Merkabah (Hebrew) A chariot, vehicle; used in two senses: first, as a chariot, the Qabbalists saying that the Supreme forms and then uses the ten Sephiroth as a chariot for descending through the various worlds enumerated in the Qabbalah.

These worlds are the ten Sephiroth themselves, and 'Adam Qadmon (the Heavenly Man) is the same as the ten Sephiroth considered as a hierarchic entity permeated by and inspirited by the divine hierarch or Supreme. Here it is generally equivalent to the Sanskrit vahana.

Second, it is secret wisdom or knowledge: "without the final initiation into the Mercaba the study of the Kabala will be ever incomplete, and the Mercaba can be taught only in 'darkness, in a deserted place, and after many and terrific trials.' Since the death of Simeon Ben-Iochai this hidden doctrine has remained an inviolate secret for the outside world. Delivered only as a mystery, it was communicated to the candidate orally, "face to face and mouth to ear'" (IU 2:349).

The secret wisdom or knowledge is envisaged as a vehicle or chariot because what men call esoteric wisdom is the vehicle for the communication to human consciousness of the mysteries of the universe, and consequently of man.

(See also: Merkabah, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mind The ancient wisdom taught that mind is one of the functions or innate attributes of the fundamental selfhood or consciousness of the monadic entity. There is the fundamental self, known from time immemorial as the atman, which in its self-unfolding or emanational activities produces the various attributes of itself, among which three almost indistinguishable attributes are what we call mind, intellect, and consciousness.

When manifestation is ended, these various qualities are rolled back into themselves and gathered up into the fundamental monadic self, upon which the monad begins its periodic enjoyment -- to use the Eastern term -- of its own selfhood, unadulterate, noumenal, and unitary. Thus, in its widest sense, mind is an attribute of the spirit side of being, as contrasted with the matter side, which latter nevertheless is intrinsically unevolved or latent mind; hence we speak of cosmic mind, of which there are innumerable limited aspects in the manifested worlds.

A somewhat different definition is, "Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time being 'Mind is not,' because the organ, through which the ego manifests ideation and memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and during the long night of rest called Pralaya, when all existences are dissolved, the 'Universal Mind' remains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete manifestation" (SD 1:38).

Here mind is consciousness in action, the phenomenon corresponding to a noumenon which, in the absence of vehicles for its expression, can only be described as mind in latency, or a possibility of mental action. The dhyani-chohans are the expressers of latent cosmic mind, who bring it into various degrees of manifestation. They are vehicles for the expression of divine thought and will, intelligent forces which give to nature its laws.

(See also: Mind, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

ANIMAL MAGIC

Jacob von Uexküll has shown that animals live in quite separate numinous worlds defined by the nature of their species. The elephant lives in an elephant universe, the butterfly in a butterfly world. They inhabit separate spheres of consciousness. Says Uexküll, "when a dog runs, it moves its legs. When a sea urchin runs, it is moved by its legs." Uexküll even distinguishes between acts of individual superstition (or "ritual") - bird pecking at empty pavement, dog licking newly washed dinner bowl - and genuine "species environment" magic that involves entire herds or flocks, performing purely symbolic acts.

(See also: ANIMAL MAGIC, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Pleroma (Greek) Fullness, completion, entirety; used by the Gnostics, as for instance by Valentinus in the Pistis Sophia, to denote the fullness of the manifested universe as a whole; hence, space and its contents. In a more spiritual and accurate sense, it is absolute space with its seven, ten, or twelve planes or degrees of consciousness-substance.

Evolution starts from a primal point and is fulfilled in the pleroma or manifested sum total of a manifested universe, with especial emphasis on its inner and invisible ranges and planes. Therefore, it is the kosmic abode of the invisible gods or divinities in all their many ranges and ranks, together with the planes, worlds, and spheres composing the fullness; the whole elaborately divided and subdivided into planes and hierarchies of emanations, one manner of treatment being geometrically symbolized by squares, circles, points, etc.

For convenience' sake, pleroma is usually divided into three degrees, the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. It was converted by the Christian Church into an abode for Fallen Angels, Principalities, and Powers.

