Desire A word whose shades of meaning range from mere animal desire to that of cosmic kama or eros which "first arose in It," bringing spirit into union with matter and giving rise to the creation or emanation of various classes of beings.

It can also be lofty spiritual aspiration, the yearning upwards with the undying desire for the divine, or impersonal love, or again, the urge to become united or one with others. Many words overlap it in meaning, such as will, attraction, love, and cupidity, and it is generally used as a translation of the Sanskrit kama.

Philosophically, it is often synonymous with abstract will, as when kama is called sometimes desire and sometimes will, so that will and desire seem to blend into one on the higher ranges. In the saying, behind will stands desire, will is a colorless force set in motion by desire, much as a current is set up by an electromotive force. From another viewpoint, will, as an abstract motor in the human constitution, arises from the higher or spiritual-intellectual ranges of the kama principle itself, for "Will and Desire are the higher and lower aspects of one and the same thing" (BCW 12:702).

See also KAMA; EROS

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

Ahath (Hebrew) (feminine of 'achath one)

One, single, alone, sole; applied to the feminine aspect of the Logos or head of a hierarchy. In Hebrew occultism 'ahath or achath represents, together with the masculine form achod ('ehad) "the collective aggregate, or totality, of the principal Creators or Architects of this visible universe" (SD 1:129). Incorrectly applied to the Sephiroth-'elohim as Sephiroth, since these last are only vehicles or manifestations of the Logos.

Achath-Achod ('ahath-'ehad) corresponds to the Sanskrit adi (first, primeval) or eka (One), meaning crown or hyparxis, and therefore the originant or cosmic hierarch, which divides into the many when its spiritual and substantial energies stream downwards into the planes of illusion and matter -- which indeed these energies themselves compose.

See also 'AHATH-RUAH-'ELOHIM-HAYYIM; 'EHAD

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

Advent (from Latin ad to, toward + venio to come)

Arrival; in Christianity a period of some four weeks preceding Christmas.

In pre-Christian Greece one of the great seats of initiation was Eleusis, a Greek word meaning coming or advent. All the Mystery schools of antiquity taught and dramatized doctrines dealing with that which is to come: the mysteries of death, rebirth, and initiation -- the birth or awakening of the inner Buddha or Christos in the neophyte. This was called the coming or advent of the god within.

Advent may also be used to signify the serial comings into the human sphere of a nirmanakaya who imbodies a dhyani-buddha -- a perfected human being from a preceding manvantara -- in order to enlighten the humanity of the current cycle. Such nirmanakayas work in the sphere of our earth as invisible or occasionally visible helpers of mankind.

The "second advent," referring to a second coming of Christ, was considered imminent by some early Christian sects, and is still expected by certain sects today. This echoes the archaic teaching concerning the advent of Maitreya-Buddha -- the next great Buddha to appear in the long line of Buddha-succession -- as well as the second coming of Elijah among the Jews, and the coming of the Kalki-avatara among the Hindus.

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

Pagan [from Latin paganus an inhabitant of the country, a villager; cf peasant]

Heathen, the Germanic parallel in origin and meaning, was also used to distinguish an urban dweller or cultured man from a country dweller or rustic; and so both words became terms of inferiority and ultimately of reproach. Pagans and heathen, in recent European usage, are those who are not Christian, Jews, or Moslems.

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

Aeschylus One of the three greatest Greek tragic poets, born at Eleusis (525-456 BC), the seat of the Mysteries of Demeter, into which he undoubtedly was initiated. Of his perhaps 90 plays, only seven survive. Plato accuses him of impiety and Cicero describes him as almost a Pythagorean. He profaned the Mysteries in the eyes of the Athenians (e.g. in the real meaning of the allegories present in Prometheus Bound and The Eumenides) and has been accused of introducing antagonism among the celestial powers, transferring the political radicalism and demagogy of Athens from the agora to Olympus. His works introduced a second actor, thus creating true dramatic dialogue; he also introduced masks and imposing headdresses and costumes for the actors.

His portrayal of Zeus in different dramas is inconsistent, since there were two Zeuses: the abstract deity of Grecian thought, and the Olympic Zeus. While the former represents the head of the hierarchy of divinities, the latter is, in man, the human soul or kama-manas. Prometheus, who steals fire from heaven and brings it to mankind in a fennel-stalk, is buddhi-manas, mankind's savior. Zeus is the serpent, the intellectual tempter of humanity, which nevertheless begets in due time the man-savior, the solar Dionysus (SD 2:419-20).

Harmony results from the equilibrium of contraries, and the drama of evolution as depicted in man shows the clash of descending and reascending cycles, the antimony of law and free will. These dramas have been immortalized for all generations by Aeschylus who, in his daring and self-sacrificing enthusiasm, may himself by styled a Prometheus offending the powers that be in order to bring light to mankind.

