Death and after ::: at the time of death the being goes out of the body through the head ; it goes out in the subtle body and goes to different planes of existence for a short time until it has gone through certain experiences which are the result of its earthly existence. Afterwards it reaches the psychic world where it rests in a kind of sleep, until it is time for it to start a new life on earth.
Death Death is not a thing in itself, but one of the phases or temporary events in the unending dramas of life, so that the opposite of death is birth rather than life. In other words, the opposite of manifested life is unmanifest life, pralaya and its aeonic rest. Manvantara and pralaya are phases in the endless flow of the alternating current of cosmic motion, which is the immediate result of the life-breath of the spiritual essence at the heart of everything in manifestation. The same eternal motion which brings everything into objective existence has thereby caused the death of the same entity on the previous subjective plane of life. Then, when the lifetime of this manifestation ends, the reverse of this rhythmic motion causes the death of the entity from objective existence, and carries it back to be reborn into its subjective life.
Death ::: Death occurs when a general break-up of the constitution of man takes place; nor is this break-up amatter of sudden occurrence, with the exceptions of course of such cases as mortal accidents or suicides.Death is always preceded, varying in each individual case, by a certain time spent in the withdrawal ofthe monadic individuality from an incarnation, and this withdrawal of course takes place coincidentlywith a decay of the seven-principle being which man is in physical incarnation. This decay precedesphysical dissolution, and is a preparation of and by the consciousness-center for the forthcomingexistence in the invisible realms. This withdrawal actually is a preparation for the life to come ininvisible realms, and as the septenary entity on this earth so decays, it may truly be said to beapproaching rebirth in the next sphere.Death occurs, physically speaking, with the cessation of activity of the pulsating heart. There is the lastbeat, and this is followed by immediate, instantaneous unconsciousness, for nature is very merciful inthese things. But death is not yet complete, for the brain is the last organ of the physical body really todie, and for some time after the heart has ceased beating, the brain and its memory still remain activeand, although unconsciously so, the human ego for this short length of time, passes in review every eventof the preceding life. This great or small panoramic picture of the past is purely automatic, so to say; yetthe soul-consciousness of the reincarnating ego watches this wonderful review incident by incident, areview which includes the entire course of thought and action of the life just closed. The entity is, for thetime being, entirely unconscious of everything else except this. Temporarily it lives in the past, andmemory dislodges from the akasic record, so to speak, event after event, to the smallest detail: passesthem all in review, and in regular order from the beginning to the end, and thus sees all its past life as anall-inclusive panorama of picture succeeding picture.There are very definite ethical and psychological reasons inhering in this process, for this process forms areconstruction of both the good and the evil done in the past life, and imprints this strongly as a record onthe fabric of the spiritual memory of the passing being. Then the mortal and material portions sink intooblivion, while the reincarnating ego carries the best and noblest parts of these memories into thedevachan or heaven-world of postmortem rest and recuperation. Thus comes the end called death; andunconsciousness, complete and undisturbed, succeeds, until there occurs what the ancients called thesecond death.The lower triad (prana, linga-sarira, sthula-sarira) is now definitely cast off, and the remaining quaternaryis free. The physical body of the lower triad follows the course of natural decay, and its various hosts oflife-atoms proceed whither their natural attractions draw them. The linga-sarira or model-body remains inthe astral realms, and finally fades out. The life-atoms of the prana, or electrical field, fly instantly backat the moment of physical dissolution to the natural pranic reservoirs of the planet.This leaves man, therefore, no longer a heptad or septenary entity, but a quaternary consisting of theupper duad (atma-buddhi) and the intermediate duad (manas-kama). The second death then takes place.Death and the adjective dead are mere words by which the human mind seeks to express thoughts whichit gathers from a more or less consistent observation of the phenomena of the material world. Death isdissolution of a component entity or thing. The dead, therefore, are merely dissolving bodies -- entitieswhich have reached their term on this our physical plane. Dissolution is common to all things, becauseall physical things are composite: they are not absolute things. They are born; they grow; they reachmaturity; they enjoy, as the expression runs, a certain term of life in the full bloom of their powers; thenthey "die." That is the ordinary way of expressing what men call death; and the corresponding adjectiveis dead, when we say that such things or entities are dead.Do you find death per se anywhere? No. You find nothing but action; you find nothing but movement;you find nothing but change. Nothing stands still or is annihilated. What is called death itself shouts forthto us the fact of movement and change. Absolute inertia is unknown in nature or in the human mind; itdoes not exist.
Death coach: The coach in which according to a superstitious belief found in many countries, Death makes its rounds, calling for souls to take along.
Death conscious that he only could destroy
Death has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already — it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable ; if one could have the ’necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most diflicult thing of all — at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle.
Death in vision ::: The feeling of being dead in a vision or
Death is there because the being in the body is not yet deve- loped enough to go on growing in the same body Avithout the need of change and the body itself is not sufficiently conscious.
Deathless Watcher. See HIGHER SELF
Death Marches ::: Forced marches of prisoners over long distances and under intolerable conditions. The prisoners, guarded heavily, were treated brutally and many died from mistreatment or were shot.
Death occurs not from a lack of life, but because the ceaseless motion of the vital essence is wearing out the body. The senility of old age means that certain elements are already drifting in the reverse current that is setting towards the other side of the veil. With the last heartbeat, the dying person is vitally aware of a detailed panorama of his passing life as the field of experience which he is to harvest in the inner world he is about to be born into. The atoms of his body, freed from his spiritual cohering force, separate actively, each to find its appropriate field of action in nature’s kingdoms. The adept, while still living in the world, has so far conquered death by self-conquest that he can use his developed spiritual will to enter into and consciously function in the realms of spiritual beings. Paul’s mystical saying “I die daily,” is true of the initiate who steadily transmutes some degree of his selfish personality to vitalize his higher nature.
Death Posture: A magical posture devised by Austin Osman Spare. It renders the senses inactive and brings about a total vacuity that can bemade the womb for the birth of any desired form. (See Chapter 12.)
Death-rate - The number of deaths per 1000 people in the population per year.
Death
Death Star ::: [Star Wars film] 1. The AT&T corporate logo, which appears on computers sold by AT&T and bears an uncanny resemblance to the Death Star in the movie. This poster printed by Mt. Xinu showing a starscape with a space fighter labelled 4.2BSD streaking away from a broken AT&T logo wreathed in flames.2. AT&T's internal magazine, Focus, uses death star to describe an incorrectly done AT&T logo in which the inner circle in the top left is dark instead of light - a frequent result of dark-on-light logo images.
Death Star ["Star Wars" film] 1. The AT&T corporate logo, which appears on computers sold by AT&T and bears an uncanny resemblance to the Death Star in the movie. This usage is particularly common among partisans of {BSD} Unix, who tend to regard the AT&T versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad guy. Copies still circulate of a poster printed by Mt. Xinu showing a starscape with a space fighter labelled {4.2BSD} streaking away from a broken AT&T logo wreathed in flames. 2. AT&T's internal magazine, "Focus", uses "death star" to describe an incorrectly done AT&T logo in which the inner circle in the top left is dark instead of light - a frequent result of dark-on-light logo images.
Death tax - Tax imposed on property upon the death of the owner, such as an inheritance or estate tax.
death ::: “A deathbound littleness is not all we are: “
death and destruction to the sinful cities of the
death and locking him in the Tabernacle “so that
death, armed with a fiery rod or flaming sword.”
deathbed ::: n. --> The bed in which a person dies; hence, the closing hours of life of one who dies by sickness or the like; the last sickness.
deathbird ::: n. --> Tengmalm&
deathblow ::: n. --> A mortal or crushing blow; a stroke or event which kills or destroys.
deathbound ::: also **death-bound. ::: **"A deathbound littleness is not all we are:”
death ceased.” The seizure must have been short¬
death-claimed ::: asserted as a right by Death.
death code A routine whose job is to set everything in the computer - {registers}, memory, flags - to zero, including that portion of memory where it is running; its last act is to stomp on its own "store zero" instruction. Death code isn't very useful, but writing it is an interesting hacking challenge on architectures where the instruction set makes it possible, such as the {PDP-8} or the {Data General} {Nova}. Perhaps the ultimate death code is on the {TI 990} series, where all {registers} are actually in {RAM}, and the instruction "store immediate 0" has the {opcode} 0. The {program counter} will immediately wrap around core as many times as it can until a user hits HALT. Any empty memory location is death code. Worse, the manufacturer recommended use of this instruction in startup code (which would be in {ROM} and therefore survive). [{Jargon File}]
death code ::: A routine whose job is to set everything in the computer - registers, memory, flags - to zero, including that portion of memory where it is running; its last where the instruction set makes it possible, such as the PDP-8 or the Data General Nova.Perhaps the ultimate death code is on the TI 990 series, where all registers are actually in RAM, and the instruction store immediate 0 has the opcode 0. The manufacturer recommended use of this instruction in startup code (which would be in ROM and therefore survive).[Jargon File]
death ::: “For the spiritual seeker death is only a passage from one form of life to another, and none is dead but only departed.” Letters on Yoga
DEATH. ::: For the spiritual seeker death is only a passage from one form of life to another, and none is dead but only departed.
deathful ::: a. --> Full of death or slaughter; murderous; destructive; bloody.
Liable to undergo death; mortal.
deathfulness ::: n. --> Appearance of death.
death”)—in Babylonian mythology, Nergal (or
death.” In Eisenmenger, Traditions of the Jews II,
death, ire. They may also be compared to the
deathless ::: 1. Not subject to termination or death; immortal. 2. Unceasing; perpetual.
deathless ::: a. --> Not subject to death, destruction, or extinction; immortal; undying; imperishable; as, deathless beings; deathless fame.
deathless Flame
deathless people of the shores of Light
deathlike ::: a. --> Resembling death.
Deadly.
deathlike ::: resembling death.
deathliness ::: n. --> The quality of being deathly; deadliness.
deathly ::: a. --> Deadly; fatal; mortal; destructive. ::: adv. --> Deadly; as, deathly pale or sick.
death or the demon of death is Mairya (male or
DEATH PROCESS The process at the end of incarnation, when the monad in the superphysical envelopes leaves the two physical envelopes (organism and etheric envelope), after the tie that unifies the monad with these, the sutratma, is severed definitively.
Even during profound sleep, the emotional envelope along with the higher envelopes is separated from the physical ones. The difference here is that the sutratma upholds the connection between the monad and the physical. (K 1.34.26f, 3.5.11)
At the same time as the etheric envelope frees itself from the organism in the so-called process of death, the emotional envelope frees itself from the etheric envelope which remains near the organism and dissolves along with it. K 1.34.26
death, revelation. Apart from Michael, he is the
death. [Rf The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.]
deathsman ::: n. --> An executioner; a headsman or hangman.
death, so designated in Drower, The Canonical
death ::: Sri Aurobindo: "For the spiritual seeker death is only a passage from one form of life to another, and none is dead but only departed.” *Letters on Yoga
DEATH The monads are the only indestructible things in the universe. There is no &
death.” This verse is translated in the Paraphrase
death, to whom God daily gives orders as to the
death ::: v. i. --> The cessation of all vital phenomena without capability of resuscitation, either in animals or plants.
Total privation or loss; extinction; cessation; as, the death of memory.
Manner of dying; act or state of passing from life.
Cause of loss of life.
Personified: The destroyer of life, -- conventionally represented as a skeleton with a scythe.
deathward ::: adv. --> Toward death.
death was sealed and the Lawgiver pleaded for
deathwatch ::: n. --> A small beetle (Anobium tessellatum and other allied species). By forcibly striking its head against woodwork it makes a ticking sound, which is a call of the sexes to each other, but has been imagined by superstitious people to presage death.
A small wingless insect, of the family Psocidae, which makes a similar but fainter sound; -- called also deathtick.
The guard set over a criminal before his execution.
death who interview the dead in their graves (along with Nakir); denied, not recognized, disavowed.
death, who is Satan. He is also Belial (q.v.).
1. Causing irreversible ruin, destruction or death; disastrous. 2. Decisively important; fateful. 3. Proceeding from or decreed by fate; inevitable. 4. Influencing or concerned with fate; fatalistic.
1. To exempt from death; make immortal; endow with immortality. 2. To give everlasting fame to. immortalised.
46 Death
abatement ::: n. --> The act of abating, or the state of being abated; a lessening, diminution, or reduction; removal or putting an end to; as, the abatement of a nuisance is the suppression thereof.
The amount abated; that which is taken away by way of reduction; deduction; decrease; a rebate or discount allowed.
A mark of dishonor on an escutcheon.
The entry of a stranger, without right, into a freehold after the death of the last possessor, before the heir or devisee.
Abathur, a mystery-figure, is sometimes called the Third Life, equivalent to the Third Logos because first of the third triad of M-bM-^@M-^\livesM-bM-^@M-^] in the Nazarene system, which correspond to the three Logoi. He is analogous to the Ancient of Days of the Qabbalah, the Hindu Narayana, and the Christian Holy Spirit, while his ideal counterpart is Abathur Rama (lofty Abathur). As weigher of souls after death, Abathur is equated with Thoth, lord of the scales in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
abator ::: n. --> One who abates a nuisance.
A person who, without right, enters into a freehold on the death of the last possessor, before the heir or devisee.
Abhichara (Sanskrit) AbhicM-DM-^Ara [from abhi toward + the verbal root car to go, often used derogatorily as to act wrongly toward another, charm, enchant, possess] Exorcising; employing a charm or spell, usually for malevolent purposes, causing death or disease; mesmeric powers used by sorcerers in India.
abhinivesha. ::: the will to live; false identification of the Self with the body or mind; an instinctive clinging to life and a dread of death
According to the Aitareya-Brahmana, Brahma as Prajapati (lord of beings) manifests himself first of all as twelve bodies or attributes, which are represented by the twelve gods, symbolizing 1) fire; 2) the sun; 3) soma, which gives omniscience; 4) all living beings; 5) vayu, or ether; 6) death, or breath of destruction M-bM-^@M-^T Siva; 7) earth; 8) heaven; 9) Agni, the immaterial fire; 10) Aditya, the immaterial and invisible sun; 11) mind; and 12) the great infinite cycle, M-bM-^@M-^\which is not to be stopped.M-bM-^@M-^] Brahma in one of his phases therefore is the visible universe, every atom of which is essentially himself.
Adhishthana-deha or -sarira (-body) is a subtle intermediate body with which the departed is clothed after death.
Adonis [from Hebrew M-bM-^@M-^YM-DM-^AdM-EM-^Mn lord] Title of the Babylonian god Tammuz, whose cult was imported into Asiatic Greece. A beautiful youth beloved of Aphrodite, he was killed by a boar. Aphrodite was so grief-stricken that the gods of the lower world allowed him to spend half of every year with her on earth. His death and resurrection were symbolized in annual festivals.
Aerobes and Anaerobes [from Greek aer air + bios life] Bacteria which need free oxygen for their sustenance, and those which do not, respectively. Each division includes some forms which can adapt themselves to either condition. When free oxygen is not obtainable, oxygen is obtained by decomposition of the surrounding substance, and the bacteria become destructive M-bM-^@M-^T destruction means recombination, as death is rebirth. Also connected with the processes of fermentation. PasteurM-bM-^@M-^Ys researches in fermentation are mentioned by Blavatsky as showing how so-called vital processes shade off indistinguishably into so-called inorganic or chemical processes. These physical builders and destroyers are analogous to their prototypes on the higher planes.
affront ::: v. t. --> To front; to face in position; to meet or encounter face to face.
To face in defiance; to confront; as, to affront death; hence, to meet in hostile encounter.
To offend by some manifestation of disrespect; to insult to the face by demeanor or language; to treat with marked incivility.
After death the lower classes of those on the left-hand path become the terrestrial or earthly elementaries. Cunning, low, vindictive, and seeking to retaliate their sufferings upon imbodied humanity, they become, until final annihilation, astral vampires, and therefore a constant psychic and even physical menace to those who open the doors of communication with them.
agony ::: 1. Anguish of mind, sore trouble or distress, a paroxysm of grief. 2. The convulsive throes, or pangs of death; the death struggle. 3. Extreme bodily suffering, such as to produce writhing or throes of the body. agonies.
agony ::: n. --> Violent contest or striving.
Pain so extreme as to cause writhing or contortions of the body, similar to those made in the athletic contests in Greece; and hence, extreme pain of mind or body; anguish; paroxysm of grief; specifically, the sufferings of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.
Paroxysm of joy; keen emotion.
The last struggle of life; death struggle.
aham mrtyuh sarvaharah ::: I am all-snatching death. [cf. Gita 10.34]
A. I was in Annwn the least possible that was capable of life, and the nearest possible to absolute death, and I came in every form, and through every form capable of a body and life, to the state of man along the circle of Abred, where my condition was severe and grievous during the age of ages, ever since I was parted in Annwn from the dead, . . .
Akasic Samadhi [adjective of M-DM-^AkM-DM-^AM-EM-^[a ether, space + samM-DM-^Adhi profound meditation from sam-M-DM-^A-dha to hold or fix together (in abstract thought)] Used for the state of consciousness into which victims of accidental death enter: M-bM-^@M-^\a state of quiet slumber, a sleep full of rosy dreams, during which, they have no recollection of the accident, but move and live among their familiar friends and scenes, until their natural life-term is finished, when they find themselves born in the Deva-Chan . . .M-bM-^@M-^] (ML 109).
alamort ::: a. --> To the death; mortally.
"All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil & pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss & good, all death an opening on widest immortality. Why and how this should be so, is God"s secret which only the soul purified of egoism can penetrate.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
Also, a daughter of Ocean, mother by Thaumas of Iris and the Harpies; and a river nymph, daughter of Ocean and Tethys. Again, she is the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister of Iphigenia and Orestes. After her mother killed her father, Electra saved her brother and eventually helped him revenge their fatherM-bM-^@M-^Ys death. (SD 2:768; BCW 4:224)
Also time, a period of time, especially the period of the world (equivalent to yuga), hence the human period of time or life cycle and consequent death M-bM-^@M-^T often personified and represented with the attributes of Yama, regent of the dead. Philosophically, used for endless time in manifestation, infinite duration, in which occur the definite cyclical time periods.
altered states ::: Also known as M-bM-^@M-^\nonordinaryM-bM-^@M-^] states of consciousness. There are at least two major types of altered states: exogenous or M-bM-^@M-^\externally createdM-bM-^@M-^] (e.g., drug induced, or near-death experiences) and endogenous or M-bM-^@M-^\self-createdM-bM-^@M-^] (including trained states such as meditative states).
Amal: M-bM-^@M-^\ M-bM-^@M-^XResistM-bM-^@M-^Y means M-bM-^@M-^Xhold backM-bM-^@M-^Y or rather M-bM-^@M-^Xforce backM-bM-^@M-^Y. Death is giving gifts. Savitri asks him to keep or rather force back his gifts.M-bM-^@M-^]
Amal: M-bM-^@M-^\The Decree and the Law refer to the fact of death in the world. The fact of death in the world summed up for the ancient Indian mind the condition under which the human being lives and the fulfilment of the Divine Will in the world would mean as another Savitri line puts it: M-bM-^@M-^XThe end of Death, the death of IgnoranceM-bM-^@M-^Y.M-bM-^@M-^]
Amal: M-bM-^@M-^\There appears to be an allusion to the Greek concept or semi-vision of a heaven beyond death where the unfading flower called asphodel bloomed.M-bM-^@M-^]
Amazons: A mythical race of warrior women who lived in a matriarchal society and put their male children to death, raising only the girls to become warriors.
Amber Pale yellow, brown, or reddish fossilized resin, capable of a negative electric charge by friction. In Greek mythology amber was formed from the tears of MeleagerM-bM-^@M-^Ys sisters, or alternately of PhaetonM-bM-^@M-^Ys sisters dropped into the Eridan after he was killed trying to drive the chariot of the sun. While the Eridan is usually identified with the Po River in Italy, Blavatsky holds that it was a northern sea (SD 2:770n). In Scandinavian myths it was attributed to the tears of Freya. In China amber was said to be the soul of the tiger transformed into a mineral after its death. It has been used widely for medicinal, religious, and decorative purpose.
