Yoga Class Dictionary

Om Vajrapani Hum (Sanskrit) [from Om the mystical syllable, uttered at the commencement of mantras + vajrapani from vajra thunderbolt + panin holder + hum Tibetan mystical syllable equivalent to Om]

Om! the holder of the thunderbolt, hum! Many of the mantras used in India and Tibet are not completed grammatical sentences, as the mantra is said to derive its potency from its rhythm as well as from its tonal utterance. The title of thunderbolt-holder is properly given to one who holds the thunderbolt of the spirit -- one who has awakened the divine monad within himself.

Vajrapani with Northern Buddhists is a class of celestial beings, and also a dhyani-bodhisattva, the hierarch of this class of beings. This mantric sentence is therefore an appeal, by an elevation in aspiration, to at least temporary spiritual union with this class of celestial entities.

(See also: Om Vajrapani Hum , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

sudra:

the fourth of the hindu four classes, traditionally the servant class

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

Twilight When used in theosophic philosophy, refers to the sandhya or sandhi, an interval between the light and dark, or dark and light, part of a cycle, smaller or greater, thus the cosmic cycle called an Age of Brahma is 311,040,000,000,000 years, of which 2 percent is the sum of the twilights.

Also used for the four bodies Brahma assumed at creation: night, evening twilight, day, and morning twilight; archaic Hindu legend states that the three higher classes of pitris were born in the body of night, the four lower classes from the body of evening twilight, gods from the body of day, and men from the morning twilight.

In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux were day and night, and their consorts Phoebe and Hilaira were the twilights.

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

Consciousness: In Buddhism there are eight classes of consciousness. The first five are the senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing), the sixth is thought, the seventh is manas, and the eighth is alaya-vinana.

 (See also: Consciousness , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Rupa-devas (Sanskrit) [from rupa form + deva divinity]

Celestial beings having form; that class of celestial beings or lower dhyani-chohans still having forms who "are the intelligent Rulers of this world of Matter, and who, with all this intelligence are but the blindly obedient instruments of the One; the active agents of a Passive Principle" (ML 107-8). These rupa-devas have completed their cycling as monads in the human stage and have graduated into the class next superior to mankind.

See also ARUPA-DEVAS

(See also: Rupa-devas , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Pitri, Pitris pitr (Sanskrit) Fathers; referring to the merely human deceased father and grandparents; also to the progenitors of the human race. The pitris (progenitors) are of seven classes: three classes of arupa-pitris or higher dhyanis, which in our own solar system we call the solar pitris or agnishvattas; and the four lower classes known as barhishads or lunar pitris. The lunar pitris came from the moon-chain, while the solar pitris are those dhyan-chohans which have all the spiritual-intellectual fires, although they are too spiritual to have the physical creative fire. In preceding manvantaras they had finished their physical and astral evolution, but by cyclic necessity, enlightened the lunar pitris which had only the physical creative fire.

The pitris "are called 'Fathers' because they are more particularly the actual progenitors of our lower principles; whereas the Dhyani-Chohans are actually, in one most important sense, our own selves. We were born from them; we were the monads, we were the atoms, the souls, projected, sent forth, emanated, by the Dhyanis.

". . . the Lunar Pitris may briefly be said to be those consciousness-centers in the human constitution which feel humanly, which feel instinctually, and which possess the brain-mind mentality. The Agnishwatta-Pitris are those monadic centers of the human constitution which are of a purely spiritual type" (OG 125-6). These pitris were not forefathers of present humanity, but of our distantly remote ancestors named formerly by some writers the Adamic races.

The evolution of the first root-race of mankind from the astral bodies of the pitris took place on seven distinctly separated regions of the earth existing then at the arctic pole (cf SD 2:329). Of the succession of the root-races the Stanzas of Dzyan say: "First come the SELF-EXISTENT on this Earth. They are the 'Spiritual Lives' projected by the absolute WILL and LAW, at the dawn of every rebirth of the worlds. These LIVES are the divine 'Sishta,' (the seed-Manus, or the Prajapati and the Pitris)" (SD 2:164). As progenitors of the various human root-races, pitris refer pointedly to the life-waves, manus, prajapatis, and sishtas.

