Chaos (Greek) (from chaino to gape, yawn open)

"The earth was without form and void," says Genesis in describing the first stages of cosmogony. In Greek mythology contains the same idea of the primordial emptiness and formlessness which precedes the rebirth of a universe after pralaya. It was the vacant and spiritual space which existed before the creation of the universe or of the world; from it proceeded Darkness and Night.

Chaos is "chaotic" only in the sense that its constituents are unformed and unorganized; it is the kosmic storehouse of all the latent or resting seeds from former manvantaras. It means space -- not the Boundless, parabrahman-mulaprakriti, but the space of any particular hierarchy descending into manifestation. In one sense it is the condition of a solar system or planetary chain during its pralaya, containing all the elements in an undifferentiated state. Aether and chaos are the two principles immediately posterior to the first principle.

Various terms more or less synonymous are akasa, the universal egg (from which Brahma issued as light), the virgin egg, the virgin mother, the immaculate root (fructified by the ray), the primeval deep, the abyss, the great mother. The divine ray and chaos are father-mother or cosmic fire and water. Chaos-Theos-Cosmos are the triple deity or all-in-all. Chaos was personified in Egypt by the goddess Neith, who is the Father-Mother of the Stanzas of Dzyan, the akasa of the Hindus, the svabhavat of the northern Buddhists, and the Icelandic ginnungagap.

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

Cycles (from Greek kyklos circle, wheel)

The law of cycles arises out of the ever-unceasing alternations of the Great Breath of spirit in the universe. Abstract absolute motion, as the worlds evolve, assumes an ever-growing tendency to circular movement.

Hence arise the wheels and globes of cosmic evolution and the rounds of the evolutionary life-waves. Motion is repetitive, ever returning to similar, but not identical, points. The geometrical symbol is the helix, which combines the cyclic with the progressive motion; if the axis of the helix is itself a circle, a vortex results, and thus wheels within wheels as the process advances to further degrees of complexity.

"The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical. There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle referring to the ethnological change of races lasting 120,000 years, and that of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods . . ." (Key 327).

See also BRAHMA'S DAY; HESIOD, AGES OF; ROOT-RACE; ROUND; YUGA; etc.

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

Concentration With meditation, an equivalent for certain parts of yoga, as found in samadhi, dharana; the removal or surmounting of distractions originating in the mind and centering the latter on the spiritual and intellectual objective to be attained, which in the best sense is union with the inner god, the divine monad -- a conscious identification of oneself with the universal through the individual's innate divinity.

The method of meditative concentration prescribed in the Bhagavad-Gita is to perform all the duties of life without either attachment or avoidance. The hindrances to concentration which are to be removed are those arising from anger, lust, vanity, fear, sloth, etc. Such obstacles are removed by lifting the mind above them or by deliberately ignoring them, since directly fighting with them serves to concentrate the mind on them, thus defeating the object aimed at; and by cultivating the spirit of impersonal love and the light of wisdom which it evokes. Thus the blending of the personal self with the impersonal self is achieved by an orderly process of self-directed evolution, first by unselfish work in the cause of humanity, continued in the various degrees of chelaship, culminating in initiation.

Concentration has often been perverted to mean a kind of personal self-culture, having for its aim the attainment of personal power or self-satisfaction. If unsuccessful, the attempt upsets the balance of the constitution, and if successful, it sows a bitter harvest of aroused personality for future reaping; for when yearning for sympathetic fellowship with our fellowmen we shall find our faculties counterworking us. True meditative concentration actually applies more to the heart than to the mind, and is not a forcible mental practice but a general although very positive and impersonal attitude towards life. It means the centering of our wishes, thoughts, and acts on the ideal of self-identification with the spiritual and universal.

See also DHYANA.

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Crystals, Crystallization The formation of crystals shows the working of intelligent life forces in the mineral world. The shapes of crystals show, in their harmony and proportion, the mathematical and geometrical principles permeant throughout the universe.

