lekhaprartha havana: (Sanskrit) "Written-prayer-burning rite."

A coined term for the ancient practice of sending written prayers to the Gods by burning them in a sanctified fire in a temple or shrine. Alternately this rite can be performed at other appropriate sites, with four persons sitting around a fire and chanting to create a temporary temple. Prayers can be written in any language, but should be clearly legible, in black ink on white paper. The devas have provided a special script, called Tyaf, especially for this purpose.

(See also: Lekhaprartha havana , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Bija (Sanskrit) Sometimes vija. Seed or life-germ, whether of animals or plants; esoterically the original or causal source of the urge of life to express itself. "Whether it be a kosmos or universe, or the reappearance of god, deva, man, animal, plant, or mineral, or, indeed, elemental, the seed or life-germ from and out of which any one of these arises is technically called Bija, and the reference here is almost as much to the life-germ or vehicle itself, as it is to the self-urge for manifestation working through the seed or life-germ. Mystically and psychologically, the appearance of an Avatara, for instance, is due to an impulse arising in Maha-Siva, or in Maha-Vishnu (according to circumstances), to manifest a portion of the divine essence, . . . Or again, when from the chela is born the Initiate during the dread trials of initiation, the newly-arisen Master is said to have been born from the mystic Bija or Seed within his own being" (OG 18).

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

ENZYME THERAPY: a form of therapy that employs supplements of plant and animal enzymes to improve digestive function and other conditions. During digestion, the bodyÕs own digestive enzymes are not the only ones at work; the enzymes present in raw fruits and vegetables also contribute to the breakdown of food in the stomach.

 Enzyme therapy advocates supplementation to reduce the work that the body has to do, and because plant enzymes are destroyed in cooking. Since enzymes canÕt be synthetically manufactured, supplements are derived from plants or from animal tissues. Some practitioners inject liquid enzymes to treat cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Enzyme supplements are available over the counter, singly or in combination, in capsule, tablet, powder, and liquid form.

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

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

(ca. 1877-1949)

Russian-born spiritual teacher and a major influence on twentieth-century alternative spirituality. He is best known for the community of disciples, which included well-known literary figures, that he established in Fontainebleau, France, in the 1920s.

His basic teaching was that human beings are asleep and need to be awakened, so that instead of acting merely out of mechanical habit they can truly control their lives.

Gurdjieff strove to awaken his pupils through seemingly erratic demands, rapid changes of activity or circumstance, sacred dance, and self-observation. Some groups in the Gurdjieff tradition still operate. His early life reads like a collection of tales from the Arabian Nights. Born in Alexandropol, Russia, followers began to organize around him in 1913. He is considered by some to have been the greatest mystical teacher of all times.

(See also: George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Water Lily In the West equivalent to the Eastern symbol of the lotus, especially in the Greek and Latin Churches. It particularly signifies spiritual productions or manifestations, thus the Archangel Gabriel is sometimes represented as appearing before the Virgin Mary bearing a lily or a bunch of water lilies. "This spray typifying fire and water, or the idea of creation and generation, symbolizes precisely the same idea as the lotus in the hand of the Bodhisat who announces to Maha-Maya, Gautama's mother, the birth of the world's Saviour, Buddha. Thus also, Osiris and Horus were represented by the Egyptians constantly in association with the lotus-flower . . ." (SD 1:379).

Just as the water lily or lotus rises out of the mud through the more ethereal water into the still more ethereal air, permeated by the sun, so does the individual follow the same progression of developing spirituality from the world of matter upwards through the astral light into the world of spirit illuminated by the divine sun as master of life.

(See also: Water Lily , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Tempter In general, the human mind, whether reacting to outside impulsions or impressions, or from within its own relatively small and uninspired powers; it has been commonly typified by the dragon, Satan, Zeus, etc. "Zeus is represented as a serpent -- the intellectual tempter of man -- which, nevertheless, begets in the course of cyclic evolution the 'Man-Saviour,' the solar Bacchus or 'Dionysus,' more than a man" (SD 2:419-20). Indeed, often it is our higher nature which "tempts" us upwards by calling forth latent or inner powers which, once evoked, are the ladder by which we climb. Thus our tempter is also our redeemer. The esoteric teaching of the tempting of humankind by awakening in its light of intellect has been materialized into a sensual temptation by a Devil in the Garden of Eden; and in the Bible, an evolutionary phase has been theologically degraded into a sin. The astral light is also spoken of as the tempter, especially by Eliphas Levi.

Temptation in its better sense is trial, probation, and testing, such as a candidate for knowledge must necessarily incur. In its worse sense, temptation is the evocation of action in and from the human mind and emotions, either by outside impacts, or because of the undeveloped characteristics of the mind itself.

(See also: Tempter , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Will-less A condition of beings who have not yet evolved forth free will, hence without initiative or self-determination. A specific instance is the case where will-less may be applied to the gods in heaven against whom Satan rebelled (as narrated in Milton's Paradise Lost). In theosophical literature, used in reference to mankind in its early stages before manas (mind) became awakened, hence to the first and second root-races and early third root-race. Even among these early races the will was not absent, but it had not yet come into functional activity.

