Psychic development / unfoldment

Psychic development / unfoldment: New Age Spiritual Dictionary on Psychic development / unfoldment

psychic development / unfoldment

The process of activating one's psychic ability

Psychic development / unfoldment: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Samapatti

Samapatti (Sanskrit) [from sam-a-pad to progress to perfect fulfillment from the verbal root pad to go, progress]

In Buddhism, a subdivision of the fourth stage of abstract meditation (there being eight samapattis); "perfect concentration" in the raja yoga system of occult training, a state of intellectual, spiritual, and psychic unfolding in which meditation becomes vision, and there ensues perfect indifference to things of this world. Said to be the final degree of development, upon reaching which the possibility of entering into samadhi is attained.

(See also: Samapatti, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Psychic development / unfoldment: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Fifth Round

Fifth Round The fifth circling of the monadic hosts around the globes of a planetary chain. As mankind is now in the fifth root-race of the fourth round, on the fourth or globe D of the seven manifested globes of the earth-chain, the period before the beginning of the fifth round is hundreds of millions of years in the future. Nevertheless a few fifth rounders have been able to manifest on our globe as forerunners, the most evolved individuals of the human life-wave. Sixth rounders, however, are excessively rare.

Every round brings about a new evolutionary development on every one of the globes of the earth-chain, and a fundamental change in the physical, psychic, mental, intellectual, and spiritual constitution of man. The manas principle (the fifth or intellectual principle) will be fully developed at the end of the fifth round, and corresponding aspects of the human constitution will be evolved in minor degree during the sixth and seventh root-races of the fourth round. Although the vast majority of human beings in that future round will be far more evolved than is the present-day or fourth round mankind, nevertheless during the fifth round on this globe will occur what theosophical literature calls the moment of choice. At that time the monads which will continue to rise on the ascending arc must have reached a certain point in their unfolding evolution enabling them successfully to pursue their upward evolutionary journey towards spirit. Those monads who shall not have reached this evolutionary status, and who therefore are not able to continue the upward arc, must perforce wait for the future manvantara, a loss in evolutionary opportunity and in time of many hundreds of millions of years.

Every round also brings forth in evolutionary development a cosmic element-principle, and the fifth round will bring into manifestation the fifth cosmic element, aether, which will at that time even be semi-manifest in the globe's atmosphere. Then will permeability characterize the matter of our globe so that the then dense forms will appear to human perceptions somewhat as of the nature of a close and dense fog. The fifth element will then be the dominating influence of the fifth round.

(See also: Fifth Round, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Psychic development / unfoldment: Hindu - Hinduism Dictionary on Siddhi

siddhi: (Sanskrit) "Power, accomplishment; perfection."

Extraordinary powers of the soul, developed through consistent meditation and deliberate, grueling, often uncomfortable tapas, or awakened naturally through spiritual maturity and yogic sadhana.

Through the repeated experience of Self Realization, siddhis naturally unfold according to the needs of the individual. Before Self Realization, the use or development of siddhis is among the greatest obstacles on the path because it cultivates ahamkara, I-ness, and militates against the attainment of prapatti, complete submission to the will of God, Gods and guru. Six siddhis in particular are considered primary obstacles to samadhi:

- clairvoyance (adarsha siddhi or divya siddhi),

- clairaudience (shravana siddhi or divyashravana),

- divination (pratibha siddhi),

- super-feeling (vedana siddhi) and

- super-taste (asvadana siddhi),

- supersmell (varta siddhi).

The eight classical siddhis are:

1) anima: to be as small as an atom;

2) mahima: to become infinitely large;

3) laghima: super-lightness, levitation;

4) prapti: pervasiveness, extension, to be anywhere at will;

5) prakamya: fulfillment of desires;

6) vashitva: control of natural forces;

7) ishititva: supremacy over nature;

8) kama-avasayitva: complete satisfaction.

The supreme siddhi (parasiddhi) is realization of the Self, Parasiva.

See: ahamkara, prapatti, siddha yoga, psychic ability.

(See also: Siddhi, Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Psychic development / unfoldment: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Mammals

Mammals The highest class of animals produced from man, himself a mammal, in this fourth round. The evolutionary plan, as regards the passing of life-waves around the planetary chain entails that so far as the human and animal kingdoms are concerned, in the fourth round man shall appear before the mammals on globe D of the earth-chain. The other stocks of the animal kingdom were at the beginning of this round represented by their various sishtas, as in fact man himself was. In each round after the first, each one of the kingdoms or life-waves on entering a globe of the chain, does so in its regular serial order.

