Mesmerism Named for Friedrich Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), a Viennese physician who conceived the idea that diseases could be healed by stroking the afflicted parts of the patient's body with magnets. Later he discovered that the same healing effect could be produced by stroking or making passes over the afflicted parts with the hands. Hence the name animal magnetism as descriptive of this method of healing which today is generally called mesmerism.

Mesmer's fundamental idea was that there resides in man a power, an odic force or nerve energy, which can be projected by the will and directed either to heal and cure, or to harm and kill. All people possess this power in varying degrees. The very life-atoms which continually enter and leave not only our physical bodies, but the higher parts of our composite nature, are charged with and carry with them this odic force or mesmeric influence. We continually exchange these life-atoms with other beings, unconsciously to ourselves, and with those kingdoms according to their respective natures or planes.

Mesmerism, however, means the conscious or unconscious projection by a human being of this odic or vital nerve force or magnetic fluid. But the possession of this power depends upon the physical vitality and health rather than the moral or spiritual status of the operator; while the quality of this power is very greatly influenced by the moral or spiritual status of the operator. In this lies the danger of the practice of mesmerism, for unless the operator is pure minded and of high moral character, the physical vitality or magnetic fluid which he projects to the patient will be morally tainted and may constitute a grave danger to the patient who, while apparently deriving physical benefit from the treatment, may become morally weakened by it, be it in however small degree.

In accordance with the constant transmigration of life-atoms between person and person, and among all the kingdoms of nature; and, as those life-atoms are of all planes -- physical, vital-astral, psychic, intellectual, and spiritual, each being of the nature of that plane and hence the carrier of the life-essence, prana, odic force, or magnetism of that plane -- it follows that no person can live to himself alone; but that all people influence one another either for good or ill, particularly those who are closely associated together. This is the occult significance of the power of example good or bad, the power of a cheerful, courageous, optimistic nature, or of a nature of opposite character. Hence we may speak of the mesmeric influence as operative theoretically on all planes; but when used for purposes of physical or psychic healing, it operates on the physical and psychic planes alone, because of the vital carriers or life-atoms in question.

Even so considered, the mesmeric influence not only supplements and thus arouses to renewed activity the latent vitality of the patient, but acts indirectly upon the patient's mind and will, by helping to remove the inhibitions upon the action of these due to physical suffering and lack of physical health; and can be used for either good or immoral ends when the influence is directed to the mental and psychic nature of the patient.

But mesmerism is not necessarily psychologization, which is control by psychic force of another's mind and will, resulting in a dislocation of the psychic nature of the latter, a usurpation or forcible direction of the thought and will of another by the psychologizer, an invasion of that other's most sacred rights -- immoral and evil in its results, whatever immediate appearances may be, and whatever be the motive, for it cripples that part in man without which he is not fully human. Nevertheless the psychologizer, as well as the so-called hypnotizer, invariably makes use of mesmeric influence, odic force, and the pranas, for these are the carriers of thought-energy and will, without which these latter could not reach and dominate the mind and will of the subject. Mesmerism, purely as such, depends solely upon the inherent natures of the pranas, and is solely a transference of pranic energy from the operator to the subject. Thus, according to the health, physical and moral, of the operator so will the subject be affected either for good or ill.

The greatest and only sure safeguard against baneful mesmeric influence, whether consciously directed against one or unconsciously exercised by another, is one's own aspirations, positive will, and endeavor to think and live one's best and noblest. If all people were spiritually enlightened, the true mesmeric power could be safely used for the healing of disease and even for aid in bringing about a rectification, by the patient's own will, of distortions and weaknesses in the patient's character or constitution. But as matters stand, the danger in meddling with the subtle pranic energies is invariably both very real and great. One may always use the power of suggestion when this is elevated to, and employed solely on, the high moral and intellectual planes, such as by lofty spiritual and ethical teaching, precept, and especially the power of high example -- because these instill thoughts and ideals in the patient's mind arousing his own desire to follow them. These facts also demonstrate the real danger of suggestion when employed as it so often is on the lower planes, thus frequently taking the form of what are commonly called temptations.