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

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)

A Theosophical definition of Man :

Man

Man is in his essence a spark of the central kosmic spiritual fire. Man being an inseparable part of the universe of which he is the child  - the organism of graded consciousness and substance which the human constitution contains or rather is  - is a copy of the graded organism of consciousnesses and substances of the universe in its various planes of being, inner and outer, especially inner as being by far the more important and larger, because causal.

Human beings are one class of "young gods" incarnated in bodies of flesh at the present stage of their own particular evolutionary journey. The human stage of evolution is about halfway between the undeveloped life-atom and the fully developed kosmic spirit or god.

From another point of view, man is a sheaf or bundle of forces or energies. Force and matter, or spirit and substance being fundamentally one, hence, man is de facto a sheaf or bundle of matters of various and differing grades of ethereality, or of substantiality; and so are all other entities and things everywhere.

Man's nature, and the nature of the universe likewise, of which man is a reflection or microcosm or "little world," is composite of seven stages or grades or degrees of ethereality or of substantiality; or, kosmically speaking, of three generally inclusive degrees: gods, monads, and atoms. And so far as man is concerned, we may take the New Testament division of the Christians, which gives the same triform conception of man, that he is composed of spirit, soul, body  - remembering, however, that all these three words are generalizing terms.

Man stands at the midway point of the evolutionary ladder of life: below him are the hosts of beings less than he is; above him are other hosts greater than he is only because older in experience, riper in wisdom, stronger in spiritual and in intellectual fiber and power. And these beings are such as they are because of the evolutionary unfoldment of the inherent faculties and powers immanent in the individuality of the inner god  - the ever-living, inner, individualized spirit.

Man, then, like everything else  - entity or what is called "thing"  - is, to use the modern terminology of philosophical scientists, an "event," that is to say, the expression of a central consciousness-center or monad passing through one or another particular phase of its long, long pilgrimage over and through infinity, and through eternity. This, therefore, is the reason why the theosophist often speaks of the monadic consciousness-center as the pilgrim of eternity.

Man can be considered as a being composed of three essential upadhis or bases: first, the monadic or divine-spiritual; second, that which is supplied by the Lords of Light, the so-called manasa-dhyanis, meaning the intellectual and intuitive side of man, the element-principle that makes man Man; and the third upadhi we may call the vital-astral-physical.

These three bases spring from three different lines of evolution, from three different and separate hierarchies of being. This is the reason why man is composite. He is not one sole and unmixed entity; he is a composite entity, a "thing" built up of various elements, and hence his principles are to a certain extent separable. Any one of these three bases can be temporarily separated from the two others without bringing about the death of the man physically. But the elements that go to form any one of these bases cannot be separated without bringing about physical dissolution or inner dissolution.

These three lines of evolution, these three aspects or qualities of man, come from three different hierarchies or states, often spoken of as three different planes of being. The lowest comes from the vital-astral-physical earth, ultimately from the moon, our cosmogonic mother. The middle, the manasic or intellectualintuitional, from the sun. The monadic from the monad of monads, the supreme flower or acme, or rather the supreme seed of the universal hierarchy which forms our kosmical universe or universal kosmos.

See also: Man, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

VOODOO

(Or VOUDON; from Tovodun, the Dahomean gods.) The West African religion together with its transplanted form in Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean and Gulf. It derives from Dahomey or Yoruban vodun, "god" or "spirit" and the chief spirits are Legba, Ogoun, Ghede and, in the new world, Baron Samedi, Piquant and Cimitère. Rites are said to involve serpent worship, sexual magic, cannibalism and corpses (see ZOMBIE). Another name for spirits, those that actually possess the worshippers, are the loa.

According to Michael Bertiaux, latterday priest or Hungan, Voodoo is not an evil religion and is much misunderstood. He heads La Couleuvre Noire, or modern "Black Serpent" Voodoo Cult working with the so-called "Ophidian Current" and "the leapers of the paths" on the other side of the Tree of Life. The latter practice is associated with Juju, another "modern" African religion.