Brahma occasionally, as the generalized Progenitor, stands in Hindu literature for the pitris collectively, and is thus called Father.

(See also: Pitri, Pitris, pitr , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

IMMORTALITY

The fourth and shallowest of ego desires. The difference between the initiate and the ordinary person is that the initiate knows that he, along with everything in the universe, is already immortal. Ordinary people see the truth in such ideas but choose to live as if the illusion of commonplace, middle-class job and family are more "practical" or "real" than metaphysical truth.

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

Anima (Latin) Air, wind, breath; secondarily life, soul, spirit, mind. A distinction, not generally observed, has been made between anima and animus, where animus is very close to the mentality or manas of theosophical terminology and anima is equivalent to the theosophic usage of prana.

Because equivalent to prana, it exists on seven planes, from the atman to the physical; and consequently there is an anima for every class of celestial being, anima not being limited only to human beings, beasts, and other beings having bodies of material substance. From anima came "animal," a being with a living personal soul. The vegetable and mineral kingdoms do not have it; but the earth has, and the earth was called an animal in consequence.

There was in classical times a distinction between three souls of the defunct: anima (pure spirit) went to the heaven world, while manes went to the nether regions, and umbra hovered on earth (IU 1:37). Anima is spoken of as pure spirit because the essence of prana is indeed spirit, as it is derivative directly form the atma-buddhic monad, although colored on the lower planes by its intimate connection with the personal ego or manes.

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

Elohim 'elohim (Hebrew) (from 'eloah goddess + im masculine plural ending)

The monotheistic proclivities, not only of the Jews but of Christian translators, have led to this word always being translated as God; yet the word itself is a plural form, nor is it in any sense necessarily a plural of majesty, as suggested by some monotheistic scholars. A correct rendering should denote both masculine and feminine characteristics, such as androgyne divinities.

In spite of the ideas imbodied in the word itself, the later development of Judaism caused 'elohim to be almost entirely translated in paraphrase as the "one true God"; but in earlier times 'elohim (or rather benei 'elohim or benei 'elim -- sons of gods, members of the classes of divine beings) meant spiritual beings or cosmic spirits of differing hierarchical grades: a collective class of cosmic spirits among whom is found the familiar Jewish Yahweh or Jehovah. Thus, strictly speaking and as viewed in the original Qabbalah, the 'elohim meant the angelic hierarchies of many varying grades of spirituality or ethereality; and in cosmogonic or astrological matters, the 'elohim were often mentally aggregated under the generalized term tseba'oth (fem pl from the verbal root tsaba' a host, an army) as in the expression "host of heaven."

In the Jewish Qabbalah the 'elohim, however, are the sixth hierarchical group in derivation from the first or Crown, Kether: cosmogonically they represent the manifested formers or weavers of the cosmos. In this Qabbalistic system, Jehovah was the third angelic potency (counting from the first, Kether). Blavatsky calls all these hierarchicies symbols "emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (man); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other 'Uunknowable') becomes 'One' -- the Echos, the Eka, the Ahu -- then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or 'Man.' And from man, or Jah-Hova, 'male female,' the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical planes, once more the Elohim" (SD 1:113).

The opening words of the Bible refer directly to the activities of the 'elohim, for this is the sole divine name mentioned in Genesis 1:1-2. De Purucker translates these verses from the original Hebrew as:

"In a host (or multitude), the gods (Elohim) formed themselves into the heavens and the earth. And the earth became ethereal. And darkness upon the face of the ethers. And the ruah (the spirit-soul) of the gods (of Elohim) fluttered or hovered, brooding" (cf Fund 99-100). He goes on to say that "we see that the Elohim evolved man, humanity, out of themselves, and told them to become, then to enter into and inform these other creatures. Indeed, these sons of the Elohim are, in our teachings, the children of light, the sons of light, which are we ourselves, and yet different from ourselves, because higher, yet they are our own very selves inwardly. In fact, the Elohim, became, evolved into, their own offspring, remaining in a sense still always the inspiring light within, or rather above . . . the Elohim projected themselves into the nascent forms of the then 'humanity,' which thenceforward were 'men,' however imperfect their development still was" (Fund 101-2).