Ambrosia (Greek) [from ambrotos immortal from a not + mortos or brotos mortal; cf Sanskrit amM-aM-9M-^[ta from a not + the verbal root mM-aM-9M-^[ to die; Latin immortalus from in not + mors death] In Classical myths variously the food, drink, or unguent of the gods or divine wisdom, connected with nectar; anything that confers or promotes immortality. Equivalent to the Sanskrit amrita and soma and the northern European mead. In a Chinese allegory, the flying Dragon drinks of ambrosia and falls to earth with his host. The laws of evolution entail a so-called curse or fall upon virtually all the hosts of monads frequently called angels, whereby they are cast down to the nether pole and undergo peregrinations in the realms of matter; in the case of many such M-bM-^@M-^\fallen angels,M-bM-^@M-^] this involves imbodiment or incarnation on earth. Man himself at a stage of his evolution experiences a similar M-bM-^@M-^\descentM-bM-^@M-^] and speeding-up, due to the impulses of the immortal urge within his breast to grow, progress, evolve, and become cognizant of larger reaches of truth. This is evident in the highly mystical Hebrew story of the forbidden Tree and in the various legends pertaining to soma in Hindu literature.
American Telephone and Telegraph, Inc. "company, telecommunications, Unix" (AT&T) One of the largest US telecommunications providers, also noted for being the birthplace of the {Unix} {operating system} and the {C} and {C++} programming languages. AT&T was incorporated in 1885, but traces its lineage to Alexander Graham Bell and his invention of the telephone in 1876. As parent company of the former {Bell System}, AT&T's primary mission was to provide telephone service to virtually everyone in the United States. In its first 50 years, AT&T established subsidiaries and allied companies in more than a dozen other countries. It sold these interests in 1925 and focused on achieving its mission in the United States. It did, however, continue to provide international long distance service. The Bell System was dissolved at the end of 1983 with AT&T's divestiture of the Bell telephone companies. AT&T split into three parts in 1996, one of which is {Lucent Tecnologies}, the former systems and equipment portion of AT&T (including Bell Laboratories). See also {3DO}, {Advanced RISC Machine}, {Berkeley Software Distribution}, {Bell Laboratories}, {Concurrent C}, {Death Star}, {dinosaurs mating}, {InterNIC}, {System V}, {Nawk}, {Open Look}, {rc}, {S}, {Standard ML of New Jersey}, {Unix International}, {Unix conspiracy}, {USG Unix}, {Unix System Laboratories}. {AT&T Home (http://att.com/)}. (2002-06-21)
Amongst others of its functions, it automatically registers and retains all the effects, including the physical memories, of earth-life, and thus automatically and of necessity repeats after death, in accordance with its limited powers, what the person knew, said, thought, and saw during life. If properly understood, the workings of the linga-sarira during life would give the key to many of what are now called the mysteries and problems of psychological and physiological science.
Anahata-sabda (Sanskrit) AnM-DM-^Ahata-M-EM-^[abda [from an not + M-DM-^A-han to beat, strike + M-EM-^[abda sound from the verbal root M-EM-^[abd to make noise, cry out, invoke] Unstruck circle of sound; the immaterial sound produced by no form of material substance; a mystical bell-like sound at times heard by the dying which slowly lessens in intensity until the moment of death. Also heard by the yogi or contemplative at certain stages of his meditation. The Theravada Buddhists speak of this inner signal as the voice of devas which resemble the M-bM-^@M-^\sound of a golden bellM-bM-^@M-^] (Digha-nikaya 1:152). The anahata-sabda is, in reality, a reflection of the inherent sound-characteristic of akasa (cf VS 18, 78).
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500?-428 BC) A Greek scientific philosopher who lived in Athens and associated with the distinguished men of the Periclean era. Like Parmenides he denied the existence of birth or death, seeing the two processes as a mingling and unmingling. The ultimate elements of this process are the infinite number of indivisible, imperishable particles (atoms or homoeomere), acted on and ordered by spirit or pure cosmic reason (nous, equivalent to the Hindu mahat). He openly taught the Pythagorean astronomical ideas concerning the movement and nature of the planets, moon, sun, stars, etc., and attempted to explain all phenomena by natural causes. He M-bM-^@M-^\firmly believed that the spiritual prototypes of all things, as well as their elements, were to be found in the boundless ether, where they were generated, whence they evolved, and whither they returned from earthM-bM-^@M-^] (IU 1:158).
Ancestor Worship A cult variously observed around the world and usually defined as the cult of the spirits of parents and forefathers. It implies belief in the continued existence of the deceased and in certain cases in their power of being interested in and affected by the fortunes of their living descendants; the sense of a perpetual spiritual unity and moral reciprocity in obligations and services; and a dependence of the fortunes of the living on the fulfillment of these obligations. This can be seen from the ancient Roman ideas portrayed in the Aeneid, where the household gods (lares and penates) are so carefully preserved through all vicissitudes. This belief and practice point to times when death was regarded as merely an event in a continuous life. With the ancient cults, the sense of personal separateness seems merged in the more vivid sense of family unity, from whose privileges and obligations death is no discharge.
And again, in Book X, Canto II, The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal we find these lines:
"An end have these bodies of an embodied soul that is eternal;M-bM-^@M-& it is not born nor dies nor is it that having been it will not be again. It is unborn, ancient, everlasting; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. As a man casts from him his worn-out garments and takes others that are new, so the embodied being casts off its bodies and joins itself to others that are new. Certain is the death of that which is born and certain is the birth of that which dies . . . . " Gita. The Life Divine
an exceeding of the law of the physical body, ::: the conquest of death, an earthly immortalityM-bM-^@M-^]; the "ambrosia of the godsM-bM-^@M-^], a rejuvenating "nectarM-bM-^@M-^] induced by certain practices of yoga to trickle down from a subtle centre in the head; identified with soma1, "the sweetness that comes M-oM-,M-^Bowing from the streams of the upper hidden world, . . . the divine delight hidden in all existence which, once manifest, supports all life"s crowning activities and is the force that finally immortalises the mortalM-bM-^@M-^].
Angel of Death. See SAMAEL
Angerboda (Icelandic) [from anger sorrow, regret + boda bode] In Norse mythology, the boder of regret is a giantess, wife of Loki; it is suggestive that the giantess wife (matter aspect) of Loki (human mind) should have produced the three offspring Hel (death), Iormungandr (the Midgard serpent or equator), and Fenris (the wolf who is to devour the sun when its life cycle is over).
Animism: (Lat. anima, soul) The doctrine of the reality of souls. Anthropology: (a) the view that souls are attached to all things either as their inner principle of spontaneity or activity, or as their dwellers, (b) the doctrine that Nature is inhabited by various grades of spirits, (s. Spiritism). Biology Psychology: the view that the ground whatever has disowned its relations is an sich. of life is immaterial soul rather than the material body. Metaphysics: the theory that Being is animate, living, ensouled (s. Hylozoism, Personalism, Monadism). Cosmology: the view that the World and the astronomical bodies possess souls (s. World Soul). --W.L. Annihilationism: The doctrine of the complete extinction of the wicked or impenitent at death. Edward White in England in the last century taught the doctrine in opposition to the belief in the eternal punishment of those not to be saved. -- V.F.
Annapurna (Sanskrit) AnnapM-EM-+rM-aM-9M-^GM-DM-^A [from anna food + pM-EM-+rM-aM-9M-^Ga filled, abundant from the verbal root pM-aM-9M-^] to fill, nourish] Giver of food; a name applied to the goddess Durga, consort of Siva, popularly considered in one of her aspects as the goddess ever granting food. Originally she was Ammapurna, mother of plenty [from amma mother]. In ancient Rome the goddess of plenty was called Anna Perenna, whose festival was celebrated during the Ides of March. The mystical significance of the name is Eternal Mother, ever filled with the seeds of beings, constantly nourishing and producing. Likewise, Durga is looked upon as the dark side of nature, for the reference is not to the spirit side of Siva, but to his consort, the veil or sheath of universal nature, which is both the container of all seeds of beings and consequently the feeder, and likewise the bringer about of death. It is a curious paradox that by food all beings are generated, but likewise by food death comes to all beings. See also ANNA.
Anselrn of Canterbury, St.: (1033-1109) Was born at Aosta in Italy, educated by the Benedictines, entered the Order c. 1060. Most of his writings were done at the Abbey of Le Bec in Normandy, where he served as Abbot. In 1093 he became Archbishop of Canterbury, which post he occupied with distinction till his death. Anselm is most noted for his much discussed "ontological" argument to prove the existence of God. His theory of truth and his general philosophy are thoroughly Augustinian. Chief works: Monologium, Proslogium, De Veritate, Cur Deus Homo (in PL 158-9). -- V.J.B.
Antahkarana (Sanskrit) AntaM-aM-8M-%karaM-aM-9M-^Ga [from antar interior, within + karaM-aM-9M-^Ga sense organ] Interior organ or instrument; defined variously as the seat of thought and feeling, the thinking faculty, the heart, mind, soul, and conscience. In Vedanta philosophy, it is looked upon as a fourfold inner instrument or intermediary between spirit and body, with mind being the go-between or bridge. One could say that there are several antahkaranas in the human septenary constitution: one for every path or bridge between any two monadic centers. Man is a unity in diversity, and the antahkaranas are the links of vibrating consciousness-substance uniting these various centers (cf OG 5). Blavatsky describes it as M-bM-^@M-^\the path that lies between thy Spirit and thy self, the highway of sensations, the rude arousers of AhankaraM-bM-^@M-^] (the sense of egoity); and that when the two have merged into the One and the personal sacrificed to self impersonal, then the antahkarana vanishes because no longer useful as a functioning bridge between the two. Further, the antahkarana is M-bM-^@M-^\the lower Manas, the Path of communication or communion between the personality and the higher Manas or human Soul. At death it is destroyed as a Path or medium of communication, and its remains survive in a form as the Kamarupa M-bM-^@M-^T the M-bM-^@M-^XshellM-bM-^@M-^Y M-bM-^@M-^] (VS 56, 88-9).
Anubis (Greek) Anpu (Egyptian) M-HM-&npu. The Egyptian jackal-headed deity, lord of the Silent Land of the West (the underworld). To him with Thoth was entrusted the psychopompic leading of the dead. In the judgment after death, Anubis tests the balance in the scene of the weighing of the heart. His offices were likewise those of the embalmer, mystically speaking. Originally the god of the underworld, he was later replaced by Osiris. In Heliopolis during the later dynasties he was identified with Horus, for he was often regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis M-bM-^@M-^T more often of Osiris and Nephthys (Neith). Plutarch writes: M-bM-^@M-^\By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisible part of the world, which they call Nephthys, from the visible, to which they give the name of Isis; and as this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both . . . Others again are of opinion that by Anubis is meant Time . . . M-bM-^@M-^] (On Isis and Osiris, sec 44).
Any attempt by an untrained student, without a teacher, to try to develop these chakras is sure to cause disaster, since it can result only in the arousing of powerful forces which he has not yet acquired the means to control, and which will therefore control him. Once awakened, they cannot be put to sleep again, and the result will be disorganization, physical or mental or both, manifested in disease, insanity, depravity, or death; in the worst cases, the unfortunate dabbler may set his feet on a path of black magic ending in the final separation of his spiritual ego from its hapless psycho-vital-astral-physical vehicle. The spiritual and higher intellectual powers and faculties must be cultivated first; and this cannot be done by any attempt at artificial stimulation based on fixing the attention on spots in the body or head. The only safe way to practice the chela life is to forget about the body and its mechanism, thus allowing evolution to proceed in its natural course, and dangerous forces to life quiescent until they come naturally and harmoniously into operation.
apana ::: [one of the five pranas]: situated in the lower part of the trunk, it presides over the lower functions, especially over the emission of such parts of the food as are rejected by the body, and over procreation; it is intimately connected with the processes of decay and death; it is the breath of death, for it gives away the vital force out of the body.
Apart from mythological considerations, in physical life manifestations of the number seven occur continuously: M-bM-^@M-^\if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the Kingdoms of the Animal, mammalia and man M-bM-^@M-^T why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development?M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:623n).
Apheta: In astrology, the planet or place that exercises an influence over the life and death of the native (q.v.).
"A philosophy of change?(1) But what is change? In ordinary parlance change means passage from one condition to another and that would seem to imply passage from one status to another status. The shoot changes into a tree, passes from the status of shoot to the status of tree and there it stops; man passes from the status of young man to the status of old man and the only farther change possible to him is death or dissolution of his status. So it would seem that change is not something isolated which is the sole original and eternal reality, but it is something dependent on status, and if status were non-existent, change also could not exist. For we have to ask, when you speak of change as alone real, change of what, from what, to what? Without this M-bM-^@M-^Xwhat" change could not be. ::: M-bM-^@M-^TChange is evidently the change of some form or state of existence from one condition to another condition.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
Apis (Greek) Hap (Egyptian) M-aM-8M-$ap. The sacred bull of Memphis into which Osiris was thought to incarnate. Classical Greek authors all mention the veneration with which the Egyptians regarded the bull, Manetho stating that it was under Ka-kau (2nd dynasty) that Apis was appointed a god. The Egyptians believed that after the death of a sacred animal, on reaching 28 years (the age Osiris was killed by Typhon), the soul of Apis joined Osiris, forming the dual god Asar-Hapi (Osiris-Apis), which the Greeks in the Ptolemaic period renamed Serapis. M-bM-^@M-^\As in the exoteric interpretation of the Egyptian rites the soul of every defunct person M-bM-^@M-^T from the Hierophant down to the sacred bull Apis M-bM-^@M-^T became an Osiris, was Osirified . . .M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 1:135).
Apollonius of Tyana First-century neo-Pythagorean, known for his ascetic life, moral teachings, and occult powers. His biography is a Hermetic allegory, though based on facts. A theurgist and adept of high powers, he studied Phoenician sciences as well as Pythagorean philosophy. He traveled widely, journeying to Babylon and India where he associated with the Chaldeans, Magi, Brahmans, and Buddhists. His life was spent preaching noble ethics, prophesying, healing, and performing many well-attested phenomena or M-bM-^@M-^\miracles.M-bM-^@M-^] Before his death he opened an esoteric school at Ephesus. Blavatsky states that he was a nirmanakaya rather than an avatara.
Apology: (Gr. apologia) A speech or writing in defense. Plato's Apology of Socrates purports to be the speech delivered by Socrates in his own defense at the trial in which he was condemned to death. -- G.R.M.
Aralu: The underworld, abode of the dead in Babylonian mythology. Conceived of as a vast, dark underground cave, entered through a hole in the earth, guarded by seven doors, to which all human beings go after death, never to return, but able to communicate with and give oracles to the living.
Arasa-mara (Sanskrit) Arasa-mara [from arasa sapless, tasteless + mara dying, death] The banyan tree, considered in one of its aspects as the Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Life. According to popular Hindu belief, under one of these trees Vishnu taught during one of his incarnations on earth, hence it is held sacred. M-bM-^@M-^\Under the protecting foliage of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons on immortality and initiate them into the mysteries of life and deathM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:215).
Aristotelianism: The philosophy of Aristotle, (384-322 B.C.). Aristotle was born in the Greek colony of Stagira, in Macedon, the son of Nicomachus, the physician of King Amyntas of Macedon. In his eighteenth year Aristotle became a pupil of Plato at Athens and remained for nearly twenty years a member of the Academy. After the death of Plato he resided for some time at Atarneus, in the Troad, and at Mitylene, on the island of Lesbos, with friends of the Academy; then for several years he acted as tutor to the young Alexander of Macedon. In 335 he returned to Athens, where he spent the following twelve years as head of a school which he set up in the Lyceum. The school also came to be known as the Peripatetic, and its members Peripatetics, probably because of the peripatos, or covered walk, in which Aristotle lectured. As a result of the outburst of anti-Macedonian feeling at Athens in 323 after the death of Alexander, Aristotle retired to Chalcis, m Euboea, where he died a year later.
asanaya mrtyuh ::: the Hunger which is Death. [Brhad. 1.2.4]
As an emergent materialist, he holds that everything happens by the blind combination of the elements of matter or energy, without any guidance, excluding the assumption of a non-material component. While he regards primary qualities as physical emergents, he yet considers secondary qualities, such as color, taste, and smell, as transphysical emergents. He favors the emergence of laws, qualities and classes. Psyche, physical in nature, combines with other material factors to make the life of the mind. Broad holds to a generative view of consciousness. Psyche persists after death for some time, floats about in cosmic space indefinitely, ready to combine with a material body under suitable conditions. He calls this theory the "compound theory of materialistic emergency." Sensa, he holds, are real, particular, short-lived existents. They are exclusively neither physical nor mental. He replaces the neo-realistic contrast between existents and subsistents, by a contrast between existents and substracta. Main works: Scientific Thought, 1923; The Mind and Its Place in Nature, 1925; Five Types of Ethical Theory, 1930. -- H.H.
As a proper noun, name of a prajapati (progenitor); also of an attendant of the sun. Its feminine form, adharma, personifies the bride of death.
ascribe ::: v. t. --> To attribute, impute, or refer, as to a cause; as, his death was ascribed to a poison; to ascribe an effect to the right cause; to ascribe such a book to such an author.
To attribute, as a quality, or an appurtenance; to consider or allege to belong.
::: "As for immortality, it cannot come if there is attachment to the body, M-bM-^@M-^T for it is only by living in the immortal part of oneself which is unidentified with the body and bringing down its consciousness and force into the cells that it can come. I speak of course of yogic means. The scientists now hold that it is (theoretically at least) possible to discover physical means by which death can be overcome, but that would mean only a prolongation of the present consciousness in the present body. Unless there is a change of consciousness and change of functionings it would be a very small gain.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
As long as the entity does not sink by attraction into the Eighth Sphere, or Sphere of Death, it still has within it the possibility of regaining its foothold on the ascending evolutionary ladder and rising again. Rare indeed are those who succeed in so rising, but the case is not absolutely hopeless. And finally, an entity may be in avichi not only after death, but also during life on earth, as avichi is a state and not a place per se.
Asmodeus (Hebrew) M-bM-^@M-^YAshmM-DM-^Udai Covetous; an evil demon in later Jewish tradition, son of Naamah (sister of Tubal-cain) and Shamdon. The spirit of lust and anger, he is king of demons, with Lilith as queen, and is sometimes associated with Beelzebub, Azrael (Angel of Death), and Abbadon. In the Talmud he is connected with the legends of Solomon, where he is the destroyer of matrimonial happiness and is forced to help in building the temple. But his description in the apocryphal book of Tobit (3:8), where he is rendered harmless by Tobias and captured by the angel Raphael, is most likely the basis for modern writers (cf IU 2:482). Possibly taken from Zend aeshma-daeva with daeva meaning ethereal being, cosmic spirit.
asphyxy ::: n. --> Apparent death, or suspended animation; the condition which results from interruption of respiration, as in suffocation or drowning, or the inhalation of irrespirable gases.
Assassins [from Arab hashshashin hashish eaters; or from proper name Hassan] Originally an order founded in Persia and Syria during the 11th century by Hassan ben Sabbah, an offshoot of the Ismaelites of the Shiite division of Islam. They taught the esoteric doctrines of Islam, encouraged mathematics and philosophy, and are said to have used hashish as a means of obtaining celestial visions. They held that creation began with the intellectual world, moved to the soul and then the rest of creation. The human soul, imprisoned in the body to carry out the teacherM-bM-^@M-^Ys orders, rejoins the universal soul at death. The usual accounts state that they sanctioned the employment of secret assassination against all enemies.
Assessors One name given by Europeans to the 42 judges in the scene of the weighing of the heart in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. They stand as accusers of the defunct before Osiris in the formerM-bM-^@M-^Ys progress through Amenti after death. The idea of the judges reading the record from the weighing of the defunctM-bM-^@M-^Ys heart is a variant of the teaching concerning the lipikas or karmic scribes recording all things in the astral light (cf SD 1:104-5).
assure ::: v. t. --> To make sure or certain; to render confident by a promise, declaration, or other evidence.
To declare to, solemnly; to assert to (any one) with the design of inspiring belief or confidence.
To confirm; to make certain or secure.
To affiance; to betroth.
To insure; to covenant to indemnify for loss, or to pay a specified sum at death. See Insure.
As the human being, then, is a dynamo of balanced forces, some disorder in their operation is the basic wrong in human diseases. Moreover, as all matter is alive, conscious in some degree, and vibrationally responsive to the laws of nature, the same general principle applies also to disease in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. In mankind, the organic vital fluid of the reimbodying ego is the cohering factor for the entire constitution, dominating over all minor vital expressions of the life-atoms. The intense and ceaseless activity of these life-atoms builds and composes the body, and as age comes on, and the physical vehicle naturally and normally weakens, the uninterrupted activity of the vital power becomes too strong to be held in check by the gripping influence of the vital-electrical field. Thus the atomic forces, really the vital energies, continuing unabated within the body structure, slowly weaken it and finally destroy it, and this is death.
