Religion [from Latin religare to bind back, implying obligation; or from relegere to select, distinguish among various elements for the choosing of the best; ponder]

In theosophy individual religion of conduct means faith in his own essential divinity as a source of wisdom and an unerring and infallible guide in conduct; an ever-growing realization of that truth, an ever-growing consciousness of one's spiritual identity with the divine in nature; and constant devotion to the ideals thus inspired. Religion means a self-sacrificing devotion to truth, a resolve to live in harmony with all other lives, a sacrificing of the personal self to the greater self.

In theosophy there is no divorce between the devotional and speculative functions of the mind; science and philosophy do not conflict with the innate sense of rectitude. Ethics are not based on expediency, a social compact, or a special revelation, but are inherent in the laws of the universe.

The ancient wisdom is the quintessence of all religions, the universal parent-source of all faiths; and in proportion as each great world religion rises to the height of its own possibilities, so will the external divergences among the different faiths of mankind blend into the original fundamental unity.

(See also: Religion , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Agent, Universal. See PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

(See also: Agent, Universal , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Aeonology of the Marcians Given by Blavatsky in her "Commentary on the Pistis Sophia" (BCW 13:53) as: First Tetractys -- 1) Arrhetos (ineffable) with 7 elements; 2) Sige (silence) with 5 elements; Pater (father) with five elements; and 4) Aletheia (truth) with 7 elements, for a total of 24 elements. Second Tetractys -- 1) Logos (word) with 7 elements; 2) Zoe (life) with five elements; 3) Anthropos (man) with five elements; and 4) Ekklesia (assembly) with 7 elements, for a total of 24 elements, which together with Christos gives a total of 49 elements. (could reproduce chart given in BCW)

(See also: Aeonology of the Marcians , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Am 'em (Hebrew) Mother; occasionally any female ancestor; also a mother-city, and by the same metaphor occasionally the earth as the common mother of all.

See also AIMA; 'IMMA' `ILLA'AH

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

Point In mathematics a point is regarded as having no parts or magnitude, but is postulated for the purpose of defining position, for it cannot in itself have position unless space has been previously assumed. An abstract point cannot have location or relation to anything; it is devoid of attributes, unless we consider unity as an attribute. It is equivalent to the whole universe -- Philo has said that the Chaldeans regarded the kosmos as a single point.

In the book of symbology given at the beginning of The Secret Doctrine a point appears in a circle as the first differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever-eternal nature. From the unknowable and concealed point emerged the creative cosmic triad of Eros, Chaos, and Chronos.

Another view of the mystical significance of a point describes it as an emanative center, a spot where energies from one plane enter another plane, a symbol of unity and homogeneity, representing the phase before polarity has set in -- a logos, an indivisible, a monad.

See also LAYA-CENTER; PRIMORDIAL POINT

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

God In its widest sense, the origin and root of all that is. Absolute being may be regarded perhaps as one equivalent expression, but even being itself may be regarded as a condition or attribute, and beyond it we must therefore postulate be-ness.

The idea of a root or origin sometimes connotes supreme power and governance; but such conception of a rootless root or infinite origin does not exist, for whatever is, or has been, or ever will be, must ultimately spring from the womb of boundless infinitude, and we can speak only of a power and governance in connection with the subordinate or minor -- however supernal or sublime they may be -- which spring forth from the Boundless in virtually infinite numbers through beginningless and endless duration.

Monotheists recognize but one God, conceived as a supreme personality and usually endowed with attributes pertaining to human personality, this mental image of God therefore being but a reflection of the human mind, with its inherent limitations and biases; yet even monotheists tacitly recognize other gods under the name of natural forces. Polytheism recognizes hierarchies of divine beings, and pantheism discerns divine power as everywhere and eternally present.

The human being also in essence is a divinity. The attribution of personality to God is justly regarded as an inadmissible limitation; but there is a lack of clearness as to the meaning of such words as personality, self, and individuality, which unfortunately leads some monotheistic minds to the fear that the denial of personality will reduce the conception of divinity to merely an empty abstraction. Yet our inability to conceive the inconceivable has nothing to do with our intuition and duty, nor with the vision of the inner god as the supreme guide in a human life.

