Yoga Class Dictionary

Chandalas, or Chhandalas (Sanskrit). Outcasts, or people without caste, a name now given to all the lower classes of the Hindus; but in antiquity it was applied to a certain class of men, who, having forfeited their right to any of the four castes- - Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras - were expelled from cities and sought refuge in the forests. Then they became "bricklayers ", until finally expelled they left the country, some 4,000 years before our era. Some see in them the ancestors of the earlier Jews, whose tribes began with A-brahm or " No Brahm ". To this day it is the class most despised by the Brahmins in India.

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

Brahman:

A person who belongs to the first class or caste of human beings. A person who studies the vedas diligently and imbibes all the good qualities recommended therein. A person who knows the science of spirit, religion, liberation, astrology, literature, medicine, etc. - a first class human being. This is not something that can be inherited by birth. It must be earned individually and it is subject to reversal at any time by fall down from the brahminical qualities. The word also refers to spirit in general - the all-pervading aspect of Supreme Divinity that pervades every atom in all time and all space. A brahmana is a knower of brahman or spirit, which is also absolute truth.

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

Anagni-dagdha (Sanskrit) Non-fire-givers; in the Vedas, a class of pitris who refused to make the fire sacrifice to Brahma. Blavatsky holds that these are the objective, rupa emanations of the agni-dagdha (fire-givers) or first, spiritual class of pitris. (BCW 6:191).

(See also: Anagni-dagdha , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Sacrifice The performance of sacred rites, but with the more restricted sense of ceremonies of invocation, communion, or propitiation between man and gods. Scholars, in studying these universal rites, are at a loss to find an essential significance by which to gather them all into one class, and as to which to include and which to exclude from such a class.

Sacrifices may take the form of a meal offered to the gods or shared with them, an oblation of first fruits of the harvest or flocks, or a propitiation or act of atonement. The Romans dedicated a portion of food or a libation to the lares or other deities; the Hebrews offered the first fruits of the harvest or the yearlings of the flock. The word also has the meaning of an act of self-dedication for a noble cause.

Christianity, in addition to a great many so-called pagan ideas, also inherited and adapted Jewish sacrificial ideas, but the word became limited to the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world, and the sacrifice by man of his personal desires to the behests of his divinity. The true origin of the Christian atonement is in the Mysteries, when the hierophant offered his pure and sinless life as a sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin (IU 2:42). The general sense in theosophy is that of sacrificing one's temporal interests to a lofty ideal.

(See also: Sacrifice , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Xisuthrus, Xisuthros (Greek) [from Chaldean Khas-is-adra]

Also Sisuthrus. The tenth king of Chaldea, son of Ardates according to Berosus, the last king of the mythical age, who reigned for 18 Sari. According to Chaldean legend during his reign a great flood occurred. Xisuthrus was warned in a vision by the gods to build a vessel five stadia long and two in breadth, and to take with him into it his friends and relatives, likewise to place therein all species of animals, and to trust himself to the deep. Eventually the ark settled on the mountain of Nizir, the dwelling of the gods, also regarded as the cradle of the Chaldean race. The Jewish story of Noah was taken from this earlier Chaldean legend.

The Xisuthrus-Noah story has more than one application in now forgotten human history. In one, Xisuthrus is the ideal figure of a race passing over from one to the next succeeding continental system; or on the cosmic scale, of the transmigration of the various classes of monads with their chief from one dying planet to the succeeding planet, the child of the former. In the case of the earth, it is the transmigration of the ten or twelve classes of monads from the moon-chain to the earth-chain, the ark standing for the cosmic surroundings governed by karmic law and holding the monads together as classes. Xisuthrus or Noah, therefore, is the collectivity of all these monadic classes into a unity for purposes of mythologic story.

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

Arupa-devas (Sanskrit) (from a not + rupa form, body + deva divine being)

Formless celestial beings; suggested in The Mahatma Letters (p. 107) to refer to beings who were once men as we now are, but who have graduated out of the human sage into one of the two main classes of dhyani-chohans. According to this scheme, there are men; those superior to men who nevertheless were formerly men, divided into the rupa and arupa; and beneath men two classes who will be men in the future, such as asuras (elementals having a more or less human form) and beasts or elementals of a less advanced class which can be called animal elementals.