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

Animal Kingdom One of the main divisions or life-waves of entities on earth, separated from the human kingdom by its lack of the emanated or evolved self-conscious mind, a faculty which can be acquired only by the aid of beings already having it -- the manasaputras.

The entities now pursuing their evolution in the animal kingdom will in a future imbodiment of the planetary chain become human in the same way, although a certain number of the highest animal stocks now living, such as the apes and possibly some of the monkeys, may attain incipient humanity before the end of the seventh round in the present planetary manvantara.

The mammals in this fourth round came later in time than man, having arisen from germinal cells thrown off from the bodies of the individuals of the human racial stem millions and millions of years ago, when nature still allowed such a procedure. These early mammals have since become highly specialized.

The animals below the mammals originated from the human stock in the preceding third round, and hence their ancestors or sishtas were on earth and provided the origins of the later widely disseminated sub-mammalian stocks in this round, even before the human sishtas felt the incoming human life-wave and multiplied over the earth.

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Ahamkara (Sanskrit) (from aham ego, I + kara maker, doer from the verbal root kri to do)

I-maker; conception of egoity or I-am-I-ness. In its lower aspect, the egoistical and mayavi principle, born of avidya (ignorance), which produces the notion of the personal ego as being different from the universal self. In Sankhya philosophy ahamkara is the third emanation: from prakriti (primal nature or substance) issues mahat (the great), standing for universal mind, which in turn produces ahamkara, selfhood, individuality; from ahamkara come forth the five tanmatras, the subtle forms of the elements or principles and "the two series of sense organs" (Samkhya-Sutra 1:61).

In the Bhagavad-Gita (7:4), prakriti manifests in eight portions -- "earth, water, fire, air, ether (space: kham-akasa), mind (manas), understanding (buddhi) and egoity, self-sense (ahamkara)

" -- all of which relate to the object side, which gives an erroneous sense of identity or egoity.

As universal self-consciousness, ahamkara has "a triple aspect, as also Manas. For this conception of 'I,' or one's Ego, is either sattwa, 'pure quietude,' or appears as rajas, 'active,' or remains tamas, 'stagnant,' in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of either" (SD 1:335n).

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

Virgin Birth Often applied to any kind of reproduction which is not sexual, including that of human races before the separation of the sexes. In a mystical sense, it applies to some of the rites of initiation, where the candidate has to go through by an anticipatory process the experiences which mankind will live through in the course of the next two root-races. Among these was the experience of the mystical virgin birth. The corresponding fact concerning mankind of the future is, that there will be in due course of evolutionary time no more sexual birth, which will then have run its course and will have disappeared, but instead, reproduction will be by the power of kriyasakti: by thought and will.

The mystic Christ, by whatever name, is said to be virgin-born, as emanating from the higher nature of the individual, not engendered by the terrestrial nature. The symbol has often been materialized, so that the divine quickening or overshadowing of a human virgin, whether man or woman, is spoken of as being a virgin-born.

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

Anima Mundi (Latin) World-soul, world-mother; the divine-spiritual-astral-physical source of emanations, the cosmic generative and animating principle of all beings, the creative Third Logos in its female aspect. In its highest and intermediate portions, it corresponds to the alaya of Northern Buddhism and hence to akasa.

Identified variously with Isis, Sephira, Sophia, the Holy Ghost, mahat, mulaprakriti, etc., but used in a hazy and often materializing sense, so that it cannot be accurately regarded as a synonym for any one of these. "It is in a sense the 'seven-skinned mother' of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine, the essence of seven planes of sentience, consciousness and differentiation, moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana, in its lowest Astral Light. It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes.

Of igneous, ethereal nature in the objective world of form (and then ether), and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself form the Anima Mundi, it means, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It, which is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal Absolute" (TG 22-3).

Theosophically, anima mundi may be regarded as a synonym of different other words, rather than as indicative of any definite entity or principle apart from others. The higher human egos or manasaputras are essentially identical with the higher portions of anima mundi; and similarly the various life-atoms in the lower spheres may be considered as in essence identical with the lower portions of the anima mundi. It is in short the life-consciousness-essence of the universe from the divine to the physical.

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Absorption (from Latin absorbere to suck up, swallow)

In The Secret Doctrine, the reabsorption of all manifestation at the coming on of the Great Night or mahapralaya, "when Pralaya will have reduced not only material and psychical bodies, but even the spiritual Ego(s) to their original principle -- the Past, Present, and even Future Humanities, like all things, will be one and the same. Everything will have re-entered the Great Breath" (1:265-6).

Likewise the reentering of the human into the divine, of the personality into the individuality, achieved in moments of samadhi even during the lifetime of the initiate on earth; also entrance of the individual into the nirvanic condition.