See also PERSONAL GOD

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

Mahabhutas (Sanskrit) (from maha great + bhuta element from the verbal root bhu to be, become)

Great or primordial element; the gross or vehicular cosmic elements in contradistinction from the subtle or causative cosmic elements (tanmatras) out of which the mahabhutas are evolved. Five are enumerated exoterically -- aether, fire, air, water, and earth -- but in the esoteric enumeration there are seven, ten, or twelve. Also an adjective meaning being great, or relating to the gross elements.

The mahabhutas are so called because they are the karmic fruits or resultants from the preceding cosmic manvantara, so that even these great cosmic elements begin their evolutionary courses in the new cosmic manvantara at the exact point in development which they had acquired when the preceding pralaya began.

The tanmatras are the inner vital cosmic principles, the causal rudiments, which evolve forth the mahabhutas. The distinction between them may be seen by an analogy drawn from the human constitution: the difference between sense as a faculty or power and sense organ as the vehicle of the sense faculty.

The five senses hitherto developed in the human being -- hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell -- have their five corresponding sense organs, the senses producing through evolution and time their respective organs. Similarly on the cosmic scale, the tanmatras correspond to the senses in the human constitution, while the mahabhutas correspond to the sense organs in the human body.

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

Set or Seth (Egyptian) According to the Heliopolitan mythology, the son of Seb and Nut, is the brother of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys; and the father of Anubis by Nephthys. In later times he became associated with Typhon.

The attributes of the god underwent several changes: he is described as very closely connected with Aroeris (Heru-ur or Horus the Elder), his chief office being that of helper and friend to the deceased; in this association a twin-god is pictured, having the hawk head of Horus (light) and the Set animal (darkness) upon one human body. Furthermore, Horus was the god of the sky by day, while Set was god of the sky by night: in this sense were they opposite yet identic deities in earliest times, one the shadow of the other.

Later the mythological account describes warlike combats between the two. Horus popularly represented the bright, upward motion of the sun -- resulting in spring and summer; Set represented the downward motion, the mythologic account dwelling upon the fact that Set stole the light from the sun, resulting in autumn and winter. The combats engaged in by Set are rendered in four themes: against Horus, resulting in night coming upon day; against Ra, the sun god; against his brother, Osiris, resulting in the latter's death; and against Horus the Younger who was striving to avenge the death of his father, Osiris. In the fight between Osiris and Set (or Typhon), Typhon is in one sense the shadow, and hence the material aspect of Osiris, "Osiris is the ideal Universe, Siva the great Regenerative Force, and Typhon the material portion of it, the evil side of the god, or the Destroying Siva" (TG 90).

In late dynastic times, all forms of evil and darkness were attributed to Set as well as all the storms of nature. His kingdom was placed in the northern sky in the constellation of the Great Bear -- the north being designated as the realm of darkness, originally mystically meaning the darkness of recondite spirit. When Typhon or Set is allied with earth and matter, these refer not to physical matter but to the body of space itself, the garments or wraps of space, and hence the clothing of the inscrutable darkness of spirit which is boundless light.

See also CROCODILE

(See also: Set, Seth , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Aed-en. See EDEN

(See also: Aed-en , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Geological Eras When H. P. Blavatsky was writing about the age of the earth in The Secret Doctrine she compared the teachings of the scientists of that time and found nothing but confusion and uncertainty as to geological figures. However, Professor Lefevre in his Philosophy adopted an original method of interpreting the data available. Instead of trying to reach exact figures in regard to the length of the entire fossil-bearing period of sedimentation from the Laurentian period to the present day, or of its subdivisions, he worked out the relative durations of the sedimentary deposits.

With this for a background the actual duration of the eras and periods could easily be calculated when reliable evidence was found. Lefevre's studies were based on the erosion of rocks and the deposition of sediments, and his conclusions have stood with little modification till now. H. P. Blavatsky noticed that his estimates of the relative duration of the geological ages agreed fairly well with the 'esoteric' information in her possession, and so by adapting her knowledge of the real figures to Lefevre's proportional scale she constructed a time table which, she says, approximates the truth "in almost every particular." Her total of "320,000,000 years of sedimentation" is much less than that of modern geologists, even though she includes the Laurentian period in her table, which they omit. Her "Esoteric" table (Sd 2:710) is as follows:

ROUGH APPROXIMATIONS.