When used alone, deva is vague and indefinite, as there are celestial beings named devas who are neither ex-men, asuras, nor beasts, but may be looked upon as celestial spirit-elementals.

(See also: Arupa-devas , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Abhutarajas (Sanskrit) (from a not + the verbal root bhu to be born, produced + rajas passion)

Those not produced by or born with the quality of passion; a class of 14 gods or divinities belonging to the "fifth manvantara," the fifth Manu of which was Raivata (cf VP 3:1). The abhutarajasas are a hierarchy of divine beings, similar to the kumaras and manasaputras, who have passed through the material worlds in previous evolutionary periods. Having risen above all passional attractions to the lower spheres, these three classes of deities are reckoned as exempt from passion -- in the sense of suffering passively, one of passion's original connotations. These divinities are masters of themselves, not passive subjects.

In the theosophical scheme of rounds and races, the fifth manvantara of the Puranas refers to the first half or descending arc of the third round of our present planetary chain, and the fifth manu, Raivata, to the root-manu of this third round; further, the passage of the life-waves through each round of all the globes of the planetary chain -- i.e. from globe A to globe G -- consists of two "manvantaras," and thus it is that the first half or descending arc of the third round is the fifth of these manvantaras.

Moreover, just as in the third root-race on this globe in our present fourth round the manasaputras incarnated in the then relatively intellectually senseless humanity to awaken its self-conscious mind, so in their own way and on their own planes did the abhutarajasas act. In the descending arc of the third round they played the same part, albeit in a more diffuse and less active way, that they later did in the early part of the third root-race of the fourth round on this globe, when the human vehicles were evolutionally ready for a more intensive incarnation.

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

A Theosophical definition of Planetary Spirit (Planetary Spirits) :

Planetary Spirit (Planetary Spirits)

Every celestial body in space, of whatever kind or type, is under the overseeing and directing influence of a hierarchy of spiritual and quasi-spiritual and astral beings, who in their aggregate are generalized under the name of celestial spirits. These celestial spirits exist therefore in various stages or degrees of evolution; but the term planetary spirits is usually restricted to the highest class of these beings when referring to a planet.

In every case, and whatever the celestial body may be, such a hierarchy of ethereal beings, when the most advanced in evolution of them are considered, in long past cycles of kosmic evolution had evolved through a stage of development corresponding to the humanity of earth. Every planetary spirit therefore, wherever existent, in those far past aeons of kosmic time was a man or a being equivalent to what we humans on earth call man.

The planetary spirits of earth, for instance, are intimately linked with the origin and destiny of our present humanity, for not only are they our predecessors along the evolutionary path, but certain classes of them are actually the spiritual guides and instructors of mankind. We humans, in far distant aeons of the future, on a planetary chain which will be the child or grandchild of the present earth-chain, will be the planetary spirits of that future planetary chain. It is obvious that as H. P. Blavatsky says: "Our Earth, being as yet only in its Fourth Round, is far too young to have produced high Planetary Spirits"; but when the seventh round of this earth planetary chain shall have reached its end, our present humanity will then have become dhyanchohans of various grades, planetary spirits of one group or class, with necessary evolutionary differences as among themselves.

The planetary spirits watch over, guide, and lead the hosts of evolving entities inferior to themselves during the various rounds of a planetary chain. Finally, every celestial globe, whether sun or planet or other celestial body, has as the summit or acme of its spiritual hierarchy a supreme celestial spirit who is the hierarch of its own hierarchy. It should not be forgotten that the humanity of today forms a component element or stage or degree in the hierarchy of this (our) planetary chain.

See also: Planetary Spirit (Planetary Spirits) , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Door to the Human Kingdom Theosophical term expressing the idea that no more entities below the human stage will evolve into human beings in this round. The reason for this is that

"when Globe A of the new chain is ready, the first class or Hierarchy of Monads from the Lunar chain incarnate upon it in the lowest kingdom, and so on successively. The result of this is, that it is only the first class of Monads which attains the human state of development during the first Round, since the second class, on each planet, arriving later, has not time to reach that stage.