Because mesmerism, psychologization, suggestion, and hypnotism are interlinked, all these have their respective play and place in any usage by one person of his vitality upon another.

(See also: Mesmerism , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A dictionary of parapsychology. Please note that words in grey are hyperlinked to a corresponding archive with articles related to that particular topic.

Druids Members of a priestly hierarchy among the ancient Celts of Britain, Gaul, and Ireland, composed of the three Orders of Druids, Bards, and Ovates. According to the Gaulish reports mentioned by Julius Caesar, Druidism was founded in Britain, which remained in his time its headquarters, candidates for the priesthood being sent to that island from Gaul for their training.

The Welsh tradition confirms this, stating the The Wisdom had always existed; that in remote times it was known simply as Gwyddoniaeth (science) and its teachers as the Gwyddoniaid (sing., Gwyddon); that knowledge of it had declined until at some unknown period a wiseman named Tydain Tad Awen arose and taught it to his three disciples, Plenydd, Gwron, and Alawn, who in their turn taught it to the race of the Cymry. From that time forth it was known as Derwyddoniaeth or Druidism, "the wisdom taught in oak groves."

Classical references to the Druids are many, coming from about 200 B.C. until about 200 A.D. Those written before Caesar made his attack on Gaul speak of the Druids as possessors of a high wisdom; the very first reference says that it was held in Greece that philosophy came to the Greeks from the barbaroi or foreigners: the Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the Egyptian priesthood, and the Druids.

While the Romans were fighting the Celts, writers, beginning with Caesar, repeat more or less what has been said before about the wisdom of the Druids but, following Caesar, have much to say about their atrocities. When the Romans were no longer at war with the Druidic Celts, however, the references to the Druids are similar to the early ones, with no mention of atrocities.

Blavatsky stated that Druidism was the one branch of the sacred Mysteries of antiquity in the Western world which had not degenerated; and that during the campaigns of Caesar and his forces in Gaul, three million Gauls were killed and Druidism virtually wiped out there. It is Caesar who is responsible for the current notion that the Gauls and Britons were crude savages and the Druids barbarous and cruel. He stated first that the Druids of Gaul, who were judges as well as priests, inflicted excommunication as their severest sentence, passed even on the worst criminals. Excommunication was their capital punishment. Later on in his book he describes the famous wicker cages filled with criminals (with just men added when there were not criminals enough) who were then burnt. The two statements are contradictory. The later statement is entirely unsupported; the former is not only compatible with the Druids' reputation for profound wisdom and great humanity, but is supported indirectly by practically every classical reference which mentions the Druids at all.

In Gaul in Caesar's time Druidism was very highly organized and controlled the whole civilization, a fact Caesar is known to have deliberately understated, for in many respects Gaulish civilization was more advanced than Roman. We know nothing of Druidism in Britain from the classical writers, except that Britain was its headquarters and place of origin, and that the Druids were massacred in Mona (Anglesea), an island in northwest Wales which seems to have been the Druids headquarters in Britain.

Of Druidism in Ireland we know even less: the Irish Sagas do not indicate that the Druids there were either priests or jurists, or indeed very important people; they appear rather as necromancers at the royal courts, astrologers, magicians, etc. Had Druidism been an organized system, as in Gaul and presumably in Britain, Patrick, the Christian missionary, could hardly have converted the whole island with the little trouble he had. In Britain, however, as soon as the Romans with their proscription of Druidism had departed in 410, there is every reason to think that Druidism flamed up again: Welsh literature, from the 6th to the end of the 15th century, is full of interesting references.

Greek and Roman authors all make much of the Druidic belief in reincarnation. One of them relates that you could always borrow money to be repaid in such and such a future life on earth -- showing that it was reincarnation, the coming back as a human being, and not transmigration, the coming back as an animal, that was taught. The likeness between Druidism and Pythagoreanism is often mentioned, which perhaps suggested the legend that Pythagoras studied not only under Eastern but also under Western or Druidic teachers; and that other belief, that philosophy came to Greece not only from the East, but also from the Druids.