Primordial lasted 171,200,000 years.

Laurentian

Cambrian

Silurian

Primary lasted 103,040,000 years

Devonian

Coal

Permian

Secondary lasted 36,800,000 years

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

Tertiary lasted 7,360,000 years (probably in excess)

Eocene

Miocene

Pliocene

Quaternary lasted 1,600,000 years (probably in excess).

A glance at the modern table alongside hers will show how greatly modern geologists have extended their time periods. Two reasons are given for this great extension: first, the supposedly known and constant rate of radioactive disintegration in certain minerals found in the rocks; second, the modern belief that biological evolution by natural selection, etc., required far more time than formerly seemed necessary or permissible.

In her Esoteric table Blavatsky, following Lefevre's arrangement, combines the three oldest periods, the Laurentian, Cambrian and Silurian, into her Primordial era. The two latter are now placed in the Paleozoic era, and the Laurentian and older rocks are included within the preceding Precambrian era, an enormously long complex of sedimentary, plutonic and metamorphosed rocks lying in tangled confusion below the Paleozoic strata, and in which forms of life are very scanty or altogether absent. The Precambrian era was longer than all the subsequent eras combined, and probably covers much of the "third round" evolution of life on this globe, for Blavatsky says that her 320,000,000 years of sedimentation, which approximates to the time elapsed since the Precambrian era, refers to this round (the fourth) of the human life-wave, for "it must be noted that even a greater time elapsed during the preparation of this globe for the Fourth Round previous to stratification" (SD 2:715). The tremendous cataclysms and the general transformations of the earth's crust that took place at the end of the third round (greater than any of the "revolutions" that have happened since) destroyed nearly all traces of the third round forms of life. A few living entities, mostly or entirely marine, managed to exist in and survive the great disturbances during the dawning of the opening drama of the fourth round. Their fossils are found in the earliest periods of the Paleozoic era associated with the rather more advanced forms which gradually superseded them (SD 2:712).

The scheme of terrestrial evolution from the standpoint of the ancient wisdom given in The Secret Doctrine is, in a few words: the earth we see is the fourth of a sevenfold "chain" of globes which constitutes a single organism, as we may call it. The other six globes are not visible to our gross senses but the entire group is intimately connected. The vast stream of human monads circulates seven times round the earth planetary chain during the great cycle. We are now in the fourth circulation or round of the great pilgrimage on our globe and so this period is called the fourth round. While on our globe we pass through seven stages called "root-races," each lasting for millions of years. Each in its turn is subdivided into smaller septenary sections. Each succeeding root-race is shorter than its predecessor, and there is some overlapping. Great geological changes separate each root-race from its successor and only a comparatively few survivors remain to provide the seed for the next root-race.

The individualized life cycles in the rounds are associated with diversities in environment. Each round is a component part of a great serial order of evolution which may be summarized as the gradual descent of spirit into matter and the subsequent ascent. The first round, even on this globe, was highly spiritual and ethereal: the succeeding rounds are less so, until the middle of the fourth round is reached. After that axial period the process is reversed and by degrees the original state of ethereality is reassumed. A similar process takes place within each round, but on a minor scale -- smaller cycles within a dominant one. The physical condition of the earth's substance is modified in a corresponding way. The amazing modern discoveries of the nature of the atom, of its transmutations, and of the transformation of 'matter' into energy have removed any prima facie objections to such a process.