Esoteric Voodoo is actually a highly practical procedure for leading us into making contact with our deepest levels of being and most ancient modes of consciousness, through the dark spirits of the universe that operate on the same frequencies.

Michael Bertiaux's Voudon Gnostic Workbook is probably the most comprehensive and illuminating contemporary work on the subject, both from the practical and from the philosophical, mystical points of view. It ranges in mind from the basic desires of the most ignorant levels of society to the esoteric abstractions of the heights of untrammeled consciousness.

(See also: VOODOO, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Yuga:

Yuga: Ages in the life of a universe, occurring in a repeated cycle of four. Era or age. There is a cycle of four yugas: Satya (Kritha), Treta, Dvapara and Kali. Together, the four yugas comprise 4.320.000 years. The present age is the Kali-yuga. (BV-30) "Period, age." One of four ages which chart the duration of the world according to Hindu thought. They are: Satya (or Kritha), Treta, Dvapara and Kali. In the first period, dharma reigns supreme, but as the ages revolve, virtue diminishes and ignorance and injustice increases. At the end of the Kali Yuga, which we are in now, the cycle begins again with a new Satya Yuga. It is said in the Mahabharata that during the Satya Yuga all are brahmins, and the color of this yuga is white. In the Treta Yuga, righteousness decreases by one-fourth and men seek reward for their rites and gifts; the color is red and the consciousness of the kshatriya, sovereignty, prevails. In the Dvapara Yuga, the four varnas come fully into existence. The color is yellow. In the Kali Yuga, the color is black. Righteousness is one-tenth that of the Satya Yuga. True worship and sacrifice cease, and base, or shudra, consciousness is prominent. Calamities, disease, fatigue and faults such as anger and fear prevail. People decline and their motives grow weak.

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

A Theosophical definition of Manifestation :

Manifestation

A generalizing term signifying not only the beginning but the continuance of organized kosmic activity, the latter including the various minor activities within itself. First there is of course always the Boundless in all its infinite planes and worlds or spheres, aggregatively symbolized by the circle; then parabrahman, or the kosmic life-consciousness activity, and mulaprakriti its other pole, signifying root-nature especially in its substantial aspects.

Then the next stage lower, Brahman and its veil pradhana; then Brahma-prakriti or Purusha-prakriti (prakriti being also maya); the manifested universe appearing through and by this last, Brahma-prakriti, "father-mother." In other words, the second Logos or father-mother is the producing cause of manifestation through their son which, in a planetary chain, is the primordial or the originating manu, called Svayambhuva.

When manifestation opens, prakriti becomes or rather is maya; and Brahma, the father, is the spirit of the consciousness, or the individuality. These two, Brahma and prakriti, are really one, yet they are also the two aspects of the one life-ray acting and reacting upon itself, much as a man himself can say, "I am I." He has the faculty of self-analysis or self-division. All of us know it, we can feel it in ourselves  - one side of us, in our thoughts, can be called the prakriti or the material element, or the mayavi element, or the element of illusion; and the other is the spirit, the individuality, the god within.

The student should note carefully that manifestation is but a generalizing term, comprehensive therefore of a vast number of different and differing kinds of evolving planes or realms. For instance, there is manifestation on the divine plane; there is manifestation also on the spiritual plane; and similarly so on all the descending stages of the ladder or stair of life. There are universes whose "physical" plane is utterly invisible to us, so high is it; and there are other universes in the contrary direction, so far beneath our present physical plane that their ethereal ranges of manifestation are likewise invisible to us.

See also: Manifestation, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root ma to measure, form]

Illusion, the non-eternal; in Brahmanical philosophy, the fabrication by the human mind of ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, as it tries to interpret and understand the universe. While the exterior world exists -- or it could not be illusory -- we do not

See clearly and as they actually are that which our mind and senses present to us. A traditional Vedantic illustration says that at twilight a person sees a coiled rope on the ground and springs aside, thinking it is a snake; the rope is there, but no snake.

Thus maya means that our minds are blinded and perverted by our own preconceptions and imperfections, and so does not interpret the world as it is.

"Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition. . . . Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.

Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them before or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached 'reality'; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya" (SD 1:39-40).

