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ARTICLES RELATED TO Six lower realms

Six lower realms: Encyclopedia - Six lower realms

In traditional Mahayana Buddhist cosmology, the six lower realms are six of the ten spiritual realms; these six realms compose samsara. Six lower realms - Good realms. Note that the order of the realms may differ among different Buddhist traditions; for instance, some traditions place the asura realm second, before the human realm. Six lower realms - Deva realm. The deva realm is the realm of bliss and pride. The deva realm is sometimes also referred to as t ...

Including:

Six lower realms - Good realms

Six lower realms - Deva realm

Six lower realms - Human realm

Six lower realms - Asura realm

Six lower realms - Evil realms

Six lower realms - Hungry ghost realm

Six lower realms - Animal realm

Six lower realms - Hell realm

Six lower realms: Encyclopedia II - Six lower realms - Good realms Note that the order of the realms may differ among different Buddhist traditions; for instance, some traditions place the asura realm second, before the human realm. Six lower realms - Deva realm. The deva realm is the realm of bliss and pride. The deva realm is sometimes also referred to as the gods realm, because its inhabitants are so powerful, they resemble the gods of Greek or Roman mythology. However, while the devas may be referred to as gods, they are mortal, and are not omniscient, not omnipotent, not creators and not able to judge at death, so they are notabl ...

Including:

Bardo Thodol - English Translations

Bardo Thodol - See Also

Six lower realms: Encyclopedia II - Samsara - Cycle of rebirth

In most Indian philosophical traditions, including the orthodox Hindu and heterodox Buddhist and Jain systems, an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth is assumed as a fact of nature. These systems differ widely, however, in the terminology with which they describe the process and in the metaphysics they use in interpreting it. Most of these traditions, in their evolved forms, regard Saṃsāra negatively, as a fallen condition which is to be escaped. Some, such as Advaita Vedanta regard the world and Saṃsāric participation in it as fundamentally illusory. Some later adaptations of these tradit ...

(Sanskrit) A term which may be briefly defined to mean one of what in modern Occultism are called the seven forces of nature, of which six are manifest and the seventh unmanifest, or only partly manifest. Sakti in general may be described as universal energy, and is, as it were, the feminine aspect of fohat. In popular Hinduism the various saktis are the wives or consorts of the gods, in other words, the energies or active powers of the deities represented as feminine influences or energies.

These anthropomorphic definitions are unfortunate, because misleading. The saktis of nature are really the veils, or sheaths, or vehicular carriers, through which work the inner and ever-active energies. As substance and energy, or force and matter, are fundamentally one, as modern science in its researches has begun to discover, it becomes apparent that even these saktis or sheaths or veils are themselves energic to lower spheres or realms through which they themselves work.

The crown of the astral light, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, is the generalized sakti of universal nature in so far as our solar system is concerned.

See also: Sakti , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Six lower realms: Buddhist - Buddhism Dictionary on Four Pure Lands

Four Pure Lands

A classification by the Pure Land and T'ien T'ai schools of the pure realms subsumed under the Land of Amitabha Buddha, as described in the sutras.

They are:

i) the Land of Common Residence of Beings and Saints (Land Where Saints and Ordinary Beings Dwell Together), where all beings, from the six lower worlds (hells, hungry ghosts ...) to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, live together (further divided into two, the Common Residence Pure Land and Common Residence Impure Land);

ii) the Land of Expediency (Land of Expedient Liberation), inhabited by Arhats and lesser Bodhisattvas;

iii) the Land of Real Reward, inhabited by the highest Bodhisattvas;

iv) the Land of Eternally Quiescent Light, in which the Buddhas dwell. These distinctions are at the phenomenal level.

At the noumenon level, there is, of course, no difference among them.

(See also: Four Pure Lands, Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Six lower realms: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Paramita

Paramita (Sanskrit) [from param beyond + ita gone from the verbal root i to go]

Gone or crossed to the other shore; derivatively, virtue or perfection. The paramitas vary in number according to the Buddhist school: some quoting six, others seven or ten; but they are the glorious or transcendental virtues -- the keys to the portals of jnana (wisdom).