The first root-race of the fourth round was by far the longest of its seven root-races, because within it were included advanced monads from the third round or life-wave on this globe, called sishtas (those left behind to serve as "seeds of life" for the returning life-wave in the succeeding round), and other forerunners, who preceded by millions of years the main aggregation of monads that formed the first root-race properly so called. The second root-race was not so long as the first, the third was considerably shorter, and so forth. We are now about halfway through the fifth root-race, and two-and-a-half root-races are still to come before the end of the fourth round on this globe. The fourth round contains the period of greatest materiality for the vehicles of the monad during the entire seven rounds, and during this middle round the ascent of the ladder of spiritual unfoldment begins. Although the "physical" conditions of the entire fourth round were denser than those of its predecessors, the early part of the fourth, which includes the first and second root-races and most of the third, was still quite ethereal and no material traces of man have been left for science to discover. In the fourth root-race, the earth itself became hard and dense.

In regard to the dates and duration of the earlier root-races of the fourth round we are given but little information. We can, however, place the early root-races approximately side by side with the periods and dates given by H. P. Blavatsky in her Esoteric table and reach a fairly close idea of their antiquity. From some casual hints contained in The Secret Doctrine it is clear that the first root-race began before the Mesozoic (Secondary) era, most probably in the Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) period in the Paleozoic, but possibly earlier. According to the Esoteric table this could even be almost 150,000,000 years ago. The ethereal first root-race, which did not know physical "death," gradually blended with the second root-race in the Permian period.

It is noteworthy that there is some parallelism between the root-races and the periods beginning with great geological, climatic, and biological changes called by geologists "revolutions." This applies even to the earliest or ethereal races. At least four and possibly more have taken place, the most important and earth-shaking being that which ushered in the fourth round (about the end of the Precambrian era as already mentioned). As we are only in the fifth root-race no doubt we shall experience other cataclysmic changes during the closing period of this round on this globe. We read in The Secret Doctrine:

As land needs rest and renovation, new forces, and a change for its soil, so does water. Thence arises a periodical redistribution of land and water, change of climates, etc., all brought on by geological revolution, and ending in a final change in the axis. -- 2:726

The exact duration of the rounds or the root-races has never been given out; and the geologists are not inclined to commit themselves definitely in regard to the length of their eras and periods. But there is no doubt of the actuality of the serial events or cyclic repetitions and of the order in which they occur, irrespective of the number of years that may be assigned to them.

Nothing definite is revealed about the chronology of the four earlier subraces of the third root-race, but approximately exact figures are given for the first time when we reach the fifth subrace, and we learn that about 18,618,000 years have elapsed from that subrace to the present day. This period is called by Blavatsky that of "our humanity" because the characteristics of mankind as we understand it -- physically, emotionally and mentally -- showed their first indications in the fifth subrace.

We have, however, so greatly changed since the monad emerged from the shadowy ethereal vestures or vehicles of "pre-human man" that as Blavatsky says:

that which Science -- recognizing only physical man -- has a right to regard as the prehuman period, may be conceded to have extended from the First Race down to the first half of the Atlantean (Fourth) race, since it is only then that man became the "complete organic being he is now." And this would make Adamic man no older than a few million of years. -- SD 2:315

According to the dating in the Esoteric table, the third root-race was at its peak in the Jurassic period, becoming denser in the Cretaceous period and ending in the early Cenozoic era. It overlapped the fourth root-race, commonly called the Atlantean, which reached its middle period 8-9,000,000 years ago, near the beginning of the earliest division of the Cenozoic era, the Paleocene. The disastrous breaking up of the main Atlantean continental area occurred in the Miocene period, but portions such as the great islands, Ruta and Daitya, lingered until much later, and Plato's small "island of Atlantis" perished only 11-12,000 years ago.

As Vaivasvata's humanity, in which we are particularly interested, began to develop 18-19,000,000 years ago, it is obviously far older than the Cenozoic era which, according to the Esoteric table, began about 8,960,000 years ago, but here we find a striking unconformity between modern geology and the esoteric teaching. In several places Blavatsky envisages the possibility that the geologists might increase their estimate of the length of the Cenozoic era, and says that this would not be disturbing.