Thus the Monads of Class 2 reach the incipient human stage only in the Second Round, and so on up to the middle of the Fourth Round. But at this point -- and on this Fourth Round in which the human stage will be fully developed -- the 'Door' into the human kingdom closes; and henceforward the number of 'human' Monads, i.e., Monads in the human stage of development, is complete. For the Monads which had not reached the human stage by this point will, owing to the evolution of humanity itself, find themselves so far behind that they will reach the human stage only at the close of the seventh and last Round" (SD 1:173).

The "door" was closed into the human kingdom in the middle of the fourth round because the turning point had been reached between the monadic evolution of matter, or descent into matter on the downward arc, and the reverse process of involution, which automatically replaced it on the upward arc of the great light cycle.

Thus, as we are now past the middle of the fourth round, none of the monads now working in and through the animal kingdom can enter the human kingdom during the remainder of this round; with one probably exception, however: that of the anthropoid apes.

(See also: Door to the Human Kingdom , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

PARAMAHAMSA: the fourth or the highest class of Sannyasins

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

Sapta-Surya (Sanskrit) The seven suns; the seven fundamental solar logoi of our own sun; the suns of our universal solar system. They are likewise connected to the hierarchies of intelligent beings or dhyani-chohans of various classes which enter into creative functions or action when the central sun emits creative light preceding the later periods of manvantaric activity.

Those classes of the dhyani-chohans who are the cosmic architects open the manvantaric drama by entering upon their respective functions, and once the lines of structure are thus laid, the lower classes of dhyani-chohans -- high though they may be in spirituality and intellectuality -- begin thereupon their work as builders, which is ceaseless until the manvantaric end.

References to these two general classes of ideative cosmic spirits, the architects and the cosmic masons or builders, are found in nearly all of the ancient religio-philosophic scriptures of the world.

(See also: Sapta-Surya , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Upaveda: (Sanskrit) "Secondary Vedas."

A class of texts on sacred sciences, composed by rishis over the course of time to amplify and apply the Vedic knowledge. The four prominent Upavedas (each encompassing numerous texts) are:

á      Arthaveda (statecraft),

á      Ayurveda (health),

á      Dhanurveda (military science) and

á      Gandharvaveda (music and the arts).

Also sometimes classed as Upavedas are the

á      Sthapatyaveda (on architecture) and the

á      Kama Shastras (texts on erotic love).

See: Arthaveda, Ayurveda, Dhanurveda, Kama Sutra, Gandharvaveda, purushartha, Stapatyaveda.

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

Manes (Latin) [from manus good]

Deified ancestral spirits, the benevolent class of shades, as distinguished from the larvae and lemures, which were malevolent. The word seems originally to have denoted a class of titans, kabiri, or dhyanis, and to have ranked in the sequence of patriarchs, heroes, and manes, who acted as divine instructors of earlier races.

But far later, in Roman usage, the name became degraded and applied to the better astral shades or denizens in kama-loka, which in so many lands have been propitiated by offerings as is still the case with some peoples. Sometimes they wear a retributive aspect, as in Vergil, where the painful purification of the shades before they can pass to Elysium is described: "Each of us suffers his own Manes" (Aeneid 6:743).

Difficult as it is to distinguish as among the manes, larvae, and lemures, the manes were considered by Roman philosophers and poets equivalent to the human soul or monad; whereas the larvae and lemures were distinctly the shells or shades existent in the astral light and being the cast-off portions of the human monad when it ascends into, or reaches, devachan.

(See also: Manes , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Prajapatis (Sanskrit) [from praja that which is brought forth from pra forth + the verbal root jan to be born + pati lord]

The producers, evolvers, or givers of life to all on the earth's planetary chain, and hence lords of offspring in the hierarchical sense. Prajapatis is likewise applicable mutatis mutandis to larger hierarchical divisions, such as a solar system or galaxy.

