Siva, Shiva (Sanskrit) The third god of the Hindu Trimurti (trinity): Brahma the evolver; Vishnu the preserver; and Siva the regenerator or destroyer.

Siva is one of the three loftiest divinities of our solar system, and in his character of destroyer stands higher than Vishnu for he is "the destroying deity, evolution and PROGRESS personified, who is the regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life under another more perfect type" (SD 2:182). As the destroyer of outward forms he is called Vamadeva. Endowed with so many powers and attributes, Siva possesses a great number of names, and is represented under a corresponding variety of forms. He corresponds to the Palestinian Ba`al or Moloch, Saturn, the Phoenician El, the Egyptian Seth, and the Biblical Chiun of Amos, and Greek Typhon.

"In the Rig Veda the name Siva is unknown, but the god is called Rudra, which is a word used for Agni, the fire god . . ."; "In the Vedas he is the divine Ego aspiring to return to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that divine ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce passions make of him the 'roarer,' the 'terrible' " (SD 2:613, 548).

Siva is often spoken of as the patron deity of esotericists, occultists, and ascetics; he is called the Mahayogin (the great ascetic), from whom the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained. Here he is "the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man -- mystically . . . Siva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the preserver; and both are the regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions and senses of man must first die before his body does. 'To live is to die and to die is to live,' has been too little understood in the West. Siva, the destroyer, is the creator and the Saviour of Spiritual man, as he is the good gardener of nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual, man" (SD 1:459&n).

Though Siva is often called Maha-kala (great time) which, while being the great formative factor in manvantara is also the great dissolving power, to the Hindu mind destruction implies reproduction; so Siva is also called Sankara (the auspicious), for he is the reproductive power which is perpetually restoring that which has been dissolved, and hence is also called Mahadeva (the great god). Under this character of restorer he was often represented by the symbol of the linga or phallus: "the Lingham and Yoni of Siva-worship stand too high philosophically, its modern degeneration notwithstanding, to be called a simple phallic worship" (SD 2:588). It is under the form of the linga, either alone or combined with the yoni (female organ, the representative of his sakti or female energy), that Siva is so often worshiped today in India.

In the Linga-Purana, Siva is said to take repeated births, in one kalpa possessing a white complexion, in another that of a black color, in still another that of a red color, after which he becomes four youths of a yellow color. This allegory is an ethnological account of the different races of mankind and their varying types and colors (cf SD 1:324).

Siva is known under more than a thousand names or titles and is represented under many different forms in Hindu writings. As the god of generation and of justice, he is represented riding a white bull; his own color, as well as that of the bull, is generally white, referring probably to the unsullied purity of abstract justice. He is sometimes seen with two hands, sometimes with four, eight, or ten; and with five faces, representing among other things his power over the five elements.

He has three eyes, one placed in the centre of his forehead, and shaped as a vertical oval. These three eyes are said to denote his view of the three divisions of time: past, present, and future. He holds a trident in his hand to denote his three great attributes of emanator, destroyer, and regenerator, thus combining all the usual qualities or functions attributed to the Trimurti. In his character of time, he not only presides over its beginning and its extinction, but also over its present functioning as represented in astronomical and astrological calculations.

A crescent or half-moon on his forehead indicates time measured by the phases of the moon; a serpent forms one of his necklaces to denote the measure of time by cycles, and a second necklace of human skulls signifies the extinction and succession of the races of mankind. He is often pictures as entirely covered with serpents, which are at once emblems of spiritual immortality and his standing as the patron of the nagas or initiates. He is often mystically personated by Mount Meru, which esoterically is both the cosmic and terrestrial axis with their respective poles.

According to the belief of most Advaita-Vedantists, Sankaracharya, the great Indian philosopher and sage, is held to be an avatara of Siva.

See also Shiva, Siva

(See also: Siva, Shiva , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Rama (Sanskrit) The seventh avatara or incarnation of Vishnu and the eldest son of King Dasaratha of the solar race. Hero of the Ramayana, his full name is Ramachandra, and tradition makes him the first king of the divine or earliest dynasties as given in the Hindu epics.