The 'elohim, then, correspond to both classes of the pitris mentioned in theosophical literature: the higher or more spiritual-intellectual of the 'elohim are the agnishvatta-pitris, and the lower groups are the barhishad-pitris. As the agnishvatta-pitris are devoid of the astral-vital-physical productive fire because they are too high and distinctly intellectual, they leave the work of production to the lower 'elohim or barhishads, who "being the lunar spirits more closely connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust" (SD 2:78).

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

dharma: (Sanskrit) "Righteousness." From dhri, "to sustain; carry, hold."

Hence dharma is "that which contains or upholds the cosmos." Dharma, religion, is a complex and all-inclusive term with many meanings, including: divine law, law of being, way of righteousness, religion, ethics, duty, responsibility, virtue, justice, goodness and truth. Essentially, dharma is the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature or destiny. Relating to the soul, it is the mode of conduct most conducive to spiritual advancement, the right and righteous path.

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

Lama bla ma (Tibetan) Superior, excellent; equivalent to the Sanskrit guru. Correctly applied only to the ecclesiastical dignitaries of superior classes or grades, who really should be teachers or gurus in monasteries; also to such officials as the tulkus, the heads of the better class of large monasteries; also to the heads of the great monastic colleges, and likewise to monks who hold high scholastic degrees; other monks are usually called trapas (students).

Unfortunately, Occidental authors almost invariably designate any Tibetan monk a Lama, due largely perhaps to the improper assumption of the title by Tibetans themselves who have no right to use it, though they may belong to the lower ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Tibet. Hence the religion is commonly called Lamaism by European writers.

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

Night In ancient cosmogonies night is placed before day because these cosmogonies begin with the secondary cosmic creation; and the light which was then created was contrasted with what seemed, relatively, the eternal darkness of primary creation. For manifested light proceeds from absolute light, which by contrast has to be called darkness.

In a Hindu scheme, the first body of Brahma is called his body of night, and from it proceeded the three highest groups of pitris, the asuras or sons of wisdom; while the four lower classes of pitris proceeded from the body of twilight.

Night also refers to pralaya as in the Day and Night of Brahma. Night thus signifies that which precedes the opening, coming, and fulfillment of manifestation, called the day. These days and nights pertain directly to the coming into being of a universe, of which in boundless space the number is infinite. Thus, when a universe is in pralaya, it can be said to be in its night or time of sleep, yet surrounded by the illimitable kosmos itself infilled with universes in all phases of evolutionary growth.

(See also: Night , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Clairvoyance:

ESP input as if it were normal seeing, without the medium of another mind; often used as a term for clair senses, psychometry and/or precognition. See Remote Viewing. Classification:

Association of some phenomenon into a predetermined pattern or class of phenomena.

(See also: Clairvoyance , Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Marut, Maruts (Sanskrit) A class of spiritual or highly ethereal beings, properly classed as belonging to the middle sphere between heaven and earth. They are one of the classes of agnishvattas, and hence in strait union with the asuras -- indeed leaving mythologic legends about the maruts aside, there are times when the distinctions between the maruts and asuras vanish.

In the Vedas the maruts are described as children of heaven (spiritual spheres) and ocean (cosmic space), armed with golden weapons, such as lightning and thunderbolts, as having iron teeth and roaring like lions, and residing in the north, as riding in golden cars drawn by ruddy horses -- all of which is merely mythologic elaborations of symbolic fancy. The maruts are mythologically represented as storm gods and the friends and allies of Indra. Esoterically they belong to the hierarchies of those dhyani-chohans who enlightened the early races of mankind. In one sense they are our human egos as emanations from the manasaputras, and from another viewpoint, they are the manasaputras themselves, a class of the agnishvattas. Hence the allegory of Siva transforming the lumps of flesh into boys and calling them maruts, to show senseless men transformed by becoming the vehicles of the solar pitris or fire-maruts, and thus rational beings. Again, they are the adepts who incarnate on earth to help mankind.