Though sometimes used as an equivalent for avidya, maya is properly applicable only to prakriti, which is doomed to disappear at the time of pralaya. It is thus prakriti and its productions or changes (vikaras) which, by reacting against the operations of the consciousness of a perceiving being, casts the perceiver into the bonds of illusions, out of which the deluded being has to strive in order to free himself from the maya with which he is surrounded.

"Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of an ocean above which one and the same moon is shining, so our evanescent personalities -- the illusive envelopes of the immortal monad-ego -- twinkle and dance on the waves of Maya. They last and appear, as the thousands of sparks produced by the moon-beams, only so long as the Queen of the Night radiates her lustre on the running waters of life: the period of a Manvantara; and then they disappear, the beams -- symbols of our eternal Spiritual Egos -- alone surviving, re-merged in, and being, as they were before, one with the Mother-Source" (SD 1:237).

(See also: Maya, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Invisible Worlds Theosophy teaches that the universe is a living organism, composed of an infinite number of minor organisms of all-various degrees of expression in both spirit and matter. These groups of minor organisms or worlds are separated from each other in consciousness, not in space, by planes. All the beings of any one plane have senses relating to that plane and are therefore usually unconscious of other planes by first perception. Further, these planes are of such different ranges of matter and therefore of vibration, that the entities within them intermingle without mutual interference.

The suns and planets, therefore, of any one plane interpenetrate our physical sphere, and permeate it, so that in our own daily affairs we actually pass through the worlds, through the very beings, it may be, of the entities dwelling in these realms invisible to us. These invisible realms are made of matter just as is our physical world, but it is of matter more ethereal or gross than ours. We do not cognize them with our physical senses because of the different rates of vibration of the different planes.

Although our senses tell us nothing of these innumerable other planes, yet the inner and invisible higher spheres are inexpressibly important because they are the causal realms of which our physical universe is but the phenomenal production. But while these higher planes are the fountainhead, ultimately, of all the energies and matters of the whole physical world, yet to an entity inhabiting these inner and invisible worlds, these latter are as substantial and real to that entity as our physical world is to us. Just as we know in our physical world various grades or conditions of energy and matter, from the grossest to the most ethereal, so do the inhabitants of these other worlds know and cognize their own grossest and also most ethereal substances and energies.

The theosophical teaching about invisible worlds has no connection or parallel with the Summerland of the Spiritualists.

(See also: Invisible Worlds, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Svabhavat, Swabhavat (Sanskrit) [from sva self + the verbal root bhu to become, to be]

That which becomes itself, self-existent, self-becoming, that which develops from within outwardly its essential self by emanation or evolution. Svabhavat is the essence of cosmic world-stuff,

"a state or condition of cosmic consciousness-substance, where spirit and matter, which are fundamentally one, no longer are dual as in manifestation, but one: that which is neither manifested matter, nor manifested spirit, alone, but both are the primeval Unity; spiritual Akasa; where matter merges into spirit, and both now being really one, are called 'Father-Mother' -- spirit-substance. Swabhavat never descends from its own state or condition, or from its own plane, but is the cosmic reservoir of Being, as well as of beings, therefore of consciousness, of intellectual light, of life; and it is the ultimate source of what science . . . calls the 'energies' of Nature Universal. . . .

"Swabhava is the characteristic nature, the type-essence, the individuality, of Swabhavat -- of any Swabhavat, each such Swabhavat having its own Swabhava. Swabhavat, therefore, is really . . . the plastic essence of matter, both manifest and unmanifest" (OG 167-8).

Svabhavat may be considered as parabrahman-mulaprakriti (superspirit-rootmatter), the one underlying cosmic being or substance, the divine source; the self-existent and, to our as yet undeveloped minds, the great vacuity -- mahasunya. It is equivalent to the Northern Buddhist adi-buddhi (primordial buddhi), the Brahmanical akasa, and the Hebrew cosmic waters.

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

Idealism Philosophical systems based fundamentally on consciousness, as contrasted with systems based on sensation or materialism. It affirms that the universe is an imbodiment of mind or, as stated by theosophy, the aggregated imbodiments of hierarchies of minds proceeding from a unitary divine root or universal hierarch.