A solution of salt, when evaporated, first crystallizes in triangular shapes and ultimately builds up cubes, both of which are symbolical figures of fundamental importance; and salt is a well-known alchemical symbol of the element of earth, also denoted by the cubical shape. Every salt has a particular form in which it crystallizes, or has perhaps two different forms; but different salts may have the same crystalline form.

Snow crystals show the hexagonal patterns which display the septenate -- a center from which six radii proceed. Cubic, tetragonal, hexagonal, and octagonal shapes occur; but the fivefold forms of the regular dodecahedron and icosahedron are not found. Clairvoyant sensitives see light emanating from crystals, and luminous phenomena are often seen at the formation or disruption of crystals. Blavatsky alludes to the idea that the process of crystallization might be a step in the evolution of the minerals to the next higher kingdom.

(See also: Crystals, Crystallization , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Chu. See KHU

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Chiti citi (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root chit to think)

Understanding; "that by which the effects and consequences of actions and kinds of knowledge are selected for the use of the soul," or "conscience the inner Voice in man" (SD 1:288n).

Some yogis consider chiti as a synonym of mahat, but theosophic philosophy considers mahat the root and base as well as the germ of chiti. Chiti is manas functioning under the illumination of buddhi, and therefore becomes discriminative or intuitive understanding, an organic activity as contrasted with abstract or pure thought or consciousness.

This function when developed makes of the human intermediate nature an entity virtually identic with a manasaputra, and thus attracts by spiritual affinity guardian spirits or chitkalas, synonymous themselves with manasaputras.

(See also: Chiti, citi , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Crown In the Qabbalah, the first or highest Sephirah, Kether (Crown). In the Stanzas of Dzyan, "Fohat traces spiral lines to unite the sixth to the seventh -- the Crown" (SD 1:31), which means that fohat, in this case working as Eros or divine love, strives to blend atman with buddhi, and the same on the corresponding cosmic planes.

Crown also signifies the summit of attainment in initiation, spiritual sovereignty, or dignity or splendor, and is much used in those senses in both the Old and New Testaments, and was typically so employed in pagan initiatory rites.

The kings and pontiffs of modern times are the feeble imitators of former king-initiates, whose insignia comprised the crown, representative of the glory or buddhic splendor, which actually encircled the head of the initiate as a nimbus, as it does in the case of the yogi in samadhi and of the buddha. The ceremony of coronation was performed in the Mysteries as the outward symbol of the completion of this attainment; and that ceremony is still perpetuated. The later Roman emperors adopted the Eastern royal fillet, which they called by the Greek name diadema; the Papal tiara goes back through it to the Persian royal headdress of that name. The American Indian wears feathers imitating the rays of light from the head.

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Chhaya chaya (Sanskrit) A shade, shadow, copy; esoterically, the astral image or body of a person. Besides referring to the human astral form, the term is usually applied to the shadows or copies -- the astral body-projections -- of the spiritual beings or pitris who played an important part in the early evolutionary development of humankind.

In the first root-race, "the pure, celestial Being (Dhyan Chohan) and the great Pitris of various classes were commissioned -- the one to evolve their images (Chhaya), and make of them physical man, the others to inform and thus endow him with divine intelligence and the comprehension of the Mysteries of Creation" (SD 2:233n). This idea also appears in the Zohar: "'In the Tzalam (shadow image) of Elohim (the Pitris), was made Adam (man)' " (SD 2:137).

See also SANJNA

(See also: Chhaya, chaya , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Chthonia (Chthonian) (from Greek chthon earth)

In or under the earth; applied to various divinities as gods of the underworld. In the system of Pherecydes, kosmos contains three higher principles, "Chthona (Chaos), Aether (Zeus), and Chronos (Time), and four lower principles, the elements of fire, water, aire and the earth" from which everything visible and invisible was formed (BCW 13:284). Also equated with chaotic earth (IU 1:156).