The Vayu-Purana shows that the Maruts, "the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all the secondary or lower gods in the Rig Veda -- 'are born in every manvantara (Round) seven times seven (or 49); that in each Manvantara, four times seven (or twenty-eight) they obtain emancipation, but their places are filled up by persons reborn in that character.' " In the Ramayana Diti, the lower or manifested aspect of Aditi, "anxious to obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kasyapa the Sage, that 'if, with thoughts wholly pious and person entirely pure, she carries the babe in her womb for a hundred years' she will get such a son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he divides the embryo in her womb into seven portions, and then divides every such portion into seven pieces again, which become the swift-moving deities, the Maruts. These deities are only another aspect, or a development of the Kumaras [or agnishvattas], who are Rudras in their patronymic, like many others" (SD 2:613).

The maruts have their representatives on lower planes, which causes much of the confusion and apparently contradictory statements about them. "The Maruts represent

(a)  the passions that storm and rage within every candidate's breast, when preparing for an ascetic life -- this mystically;

(b)  the occult potencies concealed in the manifold aspects of Akasa's lower principles -- her body, or sthula sarira, representing the terrestrial, lower, atmosphere of every inhabited globe -- this mystically and sidereally;

(c)   actual conscious Existences, Beings of a cosmic and psychic nature" (SD 2:615).

(See also: Marut, Maruts , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Pitri-devatas pitr-devatas (Sanskrit) [from pitri father + devatas spiritual beings]

The paternal spiritual beings; a class of divine beings who were the progenitors of mankind -- generalized under the term pitris. More particularly, the lunar ancestors of mankind, in all their various classes.

(See also: Pitri-devatas, pitr-devatas , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

 The word "yoga" often brings to mind a classroom of students attired in exercise clothing attempting to stretch their bodies into different postures. A more traditional yoga class will even include instruction in breathing techniques, concentration, meditation, and positive thinking. In the media today, yoga is often associated with health benefits such as stress reduction, lower blood pressure, and an overall decrease in illness and hospitalization rates. This is the Western idea of yoga. If we look to the Eastern approach, where yoga is a part of the great Hindu and Buddhist traditions, we find that yoga is all of these things but much, much more as well.

Read more here: » Yoga: Serve, Love, Meditate, Realize - The Inner Teachings of Yoga

Peri (Persian) Pairika (Avestan?) A class of elemental or nature spirits corresponding in many ways to what Europeans call fairies.

Just as in other national mythologies, the peris in ancient Persian thought are representative of those classes of conscious, self-conscious, and quasi-conscious beings who range all the way from simple sprites in the lower ranges, up to and including the classes of lower monads which are the psychological and even physical ancestors of the human race. They are, therefore, families of evolving monads in various grades of development, from the human down to the elemental kingdoms.

The earlier races of peris, which in Persian mythology reigned for 2,000 years on earth, correspond to the progenitors of the first root-race. The later races of peris, occasionally looked upon as inimical in the Avesta, although smaller in stature than the devs -- giants, strong and wicked, who reigned for 7,000 years -- were wiser and kinder, and their king was Gyan. Here the devs and peris correspond to the Atlantean giants and the Aryans (SD 2:394).

In the Avesta, the pairikas "in the shape of worm-stars, fly between the earth and the heavens, in the sea Vouru-Kasha," (Tir Yasht 5, 8), i.e., in the waters of space. They were flung by Angra Mainyu "to stop all the stars that have in them the seed of the waters." But Tishtrya, "the bright and glorious star who moves in light with the stars that have in them the seed of the waters, afflicts them, he blows them away from the sea Vouru-Kasha; then the wind blows the clouds forward, bearing the waters of fertility, so that the friendly showers spread wide over, they spread helpingly and friendly over the seven Karshvares" (Ibid. 46, 39-40).

