Biofeedback as a field has been growing since the late 1960s. This form of training and treatment uses monitoring instruments attached to the body to "feed back" to people information on the functioning of their bodies. In this way, people view information of which they are not normally aware, such as hand temperature, blood pressure, number and depth of breaths being taken, level of muscle tension in any target muscle, or the electrical activity of their brains. It has been established that, once people have more detailed access to information on what their bodies are doing, they are able to either consciously or subconsciously alter or control those functions.

Read more here: » Biofeedback and Neurofeedback: Your Brain and Neurofeedback - A Beginner's Manual

Meditation Experiences by Sarasvati Buhrman PhD - Part I

Sometime after 350 B.C. a great yogi sage wrote the "Yoga Sutra". This brief translation should wet your appetite. This describes the transformation of mind that will unfold over a course of sadhana (spiritual practice), focusing on the relationship between the mind and the object of meditation.

Read more here: » Meditation: Meditation Experiences According to the Ashtanga Yoga Tradition with Commentary on Patanjali's Yoga Sutra

In YOGA Tradition, Karma has a much deeper meaning, which, to a certain extent only, is related to the western idea of Destiny or Fate. In this vision, Karma is the accumulation of our past actions. These past actions (triggering actions) are causes which determine other actions (triggered reactions) in exact accordance with the charge of the corresponding past actions.

Read more here: » Karma Yoga: Karma, The Law of Action followed by Reaction

In the 60s, a communal riot shook a certain town. I was surprised, for it was a new settlement grown around a huge industry. The population was largely labourers and officials from all over India. There was no tradition of animosity between communities; they were united by a common existential necessity.

One winter evening, on a visit to the town, I asked my friends, "Where did so many violent people come from, all of a sudden?"

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

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Individual Will No Match for Mad Mobs

The Dolphin yoga position strengthens your upper body in preparation for the Headstand.

Read more here: » Yoga Positions: The Dolphin - Yoga Position

A dictionary with common spiritual words from Hinduism and Sanskrit. Also see these links: Hinduism, Spirituality, Enlightenment, Spiritual Dictionary and Hinduism Dictionary.

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

Brain and cranial nerves are the chief parts of the whole nervous system. It is a mass of nervous tissues made up of soft grey and white matter. It occupies the whole of cranium. Cranium is like the iron safe to keep up the treasure ‘brain’. It is surrounded by three membranes or Meninges, viz., (1) dura mater, the fibrous connective tissue by the side of the cranial bones; (2) pia mater, the connective tissue containing a network of blood vessels, which penetrates and nourishes all the parts of the brain; and (3) arachnoid, a very fine membrane around the brain. Below the arachnoid there is the space which contains the cerebro-spinal fluid that is intended to prevent any injury to the brain. The brain looks as if it is floating on this liquid.

Excerpt from the book Kundalini Yoga by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » The Brain and the chakras

Part III of III of Yoga-Kundalini Upanishad

The Yoga-Kundalini Upanishad is the eighty-sixth among the 108 Upanishads. It forms part of the Krishna Yajurveda. It deals with an exposition of Hatha and Lambika Yogas. It concludes with an account of the non-qualified Brahman. The Non-dual Brahman is the quest of all seekers.

From "Kundalini Yoga" by Sri Swami Sivananda

Read more here: » Kundalini Yoga: Yoga-Kundalini Upanishad, Part III

‘Neti’ exercise is intended for the purification of the nostrils. The nostrils must be kept always clean. Unclean nostrils will lead you to irregular breathing. Irregular breathing will make you sick.

Excerpt from the book Kundalini Yoga by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » Neti: Neti and Kundalini Yoga

 Kapala:

the skull

(See also:  Kapala , Body Mind and Soul)

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

Sitali Kumbhaka

30. Draw up the breath through the tongue with the hissing sound Sa. Retain it as before. Then slowly exhale through both the nostrils. This is called Sitali Kumbhaka.

From "Kundalini Yoga" by Sri Swami Sivananda

Read more here: » Yoga-Kundalini Upanishad: Sitali Kumbhaka

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

Brain-mind Used by theosophists for the astral mind of the personal ego, the pale and too often distorted reflection of the intellection of the reincarnating ego. It is, in fact, the representative in the physical world of kama-manas, mind conditioned by materiality.

The lower mind or psycho-nervous effluvia of the brain acts through the nervous ganglia in the kamic centers, such as the liver, stomach, and spleen, though the central ganglia of this nervous system are situated in the base of the skull. The brain, and with it the heart, however, are likewise the organs of spiritual and intellectual powers far higher than those represented by the merely human personality working through the brain-mind; hence the higher forms of thought, supersensuous, superconscious, correlate with the cerebral and cardiac centers.

