Spiritual Development Dictionary

tai chi (tai chi chuan, Tai Ji, tai ji chuan, Tai Ji Juan, tai ji quan, Taiqi): A variation of self-healing. Tai chi is an ancient, yoga-like Chinese system of ballet-like exercises designed for health, self-defense, and spiritual development.

Practicing tai chi facilitates the flow of chi (life energy) through the body by dissolving blockages both within the body and between the body and the environment. Traditional tai chi involves about 108 to 128 postures, including repetitions. The difficulty lies in concatenating the postures into circular movements. Quan means boxing.

(See also: Tai chi , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

IIP Consciousness Development Program: System developed by author Waldo Vierra, M.D., who founded the International Institute of Projectiology (IIP) in 1988 in Brazil. IIP defines projectiology as the science that studies the out-of-body experience as a tool for achieving self-awareness.

The program involves training in the management of bioenergy. potential benefits include: access to other planes of reality, amplification of the intellect, elimination of the fear of death, increase of psychic abilities, recall of past life experiences, and self-healing.

(See also: Consciousness Development Program , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Buddha

Lit., the Awakened One; one who through aeons of spiritual development has attained Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi.

This epithet usually refers to Sakyamuni Buddha, who lived and taught in India some 2,600 years ago.

 (See also: Buddha , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Dictionary of Karma Terminology. From "A Sanskrit English Dictionary", by Sir Monier Monier-Williams.

Chinese medicine (Traditional Chinese Medicine, TCM): Ancient holistic system whose basics include herbology, nutrition, and the concepts of acupuncture meridians, the Five Elements (Five Phases), and yin and yang.

Traditional Chinese Medicine theory posits both Organs (the Triple Burner, for example) and Substances (such as Shen, or Spirit) for which scientific evidence is absent. Variations and hybrids of Chinese medicine include Korean medicine, Tibetan medicine, and Vietnamese traditional medicine.

Chinese medicine probably originated about 2,000 years ago, but it became dogmatic and stagnated for centuries; overall its development has been slow. It probably stems from shamanism. The basis of Chinese medicine is Taoism, a religion according to which spirits (shen) inhabit the human body and take care of its functions. The foundational text of Chinese medicine - known as the Classic of Internal Medicine, the Huangdi Neijing, the Inner Classic, the Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor, the Neiching, the Nei Jing, The Yellow Emperor's Classic, The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, and the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon - was completed by the first century C.E.

(See also: Chinese medicine , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Dream Interpretation Hanging

To dream of a hanging means that you are in the process of important development. If you dream of committing suicide by hanging, it is a warning that other people take advantage of you. If you take part in hanging somebody else, do not take your decisions irrationally and hastily. If you see a hanging laundry, your situation will change for the better.

Source: Dream-Land, http://www.dream-land.info

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Hanging , Meaning of Dreams about Hanging , Dream Interpretation Hanging )

NEW AGE -

1. mixing metaphysical practices with a structured religion. (TRASB)

2. movement of emerging planetary consciousness devoted to making Earth a healthier, happen and more peaceful place to live based on respect for humanity’s diverse traditional way of life in harmony with the environment.

3. holistic community in general, including practitioners of yoga, meditation, natural foods, spiritual development, humanistic psychology, environmental and peace activism, psychic arts and sciences and many other approaches and disciplines.

4. Aquarius Age, coming era of peace and spiritual understanding.

5. age of group interplay, group idealism and group consciousness (Bailey)

6. an added dimension to our daily, ordinary living, a sense of empowerment and enthusiasm arising from the presence of the unexpected in our lives. (David Spangler).

7. waking up from our somnambulistic existence, turning the lights an ‘inside’ and letting live fill its place. (Swami Virato)

8. a major and unprecendened cultural transformation. (Diane Eisler) (NAD)

(See also: NEW AGE , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

culture: Development or refinement of intellect, emotions, interests, manners, and tastes.

The ideals, customs, skills and arts of a people or group that are transmitted from one generation to another. Culture is refined living that arises in a peaceful, stable society. Hindu culture arises directly out of worship in the temples. The music, the dance, the art, the subtleties of mannerism and interraction between people all have their source in the humble devotion to the Lord, living in the higher, spiritual nature, grounded in the security of the immortal Self within.