See also INFERNAL DEITIES

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Chain Used in modern theosophy to designate the visible and invisible globes which form the interior and exterior structure of any celestial body. The kosmos as a whole is a living organism, subdivided into almost innumerable subordinate series of hierarchical units; hence the kosmos is an assemblage of beings of many kinds, each of which is a compound unit, and in order to signify that the elements composing each such unit are linked together as an individual, the word chain is applied to celestial bodies.

The teaching is that every celestial body whatever, visible or invisible, forms a unity with companion globes on invisible planes. When referring to the chains of globes forming a solar system, it is customary to call them planetary chains; thus we have the earth-chain, the lunar chain, the Mercury-chain, etc., each consisting of seven such globes on the manifested plane, to which the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G are applied.

The globes of a chain are said to be in coadunation but not in consubstantiality, which means that, though of different grades of materiality, they form a catenary unit. Although each chain consists of seven or twelve globes, the only one visible to the human eye on earth is that which is on the same plane of materiality. Of the twelve globes to each chain, seven belong to the manifested worlds and five to the unmanifested. The seven manifested globes are distributed on four planes, and the twelve globes on seven planes, as shown in the diagram.

The left-hand side of the diagram represents the descending or shadowy arc of evolution, the right side the ascending or luminous arc. Our universe is also described as one of a cosmic chain of universes.

In other particular uses of the word, the Hermetic Chain is the succession of teachers of the esoteric wisdom who preserve and pass on the sacred knowledge from generation to generation.

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Chit cit (Sanskrit) Abstract thought, consciousness as contrasted with concrete or operative thought. According to Vedantic philosophy, chit is one of the three attributes (sat, chit, ananda) of atman or Brahman or, again, of the cosmic Logos.

(See also: Chit, cit , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Sukra (Sanskrit) The bright one; the planet Venus, and its regent. According to theosophy each of the seven globes of the earth planetary chain, and each of the seven root-races, is under the particular guidance and protection of one of the regents of the seven sacred planets. Sukra is the guide and protector of the third globe, globe C, and also analogically of the third root-race.

The astronomical sign of Venus is the ansated cross: the Qabbalah explains this as signifying the existence of parturient energy, yet this is an unfortunate disguise, for it is the moon which controls parturition on earth, and the effluences from Venus are rather those which govern the creative action of the intellect. Venus is often viewed mystically as hermaphroditic in operation, Venus being at times represented as bearded in Greek mythology. Here we see a connection of Sukra with the hermaphrodite early third root-race.

Mystically Usanas-Sukra (Usasans being another name for Venus) is the earth's and man's spiritual guru and preceptor, just as in ancient Hindu mythology Usanas was the guru and preceptor of the daityas. Hence Venus is spoken of as the "older brother" of the earth, whose functions during its present evolutionary stage are those of kama-manas in the solar system and therefore in man (cf SD 2:31, 33).

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

Continent(s). See ATLANTIS, LEMURIA, HYPERBOREAN, ROOT-RACE, etc.

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Christmas Christmas Day and its festival are a curious blend of Christian, Jewish, Roman, Western pagan, and perhaps other institutions. It arose as a Christian festival as part of the adaptation of the early Christian Church to the world in which it grew up.

The accounts given of the birth of Christ present obvious difficulties against regarding this date as that of his actual birth, and it was looked upon rather as a commemorative festival. Before the 5th century there cannot be said to have been any general consensus as to the date, the choice wavering between that of Epiphany on January 6th, the 25th of March, and the 25th of December. According to Chrysostom, the choice of the first of these dates was due to Western influence; and it is true that the Romans held their Saturnalia at the same time.

The celebration of the winter solstice, often identified with that of the new year, is virtually universal and denotes among Christians the mystic birth of the Christ; the significance has, however, with the Christian Church, been divided between Christmas and Easter. Besides its application to the death and rebirth of the year, and to death and regeneration both cosmic and human, the symbol has special reference to the esoteric rite and exoteric drama performed in the Mysteries at this epoch, where the candidate for initiation was placed in a tomb or coffin, or on a cruciform couch, where his body remained entranced during the experiences of his liberated self, until rebirth or resurrection on the third day.

