Introduction and links to related topics Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Woman - Woman In philosophy, symbolizes the mother aspect of nature or feminine characteristic of the universe always found in the triads of Father-Mother-Son (changed in the Christian scheme to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -- the Holy Spirit in primitive Christianity always being considered feminine). From time immemorial it has been customary to associate primordial spirit-substance, later becoming matter, with the cosmic feminine principle represented symbolically by a horizontal line); and spirit has always been associated with the masculine principle (represented by a vertical line); but the words feminine and masculine are merely borrowed from human beings, and the characteristics of originating cosmic principles were far better expressed by pairs of opposites such as negative and positive.
In cosmogenesis, the feminine principle is represented by the waters of space or great deep, often called the womb of nature. From this figure of speech was born the conception found in some ancient cosmogonies, such as the Hebrew, of the ark, containing all the germs of lives of a universe and pictured as resting or moving on the cosmic waters. Another symbol for the feminine principle was that of the lotus, which likewise rests upon the water, finally rising above it when it blossoms. One symbol of the universe in germ before any aspect of manifestation occurs is the matripadma or closed "mother lotus," before the cosmic blossom has been quickened by spirit into expanding into becoming the universe. It is also referred to as devamatri (the divine mother), the matrix from which all the suns and planets were born.
In the cosmogony of the Hebrew Qabbalah, the first Sephirah which emanates from latent divinity is at times represented as feminine; yet when this feminine emanation becomes creative it is then represented as conjoining masculine traits with its own, so that at this stage it is envisaged as masculine-feminine. This first spiritual emanation, emanating from itself the next phase of cosmogonical production, is termed the Shechinah, the mother of all the successively emanated Sephiroth. Thus the Shechinah is an echo of archaic Hindu cosmogonic speculation, corresponding to pradhana or prakriti.
In theosophic cosmogony space is often called the Great Mother before cosmic activity commences and, at the opening of manvantara, Father-Mother with space becomes emanative and is called svabhavat or mother-space. Svabhavat is the emanation from cosmic space or darkness -- so called because its utter and undiluted essential spirit is virtually beyond the reach of the light of mind as manifested in humanity.
Metaphors such as woman and mother are always symbolical when referring to motherhood, and have no associations with physical sex, for "esotericism ignores both sexes. Its highest Deity is sexless as it is formless, neither Father nor Mother; and its first manifested beings, celestial and terrestrial alike, become only gradually androgynous and finally separate into distinct sexes" (SD 1:136n). This was clearly understood originally, so that there was no degrading or misinterpreting of these figures of speech. With descending cycles, however, humanity''s religious conceptions equally materialized: the key ideas having been forgotten or lost, abstractions became concreted into materializations, a masculine Creator or feminine Creatrix were then placed at the summit of the various pantheons, and early religious philosophy -- which was as scientific as it was religious and philosophical -- cast upon the background of the spatial universe images of human surroundings and way of life; so that the deities in the mythologies finally became human images, more powerful but equally swayed by passion, driven by impulse, and restricted by these even as human beings are. Such projection of human attributes into the cosmic spaces led to a still more materialized visioning of the divinities, so that the feminine or productive characteristics of nature in the popular religious mythologies finally gave way before the masculine, and the earlier, essentially beautiful idea of the mother of nature was swallowed up in the purely masculine traits of national divinities, many of them distinctly male and evil, such as the Jewish Jehovah, who waxed wroth and smelt the sweet savor of burnt sacrifices, or again the Greek Zeus swayed by ignoble passions.
"No exoteric religious system has ever adopted a female Creator, and thus woman was regarded and treated, from the first dawn of popular religions, as inferior to man. It is only in China and Egypt that Kwan-yin and Isis were placed on a par with the male gods" (SD 1:136n). The aspects of Isis, for instance, are familiar enough: as the mother with her child, and as the faithful spiritual consort of Osiris -- these were for easier understanding by the populace; but in the sanctuary Isis remained universal cosmic nature, the cosmic producing mother, the goddess whose veil of nature no mere human had ever raised. Plutarch recorded an inscription addressed to Isis: "I am everything which has been, and which is, and which shall be, and no one has ever drawn my veil" (De Iside at Osiride); to which were added "the fruit of my womb became the Sun" (Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus, 1:82).