(See also: Will-less , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Mara (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root mri to die]

That which kills, death, destroyer; in exoteric Indian literature, the representation of temptation, esoterically personified temptation through men's vices, which kill the soul. Maha-Mara is the king of the maras, or temptations collectively, the great ensnarer, and is usually represented "with a crown in which shines a jewel of such lustre that it blinds those who look at it, this lustre referring of course to the fascination exercised by vice upon certain natures" (VS 76).

Mara is the god of darkness and death: "Death of every physical thing truly; but Mara is also the unconscious quickener of the birth of the Spiritual" (SD 2:579n). The hosts of Mara refer to the unconquered passions that the neophyte must slay or transmute before he is reborn spiritually, or can become a dvija (twice-born). Mara is also a name frequently given to Kama, the personified god of love or desire.

(See also: Mara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Ymir (Icelandic, Scandinavian) In the Norse creation tale, the primeval frostgiant from whose substance the worlds are formed by the aesir (gods) at the beginning of time. According to the Voluspa (sibyl's prophecy) in the Edda, Ymir was "slain" -- transformed -- by the creative deities Odin Allfather (spirit), Vile (will), and Vi or Ve (awe, sanctity) into the substances that form the worlds in space.

One version relates that sparks from Muspellsheim (realm of fire) fell among the droplets of water vapor in Niflheim (realm of mists or nebulae) creating vapor in Ginnungagap (the yawning void). From this arose the likeness of a man, Ymir, who was nourished by the four streams of milk flowing from the udder of the cow Audhumla -- symbol of fertility. Ymer represents the frozen immobility of non-existence when the universe is not.

The Vala (sibyl) relates in Voluspa that the frostgiant's two feet mated with each other and that from them arose all the matter-giants from which all physical creation was formed. She describes poetically how the blood of Ymir became the oceans of water, his bones became mountains, his skull the heavenly vault, but "from his brain were surely all dark skies created." Midgard (central court), the earth, is surrounded and protected by his eyebrows and each quarter of space is governed by one of the four ruling powers, named for the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West.

(See also: Ymir , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Vidya-dhara (Sanskrit). And Vidya-dhari, male and female deities. Lit., "possessors of knowledge".

They are also called Nabhas-chara, "moving in the air", flying, and Priyam-vada, "sweet-spoken ". They are the Sylphs of the Rosicrucians; inferior deities inhabiting the astral sphere between the earth and ether; believed in popular folk-lore to be beneficent, but in reality they are cunning and mischievous, and intelligent Elementals, or "Powers of the air ". They are represented in the East, and in the West, as having intercourse with men (" intermarrying ", as it is called in Rosicrucian parlance; see Count de Gabalis).

In India they are also called Kama-rupins, as they take shapes at will. It is among these creatures that the "spirit-wives" and " spirit-husbands" of certain modern spiritualistic mediums and hysteriacs are recruited. These boast with pride of having such pernicious connexions (e.g., the American "Lily ", the spirit-wife of a well-known head of a now scattered community of Spiritualists, of a great poet and well-known writer), and call them angel-guides, maintaining that they are the spirits of famous disembodied mortals.

These " spirit-husbands" and "wives" have not originated with the modern Spiritists and Spiritualists, but have been known in the East for thousands of years, in the Occult philosophy, under the names above given, and among the profane as - Pishathas.

(See also: Vidya-dhara , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Vach-sata-rupa vac-sata-rupa (Sanskrit) The goddess in a hundred forms, or Vach as the immanent feminine aspect of divinity in the innumerable phases and forms of nature. Vach as Sata-rupa is the divine creative activity unfolded into the ten planes and their many subplanes of the universe. Each of these has its own keynotes and subordinate keynote. The union of Svayambhuva-Manu with Vach-sata-rupa, his own daughter (here representing the first manifestation of prakriti), is explained cosmically as the symbol of the root-life, the germ from which spring all the solar systems, worlds, and gods, because here Svaymbhuva-Manu is the cosmic manu; on the smaller scale, he with his consort plays the same role in the planetary chains of the solar system, and on a still smaller scale on any globe thereof.

In another early Hindu myth, Sata-rupa was at once the other half and the daughter of Brahma, and from their association, bipolar in character, sprang the first manu called Svayambhuva.

(See also: Vach-sata-rupa, vac-sata-rupa , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Lower Principles, Lower Quaternary According to the septenary division of human nature, the septenate is divided into a triad above and a quaternary below four being a number in this case corresponding to matter, and three corresponding to spirit and intellect. Theosophical teachings enumerate the seven principles in several different ways which tends to keep the student's ideas fluid and thus prevent dogmatic orthodoxy.

At one time the lower quaternary was given as kama (desire), prana (vitality), linga-sarira (astral body) and sthula-sarira (physical body); later the physical body was excluded from the list of principles, and lower manas was added to make up the four. These principles, however, must not be regarded as separate things conjoined or strung together as they are several aspects or states of manifestation of the one life that circulates through the human constitution.