Astral Light ::: The astral light corresponds in the case of our globe, and analogically in the case of our solar system, towhat the linga-sarira is in the case of an individual man. Just as in man the linga-sarira or astral body is the vehicle or carrier of prana or life-energy, so is the astral light the carrier of the cosmic jiva or cosmic life-energy. To us humans it is an invisible region surrounding our earth, as H. P. Blavatsky expresses it,as indeed it surrounds every other physical globe; and among the seven kosmic principles it is the mostmaterial excepting one, our physical universe.The astral light therefore is, on the one hand, the storehouse or repository of all the energies of thekosmos on their way downwards to manifest in the material spheres -- of our solar system in general aswell as of our globe in particular; and, on the other hand, it is the receptacle or magazine of whateverpasses out of the physical sphere on its upward way.Thirdly, it is a kosmic "picture-gallery" or indelible record of whatever takes place on the astral andphysical planes; however, this last phase of the functions of the astral light is the least in importance andreal interest.The astral light of our own globe, and analogically of any other physical globe, is the region of thekama-loka, at least as concerns the intermediate and lower parts of the kama-loka; and all entities that diepass through the astral light on their way upwards, and in the astral light throw off or shed the kama-rupaat the time of the second death.The solar system has its own astral light in general, just as every globe in the universal solar system hasits astral light in particular, in each of these last cases being a thickening or materializing or concretingaround the globe of the general astral substance forming the astral light of the solar system. The astrallight, strictly speaking, is simply the lees or dregs of akasa and exists in steps or stages of increasingethereality. The more closely it surrounds any globe, the grosser and more material it is. It is thereceptacle of all the vile and horrible emanations from earth and earth beings, and is therefore in partsfilled with earthly pollutions. There is a constant interchange, unceasing throughout the solarmanvantara, between the astral light on the one hand, and our globe earth on the other, each giving andreturning to the other.Finally, the astral light is with regard to the material realms of the solar system the copy or reflection ofwhat the akasa is in the spiritual realms. The astral light is the mother of the physical, just as the spirit isthe mother of the akasa; or, inversely, the physical is merely the concretion of the astral, just as the akasais the veil or concretion of the highest spiritual. Indeed, the astral and physical are one, just as the akasicand the spiritual are one.
Astral plane: In those occult doctrines which believe in various planes of existences beyond the material one (e.g., in Theosophy), the first plane of existence after the death of the physical body. In doctrines which recognize only one plane of existence beyond the material one (e.g., in Rosicrucianism), this term is interpreted as a name for the sphere of non-material existence.
Astral shell: The personality in its aspect of disintegration after the death of the physical body.
Astral world: The first sphere of existence after the death of the body.
A striking similarity is present in the mythology of the Algonquin Indians of North America; their chief deity was a mighty hare known as Menabosho or Michabo, to whom they went at death. One account places him in the east, another in the west. The ancient Germanic and Scandinavian peoples used the hare as a symbol, being sacred to the nature goddess Freyja; likewise to the Anglo-Saxon Ostara, goddess of springtime. This is believed to be the basis for the present-day association of the rabbit or hare with Easter. The anthropomorphic idea is found also among other races, very frequently among the Mongolians, Chinese, Japanese, and other Far Eastern peoples. It was considered to be androgynous, thus typifying an attribute of the creative Logos.
At death the essence of the human soul is united to the human ego, which in its turn at the second death is reunited with the upper duad (atma-buddhi); and the human ego thereupon enters into the state of consciousness called devachan. Having become at one with its spiritual parent, at least for the duration of devachan, the ego rests and digests its garnered store of wisdom, knowledge, and experience, and upon the completion of this period of devachanic recuperation it issues forth again when the karmic hour strikes, once more to become the human ego at its succeeding birth.
Atman: (Skr.) Self, soul, ego, or I. Variously conceived in Indian philosophy, atomistically (cf. anu); monadically, etherially, as the hypothetical carrier of karma (q.v.), identical with the divine (cf. ayam atma brahma; tat tvam asi) or different from yet dependent on it, or as a metaphysical entity to be dissolved at death and reunited with the world ground. As the latter it is defined as "smaller than the small" (anor aniyan) or "greater than the great" (mahato mahiyan), i.e., magnitudeless as well as infinitely great. -- K.F.L.
Atomism, psychological: See Psychological Atomism. Atonement: Religious act of expressing consciousness of one's sins, penitence, reconciliation, giving satisfaction. Specifically, a theological doctrine meaning the reconciliation between God and man who had sinned against God, hence given offense to Him. This was effected through the Incarnation of Christ, the Son of God, His sufferings and death on the cross, who consequently is the Saviour and Redeemer of the human race. This voluntary death and vicarious sacrifice constituted a full reparation for the sins of humanity and satisfied the debt to divine justice, thus making it again possible for men to attain eternal happiness in heaven. -- J.J.R.
atonement ::: n. --> Reconciliation; restoration of friendly relations; agreement; concord.
Satisfaction or reparation made by giving an equivalent for an injury, or by doing of suffering that which will be received in satisfaction for an offense or injury; expiation; amends; -- with for. Specifically, in theology: The expiation of sin made by the obedience, personal suffering, and death of Christ.
at.t.ahaM-LM-^Dsya (attahasya; attahasyam) ::: loud laughter, "the laughter that attahasya makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignoranceM-bM-^@M-^], an element of MahaM-LM-^DkaM-LM-^DlM-DM-1M-LM-^D bhaM-LM-^Dva or Can.d.M-DM-1M-LM-^DbhaM-LM-^Dva, and the principal form of devM-DM-1M-LM-^DhaM-LM-^Dsya.
attahasya ::: [loud laughter], the laughter that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance. ::: attahasyam [nominative]
attainder ::: n. --> The act of attainting, or the state of being attainted; the extinction of the civil rights and capacities of a person, consequent upon sentence of death or outlawry; as, an act of attainder.
A stain or staining; state of being in dishonor or condemnation.
attaint ::: v. t. --> To attain; to get act; to hit.
To find guilty; to convict; -- said esp. of a jury on trial for giving a false verdict.
To subject (a person) to the legal condition formerly resulting from a sentence of death or outlawry, pronounced in respect of treason or felony; to affect by attainder.
To accuse; to charge with a crime or a dishonorable act.
At the top of the rod in the Greek version is a knob, in the earlier Egyptian form a serpentM-bM-^@M-^Ys head, from which spring a pair of wings. From the central head between the wings grew the heads of the entwined serpents (spirit and matter), which descended along the tree of life, crossing the neutral laya-centers between the different planes of being, to manifest where the two tails joined on earth (SD 1:549-50). The analogy is found in every known cosmogony, all of which begin with a circle, head, or egg surrounded by darkness. From this circle of infinity M-bM-^@M-^T the unknown All M-bM-^@M-^T comes forth the manifestations of spirit and matter. The emblem of the evolution of gods and atoms is shown by the two forces, positive and negative, ascending and descending and meeting. Its symbology is directly connected with the globes of the planetary chain and the circulations of the beings or life-waves on these globes, as well as with the human constitution and the afterdeath states. Significantly, in ancient Greek mythology, Hermes is the psychopomp, psychagog, or conductor of souls after death to the various inner spheres of the universe, such as the Elysian Plains or the Meads of Asphodel. The Caduceus also signifies the dual aspect of wisdom by its twin serpents, Agathodaimon and Kakodaimon, good and evil in a relative sense.
Aura ::: An extremely subtle and therefore invisible essence or fluid that emanates from and surrounds not onlyhuman beings and beasts, but as a matter of fact plants and minerals also. It is one of the aspects of theauric egg and therefore the human aura partakes of all the qualities that the human constitution contains.It is at once magneto-mental and electrovital, suffused with the energies of mind and spirit -- the qualityin each case coming from an organ or center of the human constitution whence it flows. It is the sourceof the sympathies and antipathies that we are conscious of. Under the control of the human will it can beboth life-giving and healing, or death-dealing; and when the human will is passive the aura has an actionof its own which is automatic and follows the laws of character and latent impulses of the being fromwhom it emanates. Sensitives have frequently described it in more or less vague terms as a light flowingfrom the eyes or the heart or the tips of the fingers or from other parts of the body. Sometimes this fluid,instead of being colorless light, manifests itself by flashing and scintillating changes of color -- the coloror colors in each case depending not only upon the varying moods of the human individual, but alsopossessing a background equivalent to the character or nature of the individual. Animals are extremelysensitive to auras, and some beasts even descry the human being surrounded with the aura as with acloud or veil. In fact, everything has its aura surrounding it with a light or play of color, and especially isthis the case with so-called animated beings.The essential nature of the aura usually seen is astral and electrovital. The magnificent phenomena ofradiation that astronomers can discern at times of eclipse, long streamers with rosy and other coloredlight flashing forth from the body of the sun, are not flames nor anything of the sort, but are simply theelectrovital aura of the solar body -- a manifestation of solar vitality, for the sun in occultism is a livingbeing, as indeed everything else is.
AUTO-SUGGESTIONS. ::: Auto-suggestions- it is really faith in a mental form - act both on the subliminal and the subconscient. In the subliminal they set in action the powers of the inner being, its occult power to make thought, will or simple conscious force effective on the body - in the subconscient they silence or block the suggestions of death and illness (expressed or unexpressed) that prevent the return of health. They help also to combat the same things (adverse suggestions) in the mind, vital, body consciousness. Where all this is completely done or with some completeness, the effects can be very remarkable.
aventure ::: n. --> Accident; chance; adventure.
A mischance causing a person&
avoidance ::: n. --> The act of annulling; annulment.
The act of becoming vacant, or the state of being vacant; -- specifically used for the state of a benefice becoming void by the death, deprivation, or resignation of the incumbent.
A dismissing or a quitting; removal; withdrawal.
The act of avoiding or shunning; keeping clear of.
The courts by which anything is carried off.
awake ::: v. 1. To arouse from sleep or inactivity. 2. Fig. To rise from a state resembling sleep, such as death, indifference, inaction; to become active or vigilant. 3. To come or bring to an awareness, to become cognizant, to be fully conscious, to appreciate fully (often followed by to). awakes, awoke, awaking. *adj.* 4. Not asleep; conscious; vigilant, alert. half-awake.
awake ::: v. t. --> To rouse from sleep; to wake; to awaken.
To rouse from a state resembling sleep, as from death, stupidity., or inaction; to put into action; to give new life to; to stir up; as, to awake the dead; to awake the dormant faculties. ::: v. i. --> To cease to sleep; to come out of a state of natural
Bacteria, then, are a host of visible and invisible agents which, on our plane, subconsciously carry out many processes of evolutionary life and death. They are links in the karmic chain by which the divine recorders, who follow the immutable laws in the universal mind, return to each being the results of whatever it was the antecedent cause. Thus the bacteria of a disease will multiply and produce their injurious toxins only when the karmic conditions within or surrounding the individual provide a suitable culture-medium for them. Even then, the toxemia may or may not be modified or overcome by the natural antitoxins of the blood aided by competent medical treatment. The typical disease germs found inactive in healthy throats, etc., are instances of a karma which, paradoxically, provides a dangerous contact with individual protection. The healthy person may be an unconscious carrier of the disease germ to someone who is due to reap the full effects of causes he had set in motion at some time.
Balder, Baldr (Icelandic) The best, foremost; the sun god in Norse mythology, the son of Odin and Frigga and a favorite with gods and men. His mansion is Breidablick (broadview) whence he can keep watch over all the worlds. One of the lays of the Elder or Poetic Edda deals entirely with the death of the sun god, also mentioned in the principal poem Voluspa. Briefly stated: the gods were concerned when Balder was troubled with dreams of impending doom. Frigga therefore set out to exact a promise from all living things that none would harm Balder, and all readily complied. One thing only had been overlooked: the harmless-seeming mistletoe. Loki, the mischievous god (human mind), became aware of this, plucked the little plant, and from it fashioned a dart. He approached Hoder, the blind god (of darkness and ignorance) who was standing disconsolately by while the other gods were playfully hurling their weapons against the invulnerable sun god. Offering to guide his aim, Loki placed on HoderM-bM-^@M-^Ys bow the small but deadly M-bM-^@M-^\sorrow-dart.M-bM-^@M-^] Thus mind darkened by ignorance accomplished what nothing else could: the death of the bright deity of light. Balder must then travel to the house of Hel, queen of the realm of the dead. Odin, as Hermod, goes to plead with Hel for BalderM-bM-^@M-^Ys return, and Hel agrees to release him on condition that all living things weep for him. Frigga resumes her weary round and implores all beings to mourn the sun godM-bM-^@M-^Ys passing. All agree save one: Loki in the guise of an aged crone refuses to shed a tear. This single taint of perverseness in the human mind condemns Balder to remain in the realm of Hel until the following cycle is due to begin. Thus death is linked with the active human mind, Loki. As the bright sun god is placed on his pyre-ship, his loving wife Nanna (the moon goddess) dies of a broken heart and is placed beside him, but before the ship is set ablaze and cast adrift, Odin leaned over to whisper something in the dead sun godM-bM-^@M-^Ys ear. This secret message must endure unknown to all until BalderM-bM-^@M-^Ys return, when he and his dark twin Hoder will M-bM-^@M-^\build together on RoptM-bM-^@M-^Ys (OdinM-bM-^@M-^Ys) sacred soil.M-bM-^@M-^]
bane ::: n. --> That which destroys life, esp. poison of a deadly quality.
Destruction; death.
Any cause of ruin, or lasting injury; harm; woe.
A disease in sheep, commonly termed the rot. ::: v. t. --> To be the bane of; to ruin.
banshie ::: n. --> A supernatural being supposed by the Irish and Scotch peasantry to warn a family of the speedy death of one of its members, by wailing or singing in a mournful voice under the windows of the house.
Bardo is used in Tibet to refer to the many events and experiences undergone by the excarnate human being after death, generally considered to last from physical death until the next rebirth or reincarnation, though it is somewhat shorter than this. Since this period M-bM-^@M-^\may last from a few years to a kalpaM-bM-^@M-^] (ML 105), the bardo has more than the meaning commonly understood by the Tibetan populace which includes the time passed by the excarnate entity in kama-loka, in the intermediate or gestation period in which the entity is preparing for its birth into devachan, and the period of ineffable bliss and peace (illusory as it may be from the standpoint of reality) passed by the entity in the devachanic state itself. It also includes the later intermediate period M-bM-^@M-^T usually carefully veiled from common knowledge M-bM-^@M-^T existent between the ending of devachan and the rebirth of the reincarnating ego.
Bardo (Tibetan) [from bar between + do two] Between two; generally a gap, interval, or intermediate state, especially the state between two births. The term has become known in the West through the Bar do thos sgrol (bar-do tho-dol), M-bM-^@M-^\Liberation through Hearing in the Bardo,M-bM-^@M-^] translated by W. Y. Evans-Wentz as The Tibetan Book of the Dead. According to the Bardo Thodol, there are six such M-bM-^@M-^\intervalsM-bM-^@M-^]: the bardo of birth, the bardo of dreams, the bardo of samadhi (meditation), the bardo of the moment before death, the bardo of dharmata, and the bardo of becoming. The Bardo Thodol describes the last three of these, and is recited in the presence of the deceased believed to be experiencing these states, usually for a total period of 49 days. It is believed that the teaching contained in the text can enable the deceased to attain liberation while in the bardo states, or at least to attain the best possible rebirth.
"Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to life"s necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
::: "Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. If there were no siege of death, the creature would be bound for ever in the form of an imperfect living. Pursued by death he awakes to the idea of perfect life and seeks out its means and its possibility.M-bM-^@M-^] *Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
"Death is there because the being in the body is not yet developed enough to go on growing in the same body without the need of change and the body itself is not sufficiently conscious. If the mind and vital and the body itself were more conscious and plastic, death would not be necessary.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
behind ::: a. --> On the side opposite the front or nearest part; on the back side of; at the back of; on the other side of; as, behind a door; behind a hill.
Left after the departure of, whether this be by removing to a distance or by death.
Left a distance by, in progress of improvement Hence: Inferior to in dignity, rank, knowledge, or excellence, or in any achievement.
Being composite, at the death of the physical body the personal ego disintegrates, and at the next imbodiment a new personality is brought together by the reincarnating ego, although this new personality is but a reconstruction of the old personality with only such changes as have been brought about by the working of karma over time.
bereavement ::: n. --> The state of being bereaved; deprivation; esp., the loss of a relative by death.
besayle ::: n. --> A great-grandfather.
A kind of writ which formerly lay where a great-grandfather died seized of lands in fee simple, and on the day of his death a stranger abated or entered and kept the heir out. This is now abolished.
"Be thyself, immortal, and put not thy faith in death; for death is not of thyself, but of thy body. For the Spirit is immortality.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
Bhuta(s)(Sanskrit) ::: The past participle of the verb-root bhu, meaning "to be," or "to become"; hence bhutasliterally means "has beens" -- entities that have lived and passed on. The bhutas are "shells" from whichall that is spiritual and intellectual has fled: all that was the real entity has fled from this shell, and naughtis left but a decaying astral corpse. The bhutas are the spooks, ghosts, simulacra, reliquiae, of dead men;in other words, the astral dregs and remnants of human beings. They are the "shades" of the ancients, thepale and ghostly phantoms living in the astral world, or the astral copies of the men that were; and thedistinction between the bhuta and the kama-rupa is very slight.Bereft of all that pertains to the real entity, the genuine man, the bhuta is as much a corpse in the astralrealms as is the decaying physical body left behind at physical death; and consequently, astral orpsychical intercourse of any kind with these shells is productive only of evil. The bhutas, althoughbelonging in the astral world, are magnetically attracted to physical localities similar in type to theremnants of impulses still inhering in them. The bhuta of a drunkard is attracted to wine cellars andtaverns; the bhuta of one who has lived a lewd life is attracted to localities sympathetic to it; the thin andtenuous bhuta of a good man is similarly attracted to less obnoxious and evil places. All over the ancientworld and throughout most of even the modern world these eidola or "images" of dead men have beenfeared and dreaded, and relations of any kind with them have been consistently and universally avoided.(See also Eidolon)
"Birth is an assumption of a body by the spirit, death is the casting off [of] the body; there is nothing original in this birth, nothing final in this death. Before birth we were; after death we shall be. Nor are our birth and death a single episode without continuous meaning or sequel; it is one episode out of many, scenes of our drama of existence with its denouement far away in time.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human*
birth ::: M-bM-^@M-^\Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe, death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
black death ::: --> A pestilence which ravaged Europe and Asia in the fourteenth century.
Blavatsky writes that the rendering Ja-ho-vah is M-bM-^@M-^\a perversion of the Holy NameM-bM-^@M-^]: that the majority of the Jews themselves were ignorant of the true pronunciation. M-bM-^@M-^\Alone, out of all their nation the high priests had it in their possession, and respectively passed it to their successors,M-bM-^@M-^] before their death. M-bM-^@M-^\Once a year only, on the day of atonement, the high priest was allowed to pronounce it in a whisperM-bM-^@M-^] (IU 2:398-9).
bleed ::: v. i. --> To emit blood; to lose blood; to run with blood, by whatever means; as, the arm bleeds; the wound bled freely; to bleed at the nose.
To withdraw blood from the body; to let blood; as, Dr. A. bleeds in fevers.
To lose or shed one&
Blue Screen of Death "humour" (BSOD) The infamous white-on-blue text screen which appears when {Microsoft Windows} crashes. BSOD is mostly seen on the 16-bit systems such as {Windows 3.1}, but also on {Windows 95} and apparently even under {Windows NT 4}. It is most likely to be caused by a {GPF}, although Windows 95 can do it if you've removed a required {CD-ROM} from the drive. It is often impossible to recover cleanly from a BSOD. The acronym BSOD is sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "{Windoze} just keeps BSODing on me today". (1998-09-08)
Blue Screen of Life "operating system" (BSOL, by analogy with "{Blue Screen of Death}") The opening screen of {Microsoft} {Windows NT}. This screen shows the {file system} loading, and any problems such as conversions from {FAT} to {NTFS} or a scan of a {hard drive}. The Blue Screen of Life occurs in one way, as opposed to the {Blue Screen of Death}, which can occur in many different ways and times. [Is this term ever used in connection with {Windows 3.x} or {Windows 9x}?] (1999-04-18)
Body transjormauon If the transformation is complete that means no subjection to death it does not mean that one will be bound to keep the same body for all time One creates a new body for oneself when one wants to change but how it will be done cannot be said now The present method is by physical birth M-bM-^@M-^T some occultists suppose that a time will come when that will not be necessary *M-bM-^@M-^T but the question must be left for the
bound and M-bM-^@M-^Sbound ::: 1. Pp. and pt. of bind. *adj. 2. Being under a legal or moral obligation. 3. Circumscribed; kept within bounds. * close-bound, death-bound, earth-bound, fate-bound, form-bound, heart-bound, self-bound, sleep-bound, steel-bound, stone-bound, time-bound, trance-bound.
bowstringed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Bowstring ::: p.a. --> Furnished with bowstring.
