Bhaumika Pralaya, Bhaumika Manvantara (Sanskrit) (from bhumi earth, land from the verbal root bhu to become, grow)

The terrestrial or planetary dissolution or manifestation. The bhaumika pralaya is similar to the naimittika pralaya (occasional pralaya) or Night of Brahma. When the last round of a planetary chain has been entered upon, the highest or first globe (A), followed by all the others in succession to the last, instead of entering upon a certain time of rest or obscuration, as in the previous rounds, begins to die out. T

he planetary dissolution or pralaya is then at hand, and when the last hour of that pralaya has struck, each globe has to transfer its life and energy to a new laya-center, to another globe, whereupon begins the bhaumika manvantara, the great life cycle of this new globe, the reimbodiment of the inner constitution or life essence of the former now dead and decaying globe.

(See also: Bhaumika Pralaya, Bhaumika Manvantara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Brain The anatomy of the brain is very complex, and the organ as a whole can be considered under two main aspects:

1)    in relation to consciousness, thought, and memory; and

2)    in relation to functional activities stimulated by nerve currents to the various organs, muscles, etc.

It is in reference to consciousness that Blavatsky states that "Occultism tells us that every atom, like the monad of Leibnitz, is a little universe in itself; and that every organ and cell in the human body is endowed with a brain of its own, with memory, therefore, experience and discriminative powers" (Studies in Occultism 100; BCW 12:134).

Pirogoff, Liebig, and others are quoted in support of the view that memory is related to the bodily organs in general and not wholly to the brain. The brain is the registering organ of memory, not memory itself. The memories of terrestrial experiences -- those pertaining to the lower mind -- arise in the bodily organs pertaining to it, and are transmitted to the structure of the brain, where they are registered in the kama-manasic consciousness.

But the finer particles of the brain cannot be so reached, for the brain in this sense is the organ of a higher noetic mind. The higher mind does not act directly on the bodily organs, but through the mediation of the lower mind. Thus it is the personal ego "catches occasional glimpses of that which is beyond the senses of man, and transmits them to certain brain cells (unknown to science in their functions), thus making of man a Seer, a soothsayer, and a prophet . . ." (Studies in Occultism 89; BCW 12:367). The brain and heart are special organs through which the higher mind acting through the personal mind can stimulate the finer particles of the body to a representation of spiritual ideas.

More particularly the brain may be described as the organ of the lower manasic activities through the manasic fluid flowing forth from the inner constitution; whereas the heart is the organ -- as yet only slightly evolved to its high purposes -- for the buddhic or buddhi-manasic parts of the invisible human constitution. Thus when the brain is trained to receive the inflow of the current arising in the higher portion of the fluid which bathes the heart, then the individual lives for the time at least in the highest portions of his constitution, and temporarily becomes a demigod on earth.

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

B  - The second letter in almost all the alphabets, also the second in the Hebrew. Its symbol is a house, the form of Beth, the letter itself indicating a dwelling, a shed or a shelter. "As a compound of a root, it is constantly used for the purpose of showing that it had to do with stone; when stones at Beth-el are set up, for instance. The Hebrew value as a numeral is two. Joined with its predecessor, it forms the word Ab, the root of ‘father’, Master, one in authority, and it has the Kabalistical distinction of being the first letter in the Sacred Volume of the Law. The divine name connected with this letter is "Bakhour." (R. M. [Cyclop.]

(See also: B - Letter B , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

B’ne Alhim or Beni Elohim (Hebrew, Jewish). "Sons of God ", literally or more correctly "Sons of the gods", as Elohim is the plural of Eloah. A group of angelic powers referable by analogy to the Sephira Hod.

[w. w. w.]

(See also: B’ne Alhim, Beni Elohim , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Blavatsky, H. P.

(See also: Blavatsky, H , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Formation. See SEPHER YETZIRAH

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

Ayurvedic nutrition (Ayurvedic diet): Nutritional phase of Ayurveda. It involves eating according to

(a)           one's body type and

(b)          the season.

The activity of the doshas - three bodily humors, dynamic forces, or spirits that possess - determines one's body type. In Ayurveda, body types number seven, eight, or ten, and seasons traditionally number six. Each two-month season corresponds to a dosha; for example, the two seasons that correspond to the dosha named Pitta (see Raktamoksha) constitute the period of mid-March through mid-July. But some proponents enumerate three seasons: summer (when pitta predominates), autumn, and winter (the season of kapha); or Vata season (fall and winter), Kapha season (spring), and Pitta season (summer).

According to Ayurvedic theory, one should lessen one's intake of foods that increase (aggravate) the ascendant dosha.