It may make our position plainer if we state at once that we use Sir C. Lyell's nomenclature for the ages and periods, and that when we talk of the Secondary and Tertiary age, of the Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene periods -- this is simply to make our facts more comprehensible. Since these ages and periods have not yet been allowed fixed and determined durations, 2½ and 15 million years being assigned at different times to one and the same age (the Tertiary) -- and since no two geologists and naturalists seem to agree on this point -- Esoteric teachings may remain quite indifferent to whether man is shown to appear in the Secondary or the Tertiary age. If the latter age may be allowed even so much as 15 million years' duration -- well and good; for the Occult doctrine, jealously guarding its real and correct figures as far as concerns the First, Second, and two-thirds of the Third Root-Race -- gives clear information upon one point only -- the age of "Vaivasvata Manu's humanity." (SD 2:693)

Though Vaivasvata's humanity -- our humanity -- has existed for 18-19,000,000 years, and for less than half that time we have been complete organic beings, we may look forward to many more millions of years before any radical changes will take place in our physical structure. During the fourth root-race, the Atlantean, the lowest stage of materiality was reached, and we in the fifth root-race are now somewhat less physically dense. By the time we attain the seventh root-race of this fourth round, in the far distant future, our flesh will have become much more refined and almost translucent, and near the close of the manvantara or great life-period of planetary evolution in the seventh round we shall have risen so far above the lower cosmic plane in which our earth now functions that our highly ethereal bodies "will become self-luminous forms of light."

(See also: Geological Eras , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Science [from Latin scientia from scire to know]

In its widest sense formulated knowledge, a knowledge of structure, laws, and operations. The unity of human knowledge may be artificially divided into religion, philosophy, and science. Science and philosophy, as presently understood, have in common the quality of being speculative, as opposed to religion, which in the West is supposed to be founded merely on faith and moral sentiments.

The present distinction between science and philosophy lies largely in their respective fields of speculation. What is known as modern science investigates the phenomena of physical nature and by inferential reasoning formulates general laws therefrom. Its method is called inductive and its data are so-called facts -- i.e., sensory observations; whereas deductive philosophy starts from axioms. Yet a scientist, in order to reason from his data at all, must necessarily use both induction and deduction.

Modern science has limited its field of study to the laws of physical nature; but in the 20th century the illusive and entirely phenomenal nature of matter and energy, formerly assumed to be eternal and indestructible, is better realized by scientists who have traced the chain of physical causation to a point beyond physical limits altogether and admit that the physical world consists of phenomena occurring in an ultraphysical substance.

In modern sciences dealing with biology, evolution, and anthropology, legitimate inference from facts has been much interfered with by preconceived ideas. Modern science suffers from its failure to see the necessity of postulating an astral or formative world behind the physical, this astral world being in itself but one stage in a rising scale or ladder of invisible worlds. To ascertain the facts upon which to build a true inductive system, we must admit the existence in man of means of direct perception other than those afforded by the physical senses.

(See also: Science , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Deep. See ABYSS; BYTHOS; SPACE

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Aeriform Having the form or nature of air; used by Blavatsky to describe one of seven fundamental transformations of the constituent particles of matter of the globes (SD 1:205). Also used to describe primeval man on this earth during the fourth round, who was aeriform, devoid of compactness, and mindless (SD 2:80).

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

Earth Besides being our terrestrial globe, earth is a comprehensive symbol, meaning the matter or vehicular side of manifestation as well as one of the four, five, or seven elements.

It is primordial undifferentiated matter which, by the action of spirit, produces the manifested worlds of entities. The Western alchemists called this Adam's Earth; in Greek mythology it is the lower side of Rhea. The bringing forth of animate beings was due to the marriage of heaven and earth, so that our earth is an offspring of this cosmic union. Connected with this meaning are the numerous allusions to earth as the nether pole of manifestation, and it is often synonymous with the nether regions, as Pluto, Yama, etc.

In the zodiac it is occasionally symbolized by Taurus, the bull which in popular astrology is the first and fixed earthy sign. As the lowest of the several elements, earth denotes physicalization, what we call physical matter being a combination of all four elements with the earth-element predominating. The pure element, however, is not physical, its characteristic property or tattva in connection with the human organs is smell, and its name in the Hindu system is prithivi-tattva; it is characterized by square or cubical forms and by fixity; the nature spirits pertaining to it were said by medieval European mystics to be the gnomes.