Put to death with a bowstring; strangled.
Bragi (Icelandic) [from bragr best] One of the twelve aesir, gods of the Norse Eddas. Representing poetic inspiration of the highest order, he is called the divine singer. It is said he lay sleeping on the ship of the dwarfs (kingdoms of the elements M-bM-^@M-^T earth, water, air, fire, aether), and when the vessel crossed the threshold of death, he awoke and sang the worlds into life. The sound of his joyfilled song and golden harp reverberates through the nine worlds awakening the music of all the spheres.
Brahma Pralaya, Brahma Manvantara (Sanskrit) BrahmM-DM-^A-pralaya, -manvantara The death (or life) of Brahma, which takes place at the close of the Life or Age of Brahma, a period of 311,040,000,000,000 years; also called a mahapralaya or prakritika pralaya. One must ascertain whether the Brahma refers to a solar system or a smaller period of time, such as the life of a planetary chain.
Brahmarandhra (Sanskrit) Brahmarandhra [from brahman cosmic spirit + randhra opening, fissure, cavity] BrahmanM-bM-^@M-^Ys crevice; a mystical suture or opening in the crown of the head, through which a person leaves his body at death. Connected with the heart by means of the sushumna-nadi, a psychovital channel in the spinal column. M-bM-^@M-^\A mystic term having its significance only in mysticismM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 63). Anatomically the fontanel is a soft, pulsating, unossified area in the skull of an infant, which hardens as the child develops.
breath-of-life packet ({XEROX PARC}) An {Ethernet} {packet} that contains {bootstrap} code, periodically sent out from a working computer to infuse the "breath of life" into any computer on the network that has crashed. Computers depending on such packets have sufficient hardware or firmware code to wait for (or request) such a packet during the reboot process. See also {dickless workstation}. The notional "kiss-of-death packet", with a function complementary to that of a breath-of-life packet, is recommended for dealing with hosts that consume too many network resources. Though "kiss-of-death packet" is usually used in jest, there is at least one documented instance of an {Internet} subnet with limited address-table slots in a gateway computer in which such packets were routinely used to compete for slots, rather like Christmas shoppers competing for scarce parking spaces. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-26)
Bruno, Giordano: (1548-1600) A Dominican monk, eventually burned at the stake because of his opinions, he was converted from Christianity to a naturalistic and mystical pantheism by the Renaissance and particularly by the new Copernican astronomy. For him God and the universe were two names for one and the same Reality considered now as the creative essence of all things, now as the manifold of realized possibilities in which that essence manifests itself. As God, natura naturans, the Real is the whole, the one transcendent and ineffable. As the Real is the infinity of worlds and objects and events into which the whole divides itself and in which the one displays the infinite potentialities latent within it. The world-process is an ever-lasting going forth from itself and return into itself of the divine nature. The culmination of the outgoing creative activity is reached in the human mind, whose rational, philosophic search for the one in the many, simplicity in variety, and the changeless and eternal in the changing and temporal, marks also the reverse movement of the divine nature re-entering itself and regaining its primordial unity, homogeneity, and changelessness. The human soul, being as it were a kind of boomerang partaking of the ingrowing as well as the outgrowing process, may hope at death, not to be dissolved with the body, which is borne wholly upon the outgoing stream, but to return to God whence it came and to be reabsorbed in him. Cf. Rand, Modern Classical Philosophers, selection from Bruno's On Cause, The Principle and the One. G. Bruno: De l'infinito, universo e mundo, 1584; Spaccio della bestia trionfante, 1584; La cena delta ceneri, 1584; Deglieroici furori, 1585; De Monade, 1591. Cf. R. Honigswald, Giordano Bruno; G. Gentile, Bruno nella storia della cultura, 1907. -- B.A.G.F. Brunschvicg, Leon: (1869-) Professor of Philosophy at the Ecole Normale in Paris. Dismissed by the Nazis (1941). His philosophy is an idealistic synthesis of Spinoza, Kant and Schelling with special stress on the creative role of thought in cultural history as well as in sciences. Main works: Les etapes de la philosophie mathematique, 1913; L'experience humaine et la causalite physique, 1921; De la connaissance de soi, 1931. Buddhism: The multifarious forms, philosophic, religious, ethical and sociological, which the teachings of Gautama Buddha (q.v.) have produced. They centre around the main doctrine of the catvari arya-satyani(q.v.), the four noble truths, the last of which enables one in eight stages to reach nirvana (q.v.): Right views, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. In the absence of contemporary records of Buddha and Buddhistic teachings, much value was formerly attached to the palm leaf manuscripts in Pali, a Sanskrit dialect; but recently a good deal of weight has been given also the Buddhist tradition in Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. Buddhism split into Mahayanism and Hinayanism (q.v.), each of which, but particularly the former, blossomed into a variety of teachings and practices. The main philosophic schools are the Madhyamaka or Sunyavada, Yogacara, Sautrantika, and Vaibhasika (q.v.). The basic assumptions in philosophy are a causal nexus in nature and man, of which the law of karma (q.v.) is but a specific application; the impermanence of things, and the illusory notion of substance and soul. Man is viewed realistically as a conglomeration of bodily forms (rupa), sensations (vedana), ideas (sanjna), latent karma (sanskaras), and consciousness (vijnana). The basic assumptions in ethics are the universality of suffering and the belief in a remedy. There is no god; each one may become a Buddha, an enlightened one. Also in art and esthetics Buddhism has contributed much throughout the Far East. -- K.F.L.
BSOD {Blue Screen of Death}
(b) The school of Yang Chu (c 440 - c 360 B.C.) and his followers, whose main doctrines are neither hedonism as Lieh Tzu seerns to represent him, nor egoism as Mencius interpreted him, but rather the Taoist doctrines of following nature, of "preserving life and keeping the essence of our being intact and not injuring our material existence with things," of "letting life run its course freely," and of "ignoring not only riches and fame but also life and death." -- W.T.C.
Buddha(Sanskrit) ::: The past participle of the root budh, meaning "to perceive," "to become cognizant of," also "toawaken," and "to recover consciousness." It signifies one who is spiritually awakened, no longer living"the living death" of ordinary men, but awakened to the spiritual influence from within or from "above."When man has awakened from the living death in which ordinary mortals live, when he has cast off thetoils of both mind and flesh and, to use the old Christian term, has put on the garments of eternity, thenhe has awakened, he is a buddha. He has become one with -- not "absorbed" as is constantly translatedbut has become one with -- the Self of selves, with the paramatman, the Supreme Self. (See also Bodhi,Buddhi)A buddha in the esoteric teaching is one whose higher principles can learn nothing more in thismanvantara; they have reached nirvana and remain there. This does not mean, however, that the lowercenters of consciousness of a buddha are in nirvana, for the contrary is true; and it is this fact that enablesa Buddha of Compassion to remain in the lower realms of being as mankind's supreme guide andinstructor, living usually as a nirmanakaya.
Buddhi(Sanskrit) ::: Buddhi comes from a Sanskrit root budh, commonly translated "to enlighten," but a bettertranslation is "to perceive," "to cognize," "to recover consciousness," hence "to awaken," and therefore"to understand." The second counting downwards, or the sixth counting upwards, of the seven principlesof man. Buddhi is the principle or organ in man which gives to him spiritual consciousness, and is thevehicle of the most high part of man -- the atman -- the faculty which manifests as understanding,judgment, discrimination, an inseparable veil or garment of the atman.From another point of view, buddhi may truly be said to be both the seed and the fruit of manas.Man's ordinary consciousness in life in his present stage of evolution is almost wholly in the lower orintermediate duad (manas-kama) of his constitution; when he raises his consciousness through personaleffort to become permanently one with the higher duad (atma-buddhi), he becomes a mahatma, a master.At the death of the human being, this higher duad carries away with it all the spiritual essence, all thespiritual and intellectual aroma, of the lower or intermediate duad. Maha-buddhi is one of the namesgiven to the kosmic principle mahat. (See also Alaya)
burn ::: 1. To be very eager; aflame with activity, as to be on fire. 2. To emit heat or light by as if by combustion; to flame.. 3. To give off light or to glow brightly. 4. To light; a candle; incense, etc.) as an offering. 5. To suffer punishment or death by or as if by fire; put to death by fire. 6. To injure, endanger, or damage with or as if with fire. 7. Fig. To be consumed with strong emotions; be aflame with desire; anger; etc. 8. To shine intensely; to seem to glow as if on fire. burns, burned, burnt, burning.
By immortality is meant the consciousness which is beyond birth and death, beyond the chain of cause and effect, beyond all bondage and limitation,free, blissful, self-existent in consciousbeing, the consciousness of the Lord, of the supreme Purusha, of Sachchidananda.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 59
By immortality we mean the absolute life of the soul as opposed to the transient and mutable life in the body which it assumes by birth and death and rebirth and superior also to its life as the mere mental being who dwells in the world subjected helplessly to this law of death and birth or seems at least by his ignorance to be subjected to this and to other laws of the lower Nature.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 18, Page: 93
::: "By self-realisation of Brahman as our self we find the force, the divine energy which lifts us beyond the limitation, weakness, darkness, sorrow, all-pervading death of our mortal existence; by the knowledge of the one Brahman in all beings and in all the various movement of the cosmos we attain beyond these things to the infinity, the omnipotent being, the omniscient light, the pure beatitude of that divine existence.M-bM-^@M-^] The Upanishads
cachalot ::: n. --> The sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). It has in the top of its head a large cavity, containing an oily fluid, which, after death, concretes into a whitish crystalline substance called spermaceti. See Sperm whale.
cadaveric ::: a. --> Of, pertaining to, or resembling, a corpse, or the changes produced by death; cadaverous; as, cadaveric rigidity.
capital ::: n. --> Of or pertaining to the head.
Having reference to, or involving, the forfeiture of the head or life; affecting life; punishable with death; as, capital trials; capital punishment.
First in importance; chief; principal.
Chief, in a political sense, as being the seat of the general government of a state or nation; as, Washington and Paris are capital cities.
casualty ::: n. --> That which comes without design or without being foreseen; contingency.
Any injury of the body from accident; hence, death, or other misfortune, occasioned by an accident; as, an unhappy casualty.
Numerical loss caused by death, wounds, discharge, or desertion.
Catacombs Subterranean caverns and galleries, some of the most celebrated being in and around Rome. These were constructed for sepulcher, but such was not the original purpose of many in other parts of the world, though many of these also were later used for burial and hence contain bones. This latter class was originally used as secret temples for the enactment of initiatory rites. M-bM-^@M-^\There were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea, some of them of a very vast extent. The most renowned of them were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former, beginning on the western side of the Nile, extended towards the Lybian desert, and were known as the SerpentM-bM-^@M-^Ys catacombs, or passages. It was there that were performed the sacred mysteries of the kuklos anagkes, the M-bM-^@M-^XUnavoidable Cycle,M-bM-^@M-^Y more generally known as M-bM-^@M-^Xthe circle of necessityM-bM-^@M-^Y; the inexorable doom imposed upon every soul after the bodily death, and when it has been judged in the Amenthian regionM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:379).
Catalepsy: A death-like state of physical coma, bodily rigidity, in which normal functions of the body, including sensations, are suspended and consciousness ceases; it may last from minutes to days. According to certain occultists, it is produced primarily in the astral body during the process of exteriorization.
catastrophe ::: n. --> An event producing a subversion of the order or system of things; a final event, usually of a calamitous or disastrous nature; hence, sudden calamity; great misfortune.
The final event in a romance or a dramatic piece; a denouement, as a death in a tragedy, or a marriage in a comedy.
A violent and widely extended change in the surface of the earth, as, an elevation or subsidence of some part of it, effected by internal causes.
Catatonia [from Greek kata down + tonos tension] Referred to as tension-insanity, this condition is marked with successive stages of psychological depression, excitement, and stupor; the typical symptoms are peculiar mannerisms, stereotyped movements, a cataleptoid muscular rigidity, and great mental and physical stubbornness. There may be hallucinations, depressing illusions, or fantastic religious ideas, or sudden impulsions of violence or indecency, and there is always a dulling of the higher emotional and ethical feelings. After an attack, the person often admits that he has been acting perversely, foolishly, or childishly, but explains that he could not help it. When analyzed in the light of composite human nature, and of the action of different principles during life and after death, the peculiar conditions are explainable. Evidently the sufferers are overcome by some besieging astral entity of kama-rupic nature; or in certain cases by aggregated or collected thought-impressions of former emotional and lower mental storms, excitements, or passion, which at times of ethical inattention flow back upon the brain-mind and affect the receptive body and its nervous system, so that these cases are really reactional effects of precedaneous causes which may even go back in time to a preceding life or lives.
Cause: (Lat. causa) Anything responsible for change, motion or action. In the history of philosophy numerous interpretations were given to the term. Aristotle distinguished among the material cause, or that out of which something arises, the formal cause, that is, the pattern or essence determining the creation of a thing, the efficient cause, or the force or agent producing an effect; and the final cause, or purpose. Many thinkers spoke also of the first cause, usually conceived as God. During the Renaissance, with the development of scientific interest in nature, cause was usually conceived as an object. Today, it is generally interpteted as energy or action, whether or not connected with matter. According to Newton, "to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes." But J. S. Mill contended, in his doctrine of the plurality of causes, that an effect, or a kind of effect (e.g. heat or death) may be produced by various causes. The first clear formulation of the principle was given by Leukippus "Nothing happens without a ground but everything through a cause and of necessity." -- R.B.W.
cave ::: 1. A hollow or natural passage under or into the earth, especially one with an opening to the surface. 2. A hollow in the side of a hill or cliff, or underground of any kind; a cavity. Cave, caves, death-cave, deep-caved, cave-heart.
centesimation ::: n. --> The infliction of the death penalty upon one person in every hundred, as in cases of mutiny.
central being ::: the portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. It has two forms -- above, it is the Jivatman, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-knowledge comes; below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life.
CENTRAL BEING. ::: The portion of the Divine in us which supports all the rest and survives through death and birth. This centra! being has two forms ::: above, it is Jivatman, our true being, of which we become aware when the higher self-know- ledge comes ; below, it is the psychic being which stands behind mind, body and life. The Jivatman is above the manifestation in life and presides over it ; the psychic being stands behind the manifestation in life and supports it,
Cerinthus (flourished 1st century) Gnostic, probably Syrian, credited with Egyptian training by Hippolytus, he taught that the world was made, not by the Supreme but by angels, M-bM-^@M-^\one of whom gave law to the Jews, which was not perfect, and that only a particular gospel of Matthew was of use in the New TestamentM-bM-^@M-^] (BdeZ in BCW 14:516). He taught that M-bM-^@M-^\the world and Jehovah having fallen off from virtue and primitive dignity, the Supreme permitted one of his glorious Aeons, whose name was the M-bM-^@M-^XAnointedM-bM-^@M-^Y (Christ) to incarnate in the man JesusM-bM-^@M-^] (BCW 14:372n) who was born a son of Joseph and Mary like any other mortal until Christos descended upon him, left him before his death, and returned personating him after his death (BCW 13:55; SD 2:508).
Chakra(Cakra, Sanskrit) ::: A word signifying in general a "wheel," and from this simple original meaning therewere often taken for occult and esoteric purposes a great many subordinate, very interesting, and in somecases highly mystical and profound derivatives. Chakra also means a cycle, a period of duration, inwhich the wheel of time turns once. It also means the horizon, as being circular or of a wheel-form. Itlikewise means certain centers or pranic spherical loci of the body in which are supposed to collectstreams of pranic energy of differing qualities, or pranic energies of different kinds. These physiologicalchakras, which are actually connected with the pranic circulations and ganglia of the auric egg, andtherefore function in the physical body through the intermediary of the linga-sarira or astral model-body,are located in different parts of the physical frame, reaching from the parts about the top of the skull tothe parts about the pubis. It would be highly improper, having at heart the best interests of humanity, togive the occult or esoteric teaching concerning the exact location, functions, and means of controlling thephysiological chakras of the human body; for it is a foregone conclusion that were this mysticalknowledge broadcast, it would be sadly misused, leading not only in many cases to death or insanity, butto the violation of every moral instinct. Alone the high initiates, who as a matter of fact have risen abovethe need of employing the physiological chakras, can use them at will, and for holy purposes -- which infact is something that they rarely, if indeed they ever do.
Chakra (Sanskrit) Cakra Wheel; cycle; the horizon, as being circular or of a wheel-form; likewise certain pranic centers of the body. M-bM-^@M-^\These physiological chakras, which are actually connected with the pranic circulations and ganglia of the Auric Egg, and therefore function in the physical body through the intermediary of the linga-sarira, or astral model-body, are located in different parts of the physical frame, reaching from the parts about the top of the skull to the parts about the pubis. . . . were this mystical knowledge broadcast, it would be sadly misused, leading not only in many cases to death or insanity, but to the violation of every moral instinct. Alone the high initiates, who as a matter of act have risen above the need of employing physiological chakras, can use them at will, and for holy purposes M-bM-^@M-^T which in fact is something that they rarely, if indeed they ever doM-bM-^@M-^] (OG 26-7).
Chang-chub (Tibetan) byang chub (jang-chub, chang-chub) Also Byang-tzyoobs, Tchang-chub. Translation for Sanskrit bodhi (enlightenment, awakening). Byang chub sems dpaM-bM-^@M-^Y (jang-chub-sem-pa) translates the Sanskrit bodhisattva, one who has attained a high degree of spiritual knowledge and mystic power; M-bM-^@M-^\An adept who has, by the power of his knowledge and soul enlightenment, become exempt from the curse of UNCONSCIOUS transmigration M-bM-^@M-^T may, at his will and desire, and instead of reincarnating himself only after bodily death, do so, and repeatedly M-bM-^@M-^T during his life if he chooses. He holds the power of choosing for himself new bodies whether on this or any other planet M-bM-^@M-^T while in possession of his old form, that he generally preserves for purposes of his ownM-bM-^@M-^] (ML 285).
Charon (Greek) Ferryman of the Styx in Hades, the son of Erebos (darkness) and either Nux (night) or the Styx; equivalent to the Egyptian Khu-en-ua, the hawk-headed steersman who conveys souls across the black waters that separate life from death. Originally Mercury guided the souls to the underworld, but later Charon was said to ferry souls across who had a coin, put in their mouth at death by their relatives, and who had been properly buried. Hades is kama-loka, entered not only by the shades of the departed but by candidates for initiation, and by high adepts who enter the underworld at certain times on missions of compassion, as Jesus is stated to have descended into Hell.
Chen jen: "The true man", the supreme man, the pure man, the man of supreme inward power, not in the moral sense but in the sense of "pure gold", has limitless inward resources. One who has transcended the self and the non-self, and life and death, and has reached a state of mystical union with the universe. (Chuang Tzu between 399 and 295 B.C.) -- H.H.
Chitragupta (Sanskrit) Citragupta [from citr to depict, color with various colors + gupta hidden] The secret recorder who paints the picture of the personM-bM-^@M-^Ys life on the astral light; a deva-scribe in the abode of the dead, who records human virtues and vices and reads out the account of every soulM-bM-^@M-^Ys life from his register when the excarnate soul arrives in the kingdom of Yama, the god of death; a variant of the lipikas.
Christian Science: A religion and philosophy, founded in 1875 by Mary Baker Eddy, based on the teaching that God, the Universal Mind, is the only existing reality, man is GodM-bM-^@M-^Ys spiritual idea and belongs by right to an order in which there is no sickness, sin, sorrow or death; all such things are errors of manM-bM-^@M-^Ys mortal mind and have no reality for man save as he admits them; if man denies them, they cease to exist.
Chutuktu, Hutukhtu (Mongolian) Also Khutukhtu, Houtouktou, etc. Saintly; same as the Tibetan tulku or chutuktu and the Chinese huo-fo (living buddha), rendered into Chinese by the ideographs tsai lai jen (the man who comes again, the one who returns), identic in meaning with the Buddhist tathagata. A high initiate or adept; those individuals who are, or are supposed to be, incarnations of a bodhisattva or some lower buddha; although these so-called incarnations may be not actual reimbodiments in the strict sense, but rather what may be described as overshadowings by a buddhic or buddha-power. The chutuktu is able, upon leaving his body at death, consciously to seek reimbodiment almost immediately in some child newly born, or at the moment of birth. Blavatsky states that it is commonly believed that there are M-bM-^@M-^\generally five manifesting and two secret Chutuktus among the high lamasM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 85).
claim ::: n. 1. A demand for something as rightful or due. 2. Something claimed in a formal or legal manner as a right or title. claims. *v. *3. To demand, ask for, assert, or take as one"s own or one"s due. 4. To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain. claims, claimed, claiming, claimest, claimst, death-claimed, trance-claimed.