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

Gnostic

"One who knows", adherent of an ancient Hellenistic way of life teaching transmigration of souls and a struggle between the forces of light and darkness

(See also: Gnostic , Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Soulless Beings :

Soulless Beings

"We elbow soulless men in the streets at every turn," wrote H. P. Blavatsky. This is an actual fact. The statement does not mean that those whom we thus elbow have no soul. The significance is that the spiritual part of these human beings is sleeping, not awake. Soulless Beings are animate humans with an animate working brain-mind, an animal mind, but otherwise "soulless" in the sense that the soul is inactive, sleeping; and this is also just what Pythagoras meant when he spoke of the "living dead."

Soulless Beings are everywhere, these people. We elbow them, just as H. P. Blavatsky says, at every turn. The eyes may be physically bright, and filled with the vital physical fire, but they lack soul; they lack tenderness, the fervid yet gentle warmth of the living flame of inspiration within. Sometimes impersonal love will awaken the soul in a man or in a woman; sometimes it will kill it if the love become selfish and gross. The streets are filled with such "soulless" people; but the phrase soulless people does not mean "lost souls." The latter is again something else.

The term soulless people therefore is a technical term. It means men and women who are still connected, but usually quite unconsciously, with the monad, the spiritual essence within them, but who are not self-consciously so connected. They live very largely in the brain-mind and in the fields of sensuous consciousness. They turn with pleasure to the frivolities of life. They have the ordinary feelings of honor, etc., because it is conventional and good breeding so to have them; but the deep inner fire of yearning, the living warmth that comes from being more or less at one with the god within, they know not. Hence, they are "soulless," because the soul is not working with fiery energy in and through them.

A lost soul, on the other hand, means an entity who through various rebirths, it may be a dozen, or more or less, has been slowly following the "easy descent to Avernus," and in whom the threads of communication with the spirit within have been snapped one after the other. Vice will do this, continuous vice. Hate snaps these spiritual threads more quickly than anything else perhaps. Selfishness, the parent of hate, is the root of all human evil; and therefore a lost soul is one who is not merely soulless in the ordinary theosophical usage of the word, but is one who has lost the last link, the last delicate thread of consciousness, connecting him with his inner god. He will continue "the easy descent," passing from human birth to an inferior human birth, and then to one still more inferior, until finally the degenerate astral monad  - all that remains of the human being that once was  - may even enter the body of some beast to which it feels attracted (and this is one side of the teaching of transmigration, which has been so badly misunderstood in the Occident); some finally go even to plants perhaps, at the last, and will ultimately vanish. The astral monad will then have faded out. Such lost souls are exceedingly rare, fortunately; but they are not what we call soulless people.

If the student will remember the fact that when a human being is filled with the living spiritual and intellectual fiery energies flowing into his brain-mind from his inner god, he is then an insouled being, he will readily understand that when these fiery energies can no longer reach the brain-mind and manifest in a man's life, there is thus produced what is called a soulless being. A good man, honorable, loyal, compassionate, aspiring, gentle, and true-hearted, and a student of wisdom, is an "insouled" man; a buddha is one who is fully, completely insouled; and there are all the intermediate grades between.

See also: Soulless Beings , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Albigenses A sect arising in Southern France in the 11th century and opposed by the Roman Catholic Church, which exterminated it in the 13th century. It had affinity with the Catharists and also more distantly with the Paulicians, derivatives of the Eastern Church.

The doctrines and the pedigree of the Albigenses show it to be a distant offshoot of Manichaeism, so long the formidable rival of orthodox Christianity in Europe and Asia. There was the characteristic Manichaean dualism and belief in some form of transmigration and metempsychosis. There was, according to some, the Docetic view of Christ -- that his body was a mere appearance, his spirit being the reality. The authority of the Old Testament was not admitted as inspired.

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

karma: (Sanskrit) "Action, deed."