The man of the second and early third root-race, though distinctly belonging to the human kingdom, was different from the truly human man of today, as much in his inner psychical apparatus as in his astral-vital-physical body. This body was then much more astral or tenuous than that of today, composed of life-atoms of all kinds, seeking manifestation and finding a temporary habitat in the human body, which thus becomes their host. These atoms were continuously entering and leaving the body, just as happens in the human body today, but with this difference -- that the atoms which the human body throws off today are far more stamped with the person's own svabhava (individual, personal characteristics) than formerly, and they are in consequence strongly and continuously attracted back to their human host, who is often their source.

But in those early races the various monadic entities, which in their evolution were far inferior to the human monad, and each of which expressed itself through a life-atom, were in consequence far more free from the human dominating, almost tyrannical control, for then man had not yet acquired his present power of strongly impressing his own stamp on these life-atoms. The result was that in these early times each of these evolving monads with its life-atom vehicle on this plane could, when thrown off from the human entity, become the origin of a line of an animal stock, according to its own innate characteristics and potentialities. Thus were from time to time through the geologic ages generated the various mammalian stocks or phyla, each different according to the nature of the monad-germ thus thrown off, many of which were then able to pursue a course of evolutionary differentiation and specialization along its own particular line -- each one unfolding from within its characteristics, expressing themselves in form and shape.

Thus it is seen how man precedes the mammals in the fourth round; but this does not apply to the non-mammalian animals, which were nevertheless evolved from the human stock in more or less the same manner during the preceding third and second rounds.

Occult biology also teaches that every monad which now has unfolded itself into the human stage, did at some remote cosmic period pass through all the lower kingdoms of nature as they then existed; even as the monads now finding expression in the elemental, mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are undergoing the same process of evolutionary unfolding from within outwards and therefore are on their way upwards to a state equivalent in characteristic powers to what the human now has reached.

"The mammalia, whose first traces are discovered in the marsupials of the Triassic rocks of the Secondary Period, were evolved from purely astral progenitors contemporary with the Second Race. They are thus post-Human, and, consequently, it is easy to account for the general resemblance between their embryonic stages and those of Man, who necessarily embraces in himself and epitomizes in his development the features of the group he originated" (SD 2:684; cf MIE ch 12).

(See also: Mammals, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Psychic development / unfoldment: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Hypnotism

Hypnotism (from Greek hypnos sleep)

One name for an artificially produced somnambulistic, entranced, or psychologized state. A better word for the procedure is psychologization, hypnotism being but one phase of the general subject which includes fascination, multiple or double personality, some religious ecstasies, and different methods of psychic healing. All these things operate in and upon the important intermediate part between our spiritual and physical-astral self and usually affect the latter self very strongly. This intermediate part is the human soul of the reincarnating entity -- the man or woman we see and know. As this includes the psychomental-emotional powers and faculties, it is intimately related to intelligence and sanity, to emotions and conduct, and to health.

Theosophy holds that mesmerism is not hypnotism. In hypnotism the subject's intermediate nature is disjoined from its natural relations with his physical and astral body and put out of the control of the person himself, becoming susceptible to other influences. This process is a reversal of all evolutionary currents which in every being unfold and manifest from conscious centers within. Such a reversal is dangerous and far-reaching in its results, spiritually, mentally, morally, psychically, and physically.

Moreover, the hypnotizer endangers himself by such intimate linking with the lower mind and feeling of his subject -- whose spiritual nature is always beyond another's control. From the operator's entrance into, and operation of, the subject's physico-astral body, there results a mutual infection with each other's faulty human nature. Whoever thus changes the forces and trend of another's life, obligates himself to share karmically in those changes to the end.

Psychologizing a person to heal him of disease or rid him of some injurious habit is also harmful. Bodily ills, in themselves, are the cleansing processes by which past inner wrongs of thought and feeling, having reached the material plane, can be worked out of the system. As for karmic faults and failings in character, the person restrained from them by hypnotism or psychologization merely loses a timely opportunity to develop his spiritual will by which alone every human being must consciously work out his own destiny. The apparent cure of disease, or of a weakness, means that these have been driven inwards, dammed back, inevitably to reappear with accumulated force at a less opportune time in this or a future life. Nor does the practice of self-hypnotization or self-psychologization prevent a disjunction of the person's intermediate nature from his immortal self. The results finally appear as mental disease resulting in crime or as physical disease which is the minor evil.

