Spiritual Self Dictionary

HIGHER SELF: That part of us which connects our corporeal minds to the Collective Unconscious and with the divine knowledge of the universe.

(See also: HIGHER SELF , Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

Sthiratman (Sanskrit) [from sthira firm, constant + atman self]

Constant, eternal; applied to the spiritual self of the universe, of which the soul of the universe is the vehicle.

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

Inner Self or Higher Self - N

Refers to the inner divine nature possessed by human beings. All people are said to possess an inner self, though not all are aware of it.

(See also: Inner Self or Higher Self , New Age, Body mind and Soul)

Cause-awakened one

(Jpn.: engaku; Skt.: pratyekabuddha)

Also, self-awakened one. One who perceives the twelve-linked chain of causation, or the truth of causal relationship. Cause-awakened one also means those who, in an age when there is no Buddha, realize on their own the truth of impermanence by observing natural phenomena. Because their awakening is self-gained, cause-awakened ones are also called self-awakened ones. Together with voice-hearers, they constitute the persons of the two vehicles. Unlike bodhisattvas, they seek their own emancipation without thought of preaching for and instructing others.

The Sanskrit term pratyekabuddha means "independently enlightened one" or "individually enlightened one." In the early Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, it was rendered cause-awakened one, which implies one enlightened through perceiving causal relation ship. The Treatise on the Meaning of the Mahayana, written by Hui-yŸan (523-592), describes pratyekabuddha as one who perceives the twelve-linked chain of causation or who awakens to the truth by observing natural phenomena such as the scattering of blossoms or the falling of leaves. Later the term was rendered as self-awakened one.

In The Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra, T'ien-t'ai (538-597) distinguishes these two types of pratyekabud-dha-cause-awakened ones and self-awakened ones. Mahayana, which upholds practice to benefit others, referred to the vehicle of pratyekabuddha, or the teaching that leads one to the state of pratyekabuddha, as Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle), because it concerns only one's own salvation. The realm of cause-awakened ones is also viewed as a condition of life, in which one perceives the transience of life in the six paths and strives to free oneself from the six paths by seeking eternal truth through one's own effort. This realm or state constitutes the eighth of the Ten Worlds.

(See also: Cause-awakened one , Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment, Buddhism Enlightenment Dictionary)

Dream FAQ Dictionary: How can I tell actual paranormal experiences from self-delusion?

How can I tell actual paranormal experiences from self-delusion?

A. If you plan to prove actual paranormal experiences, most importantis that you are honest towards yourself. All efforts to match dreamsagainst real occurrences are moot if they are reported after the fact,since then it can't be proven any more that you actually dreamed this,and are vulnerable to the argument that the recall of the dream isjust a self-delusion. So the most important thing is to write down allof your dreams immediately. Make sure that no obvious external sourcesof information have had influence on your dreams (i.e. don't sleepwith the radio on if you want to match dreams against news items.)Don't interpret too much into your dreams in the moment you write themdown, log only what you really remember. When matching the dream logagainst other things use only the log, not anything you think youwould remember from that particular dream. Remember that recall of adream gets worse with the time, not better. If you want to documentshared dream experiences, all people involved should follow thesestrict standards. (Cf. question 7.3.) Refer to the sci.skeptic FAQ forobvious traps you should not get caught in.

Source: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dreams-faq

(See also: Paranormal experiences , Dream Interpretation FAQ, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Meaning of Dreams)

adhyatma: (Sanskrit) "Spiritual; soul." The inner, spiritual self or spirit. See: atman.

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

Atman:

Atman ("self"): the transcendental Self, or Spirit, which is eternal and superconscious; our true nature or identity; sometimes a distinction is made between the atman as the individual self and the parama-atman as the transcendental Self; see also purusha; cf. brahman

(See also: Atman ,Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Meaning of dream including the meaning of dreams about: Dagger, Dahlia, Dairy, Daisy, Damask Rose, Damson, Dance, Dancing Master, Dandelion, Danger, Dark, Dates, Daughter, Daughter-in-law, David, Day, Daybreak, Dead, Death, Debt, December, Deck, Decorate, Deed, Deer, Delay,

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

Read more here: » Meaning of a Dream: Meaning of Dream from; Dagger to Dead / Death

Higher Self: Non-physical, true self. The enlightened, "actual" persona of the individual as opposed to what the person seems to be or thinks they are.

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

Demons

Evil influences which hinder cultivation. These can take an infinite number of forms, including evil beings or hallucinations. Disease and death, as well as the three poisons of greed, anger and delusion are also equated to demons, as they disturb the mind.