One of the most important principles in Hindu thought, karma refers to

á      any act or deed;

á      the principle of cause and effect;

á      a consequence or "fruit of action" (karmaphala) or "after effect" (uttaraphala), which sooner or later returns upon the doer. What we sow, we shall reap in this or future lives. Selfish, hateful acts (papakarma or kukarma) will bring suffering. Benevolent actions (punyakarma or sukarma) will bring loving reactions.

Karma is a neutral, self-perpetuating law of the inner cosmos, much as gravity is an impersonal law of the outer cosmos. In fact, it has been said that gravity is a small, external expression of the greater law of karma. The impelling, unseen power of one's past actions is called adrishta.

The law of karma acts impersonally, yet we may meaningfully interpret its results as either positive (punya) or negative (papa)- terms describing actions leading the soul either toward or away from the spiritual goal. Karma is further graded as: white (shukla), black (krishna), mixed (shukla-krishna) or neither white nor black (ashukla-akrishna). The latter term describes the karma of the jnani, who, as Rishi Patanjali says, is established in kaivalya, freedom from prakriti through realization of the Self. Similarly, one's karma must be in a condition of ashukla-akrishna, quiescent balance, in order for liberation to be attained. This equivalence of karma is called karmasamya, and is a factor that brings malaparipaka, or maturity of anava mala. It is this state of resolution in preparation for samadhi at death that all Hindus seek through making amends and settling differences.

Karma is threefold: sanchita, prarabdha and kriyamana.

-       sanchita karma: "Accumulated actions." The sum of all karmas of this life and past lives.

-       prarabdha karma: "Actions begun; set in motion." That portion of sanchita karma that is bearing fruit and shaping the events and conditions of the current life, including the nature of one's bodies, personal tendencies and associations.

-       - kriyamana karma: "Being made." The karma being created and added to sanchita in this life by one's thoughts, words and actions, or in the inner worlds between lives. Kriyamana karma is also called agami, "coming, arriving," and vartamana, "living, set in motion." While some kriyamana karmas bear fruit in the current life, others are stored for future births.

-        

Each of these types can be divided into two categories: arabdha (literally, "begun, undertaken;" karma that is "sprouting"), and anarabdha ("not commenced; dormant"), or "seed karma."

In a famed analogy, karma is compared to rice in its various stages. Sanchita karma, the residue of one's total accumulated actions, is likened to rice that has been harvested and stored in a granary. From the stored rice, a small portion has been removed, husked and readied for cooking and eating. This is prarabdha karma, past actions that are shaping the events of the present. Meanwhile, new rice, mainly from the most recent harvest of prarabdha karma, is being planted in the field that will yield a future crop and be added to the store of rice. This is kriyamana karma, the consequences of current actions. In Saivism, karma is one of three principal bonds of the soul, along with anava and maya. Karma is the driving force that brings the soul back again and again into human birth in the evolutionary cycle of transmigration called samsara. When all earthly karmas are resolved and the Self has been realized, the soul is liberated from rebirth. This is the goal of all Hindus.

For each of the three kinds of karma there is a different method of resolution. Nonattachment to the fruits of action, along with daily rites of worship and strict adherence to the codes of dharma, stops the accumulation of kriyamana. Prarabdha karma is resolved only through being experienced and lived through. Sanchita karma, normally inaccessible, is burned away only through the grace and diksha of the satguru, who prescribes sadhana and tapas for the benefit of the shishya. Through the sustained kundalini heat of this extreme penance, the seeds of unsprouted karmas are fried, and therefore will never sprout in this or future lives.

See: diksha, grace.

Like the four-fold edict of dharma, the three-fold edict of karma has both individual and impersonal dimensions. Personal karma is thus influenced by broader contexts, sometimes known as family karma, community karma, national karma, global karma and universal karma.

See: karma, anava, fate, maya, moksha, papa, pasha, punya, sin, soul, karma yoga.

karmasamya: (Sanskrit) "Balance or equipoise of karma."

See: karma.

karmashaya: (Sanskrit) "Holder of karma." Describes the body of the soul,

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

Chang-chub byang chub (jang-chub, chang-chub) (Tibetan) Also Byang-tzyoobs, Tchang-chub.