He married Sita, a feminine avatara of Lakshmi (Vishnu's consort), who was carried away by Ravana, the demon-king of the rakshasas of Lanka, a remnant of Atlantis. This act led to the famous war related in the Ramayana.

(See also: Rama , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Narayana (Sanskrit) [from nara human from nara man + ayana going]

The mover on the waters of space; a title of Vishnu in his aspect of the eternal breath or spirit; the highest hierarchies of the dhyanis or gods moving in and on the waters of creation (cf Manu 1:10). Here nara applies to the cosmogonical Logos, and ayana to the emanationary and evolutionary activity of the Logos in the waters of space, which are really the manifested form of Nara or Nara itself. In esoteric symbology Narayana stands for the primeval manifestation of the life principle spreading in infinite space, or again the Isvara, the Logos, the inner guide of all individual souls in the universe.

The opening verses of Genesis state that "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters": the waters are the great deep of infinite space, akasa; and the spirit is Narayana, Vishnu, or the cosmic Nara. This spirit "is invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all that it touches, and gives it life and generation" (SD 1:626).

Brahma is a permutation, so far as meanings go, of Narayana, the spirit of god entering into and fructifying nature -- which indeed is itself. The cosmic Neptune or Poseidon, the Egyptian Ra, and the Hindu Idaspati (the master of the waters) correspond with Narayana or Vishnu.

(See also: Narayana , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Madhava (Sanskrit) A name of Vishnu because of his slaying of the asura Madhu; applied to Krishna as an avataric manifestation of Vishnu; also the month corresponding to April-May.

As a feminine noun, Madhavi, a title of Lakshmi, consort of Vishnu.

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

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Trimurti (Sanskrit) [from tri three + murti imbodiment, form]

The Hindu triad, consisting of Brahma, the emanator or evolver; Vishnu, the sustainer or preserver; and Siva, the beneficent, the destroyer, and the regenerator. These three entities as individualized divinities form the apex or crown of the spirit of the solar system. In the human being, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva represent the three divine-spiritual principles of the seven -- directly following forth from the highly recondite superspiritual triangle which, with the seven principles, make the full ten human principles.

In the world of matter, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are each personified by earth, water, and fire, i.e., each of these divinities combines in itself these three elements, one predominating when the divinity manifests one of its three fundamental gunas. "In Indian Puranas it is Vishnu, the first, and Brahma, the second logos, or the ideal and practical creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the lotus, the other as issuing from it" (SD 1:381n). But Brahma, for instance, because of the significance of expansion inherent in the name, could equally well be looked upon as the source of Vishnu, manifesting as the cosmic waters or Second Logos. This perhaps is the reason why in this Trimurti, Brahma is called the emanator or evolver, and Vishnu the sustainer or preserver.

These three persons or aspects of the triad are really three sides of the same cosmic reality; and to gain an accurate understanding of their respective functions it should be born in mind that any one of the three may at any time, if the matter is considered from a different viewpoint, be said to contain the functioning elements of the other two in addition to its own. "Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva are a trinity in a unity, and, like the Christian trinity, they are mutually convertible. In the esoteric doctrine they are one and the same manifestation of him 'whose name is too sacred to be pronounced, and whose power is too majestic and infinite to be imagined' " (IU 2:277-8).

In the Vedas, where neither Brahma nor Siva is known under these names, the trinity usually consists of Agni (fire), Vayu (air), and Surya (sun), the originants of the terrestrial, atmospheric, and heavenly fire respectively. The Padma-Purana states that in the beginning the great Vishnu desiring to produce the whole world, became threefold, in himself the creator, preserver, and destroyer. In order to produce the world, the supreme spirit emanated from the right side of his body, himself, as Brahma; then, to preserve the universe, he produced from the left side of his body, Vishnu; and to destroy the world he produced from the middle of his body the eternal Siva.

The three persons of the Trimurti are the three qualificative gunas or attributes of the universe of differentiated spirit-matter, self-formative, self-preserving, and self-destroying for purposes of regeneration and perfectibility. Because Brahma is the considered the formative or emanative force, it is said to be personified imbodiment of rajas, the quality of activity, of desire for creation -- that desire owing to which the universe and everything in it is called forth into being. Vishnu because of its preservative and sustaining function is said to be the imbodied sattva, which characterizes the intermediate period between full growth and the beginning of decay; and Siva is said to be the imbodiment of tamas which, in one of its functions, is the attribute of stagnancy and final decay, and thus becomes the destroyer.