Blavatsky gives these seven keys as (VS 47-8):

1) dana "the key of charity and love immortal";

2) sila (good character), "the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action"; 3) kshanti, "patience sweet, that nought can ruffle";

3) viraga, "indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived";

4) virya (strength, power), "the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal TRUTH, out of the mire of lies terrestrial";

5) dhyana (profound spiritual-intellectual contemplation, with utter detachment from all objects of sense and of a lower mental character), human consciousness in the higher reaches of this state becomes purely buddhic, with the summit of the manas acting as vehicle for the retention of what the percipient consciousness experiences; once the golden gate of dhyana is opened, the pathway stretching thence leads towards the realm of "Sat eternal"; and

6) prajna (understanding, wisdom), that part of the mind that functions when active as the vehicle of the higher self; "the key to which makes of man a god, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis."

The six, seven, or ten paramitas have reference to the three fundamental grades of training in discipleship: six for the beginner, seven for the one who is more advanced, and ten which are practiced by the adept. A faithful following of these virtues is incumbent upon every disciple, and fidelity and perseverance in performance mark progress along the mystic way.

The other three paramitas, making ten, are adhishthana (inflexible courage) that goes forward to meet danger or difficulty; upeksha (discrimination) which seeks and finds the right way of applying the paramitas; and prabodha (awakened inner consciousness) or sambuddhi (complete or perfect illumination).

Six lower realms: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Sakti

Sakti (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sak to be powerful, energetic, have force]

Universal energy, the feminine aspect of fohat; one of the seven forces of nature, of which six are manifest and the seventh partly manifest. It is energy that proceeds through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the one that produces it. Popularly, the wives or consorts of the gods -- the energies or active powers of these deities represented as feminine influences.

"These anthropomorphic definitions are unfortunate, because misleading. The Saktis of Nature are really the veils, or sheaths, or vehicular carriers, through which work the inner and ever-active energies. As substance and energy, or force and matter, are fundamentally one, . . . it becomes apparent that even these Saktis, or sheaths, or veils, are themselves energic to lower spheres or realms through which they themselves work.

"The crown of the astral light, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, is the generalized Sakti of Universal Nature in so far as our solar system is concerned" (OG 150).

Sakti in another sense is soul-power, the mental-psychic energy of the god as of the adept. In the Mahabharata, Draupadi, the wife or sakti of the five Pandava brothers, represents a spiritual power they all possessed in common. In legends and tales of the ancient peoples, the wives of the great heroes mystically represent the aggregate of the saktis or spiritual powers that the heroes had individually attained.

Considering the saktis as more or less conscious forces in nature, gives a picture of not only the turbulent and ever-active movements in the lower planes of nature, but likewise the calm and stately measures of spiritual activity. It is common in the West to associate power, activity, energy, and force with masculine correlations; but this is quite arbitrary, and an impassionate viewing of nature will show it to be continuously moved by vehicular as well as inspiriting causes.

Cosmically sakti or the saktis originate in the summit of the astral light or akasa, which in one sense may be considered as not only the womb of the cosmic saktis, but as their playground and in another sense as the saktis collectively themselves. In man, sakti is the buddhi in its higher aspect, and the activities of the various pranas in the human constitution in its lower aspect. There is no essential distinction between any divinity and its consort, between Brahman and pradhana, Brahma and prakriti, or between parabrahman and mulaprakriti. Furthermore, all the saktis are either conscious entities in nature, or vital effluxes or emanations, cosmic fluids, with which nature is infused throughout.

The reason the occultist of all ages looks askance at the tantric practices, or the Tantras dealing largely with the saktis, is because these tantric books and practices are almost wholly occupied in relations and correlations both in nature and in man of the saktis in their lower aspect. The kundalini, for instance, is likewise born in the buddhi in man, but descending through the human constitution has its pranic or psychovital physical representations in the various chakras or vital centers of the human frame, and thus the kundalini is an example of sakti or of its fluidic effluxes in the lower portions of the human constitution.