The body in general and the brain in particular are compact of finer and grosser elements, the former responsive only to the breath of divine wisdom, out of reach of the winds from the passion-laden lower mind, whose function is to act on and arouse the grosser elements of the nervous system.

The brain, therefore, is a kind of reflector of thought-currents and emotional tides which arise in the kamic centers of the inner self, and are distributed through the nervous ganglia in the skull to the physical kamic reflection centers in the trunk. Thus we scarcely use at all the brain itself in the true sense, or at any rate only in its lowest aspects or functions; and it is only in rare moments that the brain tissues are suffused with the glory emanating directly from the higher nature and working through the pineal and pituitary glands in the skull and through the secret center in the heart.

(See also: Brain-mind , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

Chakra cakra (Sanskrit) Wheel; cycle; the horizon, as being circular or of a wheel-form; likewise certain pranic centers of the body.

"These physiological chakras, which are actually connected with the pranic circulations and ganglia of the Auric Egg, and therefore function in the physical body through the intermediary of the linga-sarira, or astral model-body, are located in different parts of the physical frame, reaching from the parts about the top of the skull to the parts about the pubis. . . . were this mystical knowledge broadcast, it would be sadly misused, leading not only in many cases to death or insanity, but to the violation of every moral instinct. Alone the high initiates, who as a matter of act have risen above the need of employing physiological chakras, can use them at will, and for holy purposes -- which in fact is something that they rarely, if indeed they ever do" (OG 26-7).

In exoteric works six chakras are named. De Purucker lists seven:

1)    muladhara, the parts about the pubis, ruled by Saturn;

2)    svadhisthana, the umbilical region, ruled by Mars;

3)    manipura, the pit of the stomach or epigastrium, ruled by Jupiter;

4)    anahata, the root of the nose, ruled by Venus;

5)    visuddha, the hollow between the frontal sinuses, ruled by Mercury;

6)    ajnakhya, the fontenelle or union of the coronal and sagittal sutures, ruled by the Moon; and

7)    sahasrara, the pineal gland in the skull, ruled by the Sun.

"The human body as a microcosm may be looked upon as containing every power or attribute or energy in the solar system. . . . all the seven (or twelve) logoic forces that originally emanate from the sun, and pass in and through the various sacred planets, are transmitted to us as human beings and directly to the physical body. Thus each one of these solar logoic forces has its corresponding focus or organ in the human body, and these are the chakras" (FSO 459).

(See also: Chakra, cakra , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

Pineal Gland, Conarium, or Epiphysis Cerebri A small organ in the brain with a fancied resemblance to a pine cone; technically called the epiphysis, as being an "upgrowth" from the embryonic tissues which later form part of the ventricular or hollow center of the brain, which space is continuous with the central canal of the spinal cord.

The pineal gland is described as a rounded, oblong body, about one-third of an inch long, of a deep reddish color, connected with the posterior part of the third ventricle, and intimately related to the optic thalami which physiologists find to be the organs of reception and condensation of the most sensitive and sensorial incitations from the periphery of the body.

Thus this organ is in central relation to the coordinating organs of all the senses and sensations, and to the thinking brain which perfects and coordinates ideas. Its purpose, however, remains a mystery to the medical profession. A standard anatomy says: "The ancients had a grotesque theory that the epiphysis is the favorite and peculiar abiding-place of the human soul. Modern morphologists have shown it to be the homologue of the third eye which some reptiles possess."

Blavatsky, repeating the ancient belief, says that this concealed third eye is the "seat of the highest and divinest consciousness in man -- his omniscient spiritual and all-embracing mind" (Key 121). She sketches the evolutionary history of this Deva Eye (SD 2:294 et seq) which was the only seeing organ in the beginning of the present human race, when the spiritual element in the then humanity reigned supreme over the as yet unawakened intellectual and psychic elements in the nature. Later on, as the ethereal and psychospiritual early races became self-conscious and physicalized, they used their spiritual and intellectual powers and faculties for selfish and sensual purposes. Meantime, the third eye withdrew, pari passu, into the central cavity of the developing brain. There it has remained until the present -- a symbol of that past spiritual vision which we will regain as we progress consciously along the upward arc of the evolutionary cycle. As to scientific evidence of a once active third eye of objective vision in animals, the Hatteria punctata, a lizard type found in New Zealand, is pointed out. This land, being a part well above the waters of the ancient continent Lemuria, the home of the third root-race, would be likely to retain some remnants of early types of the creatures which once existed when "the third eye was primarily, as in man, the only seeing organ" (SD 2:299).