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Cosmos. See KOSMOS

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Achthna acthna (Sanskrit?) An invisible subterrestrial fire, sometimes causing volcanic eruptions, an "element in the life of the 'great snake' Vasuki, that according to Hindu mythology encircles the world, and by whose movements earthquakes may be produced" (BCW 7:283). Also "a certain state of the 'soul' of the earth, a mixture of astral and material elements, perhaps of an electric or magnetic character" (F. Hartmann, ibid.).

(See also: Achthna, acthna , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Manifestation.

See MANVANTARA

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Androgyne (from Greek androgynos man-woman)

Hermaphrodite; applied to a dual principle containing both the active and passive powers of nature, as the androgyne ray, the Second Logos, Purusha-prakriti, spirit-matter; to a race, such as the second root-race, whose members are physiologically of both sexes; and in biology to certain animals which have dual sex. Bipolarity, the contrast and interaction between the energic and formative sides of nature, is universally prevalent.

Sex is merely a particular and, evolutionally speaking, passing phase of this universal law, and its terms are often used in a purely symbolic sense to define these two sides of nature. We should be careful not to take the symbols literally and ascribe physiological attributes to higher powers.

When androgynous or hermaphrodite is used in philosophy, it does not mean physically or ethereally double-sexed -- except when physical dual-sexed beings are distinctly referred to -- but means the dual characteristic of nature in manifestation. Very often this duality is separated into "masculine" and "feminine," using the words familiar to human life, although this duality is perhaps more accurately described by the words positive and negative, or by spirit and matter, or again by consciousness and vehicle. Here we have the reason for the separation of the deities in ancient pantheons into gods and goddesses, although occasionally in the mythological tales deities are represented as dual sexed.

This androgynous or dual character of all the manifested worlds commenced with cosmic buddhi, or mahabuddhi, although the first more defined manifestations of individualized duality began on the plane of cosmic kama where fohat especially works. Above that the two rays from the One ascend again to reunite.

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Word In religious and philosophical usage, a translation of the Greek logos or Latin verbum. Its meaning here is that of reason manifested, employed mainly in a cosmogonic sense. "The esoteric meaning of the word Logos (speech or word, Verbum) is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting divine mind, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in the Universe of Pleroma, so man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his Universe, the Earth" (SD 2:25). This word was chosen because human thought, or immanent conscious intelligence or mind, manifests itself through words. It is familiar to Christians through the opening verse of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (1:1, 14). In the former quotation the meaning is entirely cosmogonic; in the latter, it has been diminished to signify the innate Word or divinity in man, which when in full control of the human adept can, by a stretch of metaphor, mean that the innate Christ, Buddha, or god in man so controls the human personality as to have become the latter, and thus to manifest among men.

Cosmogonically, theosophy considers the universe and all in it, from its first divine appearance to its last material modification, as being in toto as well as in all manifested details an emanation from the universal mind. This emanation takes place at the beginning of a manvantara in three separate stages or degrees: the First or unmanifest Logos; the Second or manifest-unmanifest Logos; and finally the Third or manifest Logos. Logos is applicable to these three stages because each is the manifesting of the wisdom in its divine predecessor, each stage carrying within itself, on the principle of the emanational scheme, the attributes or qualities of its predecessors. The Second Logos has invariably been considered feminine, and the Third Logos is regarded as the creative power.

Corresponding to the three Logoi in the Hindu scheme are Brahman, Brahma, and Isvara emanating originally from parabrahman-mulaprakriti. In the highly philosophical visioning of Mahayana Buddhism is adi-buddha, mahabuddhi, and the celestial buddha, occasionally indirectly called dharmakaya. On a scale of less magnitude, Hindu thought has developed the triad Brahma, the emanator or original emanation; Vishnu, the supporter or sustainer, a feminine characteristic nevertheless; and Siva at once the regenerator and producer in the sense of destroying but to regenerate. Still a third Hindu scheme is found in the series of paramatman, mahabuddhi or alaya, and mahat or cosmic creative mind.

A somewhat similar usage in the Qabbalah is Meimra, or 'imrah (word, particularly from divinity) [both from Hebrew verbal root amar to say, speak, use words]. One of the Stanzas of Dzyan refers to the Army of the Voice, which is explained to be "the prototype of the 'Host of the Logos,' or the 'word' of the Sepher Jezirah, called in the Secret Doctrine 'the One Number issued from No-Number' -- the One Eternal Principle" (SD 1:94).

See also LOGOS

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

Ananda (Sanskrit) (from a-nand to rejoice, be delighted)

Bliss, joy, happiness; the favorite disciple of Gautama Buddha, who served his teacher with utmost devotion for twenty years and is credited with having recited, shortly after the Buddha's parinibbana (great passing away), the entire buddhavachana (word of Buddha).

In Vedantic philosophy, the third word of the phrase sat-chit-ananda (sachchidananda): the three attributes given to atman or Brahman, or the cosmic Logos.

See also CHIT, SAT.

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