The early Christians looked upon the Holy Spirit as of distinctly feminine characteristics, influence, or svabhava, as the center not only of vital but of spiritual and intellectual activity, whether in the universe or man, so that the Holy Spirit corresponds to a divine sakti. A notable instance in Hinduism is the Sakti or goddess Durga, having both a lofty or spiritual, and an inferior or distinctly material, function in nature, and therefore a beneficent as well as a terrible action therein -- the very name Durga meaning "terrible in action," or "terrible in going." And yet Durga is the consort or sakti of Siva, often called the Mahesvara (Great Lord); and the name of this goddess arises from the utterly impartial, infinitely just, and yet often simply terrific action of the forces in nature, particularly when karmically directed to works of regeneration, often called destruction. Cosmic operations or cosmic justice are often indeed to human vision terrible in their operation, which can never be set aside, stayed, or diverted. Hence Durga is often represented in iconography as surrounded with a necklace of skulls or by similar ghastly emblems -- a series of ideas which the pragmatic West misinterprets and consequently depicts as horrible and revolting.

(See also: Sakti, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Six lower realms: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Skandhas

Skandhas (Sanskrit) Bundles, groups of various attributes forming the compound constitution of the human being. They are the manifested qualities and attributes forming the human being on all six planes of Being, beneath the spiritual monad or atma-buddhi, making up the totality of the subjective and objective person.

They have to do with everything that is finite in the human being, and are therefore inapplicable to the relatively eternal and absolute. Every vibration of whatever kind, mental, emotional, or physical, that an individual has undergone or made, is derivative of and from one of the skandhas composing his constitution. Skandhas are the elements of limited existence.

The five skandhas of every human being are:

1) rupa (form), the material properties or attributes;

2) vedana (sensations, perceptions);

3) sanjna (consciousness, abstract ideas);

4) sanskara (action), tendencies both physical and mental;

5) vijnana (knowledge), mental and moral predispositions.

Two further, unnamed skandhas "are connected with, and productive of Sakkayaditthi, the 'heresy or delusion of individuality' and of Attavada 'the doctrine of Self,' both of which (in the case of the fifth principle the soul) lead to the maya of heresy and belief in the efficacy of vain rites and ceremonies; in prayers and intercession"; "The 'old being' is the sole parent -- father and mother at once -- of the 'new being.' It is the former who is the creator and fashioner, of the latter, in reality; and far more so in plain truth, than any father in flesh. And once that you have well mastered the meaning of Skandhas you will

See what I mean" (ML 111). The human skandhas are the causal activities which by their action and interaction attract the reincarnating ego back to earth-life. The exoteric skandhas have to do with objective man; the esoteric with inner and subjective man.

At death the seeds of causes sown which have not yet been realized remain latent in our inner principles as "psychological impulse-seeds" awaiting expression in future lives. The skandhas "unite at the birth of man and constitute his personality. After the death of the body the Skandhas are separated and so remain until the Reincarnating Ego on its downward path into physical incarnation gathers them together again around itself, and thus reforms the human constitution considered as a unity" (OG 158).

Similarly with suns and planets: at pralaya, the lower principles of such a cosmic body exist latent in space in a laya-condition while its spiritual principles are active in higher realms. "When a laya-center is fired into action by the touch of wills and consciousnesses on their downward way, becoming the imbodying life of a solar system, or of a planet of a solar system, the center manifests first on its highest plane, and later on its lower plane. The Skandhas are awakened into life one after another: first the highest ones, next the intermediate ones, and lastly the inferior ones, cosmically and qualitatively speaking" (ibid.).

The skandhas are likewise closely connected with the karmic pictures in the astral light, which also is the medium as well as the register of impressions.

(See also: Skandhas, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Six lower realms: Spiritual - Theosophy Dictionary on Zohar, Sepher haz-Zohar

Zohar, Sepher haz-Zohar (Hebrew) [from zohar light, splendor]

Book of the light; the principal work or compendium of the Qabbalists, forming with the Book of Creation (Sepher Yetsirah) the main canon of the Qabbalah. It is written largely in Chaldean interspersed with Hebrew, and is in the main a running commentary on the Pentateuch. Interwoven are a number of highly significant sections or books scattered apparently at random through the volumes: sometimes incorporated as parallel columns to the text, at other times as separate portions.