The prajapatis "are, like the Sephiroth, only seven, including the synthetic Sephira of the triad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati, the triune (primeval Vedic Trimurti, Agni, Vayu, and Surya), emanate the other seven, or again ten, if we separate the first three which exist in one . . . In the Mahabharata the Prajapati are 21 in number, or ten, six, and five (1065), thrice seven" (SD 1:89-90).

These seven, ten, or more prajapatis correspond likewise to the Mazdean Amesha-Spentas or Amshaspends and the Hindu Saptarshis. The name prajapati is most commonly given to ten rishis or sages known as the mind-born sons of Brahma: Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Vasishtha, Prachetas or Daksha, Bhrigu, and Narada. These are really collective names for the various classes of monads, each single prajapati representing also the spiritual-intellectual hierarch of his own particular hierarchy or class of monads. Hence the meaning of prajapati as lord or parent of offspring -- the ten classes of monads corresponding each to its own proper prajapati. Further the prajapatis are the parents of the seven or ten manus. The Puranic myths with their genealogies of the seven prajapatis, rishis, or manus are "but a vast detailed account of the progressive development and evolution of animal creation, one species after the other" (SD 2:253).

"The whole personnel of the Brahmanas and Puranas -- the Rishis, Prajapatis, Manus, their wives and progeny -- belong to that pre-human period. All these are the Seed of Humanity, so to speak. It is around these 'Sons of God,' the 'Mind born' astral children of Brahma, that our physical frames have grown and developed to what they are now. For, the Puranic histories of all those men are those of our Monads, in their various and numberless incarnations on this and other spheres, events perceived by the 'Siva eye' of the ancient Seers, (the 'third eye' of our Stanzas) and described allegorically. Later on, they were disfigured for Sectarian purposes; mutilated, but still left with a considerable ground-work of truth in them. Nor is the philosophy less profound in such allegories for being so thickly veiled by the overgrowth of fancy" (SD 2:284).

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

Vairochana Vairocana (Sanskrit) A son of the sun (Virochana -- the spiritual sun); a generalizing term for some of the highest classes of dhyani-chohans emanating directly from the Third Logos, and therefore virtually identical with the vairajas, kumaras, manasaputras, and agnishvattas, called collectively children of the sun.

"A generic personification of a class of spiritual beings described as the embodiment of essential wisdom (Bodhi) and absolute purity. They dwell in the fourth Arupa Dhatu (formless world) or Buddhakshetra, and are the first or the highest hierarchy of the five orthodox Dhyani Buddhas. There was a Sramana (an Arhat) of this name (see Eitel's Sansk. Chin. Dict.), a native of Kashmir, 'who introduced Buddhism into Kustan and laboured in Tibet (in the seventh century of our era). He was the best translator of the semi-esoteric Canon of Northern Buddhism, and a contemporary of the great Samantabhadra . . ." (TG 358-9).

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

A Christian theological definition of Sadducee according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

"

Sadducee

See also: Sadducee , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Heat In science heat is a class of effects called thermal, and diagnosed as vibratory affections of the particles of bodies, produced by solar radiation, mechanical means, chemical action, or the flow of electric current. In seeking the unity which may reconcile these diversities, science has agreed to call heat a mode of motion or one of the forms of energy.

According to this theory, heat energy and mechanical energy are mutually convertible. Heat in the terms of modern physics cannot be described either as a fluid or as a mode of motion; but like all physical phenomena, whether we call them substantial or dynamic, it is a function of the activities of some substratum whose nature science is still striving to define.

Theosophically, heat is a manifestation of one of seven forces emanating from the fount of cosmic life and manifesting itself by various effects on various planes. It is a form of one of the seven primordial conscious forces emanating from anima mundi, one of the seven sons of fohat, or one of seven radicals -- one aspect of universal motion; in other words, the emanation from a living entity expressing itself on our plane as heat.

The forces of physics are manifestations of elementals, which themselves are manifestations of noumena on a still higher plane. Heat is both substantial and energic in character, and we may speak of it as being actually a fluidic emanation from living bodies; although it is equally possible to produce heat in so-called inanimate matter because of the stirring up of the same fluid in these bodies by means of intelligence acting to that end.