Translation for Sanskrit bodhi (enlightenment, awakening). Byang chub sems dpa' (jang-chub-sem-pa) translates the Sanskrit bodhisattva, one who has attained a high degree of spiritual knowledge and mystic power; "An adept who has, by the power of his knowledge and soul enlightenment, become exempt from the curse of UNCONSCIOUS transmigration -- may, at his will and desire, and instead of reincarnating himself only after bodily death, do so, and repeatedly -- during his life if he chooses.

He holds the power of choosing for himself new bodies whether on this or any other planet -- while in possession of his old form, that he generally preserves for purposes of his own" (ML 285).

(See also: Chang-chub, byang chub , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Buddha Siddharta (Sanskrit) The name given to Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, at his birth. It is an abbreviation of sarvartthasiddha and means, the "realization of all desires".

Gautama, which means, on earth (gau) the most victorious (tama) "was the sacerdotal name of the Sakya family, the kingly patronymic of the dynasty to which the father of Gautama, the King Suddhodhana of Kapilavastu, belonged. Kapilavastu was an ancient city, the birth-place of the Great Reformer and was destroyed during his life time. In the title Sakyamuni, the last component, muni, is rendered as meaning one mighty in charity, isolation and silence", and the former Sakya is the family name.

Every Orientalist or Pundit knows by heart the story of Gautama, the Buddha, the most perfect of mortal men that the world has ever seen, but none of them seem to suspect the esoteric meaning underlying his prenatal biography, i.e., the significance of the popular story. The Lalitavistura tells the tale, but abstains from hinting at the truth. The 5,000 jatakas, or the events of former births (re-incarnations) are taken literally instead of esoterically.

Gautama, the Buddha, would not have been a mortal man, had he not passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his last. Yet the detailed account of these, and the statement that during them he worked his way up through every stage of transmigration from the lowest animate and inanimate atom and insect, up to the highest - or man, contains simply the well-known occult aphorism: "a stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, and an animal a man". Every human being who has ever existed, has passed through the same evolution. But the hidden symbolism in the sequence of these re-births (jataka) contains a perfect history of the evolution on this earth, pre and post human, and is a scientific exposition of natural facts. One truth not veiled but bare and open is found in their nomenclature, viz., that as soon as Gautama had reached the human form he began exhibiting in every personality the utmost unselfishness, self-sacrifice and charity.

Buddha Gautama, the fourth of the Sapta (Seven) Buddhas and Sapta Tathagatas was born according to Chinese Chronology in 1024 B.C; but according to the Singhalese chronicles, on the 8th day of the second (or fourth) moon in the year 621 before our era. He fled from his father’s palace to become an ascetic on the night of the 8th day of the second moon, 597 BC., and having passed six years in ascetic meditation at Gaya, and perceiving that physical self-torture was useless to bring enlightenment, be decided upon striking out a new path, until he reached the state of Bodhi. He became a full Buddha on the night of the 8th day of the twelfth moon, in the year 592, and finally entered Nirvana in the year 543 according to Southern Buddhism. The Orientalists, however, have decided upon several other dates. All the rest is allegorical. He attained the state of Bodhisattva on earth when in the personality called Prabhapala. Tushita stands for a place on this globe, not for a paradise in the invisible regions. The selection of the Sakya family and his mother Maya, as "the purest on earth," is in accordance with the model of the nativity of every Saviour, God or deified Reformer.

The tale about his entering his mother’s bosom in the shape of a white elephant is an allusion to his innate wisdom, the elephant of that colour being a symbol of every Bodhisattva. The statements that at Gautama’s birth, the newly born babe walked seven steps in four directions, that an Udumbara flower bloomed in all its rare beauty and that the Naga kings forthwith proceeded ‘‘to baptise him ", are all so many allegories in the phraseology of the Initiates and well-understood by every Eastern Occultist. The whole events of his noble life are given in occult numbers, and every so-called miraculous event - so deplored by Orientalists as confusing the narrative and making it impossible to extricate truth from fiction - is simply the allegorical veiling of the truth, it is as comprehensible to an Occultist learned in symbolism, as it is difficult to understand for a European scholar ignorant of Occultism.