These auxiliary books, so casually appended to the text as we now have it, are considered by Qabbalists to be the chief contribution of the Zohar. The following form the bulk of the Zoharic writings outside of the commentary itself, as found in present editions, though in one or two editions a few additional fragments of minor importance are included:

1. Tosephta' (Additions or supplements);

2. Heichaloth (Mansions, Abodes) usually enumerated as seven, describing the structure of the upper and lower realms;

3. Sithrei Torah (Mysteries or Secrets of the Law [Pentateuch]) describing the evolution of the Sephiroth;

4. Midrash Han-Ne`elam (The Hidden Interpretation), deducing esoteric doctrine from the narratives in the Pentateuch;

5. Ra`ya' Meheimna' (The Faithful Shepherd), recording discussions between Moses the faithful shepherd, the prophet Elijah, and Rabbi Shim`on ben Yohai (the reputed compiler of the Zohar);

6. Razei deRazin (Secrets of Secrets), a treatise on physiognomy and higher psychology;

7. Saba' deMishpatim (The Aged in Decisions, Judgments), the Aged One or Scholar is Elijah who discourses with Yohai on the doctrine of metempsychosis;

8. Siphra' di-Tseni`utha' (The Book of the Mysteries), discourses on cosmogony and demonology;

9. Ha-'Idra' Rabba' Qaddisha' (The Great Holy Assembly), discourses of Rabbi Yohai to his disciples on the form of the deity and on pneumatology;

10. Yenoqa' (The Youth), discourses on the mysteries of ablutions by a young man of such high talent that he was thought to be of superhuman origin;

11. Ha-'Irda' Zuta' Qaddisha' (The Lesser Holy Assembly), discourses on the Sephiroth to six disciples.

The Zohar was compiled by Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iochai, and completed by his son Rabbi Eleazar, and his secretary Rabbi Abba. "But voluminous as is the work, and containing as it does the main points of the secret and oral tradition, it still does not embrace it all. It is well known that this venerable kabalist [Simeon] never imparted the most important points of his doctrine otherwise than orally, and to a very limited number of friends and disciples, including his only son. Therefore, without the final initiation into the Mercaba the study of the Kabala will be ever incomplete, . . . Since the death of Simeon Ben-Iochai this hidden doctrine has remained an inviolate secret for the outside worlds" (IU 2:348-9).

The Zohar contains the universal wisdom or theosophy of the ages. Nevertheless it "teaches practical occultism more than any other work on that subject; not as it is translated though, and commented upon by its various critics, but with the secret signs on its margins. These signs contain the hidden instructions, apart form the metaphysical interpretations and apparent absurdities . . ." (IU 2:350). The present "approximation of the Zohar was written by Moses de Leon in the 13th century. "Mistaken is he who accepts the Kabalistic works of to-day, and the interpretations of the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine Kabalistic lore of old! For no more to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the Kabala accessible to Europe and America, contain much more than 'ruins and fragments, much distorted remnants still of that primitive system which is the key to all religious systems' . . . The oldest system and the Chaldean Kabala were identical. The latest renderings of the Zohar are those of the Synagogue in the early centuries -- i.e., the Thorah, dogmatic and uncompromising" (SD 2:461-2).

The Zohar has been widely studied by European mystical and other scholars for centuries past, and many speculations have been made by these scholars as to its age, some affirming with perfect truth that the roots or origins of the Qabbalah go back into the very night of time and are probably to be traced to now unknown originals in ancient Chaldea, while others points out that in several places the Zohar mentions facts of history that have taken place in Europe after the beginning of the Christian era, such as the Crusades, and the mentioning of the Massoretic vowel points which came into use at the time of the Rabbi Mocha, 570 AD, the mention of a comet which can be proved by the context to have appeared in 1264, etc. Moses de Leon was probably the first to edit or give to the world the volume of the Zohar as we now have it considered as a whole. We thus have a work of progressive compilation, the form in which it has reached our hands showing the labor of several, if not many, minds since the beginning of the Christian era, but which nevertheless in its typically Chaldean thought and manner of envisioning religious and philosophical principles prove it to have come down from an unknown time in Chaldean history.

Six lower realms: Encyclopedia - Bardo

The Tibetan word Bardo means literally "intermediate state" - also translated as "transitional state" or "in-between state". In Sanskrit the concept has the name antarabhava. Used somewhat loosely, the term "bardo" refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration f ...

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