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

Brahma-Vishnu-Siva. See TRIMURTI

(See also: Brahma-Vishnu-Siva , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Blood Rites Ceremonies, covenants, and observances in which blood is used as part of the rites or performances.

"The arcane doctrine teaches that the 'blood' rites are as old as the Third-Root race, being established in their final form by the Fourth Parent race in commemoration of the separation of androgynous mankind, their forefathers, into males and females" (BCW 8:251).

Whatever sacred meaning may have entered into this primary memorial of the ethereal forms and forces of androgynous humanity becoming separate, physicalized, warm-blooded bodies, has been forgotten, misunderstood, or perverted in the exoteric rites which have come down to us.

In the ancient Mysteries and in esoteric teachings of the great religions, references to partaking of flesh and blood are purely symbolic figures of speech, the mystical idea being that of partaking of wisdom and gaining understanding through union with the divinity whose name was used, such union being achieved during initiation, the communicant thereby acquiring spiritual strength and nobler life in common with the initiator.

The antithesis of these lofty ideas underlies the widespread prevalence of blood rites. In fact, the many blood ceremonials which mark and mar the records of so many peoples are often gross, cruel, and perverted, violating the sacredness of life by offering animal and human sacrifices. Several groups regard blood as one of the essential elements used in their numerous forms of initiations, oblations, invocations to ancestors and to spirits of various kinds.

Their fixed belief that the demons or spirits invoked by these ceremonies are harmful if not propitiated, but will be gratified and nourished by the immaterial essence, savor, or fumes of the foods, alcohols, and blood offerings is not without some basis of fact; for the earth-bound kama-rupic entities and astral elementaries are attracted by, and do abstract the impalpable kama-pranic life-force from, the fumes and emanations of such offerings.

These beliefs are consistent with much in the tribal customs and rites which attracts and revivifies evil entities in their own astral atmosphere. Customs like poison ordeals for so-called witches, and evil use of nature forces for injuring or destroying personal enemies, added to frequent evocations, make a vicious circle of cause and effect.

(See also: Blood Rites , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Buddhi (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root budh to awaken, enlighten, know)

The spiritual soul, the faculty of discriminating, the channel through which streams divine inspiration from the atman to the ego, and therefore that faculty which enables us to discern between good and evil -- spiritual conscience. The qualities of the buddhic principle when awakened are higher judgment, instant understanding, discrimination, intuition, love that has no bounds, and consequent universal forgiveness.

In the theosophical scheme, it is the sixth principle counting upwards in the human constitution: the vehicle of pure, universal spirit, hence an inseparable garment or vehicle of atman. In its essence of the highest plane of akasa or alaya, buddhi stands in the same relation to atman as, on the cosmic scale, mulaprakriti does to parabrahman.

Buddhi uses manas as its garment, and in the former are likewise stored the fruitages of the many incarnations on earth; hence buddhi is often called both the seed and flower of manas. Buddhi is truly the center of spiritual consciousness and therefore its qualities are enduring. The purer and higher part of manas must awaken, by rising to it, this essential energy that inherently resides in buddhi so that the latter may become active in a person's life. Buddha and Christ are examples of sages who had become human imbodiments of the usually latent qualities of buddhi. Buddhi becomes more or less conscious on this plane by the flowerings it draws from manas after every incarnation of the ego. "Buddhi would remain only an impersonal spirit without this element which it borrows from the human soul, which conditions and makes of it, in this illusive Universe, as it were something separate from the universal soul for the whole period of the cycle of incarnation" (Key 159-60).

"No purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, -- or the over-soul, -- has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha)" (SD 1:17).

In the human constitution buddhi is a ray from the cosmic principle mahabuddhi or adi-buddhi, a synonym for alaya, pradhana, or the Second Logos, while akasa in its higher reaches is identic with alaya.

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

Breathing Exercises. See HATHA YOGA; PRANAYAMA

(See also: Breathing Exercises , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

panchakarma (Pancha Karma therapy, rejuvenation therapy, Ayurveda): Ayurvedic group of five purificatory steps or elimination therapies. Panchakarma comprises:

(a)  emesis therapy (therapeutic vomiting);

(b)  purgation therapy - evacuation of the bowels with a laxative;

(c)  errhine therapy (nasal insufflation therapy) - intranasal application of decongestants such as medicated oils, powdered herbs, and ghee (fat derived from butter of cow or buffalo origin);

(d)  oily enema therapy; and

(e)  decoction (watery) enema therapy. Some Ayurvedists regard the two types of enema therapy as one step and bloodletting therapy (Raktamoksha) as the fifth.