An ancient commentary says that by the middle of the fourth root-race, the "inner vision had to be awakened and acquired by artificial stimuli, the process of which was known to the old sages" (SD 2:294). Even now, the adept, with trained will, can arouse this ordinarily quiescent organ into activity, so that he becomes illuminated throughout and by it with a vision of infinitude. It was this sublime vision which overwhelmed Arjuna when Krishna, acting as the Logos within, gave the aspiring human monad the divine eye (BG ch 11). The analogy of enlarged vision holds good, in degree, when the spiritual teacher arouses the chela's latent ability to see for himself hidden truth.

Descartes reasoned that the seat of the soul was the pineal gland which, he said, though it was tied to the brain, was yet capable of being put into a kind of swinging motion by the animal spirits that cross the cavities of the skull. He was right about the cavities being open during life, and about the organ's response in oscillations; and what the ancients called animal spirits, is otherwise expressed in theosophical literature as circulating currents of the nerve-aura of occultism.

In the adept, the third eye is aroused by aspiration and concentration of his human will upon the attainment of union of his mental with his spiritual faculties. By this conscious effort, he rises to the higher powers of will which, in its ordinary automatic and emotional phases, is usually diffused throughout the activities of the animal body and brain, by way of the main organ of will, the pituitary gland, the psychic associate of the pineal center. The x-ray may yet reveal ethereal emanations of nerve-aura in the human brain, as living evidence of the interrelation of mind and matter. Meantime, concrete examples of such interaction are found in the pineal gland, in the form of "brain sand," or (acervulus cerebri).

See also EYE OF SIVA; THIRD EYE; CYCLOPES; DEVAKSHA; TRI-LOCHANA

(See also: Pineal Gland, Conarium, Epiphysis Cerebri , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

Cromagnon Man A highly advanced type of prehistoric mankind existing before the Neolithic Period, supposed to be separated into several distinct races. The first remains discovered consisted of four skeletons found in a rock shelter at Cromagnon in southwestern France in 1868; but many specimens have been found since which show that the Cromagnons were widely spread in Europe -- although they are not found outside of Europe -- in the last third of the Glacial Age, at the close of the Mousterian and during the Aurignacian period.

The Cromagnons were a magnificent race with splendid physical development. The capacity of the skull is 1550 cm cubed while that of the Neanderthal skull is only 1200 cm cubed. "If I had to seek for the people which most nearly represent the Cromagnon blood in the modern world, I would seek them among the tall races of the Punjab in India" (Keith, The Antiquity of Man). Some of the Cromagnons said to show a marked African negroid strain are found on the Mediterranean coast on the frontiers of France and Italy.

The attempt to fit the Cromagnons into a graduated scale leading back to the immediately preceding European race, the more brutal Neanderthals, has not been successful, and the progress of anthropological discovery renders such attempts ever more difficult. The problem becomes more complicated the farther back we go; the earliest remains of humanity yet found show distinctions of racial type as marked, or more so, as those of contemporary races.

Science has not yet solved the problem of the origin of the Cromagnons. Blavatsky hints that they came indirectly from Atlantis by way of Africa: "The earliest Palaeolithic men in Europe -- about whose origin Ethnology is silent, and whose very characteristics are but imperfectly known . . . were of pure Atlantean and 'Africo'-Atlantean stocks. . . . As to the African tribes -- themselves diverging offshoots of Atlanteans modified by climate and conditions -- they crossed into Europe over the peninsula which made the Mediterranean an inland sea. Fine races were many of these European cave-men; the Cro-Magnon, for instance. But, as was to be expected, progress is almost non-existent through the whole of the vast period allotted by Science to the Chipped Stone-Age. The cyclic impulse downwards weighs heavily on the stocks thus transplanted -- the incubus of the Atlantean Karma is upon them" (SD 2:740-1).

(See also: Cromagnon Man , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

SYMBOL

A symbol, whose meaning is unconscious or indirect, must not be confused with a sign, which is obviously a resemblance or conscious pointer. A symbol represents something that can't be defined or expressed. Otherwise it is an allegory or a sign. A phallic symbol, for instance, is not a symbol because we know what it stands for. Nor is a skull a "symbol" of death. Nor are the cross (standing for Christ), a heart (standing for love) or a bird (standing for freedom) anything more than signs, i.e., equivalents. Examples of true symbols might be the Holy Grail, the Philosopher's Stone, or even a personalized mandala, since we have no (conscious) idea what these things represent. Most certainly of all, Christ and Buddha are symbols of human perfection. A.B. says their purpose is pedagogical, preserving encapsulizations of truth and developing intuition. Moreover, every symbol can be read in many different ways. And there are four kinds of symbols (physical, astral, numerical, geometrical). There are also symbolic "books" of the "Masters," the words of which are interpreted by color, their position above or below the line, their connection to one another and by their "key," that is, right to left (greater cycles), left to right (lesser cycles), from above down (involution), from below up (evolution).