It states that reality is essentially divine, spiritual, or noumenal and, on a lower plane, that the psychic is noumenal to the physical, which is its phenomenon. As a theory of knowledge, idealism identifies reality, so far as humankind is concerned, with inner conscious experience, or asserts that the mental life alone is truly knowable.

Subjective idealism denies the existence of objective reality altogether, except perhaps as illusory, as for instance in the views of Berkeley. Objective idealism, such as the system of Schelling, recognizes the existence of objective worlds while regarding the ideal world as the primary production and paramount: the external world has a relative and temporary or mayavi reality. This latter view is the only strictly logical one; for if we annihilate the object, we must thereby annihilate the subject also, these two terms having no meaning except relatively to each other.

In any theory of knowledge, there must be knower and thing known; and the latter is objective to the former. Absolute idealism logically is as unthinkable as is absolute materialism.

See also MAYA

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

Life-atom In theosophical literature, the vital ensouling power or vital entified unit in every primary or ultimate physical particle, itself a vital quasi-conscious individualized vehicle of the spiritual monad or highest consciousness-center. A life-atom is not the physical atom of science, which is but the vehicle or garment of the former, compounded of physical or physical-astral matter only. This being so, an atom decomposes when its term of expression on this plane is ended, but it reimbodies itself again, doing so by the innate force or life which its ensouling monad (life-atom) radiates. The term does not mean the ultimates or primary particles of prana (life principle or life force). Prana, itself derivative from the jiva, is as an entity quite distinct from the atoms it animates. The physical atoms belong to the lowest or grossest state of matter on our plane, while jiva essentially is an emanation or outpouring from atman or paramatman.

"Life is ever present in the atom of matter, whether organic or inorganic, conditioned or unconditioned -- a difference that the occultists do not accept. Their doctrine is that life is as much present in the inorganic as in the organic matter: when life-energy is active in the atom, that atom is organic; when dormant or latent, then the atom is inorganic" (BCW 5:111-12).

Life-atoms may indeed be called the building blocks of the universe or of any imbodied entity: for they are in very truth the vehicles of universal life. They are composite of consciousness in the core of the core of each, and they manifest spontaneously in that form of consciousness which at times is called will and at other times force or energy. They partake of spirituality and remain ever invisible: physical atoms group and form around them and their aggregation results in physical matter, the life-atoms being to them very much as higher and invisible principles.

Life-atoms may be said to belong to all planes, functioning within each of the seven principles of which the human composition is built: thus we may speak of divine life-atoms, spiritual life-atoms, intellectual, psychic, vital, astral, and physical life-atoms. During man's life those which are intimately connected with an individual are in a state of constant flux and reflex, entering and leaving in unceasing rhythms the body of their owner or host; but after death the dominant controlling factor having departed from the lower planes, each group of life-atoms proceeds to peregrinate throughout their respective natural habitats. Thus when the physical body dies, the life-atoms of the body go into the soil, into plants, or into the bodies of beasts or men -- through food or by osmosis, or in breathing creatures through the air that is inspired or expired -- they are drawn to bodies by magnetic sympathy. This transmigration of the life-atoms is the origin of the theories of the transmigration of the human soul into beasts after death.

The life-atoms belonging to the astral plane which make up the linga-sarira or model-body of men and beasts, are also liberated at death and follow along the same general lines as the physical life-atoms: they find their way into and out of other astral vehicles with which they are in magnetic sympathy. In this way they help form the astral vehicles of individuals of the three lower kingdoms as well as of the beast and human kingdoms. In similar manner peregrinate the psychic, intellectual, spiritual, and divine life-atoms. In order that the spiritual monad may proceed on its afterdeath journey, all sheaths of the spiritual consciousness must be dropped on their appropriate planes, thus finally permitting the spiritual ego to pursue its upward and inward journey unhampered by the attractions to the lower planes which these life-atoms bring about.

"The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man's constitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man's body are as numerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, . . . in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a learning entity, an evolving entity, a being which is living, moving, growing, never standing still -- evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimately becomes divinity" (OG 87).