Every detail of the narrative after his death and before cremation is a chapter of facts written in a language which must be studied before it is understood, otherwise its dead letter will lead one into absurd contradictions. For instance, having reminded his disciples of the immortality of Dharmakaya Buddha is said to have passed into Samadhi, and lost himself in Nirvana - from which none can return., and yet, notwithstanding this, the Buddha is shown bursting open the lid of the coffin, and stepping out of it ; saluting with folded hands his mother Maya who had suddenly appeared in the air, though she had died seven (days after his birth, &c., &c.

As Buddha. was a Chakravartti (he who turns the wheel of the Law), his body at its cremation could not be consumed by common fire. What happens Suddenly a jet of flame burst out of the Swastica on his breast, and reduced his body to ashes. Space prevents giving more instances. As to his being one of the true and undeniable Saviours of the World, suffice it to say that the most rabid orthodox missionary, unless he is hopelessly insane, or has not the least regard even for historical truth, cannot find one smallest accusation against the life and personal character of Gautama, the "Buddha".

Without any claim to divinity, allowing his followers to fall into atheism, rather than into the degrading superstition of deva or idol-worship, his walk in life is from the beginning to the end, holy and divine. During the years of his mission it is blameless and pure as that of a god - or as the latter should be. He is a perfect example of a divine, godly man. He reached Buddhaship - i.e., complete enlightenment - entirely by his own merit and owing to his own individual exertions, no god being supposed to have any personal merit in the exercise of goodness and holiness. Esoteric teachings claim that he renounced Nirvana and gave up the Dharmakaya vesture to remain a "Buddha of compassion" within the reach of the miseries of this world.

And the religious philosophy he left to it has produced for over 2,000 years generations of good and unselfish men. His is the only absolutely bloodless religion among all the existing religions tolerant and liberal, teaching universal compassion and charity, love and self-sacrifice, poverty and contentment with one’s lot, whatever it may he.

No persecutions, and enforcement of faith by fire and sword, have ever disgraced it. No thunder-and-lightning-vomiting god has interfered with its chaste commandments; and if the simple, humane and philosophical code of daily life left to us by the greatest Man-Reformer ever known, should ever come to he adopted by mankind at large, then indeed an era of bliss and peace would dawn on Humanity.

(See also: Buddha Siddharta , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Palingenesis [from Greek palin again + genesis becoming]

One type of reimbodiment or self-generation, the transmission of an identic life in cyclically recurring phases, whereby at each transformation a new manifestation or result is produced. This result can also be called a palingenesis or new-becoming of the life-stream.

The word is used similarly by Schopenhauer, who regards all phenomena as a continual and repeated palingenesis of one reality -- the Will. Transmigration, however, means the reappearance of a living entity in different forms adapted to specific conditions.

Palingenesis does not occur in Greek literature, as far as is known; palingenesia is used in the New Testament for spiritual regeneration. With the alchemists the word meant the artificial reproduction of the spectrum of a plant from its ashes. In biology palingenesis means reappearance of ancestral characteristics, instead of new characteristics (cenogenesis).

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

Khepra (Egypt, Egyptian). An Egyptian god presiding over rebirth and transmigration. He is represented with a scarabeus instead of a head.

(See also: Khepra , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Jataka (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root jan to be born)

A birth story; the 550 Jataka tales form one of the books of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Buddhist canon. These stories are supposed to have been related by the Buddha and are considered by some to be the accounts of his former lives, and by others to be a group of tales built of occult truth and past experiences of the Buddha and treated in an allegorical way by some of his first and greatest disciples in order to depict a synopsis of the evolutionary history of the human race.