The Jewish Qabbalistic triad, Sephirah, Hokhmah, and Binah, is identical in certain philosophical respects with the Hindu Trimurti.

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

Harihara: (Sanskrit) "Vishnu-Siva."

Also known as Shankaranarayana, an icon of the Supreme One, in which the right half is Siva and left half is Vishnu. It symbolizes the principle that Siva and Vishnu are not two separate Deities.

See: Brahma, murti, Parameshvara, Vishnu.

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

 Vamana:

Vishnu's fifth incarnation

(See also:  Vamana , Body Mind and Soul)

Diana (Latin) (archaic fem of Janus)

Goddess of light; an old Italian divinity, later identified with the Greek Artemis as daughter of Zeus and Latona, and sister of Apollo. Goddess of the moon and queen of the night, she presided over the chase, open country, forests, war, and water. As the moon goddess, identified in one aspect with Hecate. She was worshiped in her form of Lucina as presiding over births; as goddess of the night she was worshiped with torches, and was beloved as the protectress of the outcast and slave.

The moon "stands in closer relations to Earth than any other sidereal orb. The Sun is the giver of life to the whole planetary system; the Moon is the giver of life to our globe; and the early races understood and knew it, even in their infancy. She is the Queen and she is the King, and was King Soma before she became transformed into Phoebe and the chaste Diana. . . . For, if Artemis was Luna in Heaven, and, with the Greeks, Diana on Earth, who presided over child-birth and life: with the Egyptians, she was Hekat (Hecate) in Hell, the goddess of Death, who ruled over magic and enchantments. More than this: as the personified moon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana-Hecate-Luna is the three in one. For she is Diva triformis, tergemina, triceps -- three heads on one neck, like Brahma-Vishnu-Siva.

See also ARTEMIS; HECATE; MOON

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

Hiranyakasipu:

Hiranyakasipu (Hiranyakashipu). A demonic person who forbade mention of Vishnu's name, wicked father of Prahlada, who was a great devotee of the Lord; killed by the man-lion Narashimha, an Avatar of Vishnu.

(See also: Hiranyakasipu , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Shiva:

The Destroyer God; the Third Person of the Hindu Trinity, the other two being Brahma and Vishnu.

(See also: Shiva , Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Adhokshaja:

Adhokshaja: a name of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vishnu or the Vishnu-avatara, as being situated above and beyond the senses and who is not perceivable by impure, material senses.

(See also: Adhokshaja , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Narasimha-avatara (Sanskrit) Also Nri-simha. The man-lion avatara; a descent of Vishnu, the sustainer of life, in the form of a man-lion in order to deliver the earth from the demon Hiranyakasipu, a despoiler of the world.

These various avataras, when considered in their order of appearance, present a picture of evolutionary progress from lower to higher avataric imbodiments. They are usually reckoned as ten in number, yet one or more of the Puranas reckon the avataric imbodiments as 22, having in mind the occult meaning behind all cosmic or geologic avataric appearances.

As the Bhagavata-Purana states, innumerable are the imbodiments (in avataric form) of Vishnu, for they are like the rivulets emanating from a lake of inexhaustible power. Rishis, manus, gods, sons of manus, prajapatis are therefore all emanations or portions of Vishnu.

(See also: Narasimha-avatara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Abjayoni (Sanskrit) (from abja lotus from ap water + the verbal root jan to be born, produced + yoni womb, spring, source)

Lotus-born; applied to Brahma, said to have sprung at the time of creation from a lotus which arose from the navel of Vishnu.

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

Ananta (Ananta Sesha, Sesha Naga)

1. An expansion of God who appears as a serpent with thousands of heads and who serves as the bed of Lord Vishnu. Ananta Sesha holds all the planets of the universe on His hoods and constantly sings the glories of Vishnu from all His mouths. 2. Unlimited.