Suggestion has a dual power: for good or for ill, the results depending upon both the motive and the method of its use. The conscious and unconscious use of it for self-interest is unfortunately met with everywhere; as a part of modern training in high-power salesmanship, it pervades the methods popular in both commercial and professional circles. However, suggestion has a power of noble appeal to the intelligence and spiritual will of others whose better nature responds to a good example, impersonal teaching, and pure and helpful thoughts and feelings. Hypnotism and other such practices are dangerous because they so often fall into black magic or sorcery.

Psychic development / unfoldment: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Hyperion

Hypnotism (from Greek hypnos sleep)

One name for an artificially produced somnambulistic, entranced, or psychologized state. A better word for the procedure is psychologization, hypnotism being but one phase of the general subject which includes fascination, multiple or double personality, some religious ecstasies, and different methods of psychic healing. All these things operate in and upon the important intermediate part between our spiritual and physical-astral self and usually affect the latter self very strongly. This intermediate part is the human soul of the reincarnating entity -- the man or woman we see and know. As this includes the psychomental-emotional powers and faculties, it is intimately related to intelligence and sanity, to emotions and conduct, and to health.

Theosophy holds that mesmerism is not hypnotism. In hypnotism the subject's intermediate nature is disjoined from its natural relations with his physical and astral body and put out of the control of the person himself, becoming susceptible to other influences. This process is a reversal of all evolutionary currents which in every being unfold and manifest from conscious centers within. Such a reversal is dangerous and far-reaching in its results, spiritually, mentally, morally, psychically, and physically.

Moreover, the hypnotizer endangers himself by such intimate linking with the lower mind and feeling of his subject -- whose spiritual nature is always beyond another's control. From the operator's entrance into, and operation of, the subject's physico-astral body, there results a mutual infection with each other's faulty human nature. Whoever thus changes the forces and trend of another's life, obligates himself to share karmically in those changes to the end.

Psychologizing a person to heal him of disease or rid him of some injurious habit is also harmful. Bodily ills, in themselves, are the cleansing processes by which past inner wrongs of thought and feeling, having reached the material plane, can be worked out of the system. As for karmic faults and failings in character, the person restrained from them by hypnotism or psychologization merely loses a timely opportunity to develop his spiritual will by which alone every human being must consciously work out his own destiny. The apparent cure of disease, or of a weakness, means that these have been driven inwards, dammed back, inevitably to reappear with accumulated force at a less opportune time in this or a future life. Nor does the practice of self-hypnotization or self-psychologization prevent a disjunction of the person's intermediate nature from his immortal self. The results finally appear as mental disease resulting in crime or as physical disease which is the minor evil.

Suggestion has a dual power: for good or for ill, the results depending upon both the motive and the method of its use. The conscious and unconscious use of it for self-interest is unfortunately met with everywhere; as a part of modern training in high-power salesmanship, it pervades the methods popular in both commercial and professional circles. However, suggestion has a power of noble appeal to the intelligence and spiritual will of others whose better nature responds to a good example, impersonal teaching, and pure and helpful thoughts and feelings. Hypnotism and other such practices are dangerous because they so often fall into black magic or sorcery.

Psychic development / unfoldment: Dreams Interpretation Dictionary - Child

Child

And Childhood Recollections

{1} If the child in your dream is you as a child, the significance of the dream may have to do with a childhood experience. But don't be too ready to understand it this way {see Childhood Recollections at bottom}.

{2} The child may be a symbol of your true self, that which is essentially you and which you are capable of unfolding. That fact that your real self is represented by a child suggests that your true self is a beautiful unspoilt product of Nature; that it is worthy of unreserved love; and that it needs the nourishment of your love if it is to grow and unfold all its loveliness.

{3} If the child has some divine aura {e.g. if it is the Christ-child}, waht is symbolized is as in {2} above. The aura represents the transcendent nature of the self: it is much more than your conscious ego or your present image of yourself; it holds together the opposites that are within you {e.g. conscious and unconscious aspects, "head" - intellect and "heart" - intuitiveness and compassionate giving, extroversion and introversion, masculine and feminine}, and it is your ultimate goal and fulfillment.

{4} The child may represent {the possibility of} a new beginning, a new development in your psyche - a new attitude to life, a new set of values, a new balance of your psychic forces, a new reconcilation of previously conflicting forces. The child in you is the growing-point in you.