Postmodern man tends to believe that symbols generate meanings in infinite concentric waves from their centers. Indeed, symbols come to have different meanings in different times and places. For example, the triskelion, tripes, or "three-legs of man," originally meant the 3 ages riddled by the Sphinx or three faces of the Hindu Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva). But in Europe, according to Goblet d'Aviella (The Migration of Symbols) it eventually came to acquire purely political meanings, standing, amongst other things, for the "Land of the Three Capes," i.e., Sicily, for Norwegian royalty and for The Isle of Man. In our time many once very fertile and numinous symbols are all but dead.

Says Carlyle: "In a symbol lies concealment or revelation." And further, "It is in and through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works, and has his being."

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

ANTI-CHRISTIAN STRATEGIES

"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years," said Abraham Lincoln, a century and a half ago. "What are the fruits of Christianity? Bigotry, superstition and persecution," said President James Madison some two centuries ago. "For seventeen hundred years the Christian sect has done nothing but harm" said Voltaire 230 years ago. Quotations of this sort by the wisest of thinkers and leaders, extending as they do back through the millennia, should serve as a skull and crossbones over the door of the church.

Xtianity, obviously, is the worst of all worlds (with the possible exception of Islam). On the one hand, it exhorts its believers to live vicariously, to reach for nothing, inasmuch as Christ has done all the work of redemption for them. In this way it thoroughly discourages individualism, especially in its most creative aspects. On the other hand, it pledges salvation to the dregs of mankind - the lowest ranks of morality - to the mindless and the vicious. Thus it espouses egoism at the cheapest level.

Arrogant Xtians are fond of saying, "You can't have it both ways." By that they mean that you can't accept the interconnectedness of everything and at the same time believe in the separation of the individual. But Xtianity, founded as it is on the veneration of stupidity, has always confused paradox with inconsistency.

The wise man leans neither on belief nor on non-belief. The whole issue of God/Not-God is unnecessarily dichotomous, as is our analysis of morality/immorality. The Either-Or world is dangerous. Indeed, it is so dangerous that even to proceed in a line midway between this Scylla and Charybdis is to hem oneself in by unwanted limitations. "God" is a word that has yet to be defined and even the certainty of divine singularity vs. plurality is debatable. It is a common conceit that monotheism is a step is a step forward from polytheism and one which some serious metaphysicians are finally beginning to question. The initiate may declare that there is but one "God", but he means that in a quite different sense from the common notion of exclusivity.

Monotheism (see MONOLATRY) always leads to monolithism. We are one another only be differing from one another. It is uniqueness that makes us divine. It is quite possible to deny the existence of "God" without elevating man (in his present condition) to apotheosis. There is, for example, the teaching of Pantheism, in which all plants, animals and, in fact, matter itself, are all equally God. This is also one God.

Anti-christians are admittedly defensive about "Salvation through Christ". First of all, non-Christians insist, there can be no salvation without one's own immolation - not the crucifiction of some 2000 year old personage of legend. Secondly, Christ is a type of supraconsciousness already potential, but undeveloped, in all men and women. It must not be confused with the self-pitying figures depicted in stained glass windows. The Christ level of consciousness is, in fact, certainly not available to the average, plastic-coated, postmodern illiterate, whose vision scarcely extends beyond that of an insect and whose tenacity is no firmer than a worm's pull. Therefore, to make salvation available to all men on a believe-as-you-go basis is idiotic. And finally, the Galilean mode is only one of many modes of consciousness - most of which are a lot more interesting. (See 666.)