See: Ayurveda

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

‚handogya Upanishad: (Sanskrit) One of the major Upanishads, it consists of eight chapters of the ‚handogya Brahmana of the Sama Veda. It teaches the origin and significance of Aum, the importance of the Sama Veda, the Self, meditation and life after death. See: Upanishad.

(See also: ‚handogya Upanishad , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Darwin's theory: Theory of evolution developed by Charles Darwin (18091882) stating that plant and animal species develop or evolve from earlier forms due to hereditary transmission of variations that enhance the organism's adaptability and chances of survival.

See: evolution of the soul, nonhuman birth.

(See also: Darwin's theory , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Bhagavad-Gita (Sanskrit) (from bhagavat illustrious, sacred, holy, lord (one of Krishna's titles) + gita song)

The noble song, the Lord's song; a portion of the Bhagavad-Gita Parvan, one subsection of the Bhishma Parvan, itself one of the principle sections of the Mahabharata. The Bhagavad-Gita consists of a dialogue in which Krishna and Arjuna have a discussion upon the highest spiritual philosophy. Krishna in this instance is the inner instructor or monitor, the higher self, advising the human self or Arjuna.

(See also: Bhagavad-Gita , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Nature Cure (Nature Care): Progenitor of naturopathy. Nature Cure is a variation of self-healing whose most important measures are fasting and rest. Originally, Nature Cure was a hydropathy-centered natural lifestyle.

Its principle is:

(a)           that all disease, barring accidents and the consequences of hostile surroundings, is due to violations of nature's laws, and

(b)           that, therefore, true healing consists in a return to natural habits.

(See also: Nature Cure , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

transformation-oriented bodywork (transformational bodywork): Combination of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual processes related to energetic balancing (see energy balancing), psychotherapy, spiritual counseling, and touch therapy. Transformation-oriented bodywork descends from bioenergetics, massage, the personal/spiritual growth movement, and Reichian Therapy. its fundamental principles include the following. (a) Constricted muscles block energy in the body. (b) Constriction shows up as pettiness. (c) The Highest Ideal lies in the realm of Divinity, the Source of both life and meaning for humans and the earth.

(See also: Transformation-oriented bodywork , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Prana (Sanskrit) [from pra before + the verbal root an to breathe, live]

In theosophy, the breath of life; the third principle in the ascending scale of the sevenfold human constitution. This life or prana works on, in, and around us, pulsating unceasingly during the term of physical existence. Prana is "the radiating force or Energy of Atma -- as the Universal Life and the One Self, -- Its lower or rather (in its effects) more physical, because manifesting, aspect. Prana or Life permeates the whole being of the objective Universe; and is called a 'principle' only because it is an indispensable factor and the deus ex machina of the living man" (Key 176).

In working upon the physical body, prana automatically uses the linga-sarira (model-body) as its vehicle of expression during earth-life. Prana may be said to be the psychoelectric veil or field manifesting in the individual as vitality. The life-atoms of prana fly instantly back, at the moment of physical dissolution, to the natural pranic reservoirs of the planet.

Further, occultism teaches that "(a) the life-atoms of our (Prana) life-principle are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best impregnated with the life-principle (an independent, eternal, conscious factor) are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity, and partially are drawn once more together and become the animating principle of the new body in every new incarnation of the Monads. Because (b), as the individual Soul is even the same, so are the atoms of the lower principles (body, its astral, or life double, etc.), drawn as they are by affinity and Karmic law always to the same individuality in a series of various bodies, etc. . . ." (SD 2:671-2).

In Sanskrit it refers to the life currents or vital fluids, variously numbered as three, five, seven, twelve, and thirteen. The five life-winds mentioned are samana, vyana, prana, apana, and udana. In this classification prana represents the expirational breath.

Jiva is sometimes used similarly to prana, but strictly prana means outbreathing and jiva means life per se. There is a universal or cosmic jiva or life principle, just as there are innumerable hosts of individualized jivas, which are the atoms of the former, drops in the ocean of cosmic life. These individualized jivas are relatively eternal, and correspond exactly to the term monad. Jiva, without qualification, is of general application; when considered as individualized, these jivas are used in the sense of individual monads; contrariwise, prana is applied to the life-fluid or jivic aura when manifesting in the lower triad of the human constitution as prana-lingasarira-sthulasarira. Hence Blavatsky said that jiva becomes prana when the child is born and begins to breathe.

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

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

stri dharma: (Sanskrit) "Woman's duty."

Traditional conduct, observances, vocational and spiritual patterns which bring spiritual fulfillment and societal stability. Characterized by modesty, quiet strength, religiousness, dignity and nurturing of family. Notably, she is most needed and irreplaceable as the maker of the home and the educator of their children as noble citizens of tomorrow.

See: grihastha dharma.

(See also: Stri dharma , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

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