During this evolutionary journey it passes from unself-consciousness through manifold and all-various stages of experience to self-consciousness, finally merging into divinity. When this last stage is reached it is no longer an unself-conscious god-spark but a self-conscious god, one of the co-laborers and collaborators in the great work of the building of the worlds.

(See also: Life-atom, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

World-germs A metaphor for cosmic monads, fundamental elementary principles of all ancient religious and philosophical systems. Each monad is an eternal cosmic unity, albeit they appear, disappear, and reappear during the eternally revolving cosmic cycles. In themselves they are divine consciousness-centers, divine-spiritual particles, points of abstract, conscious, cosmic substance existing during manvantaras in a state of primeval differentiation.

The world-germs, are scattered like spawn throughout space. Each one pursues its karmic destiny, descending from a state of pure spirit through various phases by emanating from itself a series of sheaths or veils until the karmic limit has been reached, when each has become the cosmic spirit of a universe, world, sun, planet, etc., as the case may be. The spiritual essence of any world-germ or cosmic monad at no time actually descends or leaves its own high plane or status, but in the words of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, each establishes a world, universe, or hierarchy with karmically destined portions of itself, and yet remains separate, transcendent.

During the course of this descent into manifestation, fohat sets in motion the primordial world-germs, the aggregation of cosmic atoms and matter, some one way, some another. The world-germs come into frequent meetings and separations, or collisions and partings, until forming their final cosmic aggregation; afterwards as individuals they pass through the nebular phase and then become comets in space.

World-germs are "viewed by Science as material particles in a highly attenuated condition, but in Occult physics as 'Spiritual particles,' i.e., supersensuous matter existing in a state of primeval differentiation" (SD 1:200-1).

(See also: World-germs, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Yu (Chinese) Being; according to the Yi-shu-lu-chia-lun (translation of Nagarjuna's Ekasloka-sastra), " 'the Substance giving substance to itself,' also explain . . . as meaning 'without action and with action,' 'the nature which has no nature of its own' " (SD 1:61). Chinese mystics have made it the synonym of svabhavat or Father-Mother, corresponding to the Second Logos of theosophy.

Yu evidently refers to the primordial spiritual substance of the universe, which is at once intelligence and spiritual matter, life and consciousness, from which all proceeds as a fountain or source, and into which all will ultimately return when the great cosmic world period or manvantara reaches its end, and the cosmic pralaya begins.

Yet this is not the highest in the cosmic hierarchical scale, because over, in, and throughout yu is the super-essential cosmic primordial abstract being, which the Pythagoreans spoke of as the all-embracing cosmic monad.

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

Anima Mundi (Latin) World-soul, world-mother; the divine-spiritual-astral-physical source of emanations, the cosmic generative and animating principle of all beings, the creative Third Logos in its female aspect. In its highest and intermediate portions, it corresponds to the alaya of Northern Buddhism and hence to akasa.

Identified variously with Isis, Sephira, Sophia, the Holy Ghost, mahat, mulaprakriti, etc., but used in a hazy and often materializing sense, so that it cannot be accurately regarded as a synonym for any one of these. "It is in a sense the 'seven-skinned mother' of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine, the essence of seven planes of sentience, consciousness and differentiation, moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana, in its lowest Astral Light. It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes.

Of igneous, ethereal nature in the objective world of form (and then ether), and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself form the Anima Mundi, it means, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It, which is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal Absolute" (TG 22-3).

Theosophically, anima mundi may be regarded as a synonym of different other words, rather than as indicative of any definite entity or principle apart from others. The higher human egos or manasaputras are essentially identical with the higher portions of anima mundi; and similarly the various life-atoms in the lower spheres may be considered as in essence identical with the lower portions of the anima mundi. It is in short the life-consciousness-essence of the universe from the divine to the physical.

(See also: Anima Mundi, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Macrocosm :

Macrocosm

The anglicized form of a Greek compound meaning "great arrangement," or more simply the great ordered system of the celestial bodies of all kinds and their various inhabitants, including the all-important idea that this arrangement is the result of interior orderly processes, the effects of indwelling consciousnesses.