(See also: ANTI-CHRISTIAN STRATEGIES , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

Phrenology

Character analysis by studying the shape and surface of the skull. Also known as Cranioscopy and Bumpology, it is based on the study of the structure of the human skull to determine a person's character and/or mental capacity.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

AIDS (GENETIC WAR)

Since some believe that the virus is man-made, specifically designed to attack the most important alternative to procreation (male homosexuality), we cannot see it as responding to psychic suggestions to change its habits. If it were a naturally occurring life-form, it would be automatically part of the evolutionary stream and quite attuned, even ready for "mental" implementation of punctuated morphogenesis. We are beginning to see that this is indeed a "war" and learning at the same time that war at every level derives from a basic misunderstanding of human social interaction and hardly occurs at all within the biosphere itself

Evolution is neither a battle for the survival of the fittest, nor is it the chaotic result of random mutations. We now know that the origin of species proceeds in cooperation with and as part of the conscious continuum of all life. Evolution, when the time is right, moves by quantum leaps to sudden new stages, as if by common consent. It's only through human interference that some single, bizarre weed winds up choking everything else out. In the highly unnatural case of the HIV virus, what we are seeing is a device specifically designed to pollute all the streams of life at once (generation, nurture and maintenance). It is a quite human-like biological tyrant bent on specific genocide

In studying Sheldrake's "punctuated evolution" we suddenly understand why our intuition has already told us that the HIV virus was man-made (or engineered). As a naturally-occurring genetic leap, HIV is too fantastic to consider. Even if abrupt evolutionary leaps were the rule, not the exception, and even if evolution itself is part of the omni-conscious sphere of synchronous reality-alternation, it's still too giant a biodic jump for a virus suddenly to decide to take up residence within the human DNA factory merely in order to bypass that annoying (to it!) "somatic individuation" phase. Viruses don't become that sophisticated that quickly. It's the equivalent of the next generation of the human race suddenly to be born with fully-functioning wings sprouting out of everyone's shoulder blades.

The theory, or course, amongst bio-metaphysicians, is that the body is merely a highly practical mechanism for the housing and passing on of the genetic code. One of the body's more clever defenses is the brain, designed to repair itself, built to last at least twice as long as any other organ and encased in a hard, nearly impregnable shell (the skull). But the cerebrum isn't just a defender of the body. It has, so to speak, a mind of its own and its own goals preempt the instincts. What's more, cerebral goals conflict with the goals of the genes. AIDS and the whole contemporary world of the 90's - with its pollution, rain forest depletions, baby boom, etc. - constitute the casualties of a genetic war directed specifically against the cortex, occurring on a deeply subnatural level of the global collective unconscious

As there are mental and spiritual planes, so there are various material planes. The "common consent" of the whole earth consciousness has been shattered in our time and the result is an insane interplanary (sic) war between the goals of the DNA and the goals of the human brain. Ideally, these goals should coincide, as with planned eugenics. Instead, we have mindless acquiescence to the genetic urge to procreate at any cost - regardless of the hideous consequences of overpopulation. Genetic consciousness knows only bodily success. It has no way of perceiving the larger context which is visible to the cortex: pollution, famine, despair, etc.

(See also: AIDS, GENETIC WAR , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary

papa: (Sanskrit) "Wickedness; sin, crime."

1)    Bad or evil.

2)    Wrongful action.

3)    Demerit earned through wrongdoing.

Papa includes all forms of wrongdoing, from the simplest infraction to the most heinous crime, such as premeditated murder. Each act of papa carries its karmic consequence, karmaphala, "fruit of action," for which scriptures delineate specific penance for expiation.

Those who have awakened psychic sight can clearly see papa in the inner subconscious aura as a colorful, sticky, astral substance. Papa is seen as dark unrelated colors, whereas its counterpart, punya, is seen as pastels. The color arrangements are not unlike modern art murals. Papa colors can produce disease, depression, loneliness and such, but can be dissolved through penance (prayashchitta), austerity (tapas) and good deeds (sukritya).

There are specific consequences, karmaphala, "fruit of action," that result from each type of transgression of dharma. For example, a man who steals from his neighbors creates a cosmic debt which may be repaid later by having his own possessions taken away.

There are also specific penances, prayashchitta, that can be performed for atonement and the accrual of punya (merit) to balance out the papa, the negative karma of the wrongful act. Such disciplines are provided in the various Dharma Shastras and prescribed by knowing preceptors, panditas, shastris, swamis, yogis and village elders according to the varna and education of the individual. For example, the Laws of Manu give several types of penance for the crime of murder, including

1)    making a forest hut and subsisting there on alms for twelve years and using a human skull as one's emblem; or

2)    walking 100 yojanas (900 miles), while reciting the Vedas, eating little and remaining continent.

A contemporary example: if a man fells a large healthy tree, he may atone by planting ten trees and ensuring that at least one grows to replace it. The degree of papa accrued from an action depends on various factors, including the karma, dharma and spiritual advancement of the individual, the intent or motivation, as well as the time and place of the action (for example, unvirtuous deeds carry great demerit when performed in holy places). Papa is the opposite of punya (merit, virtue).

See: evil, karma, penance, punya, sin.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Skull Dictionary