The Nirvana Sutra lists four types of demon:

i)               greed, anger and delusion;

ii)             ii) the five skandas, or obstructions caused by physical and mental functions;

iii)            iii) death;

iv)            iv) the demon of the Sixth Heaven (Realm of Desire).

The Self-Nature has been described in Mahayana sutras as a house full of gold and jewelry. To preserve the riches, i.e., to keep the mind calm, empty and still, we should shut the doors to the three thieves of greed, anger and delusion.

Letting the mind wander opens the house to "demons," that is, hallucinations and harm. Thus, Zen practitioners are taught that, while in meditation, "Encountering demons, kill the demons, encountering Buddhas, kill the Buddhas." Both demons and Buddhas are mind-made, Mind-Only.

For a detailed discussion of demons, see Master Thich Thien Tam, Buddhism of Wisdom and' Faith, sect. 51.

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

Raja Yoga (Sanskrit) Royal union; more generally, the balance of all the faculties -- physical, mental, moral, and spiritual. Raja yoga is a true system of developing psychic, intellectual, and spiritual powers and union with one's higher self, the inner divine source of all our being.

This royal union with the self within must be attained by self-directed evolution. Union with this inner divinity is the source of all human genius and inspiration. Man increases his receptivity to the divine powers in his inmost being by cooperating with nature on its spiritual even more than its physical and astral planes, and by intellectual and spiritual aspiration combined with a fervent love for all beings.

(See also: Raja Yoga , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Liberation In theosophy, freedom from conditioned existence; in its strictest sense the state of a monad which has become the Brahman of its hierarchy, and therefore is free, released, perfected -- a jivanmukta -- for what seems to us an eternity. Synonymous with moksha, nirvana, emancipation.

Liberation of the self from the causes of illusion is sometimes spoken of in relation to the seven sensitive and sensory veils, especially with reference to the human manas principle. Emancipation consists in recognizing that these veils, of which the lower four are by far the most illusory, are the perceivers, and that the function of the true self is those higher faculties which collate and discriminate among perceptions of all kinds and which reach final and true judgment. The self sees or ascertains truth; the veils perceive and are caught by the webs of illusion.

The one who has achieved this is said to have attained the fire of knowledge, which destroys not only illusion but even destroys the causes leading to the planes of illusion. Vishnu, among the Vaishnavas in India, and Siva among the Saivas, or indeed of any other divinity, can be considered the cause of final emancipation when used for the true self, exactly as Christians may claim with perfect truth that the Christ (in man) is the shower of final emancipation. The successive emancipation from the seven veils marks seven stages of initiation. Buddhi, from this standpoint the highest, most diaphanous, and therefore the closest to reality of the veils, is said to be transformed into the tree whose fruit is emancipation.

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

This is the second of two two summaries of the speach about Womens Movement in a Spiritual context delievered by Tapasya Dasaji of the Golden Age Foundation at the Oneness Festival, 16-22 of February 2004.

Read more here: » Women's Spirituality: Womens Movement in a Spiritual Perspective

Attic

Any part of a house usually represents a part of yourself (dreamer = house). The attic is the last thing built. Consider the details of the dream and try to figure out what your unconscious is trying to tell you. Some believe that the attic symbolizes the higher self, or best self (i.e. the self that is in contact with the eternal). Others think that the attic symbolizes the sum total of your life's work or it may predict how well you will do in old age. If the attic is full of "neat" stuff, it may imply that you are accomplishing wonderful things and are living up to your potential in this lifetime.

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

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

Atma-jnanin (Sanskrit) (from atman self + jnanin knower from the verbal root jna to know)

The knower of atman or the universal self; likewise one who knows the world-soul. In a more mystical sense directly applicable to the individual, atma-jnanin signifies one who knows his own inner divinity and recognizes his spiritual solidarity with the cosmic self, the paramatman of our solar system. Those who thus recognize their oneness with the cosmic divinity are mahatmas of the highest class.

(See also: Atma-jnanin , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cockroaches

Seeing and at times just thinking about cockroaches makes a person feel squeamish and repulsed. When dreaming about these dreaded insects, the unconscious mind may be hinting to the dreamer that he needs to reevaluate and reassess a major part of his life. There is never just one roach; thus, the areas of life that need cleansing and renewal may be deep and wide. The negativity or contamination that is represented by the roaches may affect a great deal of your life. Thus, this may be a call to clean your psychological, emotional, and spiritual self. (Also, examine your motives!) On a less dramatic note, cockroaches in our dreams may be associated with food and uncleanliness, so don't leave the dishes for tomorrow!

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

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

Mediator An agent who stands or goes between, specifically one who acts as the conscious agent or intermediary of special spiritual power and knowledge.