Climacteric A critical period; a year in which important changes are held to occur, as in oneM-bM-^@M-^Ys 63rd year (grand climacteric). But climacteric year M-bM-^@M-^\has more than the usual significance, when used by Occultists and Mystics. It is not only a critical period, during which some great change is periodically expected, whether in human or cosmic constitution, but it likewise pertains to spiritual universal changesM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 1:656n). Each person has a climacteric point M-bM-^@M-^\when he must draw near to death; if he has squandered his life-powers, there is no escape for him; but if he has lived according to the law, he may pass through and so continue in the same body almost indefinitelyM-bM-^@M-^] (BCW 8:400).
Cock A M-bM-^@M-^\very occult bird, much appreciated in ancient augury and symbolism. According to the Zohar, the cock crows three times before the death of a person; . . . As the cock was always connected in symbology with the Sun (or solar gods), Death and Resurrection, it has found its appropriate place in the four Gospels in the prophecy about Peter repudiating his Master before the cock crowed thrice. The cock is the most magnetic and sensitive of all birds, hence its Greek name alectruonM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 86). In the Zoroastrian Avesta, the cock is called Parodarsh M-bM-^@M-^\he who foreseesM-bM-^@M-^] the coming dawn, and is also termed the drum of the worlds, for he crows in the dawn which dazzles away the fiends of the Avesta: thus he shares with the dawn the honor of the victory.
commonwealth ::: n. --> A state; a body politic consisting of a certain number of men, united, by compact or tacit agreement, under one form of government and system of laws.
The whole body of people in a state; the public.
Specifically, the form of government established on the death of Charles I., in 1649, which existed under Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, ending with the abdication of the latter in 1659.
commutation ::: n. --> A passing from one state to another; change; alteration; mutation.
The act of giving one thing for another; barter; exchange.
The change of a penalty or punishment by the pardoning power of the State; as, the commutation of a sentence of death to banishment or imprisonment.
A substitution, as of a less thing for a greater, esp.
commute ::: v. t. --> To exchange; to put or substitute something else in place of, as a smaller penalty, obligation, or payment, for a greater, or a single thing for an aggregate; hence, to lessen; to diminish; as, to commute a sentence of death to one of imprisonment for life; to commute tithes; to commute charges for fares. ::: v. i.
Contemplate, for a moment, this wondrous reply in six lines, of Satyavan to his fatherM-bM-^@M-^Ys gentle scolding of Savitri.M-bM-^@M-^]at noon leaving this house of clayM-bM-^@M-^], for in the epic his death in the forest takes place at noon, not a departure of an early morning soul or one who leaves enfolded in the dark rooms of night, but at a time when the sun is at its most brilliant, showering the earth with light.
copyright "legal" The exclusive rights of the owner of the copyright on a work to make and distribute copies, prepare derivative works, and perform and display the work in public (these last two mainly apply to plays, films, dances and the like, but could also apply to software). A work, including a piece of software, is under copyright by default in most coutries, whether of not it displays a copyright notice. However, a copyright notice may make it easier to assert ownership. The copyright owner is the person or company whose name appears in the copyright notice on the box, or the disk or the screen or wherever. Most countries have agreed to uphold each others' copyrights. A copyright notice has three parts. The first can be either the {copyright symbol} (a letter C in a circle), the word "Copyright" or the abbreviation "Copr". Only the first of these is recognised internationally and the common {ASCII} rendering "(C)" is not valid anywhere. This is followed by the name of the copyright holder and the year of publication. The year should be the year of _first_ publication, it is not necessary as some believe to update this every year to the current year. Copyright protection in most countries extends for 50 years after the author's death. Originally, most of the computer industry assumed that only the program's underlying instructions were protected under copyright law but, beginning in the early 1980s, a series of lawsuits involving the video screens of game programs extended protections to the appearance of programs. Use of copyright to restrict redistribution is immoral, unethical and illegitimate. It is a result of brainwashing by monopolists and corporate interests and it violates everyone's rights. Such use of copyrights and patents hamper technological progress by making a naturally abundant resource scarce. Many, from communists to right wing libertarians, are trying to abolish intellectual property myths. See also {public domain}, {copyleft}, {software law}. {Universal Copyright Convention (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/creativity/creative-industries/copyright/)}. {US Copyright Office (http://copyright.gov/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:misc.legal.computing}. [Is this definition correct in the UK? In the US? Anywhere?] (2014-01-08)
coroner ::: n. --> An officer of the peace whose principal duty is to inquire, with the help of a jury, into the cause of any violent, sudden or mysterious death, or death in prison, usually on sight of the body and at the place where the death occurred.
Corybantes (Greek) Korybantes. Celebrants in the Mysteries of Rhea Cybele in Phrygia. The outer rites, celebrating the death and rebirth of Atys, began with lamentations and ended with rejoicings. On account of the boisterous character of these public celebrations, the word Corybantic has become a modern synonym for roistering. Also, the name for the eunuch priests of Cybele.
cosinage ::: n. --> Collateral relationship or kindred by blood; consanguinity.
A writ to recover possession of an estate in lands, when a stranger has entered, after the death of the grandfather&
CPU Wars /C-P-U worz/ A 1979 large-format comic by Chas Andres chronicling the attempts of the brainwashed androids of IPM (Impossible to Program Machines) to conquer and destroy the peaceful denizens of HEC (Human Engineered Computers). This rather transparent allegory featured many references to {ADVENT} and the immortal line "Eat flaming death, minicomputer mongrels!" (uttered, of course, by an IPM stormtrooper). It is alleged that the author subsequently received a letter of appreciation on IBM company stationery from the head of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratories (then, as now, one of the few islands of true hackerdom in the IBM archipelago). The lower loop of the B in the IBM logo, it is said, had been carefully whited out. See {eat flaming death}. [{Jargon File}]
crisis ::: n. --> The point of time when it is to be decided whether any affair or course of action must go on, or be modified or terminate; the decisive moment; the turning point.
That change in a disease which indicates whether the result is to be recovery or death; sometimes, also, a striking change of symptoms attended by an outward manifestation, as by an eruption or sweat.
cross ::: 1. A structure consisting essentially of an upright and a transverse piece, upon which persons were formerly put to a cruel and ignominious death by being nailed or otherwise fastened to it by their extremities. 2. A representation or delineation of a cross on any surface, varying in elaborateness from two lines crossing each other to an ornamental design painted, embroidered, carved, etc.; used as a sacred mark, symbol, badge, or the like. 3. A trouble, vexation, annoyance; misfortune, adversity; sometimes anything that thwarts or crosses. v. 4. To go or extend across; pass from one side of to the other: pass over. 5. To extend or pass through or over; intersect. 6. To encounter in passing. crosses, crossed, crossing.
crossbones ::: n. pl. --> A representation of two of the leg bones or arm bones of a skeleton, laid crosswise, often surmounted with a skull, and serving as a symbol of death.
cross ::: n. --> A gibbet, consisting of two pieces of timber placed transversely upon one another, in various forms, as a T, or +, with the horizontal piece below the upper end of the upright, or as an X. It was anciently used in the execution of criminals.
The sign or mark of the cross, made with the finger, or in ink, etc., or actually represented in some material; the symbol of Christ&
crucified ::: 1. Afflicted with severe pain or distress; tormented. 2. In reference to being put to death by nailing or otherwise fastening to a cross.
crucifixion ::: n. --> The act of nailing or fastening a person to a cross, for the purpose of putting him to death; the use of the cross as a method of capital punishment.
The state of one who is nailed or fastened to a cross; death upon a cross.
Intense suffering or affliction; painful trial.
crucify ::: v. t. --> To fasten to a cross; to put to death by nailing the hands and feet to a cross or gibbet.
To destroy the power or ruling influence of; to subdue completely; to mortify.
To vex or torment.
dangerous ::: a. --> Attended or beset with danger; full of risk; perilous; hazardous; unsafe.
Causing danger; ready to do harm or injury.
In a condition of danger, as from illness; threatened with death.
Hard to suit; difficult to please.
Reserved; not affable.
dead ::: a. --> Deprived of life; -- opposed to alive and living; reduced to that state of a being in which the organs of motion and life have irrevocably ceased to perform their functions; as, a dead tree; a dead man.
Destitute of life; inanimate; as, dead matter.
Resembling death in appearance or quality; without show of life; deathlike; as, a dead sleep.
Still as death; motionless; inactive; useless; as, dead calm;
deadly ::: a. --> Capable of causing death; mortal; fatal; destructive; certain or likely to cause death; as, a deadly blow or wound.
Aiming or willing to destroy; implacable; desperately hostile; flagitious; as, deadly enemies.
Subject to death; mortal. ::: adv.
deadly ::: causing or tending to cause death; fatal; lethal.
Dead manM-bM-^@M-^Ys candles: Luminous phenomena which according to folklore indicate impending death.
::: death-bed
**death"s, deathbound, death-bound, death-claimed, death-closed, death-hunted.**
decease ::: n. --> Departure, especially departure from this life; death. ::: v. i. --> To depart from this life; to die; to pass away.
decimate ::: v. t. --> To take the tenth part of; to tithe.
To select by lot and punish with death every tenth man of; as, to decimate a regiment as a punishment for mutiny.
To destroy a considerable part of; as, to decimate an army in battle; to decimate a people by disease.
decumbiture ::: n. --> Confinement to a sick bed, or time of taking to one&
defunction ::: n. --> Death.
deicide ::: n. --> The act of killing a being of a divine nature; particularly, the putting to death of Jesus Christ.
One concerned in putting Christ to death.
deliver ::: v. t. --> To set free from restraint; to set at liberty; to release; to liberate, as from control; to give up; to free; to save; to rescue from evil actual or feared; -- often with from or out of; as, to deliver one from captivity, or from fear of death.
To give or transfer; to yield possession or control of; to part with (to); to make over; to commit; to surrender; to resign; -- often with up or over, to or into.
To make over to the knowledge of another; to
Demi-god: In polytheistic religions, the offspring of a god or goddess and a human being. Also, a human being deified after his death.
demise ::: n. --> Transmission by formal act or conveyance to an heir or successor; transference; especially, the transfer or transmission of the crown or royal authority to a successor.
The decease of a royal or princely person; hence, also, the death of any illustrious person.
The conveyance or transfer of an estate, either in fee for life or for years, most commonly the latter.
deodand ::: n. --> A personal chattel which had caused the death of a person, and for that reason was given to God, that is, forfeited to the crown, to be applied to pious uses, and distributed in alms by the high almoner. Thus, if a cart ran over a man and killed him, it was forfeited as a deodand.
departure ::: n. --> Division; separation; putting away.
Separation or removal from a place; the act or process of departing or going away.
Removal from the present life; death; decease.
Deviation or abandonment, as from or of a rule or course of action, a plan, or a purpose.
The desertion by a party to any pleading of the ground taken by him in his last antecedent pleading, and the adoption of
depopulate ::: v. t. --> To deprive of inhabitants, whether by death or by expulsion; to reduce greatly the populousness of; to dispeople; to unpeople. ::: v. i. --> To become dispeopled.
destructive ::: a. --> Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth. ::: n.
Deus Non Fecit Mortem (Latin) M-bM-^@M-^\God made not deathM-bM-^@M-^]; from The Wisdom of Solomon (Apocrypha), which in the English runs: M-bM-^@M-^\Seek not death in the error of you life: and pull not upon yourself destruction with the works of your hands. For God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things, that they might have their being. . . . But ungodly men with their works called it unto themM-bM-^@M-^] (1:12-16).
deuterogamy ::: n. --> A second marriage, after the death of the first husband of wife; -- in distinction from bigamy, as defined in the old canon law. See Bigamy.
Devachan[Tibetan, bde-ba-can, pronounced de-wa-chen] ::: A translation of the Sanskrit sukhavati, the "happy place"or god-land. It is the state between earth-lives into which the human entity, the human monad, enters andthere rests in bliss and repose.When the second death after that of the physical body takes place -- and there are many deaths, that is tosay many changes of the vehicles of the ego -- the higher part of the human entity withdraws into itselfall that aspires towards it, and takes that "all" with it into the devachan; and the atman, with the buddhiand with the higher part of the manas, become thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Devachan as a stateapplies not to the highest or heavenly or divine monad, but only to the middle principles of man, to thepersonal ego or the personal soul in man, overshadowed by atma-buddhi. There are many degrees indevachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. Yet devachan is not a locality, it is a state, a stateof the beings in that spiritual condition.Devachan is the fulfilling of all the unfulfilled spiritual hopes of the past incarnation, and anefflorescence of all the spiritual and intellectual yearnings of the past incarnation which in that pastincarnation have not had an opportunity for fulfillment. It is a period of unspeakable bliss and peace forthe human soul, until it has finished its rest time and stage of recuperation of its own energies.In the devachanic state, the reincarnating ego remains in the bosom of the monad (or of the monadicessence) in a state of the most perfect and utter bliss and peace, reviewing and constantly reviewing, andimproving upon in its own blissful imagination, all the unfulfilled spiritual and intellectual possibilitiesof the life just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the devachanic entity.Man here is no longer a quaternary of substance-principles (for the second death has taken place), but isnow reduced to the monad with the reincarnating ego sleeping in its bosom, and is therefore a spiritualtriad. (See also Death, Reincarnating Ego)
diffusion ::: n. --> The act of diffusing, or the state of being diffused; a spreading; extension; dissemination; circulation; dispersion.
The act of passing by osmosis through animal membranes, as in the distribution of poisons, gases, etc., through the body. Unlike absorption, diffusion may go on after death, that is, after the blood ceases to circulate.
digamous ::: a. --> Pertaining to a second marriage, that is, one after the death of the first wife or the first husband.
Dioscuri (Greek) Dioskouroi. In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux (Greek Polydeuces), Spartan twin sons of Tyndareus and Leda; their sisters were Helen and Clytemnestra. In Homer all but Helen were considered mortal, but after the twinsM-bM-^@M-^Y death they lived and died on alternate days. Later one, usually Pollux, was the son of Zeus and shared his immortality after CastorM-bM-^@M-^Ys death. Usually Zeus as a swan is said to have seduced Leda, who brought forth two eggs, one containing Helen and the other Castor and Pollux. The twins rescued Helen from Theseus and went with the Argonauts. Castor and Pollux are associated with the zodiacal sign Gemini, and sometimes with the morning and evening stars.
Dis (Icelandic) Sister; in Norse myths an attendant spirit or constant companion. Possibly the astral double of a living entity for when oneM-bM-^@M-^Ys dis is absent, it presages death. Another companion entity, superior to the dis, is the hamingja, the higher self or guardian angel which protects and encourages the evolving soul, making the human monad in effect an asmegir M-bM-^@M-^T a god-maker or potential ase.
dispatch ::: v. t. --> To dispose of speedily, as business; to execute quickly; to make a speedy end of; to finish; to perform.
To rid; to free.
To get rid of by sending off; to send away hastily.
To send off or away; -- particularly applied to sending off messengers, messages, letters, etc., on special business, and implying haste.
To send out of the world; to put to death.
Docetae [Latin from Greek dokein to seem] Illusionists; applied to certain Gnostics, regarded by the early Christian Church as heretics, who taught that the death of Christ was an illusion, some saying that he did not have a body of real matter but only an apparent body, and others explaining their belief in similar ways. The Gnostic teaching is that the Christ is the nous or Son of the spirit, overshadowing all mankind, his death being symbolic of its voluntary entrance into the murky mists of the body. Some of these Gnostics would seem to have been trying to achieve an accommodation with the creed of the then growing Christian Church, which had transformed this mystical crucifixion into a literal and historical death of Jesus.
doomsday ::: n. --> A day of sentence or condemnation; day of death.
The day of the final judgment.
doom ::: v. t. --> Judgment; judicial sentence; penal decree; condemnation.
That to which one is doomed or sentenced; destiny or fate, esp. unhappy destiny; penalty.
Ruin; death.
Discriminating opinion or judgment; discrimination; discernment; decision.
To judge; to estimate or determine as a judge.
To pronounce sentence or judgment on; to condemn; to
Doppelganger (German) Double-goer; usually, a species of real phantom, seen before, after, or at the time of the death of an individual, and serving as a notification or warning of the death. In some cases the double seen is that of the seer himself, though this is not the true doppelganger. The doppelganger is most often the mayavi-rupa which can be seen at even immense distances from the individual whose presentation it is, yet the term doppelganger can likewise incorrectly be applied to the very occasional projections of the astral body which, however, can at no time wander far from its physical frame. The true doppelganger or mayavi-rupa, whether seen or unseen, falls into two classes, without counting the rare cases involving the linga-sarira mentioned above: the mayavi-rupa projected by hpho-wa, by will and with the consciousness of the ego; and the occasional automatic or involuntary projections of the mayavi-rupa due to intense concentration of the mind upon something or someone.
dower ::: n. --> That with which one is gifted or endowed; endowment; gift.
The property with which a woman is endowed
That which a woman brings to a husband in marriage; dowry.
That portion of the real estate of a man which his widow enjoys during her life, or to which a woman is entitled after the death of her husband.
Dumah (Hebrew) DM-EM-+mM-DM-^Ah The land of silence, the regions of the dead; in the Qabbalah used for the Angel of Silence or of Death. It has somewhat the same significance as the Greek Hades; another term for the same astral regions is SheM-bM-^@M-^Yol.
Dwarf of Death. See DAINN
Dweller on the Threshold ::: A literary invention of the English mystic and novelist Sir Bulwer Lytton, found in his romance Zanoni.The term has obtained wide currency and usage in theosophical circles. In occultism the word "dweller,"or some exactly equivalent phrase or expression, has been known and used during long ages past. Itrefers to several things, but more particularly has an application to what H. P. Blavatsky calls "certainmaleficent astral Doubles of defunct persons." This is exact. But there is another meaning of this phrasestill more mystical and still more difficult to explain which refers to the imbodied karmic consequencesor results of the man's past, haunting the thresholds which the initiant or initiate must pass before he canadvance or progress into a higher degree of initiation. These dwellers, in the significance of the word justlast referred to are, as it were, the imbodied quasi-human astral haunting parts of the constitution thrownoff in past incarnations by the man who now has to face them and overcome them -- very real and livingbeings, parts of the "new" man's haunting past. The initiant must face these old "selves" of himself andconquer or -- fail, which failure may mean either insanity or death. They are verily ghosts of the deadmen that the present man formerly was, now arising to dog his footsteps, and hence are very truly calledDwellers on the Threshold. In a specific sense they may be truly called the kama-rupas of the man's pastincarnations arising out of the records in the astral light left there by the "old" man of the "new" man whonow is.
dyingly ::: adv. --> In a dying manner; as if at the point of death.
dying ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Die ::: a. --> In the act of dying; destined to death; mortal; perishable; as, dying bodies.
Of or pertaining to dying or death; as, dying bed; dying day; dying words; also, simulating a dying state.
Dysteleology: (Gr. dus, bad; telos, end or purpose) The term for the forbidding and frustrating aspects of life (such as unfavorable environmental factors, organic maladaptations, the struggle for existence, disease, death, etc.) which make difficult, if not impossible, the theory that there are good purposes predominantly at work in the world. -- V.F.
Dysteleology: The term for the forbidding and frustrating aspects of life (such as unfavorable environmental factors, organic maladaptations, the struggle for existence, disease, death, etc.) which make difficult, if not impossible, the theory that there are good purposes predominantly at work in the world.
eat flaming death "humour, abuse" A construction popularised among hackers by the infamous {CPU Wars} comic; supposedly derive from a famously turgid line in a WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran "Eat flaming death, non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort (however, it is also reported that the Firesign Theater's 1975 album "In The Next World, You're On Your Own" included the phrase "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs"; this may have been an influence). Used in humorously overblown expressions of hostility. "Eat flaming death, {EBCDIC} users!" [{Jargon File}] (2006-12-12)
echinococcus ::: n. --> A parasite of man and of many domestic and wild animals, forming compound cysts or tumors (called hydatid cysts) in various organs, but especially in the liver and lungs, which often cause death. It is the larval stage of the Taenia echinococcus, a small tapeworm peculiar to the dog.
Eidolon [from Greek eidolon form, shape; a phantom-double of the human form; Latin simulacrum] The astral double of living beings; the shade or perisprit, the kama-rupa after death before its disintegration. The phantom which can appear under certain conditions to survivors of the deceased.