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

Dalai Lama

"Exalted Ocean", spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, now in exile in India; 14th and current Dalai is Gejong Tenzin Gyatsho, 1935-

(See also: Dalai Lama , Body Mind and Soul)

ethics

The code or philosophy we develop and adopt that protects personal integrity, that path of rightness for peace of mind and established harmony between inner and outer

(See also: Ethics , Body Mind and Soul)

mysticism: Spirituality; the pursuit of direct spiritual or religious experience. Spiritual discipline aimed at union or communion with Ultimate Reality or God through deep meditation or trance-like contemplation. From the Greek mystikos, "of mysteries."

Characterized by the belief that Truth transcends intellectual processes and must be attained through transcendent means.

See: mysticism, occultism, clairaudient, clairvoyance, psychic, trance.psychic abilities, siddhi.

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

aromatherapy

The art of healing and wellness using essential oils and oil blends. Depending on the remedy, application may be internal, external or as an inhalant

(See also: Aromatherapy , Body Mind and Soul)

Evolution (from Latin evolutio unrolling, opening)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cosmic

(from Greek) Universe as a whole

(See also: Cosmic , Body Mind and Soul)

Treatise on the Mind Aspiring for Enlightenment, The

(Jpn.: Bodai-shin-ron; Chin.: P'u-t'i-hsin-lun)

A work attributed to Nagarjuna (c. 150-250) and translated into Chinese in the eighth century by Pu-k'ung (Skt Amoghavajra). Another account attributes the work itself to Pu-k'ung. No Sanskrit version is extant. The Treatise on the Mind Aspiring for Enlightenment teaches the important Buddhist concept of aspiration for enlightenment and encourages the development of a mind that seeks Buddhahood. It defines three aspects of a mind that aspires for enlightenment, from the standpoint of Esoteric Buddhism: (1) great compassion to save all living beings, (2) great wisdom to know what sutra is supreme, and (3) meditation. The work also explains various kinds of contemplation put forth in Esoteric Buddhism. Kobo, the founder of the Japanese True Word (Shingon) school, valued this work, and it was widely studied in his school.

(See also: Treatise on the Mind Aspiring for Enlightenment , Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment Dictionary)

Evolution. The development of higher orders of animals from lower. As said in Isis Unveiled: "Modern Science holds but to a one-sided physical evolution, prudently avoiding and ignoring the higher or spiritual evolution, which would force our contemporaries to confess the superiority of the ancient philosophers and psychologists over themselves.

The ancient sages, ascending to the UNKNOWABLE, made their starting- point from the first manifestation of the unseen, the unavoidable, and, from a strictly logical reasoning, the absolutely necessary creative Being, the Demiurgos of the universe.

Evolution began with them from pure spirit, which descending lower and lower down, assumed at last a visible and comprehensible form, and became matter. Arrived at this point, they speculated in the Darwinian method, but on a far more large and comprehensive basis." (See "Emanation".)

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

Buddhahood

(Jpn.: bukkai)

The state of awakening that a Buddha has attained. The ultimate goal of Buddhist practice and the highest of the Ten Worlds. The word enlightenment is often used synonymously with Buddhahood. Buddhahood is regarded as a state of perfect freedom, in which one is awakened to the eternal and ultimate truth that is the reality of all things. This supreme state of life is characterized by boundless wisdom and infinite compassion. The Lotus Sutra reveals that Buddhahood is a potential in the lives of all beings.

See: attainment of Buddhahood

(See also: Buddhahood , Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment Dictionary)

Affirmation

Affirmations are positive statements that can be used to change the way you think about yourself and your health. Since the unconscious cannot tell the difference between a real or imagined idea, it responds to whatever suggestions you give it, eventually helping to create the reality that matches your most predominant beliefs, attitudes, and thoughts. By repeating positive affirmations each time a negative, self-defeating thought comes to mind, you can retrain your mind and learn to feel more confident, as well as improve your overall health. Over time, old, limited thoughts and mental patterns that contributed to anxiety, depression, or stress will lose their charge and eventually stop arising altogether.