(See also: Ananta , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vaishnavas:

Worshippers of Lord Vishnu or Lord Krishna, since it is believed that the one comes from the other. Vaishnavas worship Lord Krishna or Lord Vishnu because He is supreme. All other gods come from Him. Scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavat, Vishnu, Garuda Puranas to name a few, recommend Vaishnavism as the supreme Snatana dharma of the jiva soul.

(See also: Vaishnavas , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Meditation

According to Swami Vishnu Devananda, meditation is "….a continuous flow of perception or thought, just like the flow of water in a river." A practice wherein there is constant observation of the mind, meditation brings awareness, harmony and natural order into life. It helps you dig deep into your inner self to discover the wisdom and tranquility that lie within.

Principles of Meditation

The basic points to be kept in mind in practicing meditation are:

·      Have a special place and specific time for meditation. Try doing it daily.

·      Choose a time when your mind is not clouded with worries.

·      Sit up straight with your back, neck and head in one line. Facing north or east.

·      Condition your mind such so as to remain quiet for the duration of your meditation session.

·      Regulate your breathing. Start with 5 minutes of deep breathing. Then gradually slow it down.

·      Follow a rhythmic breathing pattern - inhale and exhale.

·      Initially let your mind wander. It grows more restless if you force to concentrate.

·      Then slowly bring it to rest on the focal point of your choice.

·      Hold your object of concentration at this focal point throughout your session.

·      Meditation happens when you reach a state of pure thought. Even while retaining an awareness of duel self.

Followed diligently you will soon be able to attain a super-conscious state.

Tips on Concentration

·      At the outset, it is hard to keep your attention to keep focussed on one object.

·      So it is better to start off by limiting your field of concentration to a category of objects.

·      Choose your objects with care e.g. any four flowers, fruits, trees...etc. You must feel at ease with what you choose.

·      After concentrating on one, you can move on to the next, if & when your mind starts wandering.

This style of meditative exercise will help you control your mind down to a finer focus, teaching you the principle of single point concentration.

Meditative Postures

Yoni Mudra

·  Close your ears with thumbs.

·  Cover your eyes with your index finger.

·  Close your nostrils with your middle fingers.

·  Press your lips together with your remaining fingers.

·  Release the middle fingers gently to inhale and exhale while you meditate.

Frontal & Nasal Gazing

·  Gaze at a point between your eyebrows, seat of the 'Third Eye' or at the tip or your nose.

·  This would improve your level of concentration. At the same time, strengthening your eye muscles. Nasal gazing has a positive effect on the central nervous system.

·  Remember not to strain your eyes. Start with one minute of gazing and then slowly build it up to ten minutes.

Candle Gazing

• Place a candle at eye-level in a darkened, draught-free room.
• Close your eyes and hold an after-image of the bright flame.
• The practice steadies the wandering mind, leading you to focus with pin-point accuracy.

(See also: Meditation , Ayurveda, Ayurvedic Dictionary, Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Bhuranyu (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root bhri to support, uphold, give prominence to; to move rapidly, to flash from place to place)

The rapid; an epithet of Agni, considered as the inspiring and inflaming element, the swiftly running power in the world, the fiery nature and cosmic life. Also a name of the sun, and a title of Vishnu.

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

Vaishnavite: Of or relating to Vishnu; same as

Vaishnava. A follower of Vishnu or His incarnations.

See:

Vaishnavism, Vishnu.

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

Bhauma (-asura)

A demon born of Lord Vishnu’s incarnation Varaha and Bhumi, the goddess earth. He is also known as Narakasura. After causing havoc in Indra’s heaven and on earth, he was killed by the original Vishnu, Krishna.

(See also: Bhauma , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Apava (Sanskrit) (from Ap water)

Water-mover; associated with Narayana, "he who moves in or on the waters of space," and hence with Vishnu and Brahma. In the Harivamsa, Apava performed the office of Brahma: dividing himself into male and female he produced Vishnu, who produced Viraj, who in turn brought the first manu, Manu Svayambhuva, into being. This manu then brought forth the ten prajapatis, the progenitors of the manifested world (cf VP 1:7). In the Mahabharata, a name of the prajapati Vasishtha.

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

Mahavishnu Mahavisnu (Sanskrit) Great Vishnu; a title of Vishnu. Source of the avataras of Vishnu.

See also BIJA

(See also: Mahavishnu Mahavisnu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)