"Gautama, the Buddha, would not have been a mortal man, had he not passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his last. Yet the detailed account of these, and the statement that during them he worked his way up through every stage of transmigration from the lowest animate and inanimate atom and insect, up to the highest -- or man, contains simply the well-known occult aphorism: 'a stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, and an animal a man.' Every human being who has ever existed, has passed through the same evolution.

But the hidden symbolism in the sequence of these re-births (jataka) contains a perfect history of the evolution on this earth, pre and post human, and is a scientific exposition of natural facts. One truth not veiled but bare and open is found in their nomenclature, viz., that as soon as Gautama had reached the human form he began exhibiting in every personality the utmost unselfishness, self-sacrifice and charity" (TG 65).

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

Four Noble Truths

The essential teaching of early Buddhism.

According to tradition, after attaining enlightenment, the Buddha proclaimed his liberating insight into the nature of existence in his first sermon through the topic of the Four Noble Truths.

The first truth (Suffering) declares the nature of all phenomena comprising ordinary unenlightened experience as suffering, impermanent, and lacking in any enduring or substantial self or essence.

The second truth (the Origin of Suffering) states that suffering has a cause, namely, craving. Within this truth is subsumed the fundamental doctrine of conditioning, or dependent origination, which operates both generally and in the moral arena of reward and retribution through transmigration.

The third truth (the Cessation of Suffering) asserts that despite the fact of universal suffering in a totally conditioned universe proclaimed by the first two truths, there is liberation through the Cessation of Suffering, which is the nirvana, experienced by the Buddha.

The fourth truth (the Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering) proclaims that this liberation is accessible to all who follow the way set forth by the Buddha. The fourth truth inaugurates Buddhism as a religion and is the legitimation and touchstone for all Buddhist practice.

(See also: Four Noble Truths , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Hinayana (Sanskrit). The " Smaller Vehicle"; a Scripture and a School of the Northern Buddhists, opposed to the Mahayana, "the Greater Vehicle", in Tibet. Both schools are mystical. (See "Mahayana".) Also in exoteric superstition the lowest form of transmigration.

(See also: Hinayana , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Nirvani (Sanskrit). One who has attained Nirvana - an emancipated soul.

That Nirvana means nothing of the kind asserted by Orientalists every scholar who has visited China, India and Japan is well aware. It is "escape from misery" but only from that of matter, freedom from Klesha, or Kama, and the complete extinction of animal desires.

If we are told that Abidharma defines Nirvana "as a state of absolute annihilation", we concur, adding to the last word the qualification "of everything connected with matter or the physical world", and this simply because the latter (as also all in it) is illusion, maya. Sakya-muni Buddha said in the last moments of his life that "the spiritual body is immortal" (See Sans. Chin. Dict.). As Mr. Eitel, the scholarly Sinologist, explains it: "The popular exoteric systems agree in defining Nirvana negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence; to begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to all sensibility" and he might have added "death of all compassion for the world of suffering". And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmanakaya to the Dharmakaya vesture, stand higher in the popular estimation than the Nirvanis.

But the same scholar adds that: "Positively (and esoterically) they define Nirvana as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality through absorption of the soul (spirit rather) into itself, but preserving individuality so that, e.g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvana, may reappear on earth" - i.e., in the future Manvantara.

(See also: Nirvani , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Lost Soul An entity who through a series of rebirths has been slowly following the easy descent to Avernus. A lost soul is one who is not merely "soulless" in the ordinary theosophical usage, but is one who has lost the last link, the last delicate thread of consciousness, connecting him with his inner god.

This loss of the soul cannot ensue as long as even one spiritual aspiration remains functionally active. When not one single, quivering aspiration spiritward remains, the soul is lost for that manvantara; its essence, as it were, is inverted, and its tendency is downwards into avichi where, depending upon the power over nature acquired by the soul, circumstances may bring about an almost immediate annihilation of it or, perhaps, a manvantara of avichi-nirvana, a fearful state indeed, contrasted with the wondrous nirvana of the dhyani-chohans.