Eidolon(Greek; plural eidola) ::: A word meaning "image" of the man that was. After death there remains in theastral world -- which is on the other side of the threshold of physical life, the etheric world -- the"shadow" of the man that was. The ancients called these human shadows, shades; modern children andnursemaids call them ghosts and spooks; and each such shade is but an eidolon, or astral image or palecopy of the physical man that was. This eidolon coheres for a while in the astral realms or in thesuperphysical ether, and its particles are magnetically held more or less coherent as long as the physicalcorpse is not fully dissolved into its component elements; but these eidola in a comparatively short timefade out, for they decay in a manner closely resembling the disintegration of the physical body.
Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death ::: A term used in the more esoteric or inner part of the teachings about which little can be said, for over thispart of the doctrine there has always been drawn a thick veil of secrecy and silence.Frequently the term is confused with avichi, but this is incorrect, because the two, while closelyconnected, are nevertheless quite distinct. While avichi is a state where very evil human beings "die andare reborn without interruption," yet not without hope of final redemption -- something which canactually take place even on our physical plane in the cases of very evil or soulless men -- the EighthSphere represents a degree of psychomental degeneration still more advanced. As just hinted, even inavichi there is a possibility of reinsoulment by the ray of the spiritual monad; whereas in the EighthSphere or Planet of Death such possibility finally vanishes, and the entity which has sunk to the Planet ofDeath is what is technically called in the esoteric philosophy a "lost soul." In the Eighth Sphere the lostsouls are ground over and over in nature's laboratory, and are finally dissipated into their componentpsycho-astral elements or life-atoms. The Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death is an actual globe. It is also ofcourse a state or condition of being; whereas the avichi is almost exclusively a state or condition in whichan entity may find itself, although obviously this entity must have position or place and therefore localityin space -- on our earth or elsewhere.
Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death Both a globe and a condition of being, where utterly, irredeemably corrupt human souls are attracted, to be dissipated as earth entities. These M-bM-^@M-^\lost soulsM-bM-^@M-^] have through lifetimes lost their link with their inner god, and so can no longer serve as a channel for those spiritual forces. Too gross to remain in kama-loka or avichi, they sink to this slowly dying planet of our solar system, invisible because too dense, which acts as a vent or receptacle for human waste. M-bM-^@M-^\The Eighth Sphere is a very necessary organic part of the destiny of our earth and its chain. . . . in the solar system there are certain bodies which act as vents, cleansing channels, receptacles for human waste and slag. . . . [the lost soul] therefore sinks into the Planet of Death or the globe of Mara to which its own heavy material magnetism drags it, where it is dissipated as an entity from above, which means from our globe, and is slowly ground over in natureM-bM-^@M-^Ys laboratory. . . . However, precisely because the lost soul is yet an aggregate of astral-vital-psychical life-atoms connected around a monad as yet scarcely evolved, this monad, when freed from its earth veil of life atoms, thereupon begins in the Planet of Death a career of its own in this highly material globe.M-bM-^@M-^] (FSO 347-8)
electrocute ::: v. t. --> To execute or put to death by electricity. -- E*lec`tro*cu"tion, n. [Recent; Newspaper words]
Elementaries The earth-bound disimbodied human souls of people who were evil or depraved when imbodied: the conscious or quasi-conscious astral souls of people who on earth refused all spiritual light, remained and died deeply immersed in the mire of matter, and from whose souls or intermediate, personal nature the immortal spirit has gradually separated. These may exist for centuries before completely dissolving. Blavatsky writes of the spiritual death leading to this condition: M-bM-^@M-^\When one falls into a love of self and love of the world, with its pleasures, losing the divine love of God and of the neighbor, he falls from life to death. The higher principles which constitute the essential elements of his humanity perish, and he lives only on the natural plane of his faculties. Physically he exists, spiritually he is dead. . . . This spiritual death results from disobedience of the laws of spiritual life, which is followed by the same penalty as the disobedience of the laws of natural life. But the spiritually dead have still their delights; they have their intellectual endowments and power, and intense activities. All the animal delights are theirs, and to multitudes of men and women these constitute the highest ideal of human happiness. The tireless pursuit of riches, of the amusements and entertainments of social life; the cultivation of graces of manner, of taste in dress, of social preferment, of scientific distinction, intoxicate and enrapture these dead-alive . . .M-bM-^@M-^] (IU 1:318).
Eleusinian mysteries: The oldest of all Greek mysteries, known to have been performed as early as the 19th century B.C. They were held in the vicinity of Eleusia, near Athens. They honored the mother-goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone who was abducted by Hades into the underworld and later was restored to Demeter by Zeus for eight months in each year. Thus, the rites seem to have originated as agrarian ceremonies to insure divine help for the fertility and productivity of the soil, Demeter symbolizing the earth and Persephone the seed. Later, the rites took on an occult significance, were ascribed the power to insure happiness in the world after death, and the power to give the initiate true enlightenment and understanding in this life and on the next plane of existence.
elysian ::: a. --> Pertaining, or the abode of the blessed after death; hence, yielding the highest pleasures; exceedingly delightful; beatific.
Elysian Fields, Elysium (Greek) Originally in Greek mythology, beautiful meadows or plains, or islands of the blest, located in the far west by the banks of Ocean. There certain heroes of the fourth race who never experienced death were said to dwell in perfect happiness ruled by Rhadamanthus. The titans after being reconciled with Zeus also lived there under the rule of Kronos. Pindar holds that all who have passed blamelessly through life three times live there in bliss. Later, Elysium was located in the underworld as the abode of those whom the judges of the dead found worthy. The river Lethe (forgetfulness) flowed by the Elysian Fields. See also AANROO; DEVACHAN; HADES
Elysian Fields; Elysium: In classical mythology, the place in the underworld which was the abode of the souls of the righteous after their death.
Elysian ::: Of the nature of, or resembling, what is in Elysium the dwelling place of the blessed after death, a state or place of ideal happiness, perfect bliss.
elysian ::: of the nature of, or resembling, what is in Elysium the dwelling place of the blessed after death, a state or place of ideal happiness, perfect bliss.
elysium ::: n. --> A dwelling place assigned to happy souls after death; the seat of future happiness; Paradise.
Hence, any delightful place.
empalement ::: n. --> A fencing, inclosing, or fortifying with stakes.
A putting to death by thrusting a sharpened stake through the body.
Same as Impalement.
empale ::: v. t. --> To make pale.
To fence or fortify with stakes; to surround with a line of stakes for defense; to impale.
To inclose; to surround. See Impale.
To put to death by thrusting a sharpened stake through the body.
Same as Impale.
ending ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of End ::: n. --> Termination; concluding part; result; conclusion; destruction; death.
The final syllable or letter of a word; the part joined to the stem. See 3d Case, 5.
Engels, Frederick: Co-founder of the doctrines of Marxism (see Dialectical materialism) Engels was the life-long friend and collaborator of Karl Marx (q.v.). He was born at Barmen, Germanv, in 1820, the son of a manufacturer. Like Marx, he became interested in communism early in life, developing and applying its doctrines until his death, August 5, 1895. Beside his collaboration with Marx on Die Heilige Familie, Die Deutsche Ideologie, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Anti-DM-CM-
Equivalent to the astral light, and the source and synthesis of the two aspects of the manifested astro-etheric light: the one being the light- and life-giving (M-bM-^@M-^Yod) and the other the matter side (M-bM-^@M-^Yob), the dealer of death.
Eschatology: (Gr. ta eschata, death) That part of systematic or dogmatic theology dealing with the last things, namely, death, judgment, heaven and hell, and also with the end of the world. Also applied by philosophers to the complexus of theories relating to the ultimate end of mankind and the final stages of the physical cosmos. -- J.J.R.
eschatology ::: n. --> The doctrine of the last or final things, as death, judgment, and the events therewith connected.
Eschatology: That part of systematic or dogmatic theology dealing with the last things, namely, death, judgment, heaven and hell, and also with the end of the world. Also applied by philosophers to the complexus of theories relating to the ultimate end of mankind and the final stages of the physical cosmos.
estate ::: n. --> Settled condition or form of existence; state; condition or circumstances of life or of any person; situation.
Social standing or rank; quality; dignity.
A person of high rank.
A property which a person possesses; a fortune; possessions, esp. property in land; also, property of all kinds which a person leaves to be divided at his death.
The state; the general body politic; the common-wealth; the
eternity ::: n. --> Infinite duration, without beginning in the past or end in the future; also, duration without end in the future; endless time.
Condition which begins at death; immortality.
Etheric double: In occult terminology, the invisible vehicle of the soul, the manifestation of physical vitality; it is constant and does not change throughout the cycles of life and death, but it is not eternal, for it is eventually re-absorbed into the elements of which it is composed. It is considered the invisible part of the physical body, extending slightly beyond the latter and able to combine with other subtle substance. Also called vital body or, in Sanskrit, lingasharira.
eucharist ::: n. --> The act of giving thanks; thanksgiving.
The sacrament of the Lord&
Eurydice (Greek) She of wide power and justice; the beloved companion of Orpheus. After her untimely death, he gained access to the underworld in order to lead her back to earth, only to lose her again.
Euthanasia [from Greek eu well +thanatos death] Easy death, a painless death; used for the practice of mercifully killing people who would otherwise suffer a painful death. To decide if a person should or should not be kept alive by artificial means or a life ended by artificial means requires almost superhuman discernment. An individual is not his body nor even his mind, but fundamentally a spiritual being. Physical suffering from bodily ills, however unpleasant, provides an opportunity to meet and dispose of certain karmic causes, and thereby learn and grow. Aside from the difficulty of preventing abuses in legalized euthanasia, the ethical and spiritual questions surrounding artificial prolongation and shortening of life remain extremely complex. The Stoics held that life is a gift of the gods and therefore no person has the right to reject that gift M-bM-^@M-^T for oneself or another M-bM-^@M-^T until the gods themselves call it back.
euthanasia ::: n. --> An easy death; a mode of dying to be desired.
::: "Even Science believes that one day death may be conquered by physical means and its reasonings are perfectly sound. There is no reason why the supramental Force should not do it. Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
Every true Mason is in search of the Lost Word, the secret knowledge or gupta-vidya, yet the lost secrets of the Royal Art can never be communicated to, because they cannot be comprehended by, one who does not recognize and in degree at least realize his own inner divinity, the immanent christos or buddha within, which is his true self; i.e., through initiation become, actually and in fact, a Christos, an Osiris, a Hiram Abif. Every degree of initiation into the Mysteries has its secrets, its Word, its sacred formula, which may be communicated only to those who, according to Masonic ritual M-bM-^@M-^\are duly and truly prepared, worthy and well qualified,M-bM-^@M-^] else the penalty is death to the one so revealing the Word or secrets.
Evocation [from Latin evocare to call forth] The calling forth of simulacra of the departed by magical processes; or the calling forth of the daemons or nature spirits of various classes by will directed by knowledge. The spiritual aspects of human beings cannot, however, be called forth, except in rare instances immediately after death, which in this case means black magic; and even so, these disimbodied spirits do not actually come, but cause their simulacrum to be formed, or send a messenger. The attempt thus to evoke the departed is a wrongful interference with the courses of nature and detrimental to the welfare of the departing egos. It is much easier and more common to evoke spooks from kama-loka, or denizens of the lower astral light; and the appearances thus created are often of a composite nature, to which the medium and sitters, whether knowingly or not, contribute. This must necessarily be the case where there is actual materialization. Such practices come under the general heading of necromancy.
executioner ::: n. --> One who executes; an executer.
One who puts to death in conformity to legal warrant, as a hangman.
execution ::: n. --> The act of executing; a carrying into effect or to completion; performance; achievement; consummation; as, the execution of a plan, a work, etc.
A putting to death as a legal penalty; death lawfully inflicted; as, the execution of a murderer.
The act of the mode of performing a work of art, of performing on an instrument, of engraving, etc.; as, the execution of a statue, painting, or piece of music.
exit ::: --> He (or she ) goes out, or retires from view; as, exit Macbeth. ::: n. --> The departure of a player from the stage, when he has performed his part.
Any departure; the act of quitting the stage of action or of life; death; as, to make one&
expiration ::: n. --> The act of expiring
The act or process of breathing out, or forcing air from the lungs through the nose or mouth; as, respiration consists of inspiration and expiration; -- opposed to inspiration.
Emission of volatile matter; exhalation.
The last emission of breath; death.
A coming to a close; cessation; extinction; termination; end.
fatal ::: a. --> Proceeding from, or appointed by, fate or destiny; necessary; inevitable.
Foreboding death or great disaster.
Causing death or destruction; deadly; mortal; destructive; calamitous; as, a fatal wound; a fatal disease; a fatal day; a fatal error.
fatally ::: adv. --> In a manner proceeding from, or determined by, fate.
In a manner issuing in death or ruin; mortally; destructively; as, fatally deceived or wounded.
fate ::: n. --> A fixed decree by which the order of things is prescribed; the immutable law of the universe; inevitable necessity; the force by which all existence is determined and conditioned.
Appointed lot; allotted life; arranged or predetermined event; destiny; especially, the final lot; doom; ruin; death.
The element of chance in the affairs of life; the unforeseen and unestimated conitions considered as a force shaping events; fortune; esp., opposing circumstances against which it is useless to
felony ::: n. --> An act on the part of the vassal which cost him his fee by forfeiture.
An offense which occasions a total forfeiture either lands or goods, or both, at the common law, and to which capital or other punishment may be added, according to the degree of guilt.
A heinous crime; especially, a crime punishable by death or imprisonment.
Fenris, Fenrir (Scandinavian, Icelandic) The mythical Norse wolf destined to devour the sun at the end of its lifetime. Fenris is one of the three monstrous offspring of Loki, the other two being Hel, queen of the realms of death, and Iormungandr, the serpent that encircles the earth in the oceanM-bM-^@M-^Ys depths.
Fetch-lights: Mysterious luminous apparitions which the folklore interprets as indications of impending death.
Fire is the active, energic, vitalizing, quickening principle on all planes. It is often paired with water as spirit and form; contrasted with earth, as celestial and terrestrial; air is spoken of as its vehicle, as is also aether, because the root of cosmic aether is the celestial fire. The order of the elements varies, from different points of view and on different planes of manifestation. The Secret Doctrine states that from primordial chaos came forth a fire that was cold, formless, and luminous M-bM-^@M-^T essential consciousness-substance. The first manifested hot fires and flames issued at a much later stage in manifestation. Concealed within the central sun is the triple formless invisible fire, which precedes the septenary manifested fire of cosmos. Fire, whether heavenly or terrestrial, is the most perfect and pure reflection of the one universal flame; it is life and death, creator and recreator; the origin and end of every material thing M-bM-^@M-^T divine consciousness-substance. From one flame all lamps can be kindled: fire imparts infinitely without loss. Fire alone is One, on the plane of the one reality; and on the plane of illusion, its particles are fiery lives.
flame ::: M-bM-^@M-^\The true soul secret in us,M-bM-^@M-^Tsubliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil,M-bM-^@M-^Tthis veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
Florentine Academy: It was a loose and informal circle of scholars and educated persons which gathered in Florence around the Platonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino. Its activities consisted in regular lectures on Platonic philosophy as well as in informal discussions and parties. "Platonic" love or friendship was considered as the spiritual link between the members of the group which was organized and named after the model of Plato's Academy. The main documents describing it are Ficino's correspondence and a number of dialogues like Ficino's commentary on Plato's Symposion, Landino's Disputationes Camaldulenses , and Benedetto Colucci's Declamationes. Outstanding members or associates of the Academy were Cosimo, Piero, and Lorenzo de'Medici, Angelo Poliziano, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. The Academy which was first founded in 1462, dissolved after the revolution in Florence (1494) and after Ficino's death (1499), but the tradition of Platonic philosophy was continued in other private circles as well as at the universities of Florence and Pisa throughout the sixteenth century. -- P.O.K.
FOD /fod/ [Abbreviation for "Finger of Death", originally a spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice and with no regard for other people. From {MUDs} where the wizard command "FOD "player"" results in the immediate and total death of "player", usually as punishment for obnoxious behaviour. This usage migrated to other circumstances, such as "I'm going to fod the process that is burning all the cycles." Compare {gun}. In aviation, FOD means Foreign Object Damage, e.g. what happens when a jet engine sucks up a rock on the runway or a bird in flight. Finger of Death is a distressingly apt description of what this generally does to the engine. [{Jargon File}]
For the soul released from the grip of death and ignorance after travelling inM-bM-^@M-^]far-off eternitiesM-bM-^@M-^] , where, we cannot even hazard a guess, returning to earth a joyous captive of the Divine Mother, the earth appears to be nothing more than a green hillock, and yet, Satyavan livesM-bM-^@M-^]gladM-bM-^@M-^] in the moments of a sun that is transient,M-bM-^@M-^]among the busy works of men.M-bM-^@M-^]
Four also appears in the sacred key-numbers 4, 3, 2 (in this sequence): these are the basic numbers used in esoteric computations, and hence they form the numerical structure of the time periods of the four yugas of ancient India, which likewise were prominent in ancient Chaldean calculations M-bM-^@M-^T for the numerical science was the same in both lands. M-bM-^@M-^\The sacredness of the cycle of 4320, with additional cyphers, lies in the fact that the figures which compose it, taken separately or joined in various combinations, are each and all symbolical of the greatest mysteries in Nature. Indeed, whether one takes the 4 separately, or the 3 by itself, or the two together making 7, or again the three [4, 3, 2] added together and yielding 9, all these numbers have their application in the most sacred and occult things, and record the workings of Nature in her eternally periodical phenomena. They are never erring, perpetually recurring numbers, unveiling, to him who studies the secrets of Nature, a truly divine System, an intelligent plan in Cosmogony, which results in natural cosmic divisions of times, seasons, invisible influences, astronomical phenomena, with their action and reaction on terrestrial and even moral nature; on birth, death, and growth, on health and disease. All these natural events are based and depend upon cyclical processes in the Kosmos itself, producing periodic agencies which, acting from without, affect the Earth and all that lives and breathes on it, from one end to the other of any Manvantara. Causes and effects are esoteric, exoteric, and endexoteric, so to sayM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:73-4).
Four branches of astrology are now chiefly studied: 1) mundane, applying to meteorology, seismology, husbandry, etc.; 2) state or civic, regarding the future of nations and rulers; 3) horary, solving doubts arising on any subject; and 4) genethliacal, concerned with the future of individuals from birth to death.
freeware "legal" {Software}, often written by enthusiasts and distributed at no charge by users' groups, or via the {web}, {electronic mail}, {bulletin boards}, {Usenet}, or other electronic media. At one time, "freeware" was a trademark of {Andrew Fluegelman}. It wasn't enforced after his death. "Freeware" should not be confused with "{free software}" (roughly, software with unrestricted redistribution) or "{shareware}" (software distributed without charge for which users can pay voluntarily). {Jim Knopf's story (http://freewarehof.org/sstory.html)}. [{Jargon File}] (2003-07-26)
Gaia, Gaea, Ge (Greek) [cf Latin Tellus, Terra earth] One of the older gods, described as the first being that sprang from Chaos and as giving birth to Uranos (heaven) and Pontos (sea); yet it was by Uranos that Gaia gave birth to the titans, cyclopes, and hecatoncheires. This apparent anomaly is due partly to the variable meaning of the word earth, which may mean either primordial matter in process of formation, or the earth as already formed. Gaia is thus in one sense equivalent to Aditi or the great cosmic deep. With Chaos and Eros, Gaia forms the primeval trinity. Gaia is represented by its initial, gamma, which is also the third letter in the Greek alphabet and thus indicates the third stage of cosmic evolution. As the primordial mother, she was worshiped as the nourisher of all things, also as the goddess of death to whom all must return.
gasping ::: struggling for breath with open mouth; breathing convulsively, esp. at the point of death.
Gautama Buddha: (Skr. Gautama, a patronymic, meaning of the tribe of Gotama; Buddha, the enlightened one) The founder of Buddhism. born about 563 B.C. into a royal house at Kapilavastu. As Prince Siddhartha (Siddhattha) he had all worldly goods and pleasures at his disposal, married, had a son, but was so stirred by sights of disease, old age, and death glimpsed on stolen drives through the city that he renounced all when but 29 years of age, became a mendicant, sought instruction in reaching an existence free from these evils and tortures, fruitlessly however, till at the end of seven years of search while sitting under the Bodhi-tree, he became the Buddha, the Awakened One, and attained the true insight. Much that is legendary and reminds one of the Christian mythos surrounds Buddha's life as retold in an extensive literature which also knows of his former and future existences. Mara, the Evil One, tempted Buddha to enter nirvana (s.v.) directly, withholding thus knowledge of the path of salvation from the world; but the Buddha was firm and taught the rightful path without venturing too far into metaphysics, setting all the while an example of a pure and holy life devoted to the alleviation of suffering. At the age of 80, having been offered and thus compelled to partake of pork, he fell ill and in dying attained nirvana. -- K.F.L.