Corresponding in origin to the Indian apsaras, the pairikas correspond to the elementals of the air, rather than water, called sylphs by the medieval Fire-philosophers. The rain-bestowing god Tishtrya corresponds to the sixth principle in man, buddhi, which fructifies the fifth and fourth principles. Thus it is only when the lower passions, the pairikas, have been mastered, that the light of Tishtrya -- the buddhic splendor -- may shine in the temple (Theos).

In the Persian mythology of the Arabian period, the peri is an elf or fairy, male or female, represented as a descendant of fallen angels, excluded from Paradise till their penance be accomplished.

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

Mobed (Persian) Magupat (Pahlavi) [from mogh, magus great]

Also Maubed. The chief priest; the priest of Mazdeism and of the present-day Parsis. Mobeds are the middle class of priests, the highest class being the Dasturs. In ancient days the Maubedan Maubed was the chief high priest of Mazdeism, and today the chief high priest of the Parsis is also termed the High Mobed.

The priestly caste was hereditary; and a legend in the Bundahis tells of the Mobeds originating from King Minochihr -- similarly the Brahmins attribute their origin to Brahma.

(See also: Mobed , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Asura (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root as to breathe)

A title frequently given to the hierarch or supreme spirit of our universe, as being the primal "Breather"; also a class of spiritual-intellectual beings. In Hinduism it commonly signifies elemental and evil gods or demons. "Primarily in the Rig-Veda, the 'Asuras' are shown as spiritual divine beings; their etymology is derived from asu (breath), the 'Breath of God,' and they mean the same as the Supreme Spirit or the Zoroastrian Ahura. It is later on, for purposes of theology and dogma, that they are shown issuing from Brahma's thigh, and that their name began to be derived from a privative, and sura, god (solar deities), or not-a-god, and that they became the enemies of the gods" (SD 2:59).

Further, the asuras "are the sons of the primeval Creative Breath at the beginning of every new Maha Kalpa, or Manvantara; in the same rank as the Angels who had remained 'faithful.' These were the allies of Soma (the parent of the Esoteric Wisdom) as against Brishaspati (representing ritualistic or ceremonial worship). Evidently they have been degraded in Space and Time into opposing powers or demons by the ceremonialists, on account of their rebellion against hypocrisy, sham-worship, and the dead-letter form" (SD 2:500).

Asura is employed with frequency in theosophical writings to signify the class of spiritual-intellectual beings called manasaputras, kumaras, or angishvattas. As a matter of fact, asuras, maruts, rudras, and daityas are but various ways of describing the intellectual gods or manasas, as contrasted with the as yet incompleted devas or suras.

Asura is used in the earliest Vedic literature as a title of the cosmic hierarch or supreme spirit. The Vedic Asura is nothing other than the Great Breath of archaic occult literature -- the Great Breath coming and going as manvantara and pralaya. The other Vedic gods mentioned so much more frequently in the slokas, such as Agni, Indra, and Varuna, are all subordinate hierarchically and cosmogonically to the Vedic Asura, which is really Brahman-pradhana or the Second Logos, Father-Mother; Varuna is the acme or summit of akasa-tattva; Agni is the summit or hierarch of cosmic taijasa-tattva; and Indra is often identified with Vayu as the summit of cosmic Vayu-tattva.

See also MAHASURA

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

Ized, Izad (Pahlavi, Pers) A class of ancient Zoroastrian deities subordinate to Ahura Mazda and carriers of his will. In the Avesta, the Yashts are addressed to the izeds. In the Bundahish, Neryosengh, the messenger of the gods, is referred to as an ized, as is Anahita, the goddess of the waters.

In later Zoroastrianism, a class of 33 divine beings or ancient Aryan deities are known as izeds.

(See also: Ized, Izad , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

brahmins:

a priest and member of the most privileged of the four social classes of hinduism

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

Chandala candala (Sanskrit) A member of a mixed caste, or people without caste, an outcaste. Especially in ancient India the term applied to one of the lowest and most despised status (sometimes described as being born from a Sudra father and a Brahmin mother).

Commonly applied now to anyone of mixed caste "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" (TG 323-4).

(See also: Chandala, candala , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)