In other and more modern phrasing the macrocosm is the vast universe, without definable limits, which surrounds us, and with particular emphasis laid on the interior, invisible, and ethereal planes. In the visioning or view of the ancients the macrocosm was an animate kosmic entity, an "animal" in the Latin sense of this word, as an organism possessing a directing and guiding soul. But this was only the outward or exoteric view.

In the Mystery schools of the archaic ages, the macrocosm was considered to be not only what is hereinbefore just stated, but also to consist more definitely and specifically of seven, ten, and even twelve planes or degrees of consciousness-substance ranging from the superdivine through all the intermediate stages to the physical, and even to degrees below the physical, these comprised in one kosmic organic unit, or what moderns would call a universe. In this sense of the word macrocosm is but another name for kosmic hierarchy, and it must be remembered in this connection that these hierarchies are simply countless in number and not only fill but actually compose and are indeed the spaces of frontierless SPACE.

The macrocosm was considered to be filled full not only with gods, but with innumerable multitudes or armies of evolving entities, from the fully self-conscious to the quasi-self-conscious downwards through the merely conscious to the "unconscious." Note well that in strict usage the term macrocosm was never applied to the Boundless, to boundless, frontierless infinitude, what the Qabbalists called Eyn-soph. In the archaic wisdom, the macrocosm, belonging in the astral world, considered in its causal aspect, was virtually interchangeable with what modern theosophists call the Absolute.

See also: Macrocosm, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Nirvana [from nir out, away + vana blown from the verbal root va to blow]

Blown out, blown away; the monad's freeing itself of the chains of all its inferior parts, so it can enter into relatively perfect wisdom and peace. It thus is, for the time, living in its own spiritual essence, a jivanmukta. One in this state understands essences exactly as they are, because the consciousness has for the time being become co-extensive and co-vibrational with the cosmic monad. He is free from the trammels of all the worlds of maya which he has thus far passed through.

"When our great Buddha -- the patron of all the adepts, the reformer and the codifier of the occult system, reached first Nirvana on earth, he became a Planetary Spirit; i.e. -- his spirit could at one and the same time rove the interstellar spaces in full consciousness, and continue at will on Earth in his original and individual body. For the divine Self had so completely disfranchised itself from matter that it could create at will an inner substitute for itself, and leaving it in the human form for days, weeks, sometimes years, affect in no wise by the change either the vital principle or the physical mind of its body. By the way, that is the highest form of adeptship men can hope for on our planet. But it is as rare as the Buddhas themselves . . ." (ML 43).

Nirvana has also been called the vanishing point of differentiated matter. The purely nirvanic state is an assimilation with parabrahman, a passage of spirit back to the ideal abstraction of Be-ness which has no modifying relation with the manifested planes on which our universe exists during this manvantara. Being "blown out" refers only to the lower human principles, not to entitative annihilation.

Nirvana is also "the state of the monadic entities in the period that intervenes between minor manvantaras or Rounds of a Planetary Chain; and more fully so between each seven-Round period or Day of Brahma, and the succeeding Day or new Kalpa of a Planetary Chain. At these last times, starting forth from the seventh sphere in the seventh Round, the monadic entities will have progressed far beyond even the highest state of Devachan. Too pure and too far advanced even for such a condition as the devachanic felicity, they go to their appropriate sphere and condition, which latter is the Nirvana following the end of the seventh Round" (OG 115-16).

Nirvana, devachan, and avichi are states rather than localities, forming a continuum of consciousness from the superspiritual to the nether pole of the spiritual condition. There are nirvanas of different degrees: one so high that it blends insensibly with the condition of the cosmic hierarch of our universe. The lower degrees of nirvana, however, are attained at intervals by highly spiritual and very mystically-inclined people, who have had intensive spiritual training. They enter for a very short period into this state, but usually cannot remain there for long.