Christmas customs likewise are derived from various sources: the exchange of gifts or sweets is a common accompaniment of new year celebrations; the tree is a universal symbol of manifested nature, and this appears again as the cross, which however is appropriated to the Friday before Easter. At the winter solstice, the sun enters Capricorn, a house of Saturn -- who appears in such figures as Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Old Father Christmas; and the spirit of license and good cheer are more appropriate to the genius of Saturn, especially in the form of Silenus or a satyr, than to the mystic birth of the neophyte.

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Aetna, Mount A frequently active volcanic mountain in northeastern Sicily, the highest volcano in the Mediterranean region (c 10,900 feet). In Greek mythology, Zeus is said to have hurled Mt. Aetna at Typhon, who lies beneath the mountain, sending up smoke and flames; also Hephestos is sometimes said to have a forge there.

See also MOUNTAINS, HOLY

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Round In connection with a planetary chain, when the life-wave of any planet passes through the seven root-races of one of its globes, this is called a globe-round. But the life-wave also passes in turn through the seven or twelve globes, beginning with globe A, and after an interglobal rest, passes to globe B, on the next lower subplane, then to globe C in similar manner, and following it, to globe D, which is on the lowest plane for that planetary chain. Rising then it in like manner passes through the three higher globes, E, F, and G. The circuit of these seven or twelve globes is called a planetary round, after which there is a planetary or chain-nirvana before the second round begins, which is made on a more advanced degree of evolution than was the first round.

Seven planetary rounds equal one kalpa, manvantara, or Day of Brahma. When seven planetary rounds (49 globe-rounds) have been thus accomplished, there ensues a still higher nirvana than that occurring between globes G and A after each planetary round. This higher nirvana is coincident with what is called a pralaya of that planetary chain, which lasts until a new planetary chain forms, containing the same hosts of living beings as on the preceding chain.

When seven such planetary chains with their various kalpas or manvantaras and pralayas have passed away, this sevenfold grand cycle is one solar manvantara, and then the solar system sinks into the solar or cosmic pralaya.

There are outer rounds and inner rounds. An inner round comprises the passage of the life-wave in any one planetary chain once from globe A to G, or from the first globe to the twelfth, and this takes place seven or twelve times in a planetary manvantara. The outer round comprises the passage of the entirety of a life-wave of a planetary chain along the circulations of the solar system, from one of the seven sacred planets to another, and in a specific serial order; and this seven or twelve times. Outer round can refer to two different events: the grand outer round, during which the spiritual monad makes a stay of varying length in each planetary chain; and the minor or small outer round, which is the post-mortem journey of the monad, after the death of an individual, to each of the planetary chains, but in this latter case its stay in each chain is relatively short.

See also INNER ROUND; OUTER ROUND

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Reincarnation Reimbodiment; specifically reinfleshment, the repeated imbodiment of the reincarnating ego in vehicles of human flesh on this earth. The unexhausted desire for earth-life draws the ego back to this globe, where it gathers to itself the material for a reincarnation and thus is finally born from a human womb. The process is repeated almost numberless times until the evolution of the inspiriting monad has reached a stage when reincarnation is no longer required. The interval between successive incarnations may be roughly estimated at 100 times the length of the preceding earth-life -- a rule obviously subject to many exceptions.

(See also: Reincarnation , Mysticism, Mysticism 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.

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En (Greek) (from en, eis one; cf Latin unum)

With Pythagoras and Empedocles, it corresponds to the yliaster (primordial matter or matrix) of Paracelsus, and to akasa, anima mundi, or alaya. (BCW 7:283)

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Strabo (c 63 BC-24 AD) Greek geographer. {SD; BCW}

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Trividya (Sanskrit) [from tri three + vidya knowledge, science]

The three knowledges or sciences; the three fundamental axioms in mysticism: "(a) the impermanency of all existence, or Anityata; (b) suffering and misery of all that lives and is, or Dukha [duhkhata]; and (c) all physical, objective existence as evanescent and unreal as a water-bubble in a dream, or Anatmata" (TG 344).

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