In China, however, the ideal cosmic feminine was named Kwan-yin, the mother of mercy and knowledge, what in Hindustan is called mahat or cosmic buddhi; she is called the triple of Kwan-shai-yin "because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is the ''Mother, the Wife and the Daughter,'' of the Logos, just as in the later theological translations she became ''the Father Son and (the female) Holy Ghost'' -- the Sakti or Energy -- the Essence of the three" (SD 1:136).
With the Gnostics truth itself was portrayed as a disrobed divinity, every part of her cosmic form being numbered and lettered. This divine wisdom they called Sophia, virtually the same as the Qabbalistic Shechinah. Even in the modern Occident, instinct has determined that justice shall be pictured as feminine, as also liberty and peace. "The Gnostic Sophia, ''Wisdom'' who is ''the Mother'' of the Ogdoad . . . is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The ''father'' is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere -- the mother of the seven planetary powers" (SD 1:72n).
Hara - Refers to the feminine side of god, or Shrimati Radharani. When used as an address it becomes Hare; the first word of the Hare Krishna Maha or great mantra, which is declared by many of the vedas- Puranas and Upanishads to be the supermost mantra for deliverance of the soul from material bondage to the highest spiritual destinations. The maha mantra: Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.
Wicca - Wicca is a religion of veneration of Nature and the worship of Divinity as containing both feminine and masculine aspects. It is founded upon the spiritual roots of pre-Christian European beliefs and practices. When Wicca first came to public attention in the early 1950s through the efforts of Gerald Gardner, it was portrayed as the remnant of an ancient European fertility cult. Practitioners referred to Wicca as the Old Religion. It was also known as the Craft of the Wise. On the surface modern Wicca appears to be a folklore and folk magick system. On the inner initiate level Wicca contains pre-Christian European Mystery Teachings.
Dakini - (Sanskrit) A female spiritual being in Buddhist Tantrism. Two major types are mentioned, worldly dakini, representing non-Buddhist values, and supermundane dakini, who protect and convey the wisdom of enlightenment.
Levels of supermundane dakinis include feminine embodiments of Buddhahood itself; their retinue of active manifestations; and their messengers, who may appear to people at any time. Dakinis are both purely spiritual beings revealed in visions and human women. They are frequently depicted as dancing in Tibetan iconography
Water - Water A primary cosmic element with almost innumerable manifestations, corresponding to the Hindu apas tattva and to the akasic waters of space. Its most fundamental meaning is that of space or akasa, the great mother of all, the feminine receptive principle over and in which broods the fire of spirit. "The first principle of things, according to Thales and other ancient philosophers. Of course this is not water on the material plane, but in a figurative sense for the potential fluid contained in boundless space. This was symbolized in ancient Egypt by Kneph, the ''unrevealed'' god, who was represented as the serpent -- the emblem of eternity -- encircling a water-urn, with his head hovering over the waters, which he incubates with his breath. ''And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.'' (Gen. i). The honey-dew, the food of the gods and of the creative bees on the Yggdrasil, falls during the night upon the tree of life from the ''divine waters, the birth-place of the gods.'' Alchemists claim that when pre-Adamic earth is reduced by the Alkahest to its first substance, it is like clear water. The Alkahest is ''the one and the invisible, the water, the first principle, in the second transformation'' " (TG 368).
Water corresponds with soul, representing the middle world between spirit or fire on the one hand, and matter or earth on the other. It corresponds to the astral plane as compared with the physical; and here we
See its quality of instability, mobility, having no fixed shape but adapting itself to other shapes, dissolving solid bodies and re-precipitating them. It corresponds to the psychomental nature as contrasted with the spiritual and the physical, and to the liquid state of physical matter, though in this sense it is the water subdivision of the earth element. Water and fire are necessary elements of life, as are their correspondences the moon and sun.
Tantrism - The enlightenment path outlined in the Tantra scriptures.
Tantrism is sometimes considered a parallel stream of history and tradition in Hinduism, running alongside and gradually interweaving with the Vedic brahminical tradition.
