheres earthwards. Coincidently does the reincarnating ego slowly begin to reawaken to self-conscious activity. Gradually it feels, at first unconsciously to itself, the attraction earthwards, arising out of the karmic seeds of thought and emotion and impulse sown in the preceding life on earth and now beginning to awaken; and as these attractions grow stronger, in other words as the reincarnating ego awakens more fully, it finds itself under the domination of a strong psychomagnetic attraction drawing it to the earth-sphere.

The time finally comes when it is drawn strongly to the family on earth whose karmic attractions or karmic status or condition are the nearest to its own characteristics; and it then enters, or attaches itself to, by reason of the psychomagnetic attraction, the human seed which will grow into the body of the human being to be. Thus reincarnation takes place, and the reincarnating ego reawakens to life on earth in the body of a little child.

See also: Reincarnating Ego , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Demeter (Greek) (possibly from Doric da earth + meter mother)

The Earth-Mother; one of the great Olympian deities, in popular mythology specially associated with the earth and its products, patron of agriculture, goddess of law and order, and protector of marriage and the birth of offspring. As the grain goddess, counterpart of the Egyptian Isis, Roman Ceres, and corn mothers, corn maidens, and harvest goddesses of the various native cultures of the Americas today, and of the early Teutonic and Scandinavian races of central and northern Europe.

Popular legend describes Demeter as mother of Persephone, who while gathering flowers on the Nysian plain was seized by Hades and carried to the Underworld. Searching disconsolate for her lost child, Demeter came to the dwelling of Celeus at Eleusis, where she was hospitably received although her identity was unknown. On condition of being given the sole care of the king's son who was ill with fever, she remained and became the child's nurse. Each night she placed the child on a bed of living coals, but the mother, discovering this, snatched the child away in alarm.

Demeter then revealed herself as a goddess and, declaring that had she been left alone she would have made the child immortal, she relinquished her post in wrath. Before leaving Eleusis, however, she founded a mystical school or cult to keep alive certain otherwise secret teachings about human divinity and the life after death. The Eleusinian Mysteries, reputed to have sprung from this earlier effort, dealt particularly with the afterdeath states and the progress and experiences of the soul between earth lives.

The great Eleusinian divinities, as far as is known, were three: Demeter-Thesmophoros as goddess of law and order; Persephone-Kore the divine maid; and Iacchos the divine son (the divine man whom it was the object of the Mysteries to bring forth from the "tomb" of the human man). Probably because of her association with Persephone, Demeter was in one of her aspects a divinity of the underworld and was worshiped as such in Sparta and at Hermione at Argolis.

In the Orphic teachings Demeter is not only the earth goddess, but is also Demeter-Kore the divine maid. This aspect is twofold: as Persephone the Virgin-Queen of the Dead; and as the mortal maid Semele, mother of the mystic savior Dionysos, and later enthroned as Semele-Thyone (Semele the Inspiried). As both maid and mother she is the immortal wife of Zeus, and is also called the mother of Zeus, as an Orphic verse declares: "The goddess who was Rhea, when she bore Zeus became Demeter." In one of her aspects, Demeter is the one to whom, in the Orphic legend, is given the still beating heart of the murdered Zagreus-Dionysus.

Demeter belongs to the class of the kabiria (kabir, kabiri): "beneficent Entities who, symbolized in Prometheus, brought light to the world, and endowed humanity with intellect and reason" (SD 2:363), great beings to whom are credited the invention of the arts of peace -- letters and the alphabet, law, philosophy, science, art, architecture, music, spinning, weaving, and agriculture.

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