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

TOTEM

Any natural object, plant or animal, not considered as an individual but as a member of a class. A Totem is chosen by a tribal class or its kin. It is then treated as the outward symbol of a secret relation.

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

Apsaras (Sanskrit) (from ap water + saras flowing from the verbal root sri to flow, glide, blow (as of wind))

Moving in the waters; a class of feminine divinities known as celestial water nymphs, whose location is commonly placed in the sky between the clouds rather than in the waters of earth, although they are often described as visiting earth. These fairy-like wives of the gandharvas (celestial musicians) can change their shape at will, often appearing as aquatic birds.

In Manu they are held to be the creations of the seven manus, but in the Puranas and the Ramayana their origin is attributed to the churning of the cosmic waters, and it is said that neither gods nor asuras would have them for wives. Since mythologically they were common to all, they are called Sumadatmajas (self-willed pleasurers) -- 35 millions of them, of whom Kama, god of love, is lord and king. One of their roles is to act as temptresses to those too ardent for divine status. Only the individual who can withstand the perfumed entreaties of the apsarasas is worthy of full enlightenment. In the Yajur-Veda the apsarasas are called sunbeams because of their connection with the gandharva who personifies the sun.

Blavatsky looks upon the apsarasas as "both qualities and quantities" (SD 2:585) and also as " 'sleep-producing' aquatic plants, and interior forces of nature" (TG 28).

In the Puranas the apsarasas are sometimes divided into two classes, the daivika (divine or belonging to the devas), hence highly ethereal beings, and the laukika (from loka worldly)

, belonging to the worlds of manifestation, such as a physical plane. Considered apart from mythologic references, the apsarasas bear a strong resemblance to the undines of medieval Europe, nature forces and elementals appurtenant to all ten ranges of their hierarchical distribution, from the spiritual to the grossly material and physical. Every one of the seven or ten cosmic elements (bhutas) or principles (tattvas) has its own class of inhabitants.

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

varna dharma: (Sanskrit) "The way of one's kind."

The hereditary social class system, generally referred to as caste, established in India in ancient times. Within varna dharma are the many religious and moral codes which define human virtue. Varna dharma is social duty, in keeping with the principles of good conduct, according to one's community, which is generally based on the craft or occupation of the family.

Strictly speaking it encompasses two interrelated social hierarchies:  1) varna, which refers to the four classes: brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra; and  2) jati, the myriad occupational subgroups, or guilds, which in India number over 3,000. Hence this dharma is sometimes called jati dharma.

The class-caste system is still very much a part of Indian life today. Many modern Hindus propose that social status is now (and was originally) more properly determined by a person's skills and accomplishments than by birth. Mobility between jatis, or castes, within Hindu communities worldwide is limited but not impossible, and is accomplished through marrying into a new jati, or changing professions through persistence, skill and education. Shastris say that once a person breaks out of his varna or jati of birth and changes "caste," it takes three generations for his family to become fully established in that new strata of society, provided the continuity is unbroken.

(See also: Varna dharma , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

vaishya: (Sanskrit) "Landowner; merchant."

The social

class of bankers, businessmen, industrialists; employers.

Merchant class, originally those whose business was trade as well as agriculture.

See: varna dharma.

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

Desire A word whose shades of meaning range from mere animal desire to that of cosmic kama or eros which "first arose in It," bringing spirit into union with matter and giving rise to the creation or emanation of various classes of beings.

It can also be lofty spiritual aspiration, the yearning upwards with the undying desire for the divine, or impersonal love, or again, the urge to become united or one with others. Many words overlap it in meaning, such as will, attraction, love, and cupidity, and it is generally used as a translation of the Sanskrit kama.

Philosophically, it is often synonymous with abstract will, as when kama is called sometimes desire and sometimes will, so that will and desire seem to blend into one on the higher ranges. In the saying, behind will stands desire, will is a colorless force set in motion by desire, much as a current is set up by an electromotive force. From another viewpoint, will, as an abstract motor in the human constitution, arises from the higher or spiritual-intellectual ranges of the kama principle itself, for "Will and Desire are the higher and lower aspects of one and the same thing" (BCW 12:702).

See also KAMA; EROS

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