Tantrism refers to traditions, mainly within Saivism and Shaktism, that focus on the arousal of the kundalini force, and which view the human body as a vehicle of the Divine and an instrument for liberation. Tantrism''s ultimate aim is a channeling of the kundalini life force through the sushumna, the gracious channel, upwards into the sahasrara chakra and beyond, through the door of brahman (brahmarandhra) into Parasiva, either before or at the time of death. The stress is on the transformation of all spheres of consciousness, spiritual, psychic, emotional and material. It is a path of sadhana.
Shakta Tantrism: Brings a strong emphasis on the worship of the feminine force. Depending on the school, this may be symbolic or literal in rites involving sexual intercourse, etc. Shakta Tantrism''s main principle is the use of the material to gain the spiritual. In certain schools, historically, this implies embracing that which is normally forbidden and manipulating the forces to attain transcendent consciousness rather than lower consciousness. There are three main streams:
the righthand path (dakshina marga or dakshinachara) of conservative Hindu practice,
the left-hand path (vama marga or vamachara) involving the use of things normally forbidden such as taking intoxicants, meat, ritual sex, etc., and
the yogic path of the Kaula sect. Gorakshanatha followers are sometimes grouped with the latter.
See: Shaktism, kundalini, kundalini yoga, raja yoga, tantra.
Chitkala - Chitkala citkala (Sanskrit) (from chit abstract thought or consciousness + the verbal root kal to urge on, impel, stimulate)
The inciters or stimulators of consciousness or intelligent thought; manasaputras. The spiritual beings who, during the course of the early and middle third root-race, furnished humanity with the higher manasic element from their own essence; hence one of the guardian spirits of the human race.
Because the chitkalas or kaumarika manasaputras belong to the Hierarchy of Light or Compassion, they have frequently been allied with what the Chinese call Kwan-Yin, the goddess of mercy or pity, who may be called the feminine aspect of the cosmic Third Logos.
Devi-durga - Devi-Durga (Sanskrit) Spiritual and inaccessible goddess; also called Kali (the black one), she is a warlike, bloodthirsty goddess who destroys and devours her enemies without pity. She is "raw power, energy untamed by discipline or direction" (Classical Hindu Mythology 226). Sometimes considered an independent deity, at others an aspect of Siva''s consort, whose benign aspect is named Parvati.
The feminine consorts of the various divinities of ancient peoples represent the vehicular or encompassing substances and powers surrounding the emanating monad itself; and because these powers and substances are in incessant action, they are often grouped under the name sakti, active universal energy, which is septenary, denary, or duodenary in hierarchical construction, according to the manner of counting.
Thus these spiritual or divine consorts are equivalent to the theosophical elements or principle-elements, whether of the cosmos or of any individual, which surround the individual monad and furnish the field of action through which it expresses itself.
Sephiroth - Sephiroth (Hebrew) plural of Sephirah. Emanations; applicable to the ten powers or potencies which compose the Qabbalistic Tree of Life, named Kether (the Crown); Hochmah (wisdom); Binah (understanding); Hesed (compassion); Geburah (strength); Tiph''ereth (beauty); Netsah (triumph); Hod (majesty); Yesod (foundation); and Malchuth (kingdom). The higher ones of this series of cosmic emanations imbody functions in cosmogony which exactly parallel the functions and attributes of the lipika in theosophical thought.
The Qabbalah states that when the Boundless (''eyn soph), driven by ineluctable destiny, wished to portray an aspect of itself, it caused a Point to appear in the bosom of space, and this primordial point expanded into the Sephirah Kether -- the mother of the remaining nine Sephiroth. This primal point or Kether was therefore the first emanation of the universe, and is often called Sephirah. Having thus come into manifestation, the first Sephirah unrolled or emanated from itself a second Sephirah, Hochmah, which in its turn unrolled the third Sephirah, Binah; then the third unrolled the fourth, and so forth, each newly appearing Sephirah -- though having its own individual characteristics -- containing within itself the potencies and characteristics of all the preceding Sephiroth; and this process continued until the nine Sephiroth which had been inrolled within Kether all came into manifestation. Together the ten Sephiroth represent the cosmic Archetypal Man (''Adam Qadmon), -- cosmic Purusha in Hindu thought. "The Sephirothal Tree is the Universe, and Adam Kadmon represents it in the West as Brahma represents it in India" (SD 1:352).