Our own earth is one of a system of planetary chains belonging to the solar system. The earth planetary chain consists of a coadunation or chain of seven or twelve globes, though the name earth is usually applied to the grossest globe, which alone is in direct rapport with our physical senses. The earth actually is an animate being, as are all the celestial globes.

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

Akkas Tribe of southern Africa, resembling hairless orangutans or chimpanzees, mentioned by Blavatsky as equivalent to Herodotus' pygmies and as possible remnants of "missing links." (BCW 3:41-2)

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

Ahu (Sanskrit) (probably from paro'mhu beyond the range of sight)

Invisible, unknown, secret, mysterious; Blavatsky equates it with the Sanskrit eka (one) and Hebrew echod, that which begins an emanation-series from the Unknowable (SD 1:113).

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

Abiegnus Mons (Latin) (from abies fir-wood, a letter inscribed on a wooden tablet + mons mountain)

Wooded mountain; according to Wynn Westcott, a mystic name "from whence, as from a certain mountain, Rosicrucian documents are often found to be issued -- 'Monte Abiegno.' There is a connection with Mount Meru, and other sacred hills" (TG 3).

(See also: Abiegnus Mons , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Arrhetos (Gnostic) Ineffable, unspeakable or, as used in Greek mystical philosophy, not to be divulged. Connected with the Greek Mysteries and of constant occurrence in Greek mystical literature dating from earliest times. Whatever was considered too holy, too sacred, or improper from every aspect to divulge to the public whether in speech or writing, was called arrheton (neuter). The word was taken over by the Gnostic sects and signified among other matters the sevenfold nature of the one formative Logos, the first cosmic hebdomad or septenary (this name of the ineffable is composed of seven letters in the Greek).

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

Heart The heart is the seat in the human body of buddhic consciousness, corresponding to the anahata chakra which is ruled by the planet Venus. There are three principal centers of the human body: the heart as the center of spiritual consciousness; the head as the center of mental consciousness; and the navel as the center of kamic or emotional consciousness.

The heart is the organ through which the higher ego acts, seeking to impress the lower self which works through the brain. In this sense the heart is the most important part of the body, and when developed leads to spiritual mastery, the unity of atma-buddhi-manas. In another sense, the heart corresponds to prana, "but only because Prana and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and because again as Jiva it is the same as the Universal Deity" (BCW 12:694).

Cosmically, the sun is the beating heart of the solar system, and the sunspot cycle of approximately 12 years represents the cycle of its beating, as it sends forth and receives back the circulations on many planes which sustain the solar system. The sun is "a beating heart; in another sense, it is a brain. There is a temptation to use the words heart and brain literally, and such usage wanders not far from fact. But it is not the physical globe which is the true head and heart, except insofar as the physical universe is concerned. The real head and the real heart, coalescing and working as one, are the divinity behind and above and within the physical vehicle of our glorious daystar" (FSO 299; cf SD 1:541-2).

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

Angel of the Face In Roman Catholicism, a term for the archangel Michael; identical with Jehovah, and the host brought forth from the Great Mother (SD 2:479-80; 1:434n, 459).

(See also: Angel of the Face , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Period(s).

See CYCLE; GEOLOGICAL AGES

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

Adisesha (Sanskrit) (from adi first + sesha from the verbal root sish to leave remainders)

Primeval residue; the mythological thousand-headed serpent (naga) upon which Vishnu "sleeps" during the pralayas (intervals between manifestations); also represented as supporting the seven patalas (hells) with the seven regions above them and therefore the entire world (VP 2:5). More often called simply Sesha; or Ananta, infinite; or Ananta-sesha.

As sesha means "remainder," "what is left over," the main significance is that during the pralayas Vishnu, representing the cosmic divinity, is conceived as sleeping upon the substance of a spiritual character remaining over after the dissolution of the worlds. Thus Adisesha (primeval substance or remainder) is the cosmic spatial ocean of consciousness-substance left over from the previous cosmic manvantara which acts as the mother-substance or chaos from and in which the future worlds of manifestation will be born when pralaya ends.

See also ANANTA; ANANTA-SESHA

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