Most often applied to highly-evolved characters who mediate, not only between superhuman spiritual entities and ordinary men, but who also themselves consciously unite their own spiritual nature with their merely human souls. Such people attain to this lofty state by the great sanctity and wisdom of their lives, aided by frequent interior ecstatic contemplation. They radiate a pure and beneficent atmosphere which invites, and is congenial to, exalted spiritual beings of the solar system.

Evil entities of the astral realms cannot endure their clean and highly magnetic aura, nor are they able to continue obsessing other unfortunate persons if the mediator be present and will their departure, or even approaches the sufferer.

This powerful spiritual self-consciousness of the individual who is a mediator reaching upwards to superior spiritual realms, is in sharpest possible contrast with the passive, unconscious, weak-willed medium who, through ignorance or folly, becomes the agent for the use of any astral entity that may be attracted to the entranced body. Apollonius, Iamblichus, Plotinus, and Porphyry are examples of mediators: "but if the temple is defiled by the admission of an evil passion, thought or desire, the mediator falls into the sphere of sorcery. The door is opened; the pure spirits retire and the evil ones rush in. This is still mediatorship, evil as it is; the sorcerer, like the pure magician, forms his own aura and subjects to his will congenial inferior spirits" (IU 1:487).

(See also: Mediator , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Pratyeka-yana (Sanskrit) [from prati towards, for + eka one + yana vehicle, path]

The path of each one for himself, or the personal vehicle or ego, equivalent to the Pali pachcheka. Fully self-conscious being cannot ever be achieved by following the path for oneself, but solely by following the amrita-yana (immortal vehicle) or the path of self-consciousness in immortality, the spiritual path to a nirvana of high degree, the secret path as taught by the heart doctrine. The pratyeka-yana is the pathway of the personality, the vegetative or material path to a nirvana of a low degree, the open path, as taught by the eye doctrine. These two terms describe two kinds of advancement towards more spiritual things, and the two ultimate goals thereof: the amrita-yana of the Buddhas of Compassion, and the pratyeka-yana of the Pratyeka Buddhas.

Although advancing steadily in spirituality and upwards towards a lower nirvana, and therefore evolving on a path which is not only not harmful to humanity and others, but in a sense is even passively beneficial, the Pratyeka Buddha, precisely because his thoughts are involved in spiritual freedom and benefits for himself, is really enwrapped in a spiritual selfishness; and hence in the intuitive, albeit popular, consideration of Northern Buddhism is called by such names as the Solitary or the Rhinoceros -- applied in contrast to the Buddhas of Compassion, whose entire effort is to merge the individual into the universal, to expand their sympathies to include all that is, to follow the path of immortality (amrita), which is self-identification without loss of individuality with all that is.

When the sacrifice of the lower personal and inferior self, with all its hoard of selfish thought and impulses, for the sake of bringing into full and unfettered activity the ineffable glorious faculties and powers and functions of the higher nature -- not for the purpose of selfish personal advancement, but in order to become a helper of all that is -- the consequence is that as time passes, the disciple so living and dedicating himself finds himself becoming the very incarnation of his inner divinity. He becomes, as it were, a man-god on earth. This, however, is not the objective, for holding such an objective as the goal to be attained would be in itself a proof that selfishness still abides in the nature.

Abstractly, of course, pratyeka-yana can be used for sorcerers and the path of the Brothers of the Shadow, but such is not usual. Obviously the path of sorcery is a pratyeka path in the strictly logical sense. The path of the sorcerers is called the left-hand path, the path of darkness or of the shadows, the downward path, and is sometimes described by the term pratyeka-yana.

Actually, the path of the shadows and the path towards the light stretch in opposite directions; yet the ultimate goal of both is a nirvana. The path upwards, whether of the amrita or of the pratyeka, leads to the nirvana of spirit -- the amrita ultimately being far higher than that of the pratyeka; whereas the downward path of the Brothers of the Shadow leads also to a nirvana, but to enchainment in the avichi-nirvana of absolute matter for that hierarchy.

(See also: Pratyeka-yana , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Ethics In theosophy, a philosophy of moral conduct based on the inner structure and operations of the universe itself, not a mere code of conventional behavior. The grounds alleged for moral conduct depend on one's view of man and the universe.

Theosophy distinguishes between a person's real self and the illusive personal masks which are mistaken for that self. As with Kant, a sharp distinction is drawn between wish and inclination on the one hand, and the sense of moral obligation on the other; this latter is regarded as supervening upon the drama of self-interest and imposing a higher law.