But this horrible fate, the easy descent, is brought about gradually. Passing from human birth to an inferior human birth, and then to one still more inferior, the degenerate astral monad -- all that remains of the human being that once was -- may finally even enter the body of some beast to which it feels attracted (and this is one side of the teaching of transmigration, which has been so badly misunderstood); some finally go even to plants perhaps, at the last, and will ultimately vanish. The astral monad will then have faded out. Such lost souls are exceedingly rare.

The lost soul is at one pole of consciousness and the master at the other. It is between the higher human soul, and the human soul (or man proper) that lies the psychological frontier over which one must pass forwards or backwards, into regeneration or degeneration. The first leads to masterhood, the second to final annihilation. For, as attraction to matter increases, the egoic soul-quality deteriorates, and through attrition the link is broken, and the soul finally sinks into the Eighth Sphere, the Planet of Death.

(See also: Lost Soul , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

kaivalya: (Sanskrit) "Absolute oneness, aloneness; perfect detachment, freedom." Liberation.

Kaivalya is the term used by Patanjali and others in the yoga tradition to name the goal and fulfillment of yoga, the state of complete detachment from transmigration. It is virtually synonymous with moksha. Kaivalya is the perfectly transcendent state, the highest condition resulting from the ultimate realization. It is defined uniquely according to each philosophical school, depending on its beliefs regarding the nature of the soul.

See: moksha, samarasa, Sivasayujya, jnana.

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

Empedocles (c 490-430 BC) Greek philosopher and poet, whose system was based on the interaction of the four elements (fire, air, earth, and water), called by him rhizomata (roots), under the influence of love and hate (attraction and repulsion). His doctrines, such as transmigration, agree with those of Pythagoras. (BCW, SD 1:497-8; FSO 228)

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

Four Noble Truths

The essential teaching of early Buddhism.

According to tradition, after attaining enlightenment, the Buddha proclaimed his liberating insight into the nature of existence in his first sermon through the topic of the Four Noble Truths.

The first truth (Suffering) declares the nature of all phenomena comprising ordinary unenlightened experience as suffering, impermanent, and lacking in any enduring or substantial self or essence.

The second truth (the Origin of Suffering) states that suffering has a cause, namely, craving. Within this truth is subsumed the fundamental doctrine of conditioning, or dependent origination, which operates both generally and in the moral arena of reward and retribution through transmigration.

The third truth (the Cessation of Suffering) asserts that despite the fact of universal suffering in a totally conditioned universe proclaimed by the first two truths, there is liberation through the Cessation of Suffering, which is the nirvana, experienced by the Buddha.

The fourth truth (the Path leading to the Cessation of Suffering) proclaims that this liberation is accessible to all who follow the way set forth by the Buddha. The fourth truth inaugurates Buddhism as a religion and is the legitimation and touchstone for all Buddhist practice.

(See also: Four Noble Truths , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Obryn (Welsh) The second stage in Abred or the circle of transmigration, intermediate between Annwn (the elemental kingdoms) and Cydfil (the animal kingdom). It therefore includes the mineral and vegetable kingdoms.

(See also: Obryn , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Dharma Shastra: (Sanskrit) "Religious law book."

A term referring to all or any of numerous codes of Hindu civil and social law composed by various authors. The best known and most respected are those by Manu and Yajnavalkya, thought to have been composed as early as 600 bce.

The Dharma Shastras, along with the Artha Shastras, are the codes of Hindu law, parallel to the Muslim Sharia, the Jewish Talmud, each of which provides guidelines for kings, ministers, judicial systems and law enforcement agencies. These spiritualparliamentary codes differ from British and American law, which separate religion from politics. (Contemporary British law is influenced by Anglican Christian thought, just as American democracy was, and is, profoundly affected by the philosophy of its non-Christian, Deistic founders.)

The Dharma Shastras also speak of much more, including creation, initiation, the stages of life, daily rites, duties of husband and wife, caste, Vedic study, penances and transmigration. The Dharma Shastras are part of the Smriti literature, included in the Kalpa Vedanga, and are widely available today in many languages.

See: Deism, Manu Dharma Shastras.

(See also: Dharma Shastra , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)