The ten Sephiroth are often referred to in the Qabbalah as the members or limbs of the manifested body of ''Adam Qadmon, and the parts were named as: 1) the head; 2) the right shoulder; 3) the left shoulder; 4) the right arm; 5) the left arm; 6) the heart; 7) the right thigh; 8) the left thigh; 9) the generative organs; and 10) the basis or feet.
The Sephiroth are often divided into three pillars, beginning as spiritual cosmic light and ending in matter by a process of increasing materiality. These three pillars represent three vertical streams of vitality or three currents of energy: the right pillar, considered to be the masculine stream and termed the Pillar of Mercy, consists of Hochmah, Hesed, and Netsah. The left stream or pillar is the feminine potency, called the Pillar of Judgment, and comprises Binah, Geburah, and Hod. The Middle Pillar is the stream of spiritual stability and consists of Kether, Tiph''ereth, Yesod, and Malchuth. Although the currents of the Middle Pillar run from the topmost to the lowest, nevertheless the potencies of the right and of the left pillars are interconnected so that the streams of vitality flow uninterruptedly through all of the ten Sphiroth.
Another way of viewing the Sephiroth is by a series of three triads, running from the uppermost downwards, known as three Faces or the three Qabbalistic Heads. The first Face, often termed the Supernal Triad or invisible triad, consists of the three highest Sephiroth Kether, Hochmah, and Binah; the second Face is emanated or produced from the first and comprises Hesed, Geburah, and Tiph''ereth; the third Face, the emanation of the first two triads, is formed of Netsah, Hod, and Yesod; and the three Faces find their base or fulfillment in Malchuth, the world as humans view it. The first Face or Head is called in the Qabbalah the spiritual or intellectual world; the second is the formative world or world of perception; and the third is known as the basic world, often called the material or physical world, but more accurately comprising the lower ranges of the anima mundi. The three Faces then conjointly emanate the truly physical world around us, which thus contains the productive essences of all, and hence is the carrier or vehicle of all, precisely as the physical body with its vitality is the carrier of the other six principles of the human constitution.
In the case of the solar system the ten Sephiroth correspond to the lokas and talas of Brahmanical philosophy. There is a direct correspondence between the twelve globes of a planetary chain and the ten Sephiroth plus Malchuth (the earth) and the highest globe of that chain.
Rohit - Rohit (Sanskrit) Red; a female deer, hind. In the Puranas Vach, the female aspect of Brahma, assumes the form of a rohit in order to escape the amorous pursuits of her father, Brahma, who nevertheless transformed himself for that purpose into a buck or red deer (rohita), Brahma''s color being red.
Events in cosmic evolution and emanation were told under the guise of fairy tales such as the above, in order to hide the meaning from those whose right to know had not yet been established through proper training, self-devotion to truth, and renunciation of the temptations of ordinary life. Here Vach is the feminine form of the Logos, and Brahma is the masculine form; the Logos is a unit, but when worlds are evolved it produces from itself its alter ego for the purpose of the ensuing manvantara, which is called the feminine Logos in which the masculine Logos of intelligence drops the seeds of thought, and from the spiritual matter or feminine Logos emanate the hierarchies of beings.
The two aspects of the Logos are inseparable, but appear as a manifested duality only at the very beginnings of manvantaric time. It is thus seen that when Brahma emanates Vach as one half of his body or self, it means that for the purposes of manvantaric emanational productions, the Logos enters upon its creative activities. Brahma in this case becomes what would in the Christian Trinity be called the Father, Vach the Holy Spirit (always feminine among the early Christians), out of which comes forth the third aspect of the Logos, the manifested Logos. Brahma therefore is the First or Unmanifest Logos, Vach the Second or Manifest-unmanifest Logos; the intelligence creating the hierarchies of beings is the Third or Manifesting Logos. Thus the three Logoi are yet but one, as the Christian Trinity is said to be composed of three persons or masks philosophically, and yet to form one Godhead or Godhood.
|