Recognizing the essential oneness of the individual with the universe, not only spiritually but on all planes, the student of occultism strives for the subordination of the personal self as an individual to the common good of all mankind, and indeed of all things that are. With this training, the student in time comes keenly to realize that there is no longer a moral obligation lying upon him to subject his personal wish to the common good, but that this subordination becomes the first joyful duty of all his life. In this manner spiritual powers, faculties, and attributes are gained, as well as intellectual expansion that, when more or less complete, combine to make the full adept or initiate. A master of wisdom is one who has developed an individual consciousness of his oneness with the Boundless, and this is the very foundation of the ethics of theosophy.

The human ethical sense is a manifestation of one's awareness and willing cooperation with the inherent spiritual laws of the universe. No person can misconduct himself without injecting disharmony into the human hierarchy of which he is a part, and for this he must pay, though nature does not revenge or punish but readjusts or restores the disturbed harmony. Though these essential laws are eternal and changeless, the degree of their manifestation at any time or in any group vary; so that we may speak of ethics also in a relative sense. The world saviors and messengers from the Great Lodge, in obedience to cyclic necessity, strike for humanity the ethical keynote for each coming cycle.

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

Hypnotism (from Greek hypnos sleep)

One name for an artificially produced somnambulistic, entranced, or psychologized state. A better word for the procedure is psychologization, hypnotism being but one phase of the general subject which includes fascination, multiple or double personality, some religious ecstasies, and different methods of psychic healing. All these things operate in and upon the important intermediate part between our spiritual and physical-astral self and usually affect the latter self very strongly. This intermediate part is the human soul of the reincarnating entity -- the man or woman we see and know. As this includes the psychomental-emotional powers and faculties, it is intimately related to intelligence and sanity, to emotions and conduct, and to health.

Theosophy holds that mesmerism is not hypnotism. In hypnotism the subject's intermediate nature is disjoined from its natural relations with his physical and astral body and put out of the control of the person himself, becoming susceptible to other influences. This process is a reversal of all evolutionary currents which in every being unfold and manifest from conscious centers within. Such a reversal is dangerous and far-reaching in its results, spiritually, mentally, morally, psychically, and physically.

Moreover, the hypnotizer endangers himself by such intimate linking with the lower mind and feeling of his subject -- whose spiritual nature is always beyond another's control. From the operator's entrance into, and operation of, the subject's physico-astral body, there results a mutual infection with each other's faulty human nature. Whoever thus changes the forces and trend of another's life, obligates himself to share karmically in those changes to the end.

Psychologizing a person to heal him of disease or rid him of some injurious habit is also harmful. Bodily ills, in themselves, are the cleansing processes by which past inner wrongs of thought and feeling, having reached the material plane, can be worked out of the system. As for karmic faults and failings in character, the person restrained from them by hypnotism or psychologization merely loses a timely opportunity to develop his spiritual will by which alone every human being must consciously work out his own destiny. The apparent cure of disease, or of a weakness, means that these have been driven inwards, dammed back, inevitably to reappear with accumulated force at a less opportune time in this or a future life. Nor does the practice of self-hypnotization or self-psychologization prevent a disjunction of the person's intermediate nature from his immortal self. The results finally appear as mental disease resulting in crime or as physical disease which is the minor evil.

Suggestion has a dual power: for good or for ill, the results depending upon both the motive and the method of its use. The conscious and unconscious use of it for self-interest is unfortunately met with everywhere; as a part of modern training in high-power salesmanship, it pervades the methods popular in both commercial and professional circles. However, suggestion has a power of noble appeal to the intelligence and spiritual will of others whose better nature responds to a good example, impersonal teaching, and pure and helpful thoughts and feelings. Hypnotism and other such practices are dangerous because they so often fall into black magic or sorcery.

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

Rhinoceros Used in the mystical schools of Northern Buddhism to signify a pratyeka buddha, a translation of the Sanskrit khadga. The nature of the rhinoceros is to be alone, walk alone, live alone, intent on its own affairs and more or less oblivious of what does not concern these.

Transferring the idea of the solitary individual intent upon his own purposes, however spiritually high, to the pratyeka buddhas gives an outline of the entire Mahayana Buddhist doctrine.

Instead of khadga, the ancient Buddhist writers frequently used eka-sringa (one-horned), likewise signifying rhinoceros with the reference to the one-pointed spiritual self-interest and spiritual selfishness, of the prayeka buddhas.

Eka-sringa-rishi is the rhinoceros-rishi.

(See also: Rhinoceros , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Atmabhu (Sanskrit) (from atman self + bhu to become)

Self-existent, self-becoming, hence self-born. Applied to each member of the Hindu Trimurti -- Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva -- likewise to the god of cosmic desire or unity, Kama-deva.

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