Another way of regarding the matter is to say that there are two triads, the higher triad of atma-buddhi with higher manas and the lower triad of our astral-vital nature, each of which becomes a complete quaternary when the element of self-conscious mind is added to it.

If we use the symbol of the Tetraktys, the two lower lines consisting of a three and a four, will stand for the human septenate, the three highest points representing cosmic principles.

It is also necessary to avoid looking on the lower quaternary as something evil, which must be destroyed or wrongly subjugated; it is in fact an essential part of the complete human being, and what it needs is regulation, inspiration from above, and consequent regeneration.

(See also: Lower Principles, Lower Quaternary , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Sadesati

Saturn's transit of the lunar 12th ,1st, and 2nd houses. It lasts about 7 1/2 years and is regarded as problematic for the Native by some Jyotishi. If the sarvaashhTakavarga of the signs in 12th, 1st and 2nd from the Moon have more than 30 points this relieves a lot of the above malefic side-effects. One should also judge the whole chart and see whether there is real malevolence to this transit

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

A Christian theological definition of Septuagint according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Septuagint, The

See also: Septuagint , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Vasthu Ceremony - for laying foundation

The ceremony of the laying of the foundation for a building should be performed only during the home when the Deity of the plot (VASTHU PURUSHAN) is well awake. It is guide imperative to follow the presages to be carefully notices when performing the laying of the foundation ceremony.

The worship during laying the foundation ceremony should be postponed to another auspicious day in any of the following twenty presages are noticed.

Read more here: » Vastu Shastra: Vasthu Ceremony - for laying foundation

Typhoeus, Typhon (Greek) Typhoeus in Hesiodic theogony is a son of Tartarus and Gaia, a fire-breathing titan with a hundred heads and begetter of destructive hurricanes. He rebels against the gods and is killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt and buried under Mount Etna. Typhon was originally his son -- post-type of himself -- but the two were later identified. He represents the necessary counterpart of Zeus, as darkness is of light, Set of Osiris, or Satan of God. He is the Dragon Apophis, the Accuser in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, murderer of Osiris, destroyed by Horus; the dark side of Zeus, as Set is the dark side of Osiris, and night the dark side of day; Python, Loki, Rahu, and falling demons in general. In one form he is the dragon slain by St. Michael or St. George.

The original meaning is sublime, for Typhon in its prototypal significance is chaos, the unorganized womb or fountain of production, which calls forth the creative energy by resisting it, and is equally necessary with the former. When humanity falls into matter, then these dark-side potencies of nature acquire for mankind a distinctly evil connotation, and their names can be given to vast destructive forces which the misuse of the human will has engendered.

In a more restricted sense as connected with our earth, Typhon was not only the causative agent, but likewise the symbol of all seismic and volcanic phenomena, as well as being, even according to ancient Greek philosophical thought, in intimate connection with meteorological phenomena as evidenced by winds and storms.

See also SET; CROCODILE

(See also: Typhoeus, Typhon , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

2005-04-23

In 1999, Bennie LeBeau of the Eastern Shoshone tribe began to experience a torrent of dreams and visions. The visions directed him to set in motion the plans for a massive Medicine Wheel Ceremony. The ceremony is set to take place at High Noon on Saturday, May 8, 2004 at more than 20 sacred sites in the American West, and at many other sacred sites elsewhere around the world, including Australia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and the Middle East.

Read more here: » Native American Spirituality: Native American Medicine Wheel Ceremony on May 8th 2004

Buddhism: Buddhist Marriage Ceremony

Although wedding ceremonies have always been regarded as secular affairs in Buddhist countries, the parties concerned have nevertheless obtained the blessing from monks at the local temple after the civil registration formalities have been completed.

In view of the traditional importance that the marriage ceremony has in the West, moreover, local, and especially isolated Buddhists without access to a temple or a monk might well adopt the following service that could be performed by relatives and friends of the bride and groom:

Read more here: » Buddhism: Buddhist Marriage Ceremony

The Native American Sweat Lodge, Temazcal, is an ancient practice from the native indians of America; a sacred ritual for Healing and Purification. Participants at the Oneness Festival will be able to experience this very powerful ritual both at day time, and, when it is as most powerful, at night time.

Read more here: » Sweat Lodge: Temazcal I/III - The Traditional Mexican Sweat Bath

Persian Heritage In Hindu Traditions

Many would be surprised to learn that no ancient Hindu temple was dedicated to Rama - neither in Ayodhya nor anywhere else.

There had been many old temples and shrines devoted to Vishnu and Shiva and a few to Brahma, Ganesh, Kartikeya, Hanuman, Kubera, Nagas, Kali and Durga as well as a huge number honouring numerous local tribal deities. Only 180 years ago Raja Ram Mohan Roy coined the word 'Hindu' to describe the huge variety of faiths and sects with similar but not identical philosophies, myths and rituals.

Read more here: » Islam and Hinduism: Persian Heritage In Hindu Traditions