GCOS "operating system" /jee'kohs/ An {operating system} developed by {General Electric} from 1962; originally called GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System). The GECOS-II operating system was developed by {General Electric} for the 36-bit {GE-635} in 1962-1964. Contrary to rumour, GECOS was not cloned from {System/360} [{DOS/360}?] - the GE-635 architecture was very different from the {IBM 360} and GECOS was more ambitious than DOS/360. GE Information Service Divsion developed a large special multi-computer system that was not publicised because they did not wish {time sharing} customers to challenge their bills. Although GE ISD was marketing {DTSS} - the first commercial time sharing system - GE Computer Division had no license from Dartmouth and GE-ISD to market it to external customers, so they designed a time-sharing system to sell as a standard part of GECOS-III, which replaced GECOS-II in 1967. GECOS TSS was more general purpose than DTSS, it was more a programmer's tool (program editing, e-mail on a single system) than a BASIC TSS. The {GE-645}, a modified 635 built by the same people, was selected by {MIT} and {Bell} for the {Multics} project. Multics' infancy was as painful as any infancy. Bell pulled out in 1969 and later produced {Unix}. After the buy-out of GE's computer division by {Honeywell}, GECOS-III was renamed GCOS-3 (General Comprehensive Operating System). Other OS groups at Honeywell began referring to it as "God's Chosen Operating System", allegedly in reaction to the GCOS crowd's uninformed and snotty attitude about the superiority of their product. [Can anyone confirm this?] GCOS won and this led in the orphaning and eventual death of Honeywell {Multics}. Honeywell also decided to launch a new product line called Level64, and later DPS-7. It was decided to mainatin, at least temporarily, the 36-bit machine as top of the line, because GCOS-3 was so successfull in the 1970s. The plan in 1972-1973 was that GCOS-3 and Multics should converge. This plan was killed by Honeywell management in 1973 for lack of resources and the inability of Multics, lacking {databases} and {transaction processing}, to act as a business operating system without a substantial reinvestment. The name "GCOS" was extended to all Honeywell-marketed product lines and GCOS-64, a completely different 32-bit operating system, significanctly inspired by Multics, was designed in France and Boston. GCOS-62, another different 32-bit low-end DOS level was designed in Italy. GCOS-61 represented a new version of a small system made in France and the new {DPS-6} 16-bit {minicomputer} line got GCOS-6. When the intended merge between GCOS-3 and Multics failed, the Phoenix designers had in mind a big upgrade of the architecture to introduce {segmentation} and {capabilities}. GCOS-3 was renamed GCOS-8, well before it started to use the new features which were introduced in next generation hardware. The GCOS licenses were sold to the Japanese companies {NEC} and {Toshiba} who developed the Honeywell products, including GCOS, much further, surpassing the {IBM 3090} and {IBM 390}. When Honeywell decided in 1984 to get its top of the range machines from NEC, they considered running Multics on them but the Multics market was considered too small. Due to the difficulty of porting the ancient Multics code they considered modifying the NEC hardware to support the Multics compilers. GCOS3 featured a good {Codasyl} {database} called IDS (Integrated Data Store) that was the model for the more successful {IDMS}. Several versions of transaction processing were designed for GCOS-3 and GCOS-8. An early attempt at TP for GCOS-3, not taken up in Europe, assumed that, as in {Unix}, a new process should be started to handle each transaction. IBM customers required a more efficient model where multiplexed {threads} wait for messages and can share resources. Those features were implemented as subsystems. GCOS-3 soon acquired a proper {TP monitor} called Transaction Driven System (TDS). TDS was essentially a Honeywell development. It later evolved into TP8 on GCOS-8. TDS and its developments were commercially successful and predated IBM {CICS}, which had a very similar architecture. GCOS-6 and GCOS-4 (ex-GCOS-62) were superseded by {Motorola 68000}-based {minicomputers} running {Unix} and the product lines were discontinued. In the late 1980s Bull took over Honeywell and Bull's management chose Unix, probably with the intent to move out of hardware into {middleware}. Bull killed the Boston proposal to port Multics to a platform derived from DPS-6. Very few customers rushed to convert from GCOS to Unix and new machines (of CMOS technology) were still to be introduced in 1997 with GCOS-8. GCOS played a major role in keeping Honeywell a dismal also-ran in the {mainframe} market. Some early Unix systems at {Bell Labs} used GCOS machines for print spooling and various other services. The field added to "/etc/passwd" to carry GCOS ID information was called the "{GECOS field}" and survives today as the "pw_gecos" member used for the user's full name and other human-ID information. [{Jargon File}] (1998-04-23)
Gehenna: The word is derived from the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, where the ancient Israelites sacrificed children to the god Moloch; in later times, the valley was regarded as a place of refuse, where fires were kept continually burning to prevent pestilence. The name Gehenna was adopted for the M-bM-^@M-^\bottomless pitM-bM-^@M-^] of eternal fire where the wicked are thrust after death and punished and tormented forever.
ghost ::: n. --> The spirit; the soul of man.
The disembodied soul; the soul or spirit of a deceased person; a spirit appearing after death; an apparition; a specter.
Any faint shadowy semblance; an unsubstantial image; a phantom; a glimmering; as, not a ghost of a chance; the ghost of an idea.
A false image formed in a telescope by reflection from the surfaces of one or more lenses.
Ghost The occasional apparitions of deceased persons M-bM-^@M-^T but in no instances whatsoever of the spirits of the dead M-bM-^@M-^T or invisible astral entities producing various psychic phenomena. This age-old belief is consistent with the breaking up of composite human nature into its component parts at death. As the astral model-body, when freed from its familiar physical duplicate, is still magnetically attached to the body, it is sometimes seen haunting the new grave for a short time. Soon the atoms of this shadowy form begin to dissipate. But the more ethereal and enduring astral atoms cohere in the kama-rupic body of the deceased personM-bM-^@M-^Ys lower mental, emotional, and psychic nature. These imbodied lower passions and desires become in connection with their astral automatic vehicle an earth-bound entity when they are separated from the reimbodying ego at the second death in the purgatorial astral underworld. These so-called spooks are what the Roman writers named umbrae or larvae of the dead; earlier, the Greeks spoke of these human reliquiae as eidola M-bM-^@M-^T the astral M-bM-^@M-^\imagesM-bM-^@M-^] of the dead. The ancients were well informed regarding the shades or shells which were cast off by the purified inner self when it ascended from kama-loka to its devachan in higher spheres.
go flatline [{Cyberpunk} SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces upon brain-death] also "flatlined". 1. To {die}, terminate, or fail, especially irreversibly. In hacker parlance, this is used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat too serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about. 2. To go completely quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown. "You can suffer file damage if you shut down Unix but power off before the system has gone flatline." 3. Of a video tube, to fail by losing vertical scan, so all one sees is a bright horizontal line bisecting the screen. [{Jargon File}]
Good Friday and Easter Sunday are a borrowing from the ancient Mysteries M-bM-^@M-^T the mystic death and resurrection of the unconquered sun, exemplified by the mystic death and resurrection of the successful neophyte. This celebration is likewise connected with the winter solstice; the wish of the church authorities to accommodate themselves both to Roman and Jewish customs has caused the festival to be split, so that the birth now is celebrated in winter and the death and the resurrection in spring, whereas birth and resurrection are two words for the same mystic truth.
gospel ::: v. --> Glad tidings; especially, the good news concerning Christ, the Kingdom of God, and salvation.
One of the four narratives of the life and death of Jesus Christ, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
A selection from one of the gospels, for use in a religious service; as, the gospel for the day.
Any system of religious doctrine; sometimes, any system of political doctrine or social philosophy; as, this political gospel.
Great change: Since all occult philosophies believe in survival after the death of the physical body, and hence according to them there is really no death, physical death is usually referred to as the great change or the transition.
Great Circle of Necessity: The Orphic term for the Wheel of Life, the alternations of life and death, of imprisonment in a physical body and freedom.
Grhya-sutras: The M-bM-^@M-^\House BooksM-bM-^@M-^] of Hinduism, teaching and expounding the rites for the critical points of life, from birth to death, and the family sacrifices.
grief ::: 1. Deep or intense sorrow or distress, esp. at the death of someone. 2. Something that causes great unhappiness. grief"s, griefs, griefless.
haematozoon ::: n. --> A parasite inhabiting the blood
Certain species of nematodes of the genus Filaria, sometimes found in the blood of man, the horse, the dog, etc.
The trematode, Bilharzia haematobia, which infests the inhabitants of Egypt and other parts of Africa, often causing death.
hanging ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Hang ::: a. --> Requiring, deserving, or foreboding death by the halter.
Suspended from above; pendent; as, hanging shelves.
Adapted for sustaining a hanging object; as, the hanging post of a gate, the post which holds the hinges.
Hap among the ancient Egyptians was considered to have two existences, the celestial and the earthly, and in a sense was in Egypt what the river Jordan, both mystical and earthly, became to the Jews and Christians. Again, it is both the river of life and the river of death, crossed at the beginning of the peregrinations undertaken by the deceased.
Harvest festivals: Festival held at harvest time, originating from ancient commemorations of the annual death of grain and vegetation, when the Earth Mother or her child withdraws into the underworld and fertility and growth are suspended on the earth.
hatchment ::: n. --> A sort of panel, upon which the arms of a deceased person are temporarily displayed, -- usually on the walls of his dwelling. It is lozenge-shaped or square, but is hung cornerwise. It is used in England as a means of giving public notification of the death of the deceased, his or her rank, whether married, widower, widow, etc. Called also achievement.
A sword or other mark of the profession of arms; in general, a mark of dignity.
Heaven and Hell ::: Every ancient exoteric religion taught that the so-called heavens are divided into steps or grades ofascending bliss and purity; and the so-called hells into steps or grades of increasing purgation orsuffering. Now the esoteric doctrine or occultism teaches that the one is not a punishment, nor is theother strictly speaking a reward. The teaching is, simply, that each entity after physical death is drawn tothe appropriate sphere to which the karmic destiny of the entity and the entity's own character andimpulses magnetically attract it. As a man works, as a man sows, in his life, that and that only shall hereap after death. Good seed produces good fruit; bad seed, tares -- and perhaps even nothing of value orof spiritual use follows a negative and colorless life.After the second death, the human monad "goes" to devachan -- often called in theosophical literature theheaven-world. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. Whatbecomes of the entity, on the other hand, the lower human soul, that is so befouled and weighted withearth thought and the lower instincts that it cannot rise? There may be enough in it of the spirit nature tohold it together as an entity and enable it to become a reincarnating being, but it is foul, it is heavy; itstendency is consequently downwards. Can it therefore rise into a heavenly felicity? Can it go even intothe lower realms of devachan and there enjoy its modicum of the beatitude, bliss, of everything that isnoble and beautiful? No. There is an appropriate sphere for every degree of development of the ego-soul,and it gravitates to that sphere and remains there until it is thoroughly purged, until the sin has beenwashed out, so to say. These are the so-called hells, beneath even the lowest ranges of devachan; whereasthe arupa heavens are the highest parts of the devachan. Nirvana is a very different thing from theheavens. (See also Kama-Loka, Avichi, Devachan, Nirvana)
Heaven and hell may denote states of consciousness experienced in daily life on earth. A rough division of cosmic spheres makes heaven the highest, hell or Tartarus the lowest, with the earth beneath heaven, and the underworld beneath it and preceding Tartarus. The crystalline spheres of medieval astronomy are called heavens surrounding the earth concentrically. Far from being adjudicated by a deity to happiness or torment, after death a person goes to that region to which he is attracted by the affinities which he has set up during his life. Thus theosophy teaches the existence of almost endless and widely varying spheres or regions, all inhabited by peregrinating entities; and of these regions the higher can be dubbed the heavens and the lowest the hells, and the intermediate can be called the regions of experiences and purgation. All spheres possessing sufficient materialized substance to be called imbodied spheres are hells by contrast with the ethereal and spiritual globes of the heavens. Therefore in a sense and on a smaller scale, the lower globes of a planetary chain may be called hells, and the higher globes of the chain, by contrast, heavens.
heaven ::: n. --> The expanse of space surrounding the earth; esp., that which seems to be over the earth like a great arch or dome; the firmament; the sky; the place where the sun, moon, and stars appear; -- often used in the plural in this sense.
The dwelling place of the Deity; the abode of bliss; the place or state of the blessed after death.
The sovereign of heaven; God; also, the assembly of the blessed, collectively; -- used variously in this sense, as in No. 2.
He felt a sap of life, a sap of death;
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Born at Stuttgart in 1770 and died at Berlin in 1831. He studied theology, philosophy and the classics at TM-CM-
heir ::: n. --> One who inherits, or is entitled to succeed to the possession of, any property after the death of its owner; one on whom the law bestows the title or property of another at the death of the latter.
One who receives any endowment from an ancestor or relation; as, the heir of one&
Helheim, Helhem (Icelandic, Swedish) HelM-bM-^@M-^Ys home; in the Norse Eddas the domain of Hel, ruler of the realm of death. Hel or Hela, daughter of Loki, governs the lands where souls spend the time intervening between lives in the M-bM-^@M-^\victory worlds.M-bM-^@M-^] The realms of death vary from beautiful, peaceful meadows of delight to cages woven of venomous serpents where the occupants undergo acute suffering. The lowest of these hells contain rivers of venom in which oath-brakers and adulterers must wade.
Hel (Icelandic) [from helju hell, death] The mythical regent of the Norse realm of the dead, depicted as half black or blue and half flesh-colored. In myths the representative of death is usually said to be a child of mind: in the Edda she is the daughter of Loki (fire of mind) and of the giantess Angerboda (boder of regret). She rules the nine worlds of death which correspond to the nine worlds of life, and apportions to each arrival a domicile appropriate to that soulM-bM-^@M-^Ys merit or demerit. Some may frolic in sunlit meadows, others suffer agony beneath the lower gates leading to Niflhel [from nifl cloud + hel death] where matter is ground to extinction. The realm of Hel with its varied accommodations resembles the Greek Hades more than the hell of popular belief where evil souls are sent for punishment. Rather, the kingdom of death is a restful interlude where souls spend a fitting time in their rightful environment. The Eddas relate that elves (human souls) sleep among the gods when they are feasting on the mead of a past period of life (experience); thus the resting souls are present in the divine spheres even through unconscious of their surroundings.
hell ::: the abode of condemned souls and devils in some religions; the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death. hell"s, hells.
hell ::: v. t. --> The place of the dead, or of souls after death; the grave; -- called in Hebrew sheol, and by the Greeks hades.
The place or state of punishment for the wicked after death; the abode of evil spirits. Hence, any mental torment; anguish.
A place where outcast persons or things are gathered
A dungeon or prison; also, in certain running games, a place to which those who are caught are carried for detention.
A gambling house.
Hera (Greek) Olympian divinity, sister and consort of Zeus, counterpart of the Roman Juno. According to the Homeric poems she was accorded the same honors by the other divinities as Zeus himself, who counseled with her and also shared with her secret things unknown to the other gods. She is represented as Queen of Heaven only at a later date. Like Zeus she had the power to confer the gift of prophecy. Mother of Ares, Hephaistos, and Hebe, she was the goddess of marriage and birth, patron divinity of woman from birth to death, and of domestic duties. Sanctuaries for the worship of Hera existed in many parts of Greece, the principal center being Argos.
heriot ::: n. --> Formerly, a payment or tribute of arms or military accouterments, or the best beast, or chattel, due to the lord on the death of a tenant; in modern use, a customary tribute of goods or chattels to the lord of the fee, paid on the decease of a tenant.
Hermod (Icelandic) [from her host, army + mod might, courage] A son of Odin in Norse mythology, equivalent to Hermes or Mercury, messenger of the gods. Best known for his memorable journey to the kingdom of Hel on behalf of the gods, when he was sent to entreat the queen of death to give up the sun god Balder whose death at the hands of his blind brother Hoder had been brought about by Loki (in some versions Odin himself undertakes the errand).
hero ::: n. --> An illustrious man, supposed to be exalted, after death, to a place among the gods; a demigod, as Hercules.
A man of distinguished valor or enterprise in danger, or fortitude in suffering; a prominent or central personage in any remarkable action or event; hence, a great or illustrious person.
The principal personage in a poem, story, and the like, or the person who has the principal share in the transactions related; as Achilles in the Iliad, Ulysses in the Odyssey, and Aeneas in the
"He who is the high and low, the saint and the sinner, the god and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the knowable, the real, the omnipresent; break all other idols. In whom there is neither past life nor future birth, nor death nor going nor coming, in whom we always have been and always will be one, Him worship; break all other idols."" The Synthesis of Yoga*
*He wishes to be taken (gathered) into a world or art, of beauty and of lasting (eternal) form, not subject to decay and death and the ugliness of the world. It is a unique use of artifice.
Higher Manas The aspect of the dual manas or human mental principle, which is attracted to buddhi or the spiritual principle, and which therefore is conditionally immortal. The lower manas is attracted to the kama or desire principle and dissolves after death as part of the kama-rupa. ( )
His word metempsychoses is given as meaning the transference of the soul from one body to another; whereas by its Greek etymology it should mean the various highly occult transformations undergone by the soul-ego after death, and preceding the process of reensoulment M-bM-^@M-^T something of larger significant content than what the word reincarnation has mainly come to mean today, as implying merely soul-reimbodiment. It is the teaching of the various successive karmic transformations and imbodiments of a monad during its evolutionary cycle M-bM-^@M-^T not only in the larger sense of cosmic destiny, but also in the smaller sense of its karmic transformations between death and the succeeding physical birth.
Holocaust ::: Madhav: M-bM-^@M-^\HolocaustM-bM-^@M-^Tthis profound sacrifice of the soul, the soul of the M-bM-^@M-^Xburdened greatM-bM-^@M-^Y, those who sacrifice their celestial status and accept to undergo the yoke of Fate and Death. Their holocaust, chosen sacrifice, is not a sacrifice imposed by their karma for they have no karma, but a self-chosen sacrifice in furtherance of GodM-bM-^@M-^Ys work.M-bM-^@M-^] Sat-Sang Talk, 25/8/91
holocaust ::: M-bM-^@M-^\The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.M-bM-^@M-^] The Mother
HOLOCAUST OF THE DIVINE. ::: The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser tnple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nafure-b^y and Nature-force, and they exist because moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was fbere M-BM-+i the possibilities of The Infinite she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow assimilate it ; avoid self-dispersion and all externalising of the consciousness.
hotchpotch ::: n. --> A mingled mass; a confused mixture; a stew of various ingredients; a hodgepodge.
A blending of property for equality of division, as when lands given in frank-marriage to one daughter were, after the death of the ancestor, blended with the lands descending to her and to her sisters from the same ancestor, and then divided in equal portions among all the daughters. In modern usage, a mixing together, or throwing into a common mass or stock, of the estate left by a person
Houen (Chinese) The lower portion of the human soul, corresponding to kama. The other human aspect is the ling, the higher ling corresponding to buddhi and the lower ling to manas (BCW 7:202). The houen after death becomes the kama-rupa or astral elementary. Chinese used to evoke houen in cases of murder to receive information on the case (BCW 7:205).
However insensible the person is of externals, he is conscious in some part of his composite nature, just as each principle of his being has its own range of awareness after death. Some people have brought back a more or less clear memory of a state of being transcending anything they had ever imagined on earth. Their first feeling is one of a delicious peace and liberation; then comes a mental clearness with majestic visions of perfect truth, and a realization of a self-existent M-bM-^@M-^\IM-bM-^@M-^] as a part of a universal whole. The spiritually-minded person may attain to an instant and complete buddhi-manasic vision of M-bM-^@M-^\things as they are.M-bM-^@M-^] Such a one, at the moment of recovery, is often vividly sensible of being aroused from a state of superior existence, but is unable to recall what it was. Again, any gleams of knowledge that do survive the transit may be misinterpreted by the brain-mind from its preconceived philosophical or religious ideas. The average person, however, brings back little if any remembrance of his experience.
Human Ego ::: The human ego is seated in that part of the human constitution which theosophists call the intermediateduad, manas-kama. The part which is attracted below and is mortal is the lower human ego. The partwhich aspires upwards towards the buddhi and ultimately joins it is the higher human ego orreincarnating ego. The dregs of the human ego after the death of the human being and after the seconddeath in the kama-loka, remain in the astral spheres as the disintegrating kama-rupa or spook.