{5} There is a child in all of us - our emotional self - that often needs reassurance, to be told that all is well and there is no cause for fear, or anger, or guilt, and that love makes all things good and dissolves all pain. At the same time the child sometimes needs to be chided and corrected if it is eventually to - as it should - grow up.

(Source: Myths - Dreams - Symbols)

Child, Childhood Recollections, Christ-child, Aura, New beginning, New development, Emotional self, Fear, Anger, Guilt

Psychic development / unfoldment: Dreams Interpretation Dictionary - Child

Child

And Childhood Recollections

{1} If the child in your dream is you as a child, the significance of the dream may have to do with a childhood experience. But don't be too ready to understand it this way {see Childhood Recollections at bottom}.

{2} The child may be a symbol of your true self, that which is essentially you and which you are capable of unfolding. That fact that your real self is represented by a child suggests that your true self is a beautiful unspoilt product of Nature; that it is worthy of unreserved love; and that it needs the nourishment of your love if it is to grow and unfold all its loveliness.

{3} If the child has some divine aura {e.g. if it is the Christ-child}, waht is symbolized is as in {2} above. The aura represents the transcendent nature of the self: it is much more than your conscious ego or your present image of yourself; it holds together the opposites that are within you {e.g. conscious and unconscious aspects, "head" - intellect and "heart" - intuitiveness and compassionate giving, extroversion and introversion, masculine and feminine}, and it is your ultimate goal and fulfillment.

{4} The child may represent {the possibility of} a new beginning, a new development in your psyche - a new attitude to life, a new set of values, a new balance of your psychic forces, a new reconcilation of previously conflicting forces. The child in you is the growing-point in you.

{5} There is a child in all of us - our emotional self - that often needs reassurance, to be told that all is well and there is no cause for fear, or anger, or guilt, and that love makes all things good and dissolves all pain. At the same time the child sometimes needs to be chided and corrected if it is eventually to - as it should - grow up.

Childhood Recollections

{1} Many dreams repeat or allude to childhhood experiences and impressions. Nearly all such dreams have a therapeutic purpose, giving us a clearer view of ourselves, perhaps showing us some attitude or pattern of behaviour that has been with us since childhood, and perhaps, even showing us the original cause of it.

Unfulfilled instinctual desires provide the energy for many of our dreams, and the fact that an instinctive desire remains unfulfilled may be connected with the traumatic experience in childhood. That experience has probably been repressed because it was traumatic - causing guilt, anxiety, fear of punishment. See Repression Your dreams may, therefore, be helping you to uncover the source of these blockages which inhibit the free flow of the natural forces within you.

{2} Recurring dreams may represent soem psychic disturbance or problem that orginated in chilhood. Here are some examples:

Dream of being naked may sometimes represent recollections of, and perhaps longing for, the paradise of childhood when one walked around unclothed without embarrassment. {Sometimes these dreams, as Freud said, express a deisre for someone of the opposite sex to present himself/herself in the nude, and stem from sexual frustration}.

Dreams of flying or falling may derive from childhood enjoyment of swings and see-saws. They may express straightforward yearnings for the remembered joy of childhood, but they may also reflect one's problematic adult life. A problem is not a thing; rather, it is a relationship - for example, a relationship of conflict either between your external circumstances and your inner wishes {in which case the solution consists in either removing yourself from the circumstances or modifying your wishes} or between one part of your psyche and another {in which case the solution is to integrate the part that has been neglected}.

Dreams of failure stem from childhood fears of disapproval from parents. However, the fact that your dreams contain these recollections suggests that you have programmed yourself for anxiety. If so, begin by loving the child that is still within you: reassure it, tell it that everything is all right and that there is no such thing as failure where there is love.

{3} Dreams which contain recollections of yourself as a free and happy child may indicate a desire to find your true self. The child is then a symbol of the complete and permanent inner freedom and joy which are enjoyed only when you have become acquainted with all the forces within you - both conscious and unconscious - and have established harmonious relationships among them.

{4} The child may represent the primitive psyche {see Archetypes}which your conscious ego needs to get acquainted if wholeness is to be achieved. This primitive psyche is the mind of humankind in its infancy, before the development of self-consciousness and reasoning. This original awarenes is stil within us, but buried in the unconscious.

Reference: Eric Ackroyd

(Source: Myths - Dreams - Symbols)