"Nirvana, while the Ultima Thule of the perfection to be attained by any human being, nevertheless stands less high in the estimate of mystics than the condition of the Bodhisattva. For the Bodhisattva, although standing on the threshold of Nirvana and seeing and understanding its ineffable glory and peace and rest, nevertheless retains his consciousness in the worlds of men, in order to consecrate his vast faculties and powers to the service of all that is. The Buddhas in their higher parts enter the Nirvana, in other words, assume the Dharmakaya-state or vesture, whereas the Bodhisattva assumes the Nirmanakaya-vesture, thereafter to become an ever-active and compassionate and beneficent influence in the world. The Buddha indeed may be said to act indirectly and by 'long distance control,' thus indeed helping the world diffusively or by diffusion; but the Bodhisattva acts directly and positively and with a directing will in works of compassion, both for the world and for individuals" (OG 116-17).

(See also: Nirvana, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

LOGOS

In the original Greek sense, it doesn't just refer to any spoken or written word, but also to innate meaning or the thing itself that is to be expressed, whether an idea or a rationale or a philosophical principle. Hence it is the "Creative Word" or even the manifested deity, deva or ourgos who utters it and creates the world out of no-thing. When it is used literally as "word" it has various interpretations, such as "Consciousness" or "Language". Gnostically, certain "words" or names are necessary to allow the soul to get past the archons.

In traditional Xtianity, Logos is the actual and exact word of God incarnate; Controlling principle of the Universe (Jesus as the second person in the Trinity); Divine Creative Word. To understand what "Logos" means in a non-Xtian context, it is necessary to understand the Greek philosophical concept of language and the Greek recognition of the mythopoetic power of words. This dynamic was uprooted from its normal place in the language, redefined as a Xtian principle and thereby stripped of all past associations.

(See also: LOGOS, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

A Theosophical definition of Microcosm :

Microcosm

(Greek) A compound meaning "little arrangement," "little world," a term applied by ancient and modern mystics to man when considering the seven, ten, and even twelve aspects or phases or organic parts of his constitution, from the superdivine down to and even below the physical body.

Just as throughout the macrocosm there runs one law, one fundamental consciousness, one essential orderly arrangement and habitude to which everything contained within the encompassing macrocosm of necessity conforms, just so does every such contained entity or thing, because it is an inseparable part of the macrocosm, contain in itself, evolved or unevolved, implicit or explicit, active or latent, everything that the macrocosm contains  - whether energy, power, substance, matter, faculty, or what not.

The microcosm, therefore, considered as man or indeed any other organic entity, is correctly viewed as a reflection or copy in miniature of the great macrocosm, the former being contained, with hosts of others like it, within the encircling frontiers of the macrocosm. Thus it was stated by the ancient mystics that the destiny of man, the microcosm, is coeval with the universe or macrocosm. Their origin is the same, their energies and substances are the same, and their future is the same, of course mutatis mutandis. It was no vain figment of imagination and no idle figure of speech which brought the ancient mystics to declare man to be a son of the Boundless.

The teaching is one of the most suggestive and beautiful in the entire range of the esoteric philosophy, and the deductions that the intuitive student will immediately draw from this teaching themselves become keys opening even larger portals of understanding. The universe, the macrocosm, is thus seen to be the home of the microcosm or man, in the former of which the latter is at home everywhere.

See also: Microcosm, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Boundless, The The infinitude of living space and unconditioned time, termed parabrahman, parabrahman-mulaprakriti, tat, or Aditi in Sanskrit; in the Chaldean Qabbalah, 'eyn soph; and with the Greeks, to apeyron.

The non-existent, because nonmanifested, and therefore the concealed unity; sometimes called darkness in a mystic sense, no-number because not subject to computation, also the rootless root. Having no relation to the bounded and conditioned which are contained within it, it is the unknown and unknowable cosmic motion, absolute consciousness, and absolute motion, and therefore to our limited minds unconsciousness and immobility. Its symbol is the circle or zero, denoting the absence of everything that can be predicated as imbodying limitation.

All worlds and universes spring forth from it, run their various manvantaric periods, and sink back into it for their rest; so that what we call space is but one of its manifestations or appearances, and what we call unending duration is its aspect when we consider it under the light of eternity. It is everything because everything is included within it, and it is nothing because it is no-thing -- thing implying limitation or condition.

See also PARABRAHMAN, THAT

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