 Using affirmations does not mean suppressing any thought that is not "good", however, Instead, affirmations are used a reshaping tool that you can call upon to rid yourself of thoughts that serve no positive purpose. For example, if your are prone to headaches and your thoughts keep informing you that you haven't had a headache in a while and are therefore due for one, instead of giving in and feeding such thoughts, you can overcome them by using an affirmation, such as "I am headache free and I deserve to stay that way." Initially, this may seem to be silly or an attempt to fool yourself, but if you pay attention and keep repeating the affirmation, before long you will stay it and mean it and the results you expect will follow.

 Affirmations can be used in any area of your life. To be most effective, choose one or two affirmations that feel most comfortable and memorize them, so that you can say them whenever a negative thought enters your mind. You might also consider mentally repeating your affirmation 10-20 times once or twice a day.

Useful affirmations include:

1. I am healthy, relaxed, and free of pain and disease
2. I love myself, and I deserve to feel healthy and alive
3. I approve of myself, and I'm safe to be who I am
4. Every day in every way, I am getting better and better
5. I am in the flow of life, and I am grateful for the gift of being alive
6. My life is my own and I easily resolve my conflicts

(See also: Affirmation , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Seven The fundamental number of manifestation, frequently found in the different cosmogonies as well as in many religious dogmas and observances of the different ancient peoples.

Although ten was called one of the perfect numbers by the Pythagoreans, seven was unique in their series of numbers because it has all the "perfection of the Unit -- the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade can beget or produce it" (SD 2:582). Seven is the number of the manifested universe, while ten or twelve is the number of the unmanifested universe.

Pythagoras taught that seven was composed of the numbers three and four, explaining that "on the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: 'Father-Mother-Son'; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane" (ibid.). Further, seven was called by the Pythogoreans the vehicle of life for it consisted of body and spirit: the body was held to consist of four principal elements, while the spirit was in manifestation triple, comprising the monad, intellect or essential reason, and mind.

There are innumerable instances of sevening -- the seven days of the week, the seven colors of the spectrum, the seven notes of the musical scale -- while special emphasis is placed upon the seven human and cosmic principles; the seven senses (five senses now in manifestation and two more to be attained in the future through evolutionary unfolding); the seven cosmic elements; the seven root-races and seven subraces; the seven kingdoms, human and below; the seven rounds; the seven lokas and talas; the seven manifested globes of the planetary chain; the seven sacred planets; the seven racial buddhas; the seven dhyani-bodhisattvas and -buddhas; the seven Logoi; etc.

Man as well as nature is called saptaparna (seven-leaved plant), symbolized by the triangle above the square {illust}. While the senary was applied to man in all ranges from the physical to the spiritual, when completed by the atman, thus making the septenary, the latter signified the entire range of the constitution, whether of man or nature, crowned by the immortal spirit.

In Hindu literature the number seven continually appears: the saptarshis (the seven sages), the seven superior and inferior worlds, the seven hosts of deities, the seven holy cities, the seven holy islands, seas, or mountains, the seven deserts, the seven sacred trees, etc. In Greece seven was often connected with the gods and goddesses: Mars had seven attendants, seven was sacred to Pallas Athene and to Phoebus Apollo -- the latter with his seven-stringed lyre playing hymns to septenary nature as well as to the seven-rayed sun; Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, etc.

Apart from mythological considerations, in physical life manifestations of the number seven occur continuously: "if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the Kingdoms of the Animal, mammalia and man -- why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development?" (SD 2:623n).

Seven is indeed the sacred number of life, and with the circle and the cross it forms a triad of primordial symbols of the ancient wisdom.

(See also: Seven , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Christianity

Major world religion whose development was begun by Plato 300 BC in the School of Philosphers in Athens. It was more fully developed in the fourth century AD when the Emperor Constantine established a universal (Catholic) church. At this time, the belief that Jesus the Nazarite was the promised Messiah or Christ of Israel was accepted, along with a set of books, known as the New Testament. (See Christianity)

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