Human Monad ::: In theosophical terminology the human monad is that part of man's constitution which is the root of thehuman ego. After death it allies itself with the upper duad, atma-buddhi, and its inclusion within thebosom of the upper duad produces the source whence issues the Reincarnating Ego at its next rebirth.The monad per se is an upper duad alone, but the attributive adjective "human" is given to it on accountof the reincarnating ego which it contains within itself after death. This last usage is rather popular andconvenient than strictly accurate.
Humors In medieval European medical thought, a fluid or juice, applied especially the four fluids M-bM-^@M-^T blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile) M-bM-^@M-^T which were thought to determine a personM-bM-^@M-^Ys health and temperament. This theory derived from classical sources. M-bM-^@M-^\These vital spirits and humors corresponded, however imperfectly, to the pranic fluids of ancient Hindu teaching M-bM-^@M-^T considered to be both ethereal essences and physical humors. From early mediaeval times up to the recent present, medicine consistently taught that normal physical health in the human body was maintained when these vital spirits and humors were operating in equilibrium, and that disease and even death were products of their malfunctioning. The archaic ages were unanimous in their agreement on these pointsM-bM-^@M-^] (FSO 556).
Hyleg: In astrology, a designation applied to a planet so located as to have influence upon the longevity of the native. It is one of the most complex and controversial subjects in the field of astrology, but now has fallen more or less in disfavor. The strongest planet that occupied one of the Aphetic places became Hyleg, and was deemed to be the Apheta, the giver of life. When it had progressed to an aspect to the place of the Anareta, the taker-away of life, the native was presumed to have run his span and death ensued.
Hyperborean [from Greek hyperboreos beyond the north wind] In Greek mythology the Hyperboreans dwelt in the inaccessible extreme north, in bliss and everlasting spring, exempt from death and old age, toil and war. Sometimes it was said that sunshine was continuous for six months, and that Phoebes (the sun) visited the region every year. The Secret Doctrine adopts this name for the continent or homeland of the second great root-race of mankind. See also ROOT-RACE, SECOND
Hypnotism ::: Derived from a Greek word hypnos, which means "sleep," and strictly speaking the word hypnotismshould be used only for those psychological-physiological phenomena in which the subject manifestingthem is in a condition closely resembling sleep. The trouble is that in any attempt to study these variouspsychological powers of the human constitution it is found that they are many and of divers kinds; butthe public, and even the technical experimenters, usually group all these psychologicalphenomena under the one word hypnotism, and therefore it is a misnomer. One of such powers, forinstance, which is well known, is called fascination. Another shows a more or less complete suspensionof the individual will and of the individual activities of him who is the sufferer from such psychologicalpower, although in other respects he may show no signs of physical sleep. Another again -- and thisperhaps is the most important of all so far as actual dangers lie -- passes under the name of suggestion, anexceedingly good name, because it describes the field of action of perhaps the most subtle and dangerousside-branch of the exercise of the general power or force emanating from the mind of the operator.The whole foundation upon which this power rests lies in the human psychological constitution; and itcan be easily and neatly expressed in a few words. It is the power emanating from one mind, which canaffect another mind and direct or misdirect the latter's course of action. This is in nine hundred andninety-nine times out of a thousand a wrong thing to do; and this fact would readily be understood byeverybody did men know, as they should, the difference between the higher and the lower nature of man,the difference between his incorruptible, death-defying individuality, his spiritual nature, on the onehand; and, on the other hand, the brain-mind and all its train of weak and fugitive thoughts.Anyone who has seen men and women in the state of hypnosis must realize not only how dangerous,how baleful and wrong it is, but also that it exemplifies the trance state perfectly. The reason is that theintermediate nature, or the psychomental apparatus, of the human being in this state has been displacedfrom its seat, in other words, is disjoined or dislocated; and there remains but the vitalized human body,with its more or less imperfect functioning of the brain cells and nervous apparatus. H. P. Blavatsky inher Theosophical Glossary writes: "It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as itinterferes with the nerve-fluid and the nerves controlling the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels."(See also Mesmerism)
Iblis or Eblis [from Arabic iblis] An evil being, in Islamic belief, of spiritual or angelic origin, often named Shaitan and generally equivalent to Satan. In the Koran he is represented as the leader of the angels who rebelled against Allah, and was therefore hurled from Paradise. Although doomed to death his sentence has been withheld until the Judgment Day. Before his fall he was called Haris or Azazel. Often regarded as the leader of the jinn, or the wicked genii who are commonly considered by Moslems to be of evil spirituality; but popular legend likewise endows them with powers, often great, not infrequently for the benefit of mankind. See also AZAZEL
iccha-mrtyu ::: the power of abandoning the body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will.
I-em-hetep or Imhetep (Egyptian) I-em-M-aM-8M-%etep Imouthis, Imouthes (Greek) Also Imhotep, Imhot-pou. He who comes in peace; the Egyptian deity presiding over medicine, especially in connection with its learning and science; a son of Ptah who, with his brother Nefer-tem, was regarded as the third member of the great triad of gods at Memphis. The Greeks equated him with Aesculapius. He was regarded as the god of study and in later times took on some of the attributes of Thoth or Tehuti as the scribe of the gods. During their life he healed menM-bM-^@M-^Ys bodies; after their death he superintended the preservation of their bodies, and was regarded as one of the protectors of the dead in the underworld. He is termed the Logos-Creator in conjunction with Kneph (SD 1:353).
"If birth is a becoming, death also is a becoming, not by any means a cessation. The body is abandoned, but the soul goes on its way, . . . .M-bM-^@M-^] Essays on the Gita
If the mind and vital and the body itself were more conscious and plastic, death would not be necessary.
Ignorance to Divine Knowledge, from darkness through half- light to Light, from death to Immortality, from suflfering to the
immature ::: a. --> Not mature; unripe; not arrived at perfection of full development; crude; unfinished; as, immature fruit; immature character; immature plans.
Premature; untimely; too early; as, an immature death.
Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted! "messaging" Since {Usenet} first got off the ground in 1980-81, it has grown exponentially, approximately doubling in size every year. On the other hand, most people feel the {signal-to-noise ratio} of {Usenet} has dropped steadily. These trends led, as far back as mid-1983, to predictions of the imminent collapse (or death) of the net. Ten years and numerous doublings later, enough of these gloomy prognostications have been confounded that the phrase "Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!" has become a running joke, hauled out any time someone grumbles about the {S/N ratio} or the huge and steadily increasing volume, or the possible loss of a key node or link, or the potential for lawsuits when ignoramuses post copyrighted material etc. [{Jargon File}] (1998-09-24)
Immortality ::: A term signifying continuous existence or being; but this understanding of the term is profoundlyillogical and contrary to nature, for there is nothing throughout nature's endless and multifarious realmsof being and existence which remains for two consecutive instants of time exactly the same.Consequently, immortality is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusory phantom of reality. When thestudent of the esoteric wisdom once realizes that continuous progress, i.e., continuous change inadvancement, is nature's fundamental procedure, he recognizes instantly that continuous remaining in anunchanging or immutable state of consciousness or being is not only impossible, but in the last analysis isthe last thing that is either desirable or comforting. Fancy continuing immortal in a state of imperfection such as we human beingsexemplify -- which is exactly what the usual acceptance of this term immortality means. The highest godin highest heaven, although seemingly immortal to us imperfect human beings, is nevertheless anevolving, growing, progressing entity in its own sublime realms or spheres, and therefore as the ages passleaves one condition or state to assume a succeeding condition or state of a nobler and higher type;precisely as the preceding condition or state had been the successor of another state before it.Continuous or unending immutability of any condition or state of an evolving entity is obviously animpossibility in nature; and when once pondered over it becomes clear that the ordinary acceptance ofimmortality involves an impossibility. All nature is an unending series of changes, which means all thehosts or multitudes of beings composing nature, for every individual unit of these hosts is growing,evolving, i.e., continuously changing, therefore never immortal. Immortality and evolution arecontradictions in terms. An evolving entity means a changing entity, signifying a continuous progresstowards better things; and evolution therefore is a succession of state of consciousness and being afteranother state of consciousness and being, and thus throughout duration. The Occidental idea of staticimmortality or even mutable immortality is thus seen to be both repellent and impossible.This doctrine is so difficult for the average Occidental easily to understand that it may be advisable onceand for all to point out without mincing of words that just as complete death, that is to say, entireannihilation of consciousness, is an impossibility in nature, just so is continuous and unchangingconsciousness in any one stage or phase of evolution likewise an impossibility, because progress ormovement or growth is continuous throughout eternity. There are, however, periods more or less long ofcontinuance in any stage or phase of consciousness that may be attained by an evolving entity; and thehigher the being is in evolution, the more its spiritual and intellectual faculties have been evolved orevoked, the longer do these periods of continuous individual, or perhaps personal, quasi-immortalitycontinue. There is, therefore, what may be called relative immortality, although this phrase is confessedlya misnomer.Master KH in The Mahatma Letters, on pages 128-30, uses the phrase ``panaeonic immortality" tosignify this same thing that I have just called relative immortality, an immortality -- falsely so called,however -- which lasts in the cases of certain highly evolved monadic egos for the entire period of amanvantara, but which of necessity ends with the succeeding pralaya of the solar system. Such a periodof time of continuous self-consciousness of so highly evolved a monadic entity is to us humans actually arelative immortality; but strictly and logically speaking it is no more immortality than is the ephemeralexistence of a butterfly. When the solar manvantara comes to an end and the solar pralaya begins, evensuch highly evolved monadic entities, full-blown gods, are swept out of manifested self-consciousexistence like the sere and dried leaves at the end of the autumn; and the divine entities thus passing outenter into still higher realms of superdivine activity, to reappear at the end of the pralaya and at the dawnof the next or succeeding solar manvantara.The entire matter is, therefore, a highly relative one. What seems immortal to us humans would seem tobe but as a wink of the eye to the vision of super-kosmic entities; while, on the other hand, the span ofthe average human life would seem to be immortal to a self-conscious entity inhabiting one of theelectrons of an atom of the human physical body.The thing to remember in this series of observations is the wondrous fact that consciousness frometernity to eternity is uninterrupted, although by the very nature of things undergoing continuous andunceasing change of phases in realization throughout endless duration. What men call unconsciousness ismerely a form of consciousness which is too subtle for our gross brain-minds to perceive or to sense or tograsp; and, secondly, strictly speaking, what men call death, whether of a universe or of their ownphysical bodies, is but the breaking up of worn-out vehicles and the transference of consciousness to ahigher plane. It is important to seize the spirit of this marvelous teaching, and not allow the imperfectbrain-mind to quibble over words, or to pause or hesitate at difficult terms.
Immortality ::: ...immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spiritM-bM-^@M-^Ys timeless existence is the true immortality.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 767 ::: Immortality does not mean survival of the self or the ego after dissolution of the body.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 58
::: ". . . immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spirit"s timeless existence is the true immortality.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
"Immortality is not the survival of the mental personality after death, though that also is true, but the waking possession of the unborn & deathless self of which body is only an instrument and a shadow.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
Immortality: (Lat. in + mortalis, mortal) The doctrine that the soul or personality of man survives the death of the body. The two principal conceptions of immortality are: temporal immortality, the indefinite continuation of the individual mind after death and eternity, ascension of the soul to a higher plane of timelessness. Immortality is properly speaking restricted to post-existence (survival after death) but is extended by the theory of transmigration of souls. (See Metempsychosis) to include pre-exisence (life before birth).
immortality ::: M-bM-^@M-^\By immortality we mean the absolute life of the soul as opposed to the transient and mutable life in the body which it assumes by birth and death and rebirth and superior also to its life as the mere mental being who dwells in the world subjected helplessly to this law of death and birth or seems at least by his ignorance to be subjected to this and to other laws of the lower Nature.M-bM-^@M-^] The Upanishads
immortality ::: n. --> The quality or state of being immortal; exemption from death and annihilation; unending existance; as, the immortality of the soul.
Exemption from oblivion; perpetuity; as, the immortality of fame.
Immortality That which is not subject to death, deathlessness. Death is the dissolution of a compound entity, where the compound itself ceases to exist, though its elements do not perish. Nor does the ensouling entity perish because of the dissolution of its physical, astral, or other vehicle. Hence in a restricted sense certain elements can be said to be immortal, relative to the compound they form.
Immortality: The imperishability of individual existence; survival or reincarnation after the death of the body.
Immunity from death hy anything but oneM-bM-^@M-^Ys own will to leave the body, immunity from illness, are things that can be achieved only by a complete change of consciousness which each man has to develop in himself.
impale ::: v. t. --> To pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake. See Empale.
To inclose, as with pales or stakes; to surround.
To join, as two coats of arms on one shield, palewise; hence, to join in honorable mention.
Inappropriate Affect ::: Expressing contradictory behavior when describing or experiencing an emotion (e.g., smiling when discussing something sad; laughing when talking about the death of a loved one).^M
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved
Individuality [from Latin individuum undivided thing, unit] In philosophy, as well as in theosophy, used for inherent selfhood: monad, ego, atom. Used in theosophy for the higher ego in man as contrasted with the lower ego or personality M-bM-^@M-^T a distinction not made in ordinary parlance, where the two words may even be used in the opposite senses. The individuality is the immortal spiritual ego or monad; whereas the personality, or lower quaternary of the septenary human constitution, is the mortal human ego which goes to pieces at death.
in extremis [Latin] ::: in desperate circumstances; at the point of death.
infant mortality "hardware" It is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the machine to start going senile). Up to half of all chip and wire failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such failures are often referred to as "infant mortality" problems (or, occasionally, as "sudden infant death syndrome"). See {bathtub curve}, {burn-in period}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-03-20)
In far later times both the Pahlavi commentaries on the Avesta and the great epic writer of Persia, Ferdowsi, personalized Azhi-Dahaka as a fiend called Zahak and Thraetaona as King Jamshid. Azhi-Dahak in a pact with the Devil sells his soul in return for worldly possessions and the estate of his father, Mardas, a man of many virtues. He consents to the death of his father, totally gives into self-indulgence in physical pleasures out of vanity, and falls prey to the enchantment of flattery. No sooner does Zahak permit the Devil to kiss his shoulders than two black snakes grow in place of his lip marks. Since no cure can be found that will get rid of the vicious snakes, the Devil in the form of a physician prescribes that relief would only come from feeding the snakes with the fresh brains of young men. Azhak later finds and cuts Jamshid into two in the sea of China, and reigns with cruelty for a thousand years until Fereydoun (Thraetaona, the thrice potent) defeats him and chains him to Mount Damavand.
Infernal Deities [from Latin inferi or inferni inhabitants of the lower world] Cosmic powers pertaining to the lower planes of manifestation. Classical mythology shows the earth and its beings between the heavens and the infernal regions, under the double influence of the higher and the lower deities. Sometimes they are called chthonian deities, gods of the earth or underworld, implying a duality of heaven and earth, or above and below. They are usually doubles of the superior gods, often with the same name but distinguished by an epithet, as in Jupiter Chthonius or Osiris-Typhon. The contrast between good and evil has given a sinister aspect to these deities, as being connected with death, destruction, and affliction, though they are necessary cosmic powers. Christian theology in particular has turned them into devils.
inferno ::: a place or condition suggestive of hell, especially with respect to human suffering or death; the infernal regions. Inferno"s.
inflict ::: v. t. --> To give, cause, or produce by striking, or as if by striking; to apply forcibly; to lay or impose; to send; to cause to bear, feel, or suffer; as, to inflict blows; to inflict a wound with a dagger; to inflict severe pain by ingratitude; to inflict punishment on an offender; to inflict the penalty of death on a criminal.
In Freemasonry Hiram Abif is the central figure in the drama of the Third or Master MasonM-bM-^@M-^Ys degree, and one of the Three Ancient Grand Masters of the Craft (the other two being King Solomon and Hiram King of Tyre). Before the completion of the building of the Temple he was slain by three ruffians because he refused to communicate to them the Master MasonM-bM-^@M-^Ys Word, which on account of his death was said to be lost, for it can be communicated only when all the Three Ancient Grand Masters are present. Hiram Abif was hastily buried in a shallow grave marked by a sprig of acacia or myrtle, which led to its discovery and the subsequent raising of Hiram Abif by the power of a Substitute Word which, it was decreed, should be used until the Lost Word be again found.
inheritance ::: fig. Something that is or may be inherited; property passing at the owner"s death to the heir or those entitled to succeed.
inherit ::: v. t. --> To take by descent from an ancestor; to take by inheritance; to take as heir on the death of an ancestor or other person to whose estate one succeeds; to receive as a right or title descendible by law from an ancestor at his decease; as, the heir inherits the land or real estate of his father; the eldest son of a nobleman inherits his father&
In his economic and political writings, Lenin extended and developed the doctrines of Marx and Engels especially in their application to a phase of capitalism which emerged fully only after their death -- imperialism. In the same fashion Lenin built upon and further extended the Marxist doctrine of the state in his "State and Revolution", written just before the revolution of 1917. In this work Lenin develops a concept like the dictatorship of the proletariat which Marx treated only briefly and generally, elaborates a distinction like that between socialism and communism, only implicit in Marx's work, and asserts a thesis like the possibility of socialism in one country, towards which Marx was negative in the light of conditions as he knew them. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Lenin headed the government until his death on January 21, 1924. In Russian, Lenin's "Collected Works" comprise thirty volumes, with about thirty additional volumes of miscellaneous writings ("Leninskie Sborniki"). The principal English translations are the "Collected Works", to comprise thirty volumes (of which five in eight books have been published to date), the "Selected Works" comprising twelve volumes (for philosophical materials, see especially Volume XI, "Theoretical Principles of Marxism"), and the Little Lenin Library, made up mostly of shorter works, comprising 27 volumes to date. -- J.M.S.
In later traditions, a son of the sun (Helios) and Demeter who supplied the titans with drink when they were fighting against Zeus, and was therefore transformed into a river of the underworld. These rivers have reference to the circulations of the universe, and in this connection the ancient Greeks and Romans had certain mystical rites relating to the M-bM-^@M-^\deificationM-bM-^@M-^] of souls after death and their passage into other spheres.
Inner Round In theosophical literature, the passage of the ten classes or hosts of monads through all the globes comprising a planetary chain. An inner round begins on the highest globe and continues its progress around and through them all, concluding the cycle again at the globe from which it first started. The same journey is undergone by the spiritual monad after death.
In one significance, a genius is an instructing divinity, but not necessarily of the higher classes. In the special sense found in Greek and Roman belief, the genii were personal tutelar deities of human beings, assigned to each one at birth, attending him through life, and conducting him to Hades at death. This genius was honored by rites and sometimes deified. The word is also used, as genius loci, to mean the deity that presides over a locality or over some topographical feature. These are the ethereal, as distinguished from the corporeal, forces in nature.
In Persian legend, the serpent appeared in Airyanem Vaejo and by his venom transformed the beautiful, eternal spring into winter, generating disease and death. Interpreting this geologically and astronomically, M-bM-^@M-^\every occultist knows that the Serpent alluded to is the north pole, as also the pole of the heavens. The latter produces the seasons according to the angle at which it penetrates the centre of this earth. The two axes were no more parallel; hence the eternal spring of Airyana-Vaego by the good river Daitya had disappeared, and M-bM-^@M-^Xthe Aryan magi had to emigrate to SagdianiM-bM-^@M-^Y M-bM-^@M-^T say exoteric accounts. But the esoteric teaching states that the pole had passed through the equator, and that the M-bM-^@M-^Xland of blissM-bM-^@M-^Y of the Fourth Race, its inheritance from the Third, had now become the region of desolation and woe. This alone ought to be an incontrovertible proof of the great antiquity of the Zoroastrian ScripturesM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:356).
In pre-Christian Greece one of the great seats of initiation was Eleusis, a Greek word meaning coming or advent. All the Mystery schools of antiquity taught and dramatized doctrines dealing with that which is to come: the mysteries of death, rebirth, and initiation M-bM-^@M-^T the birth or awakening of the inner Buddha or Christos in the neophyte. This was called the coming or advent of the god within.
inquest ::: n. --> Inquiry; quest; search.
Judicial inquiry; official examination, esp. before a jury; as, a coroner&
In regard to the dates and duration of the earlier root-races of the fourth round we are given but little information. We can, however, place the early root-races approximately side by side with the periods and dates given by H. P. Blavatsky in her Esoteric table and reach a fairly close idea of their antiquity. From some casual hints contained in The Secret Doctrine it is clear that the first root-race began before the Mesozoic (Secondary) era, most probably in the Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) period in the Paleozoic, but possibly earlier. According to the Esoteric table this could even be almost 150,000,000 years ago. The ethereal first root-race, which did not know physical M-bM-^@M-^\death,M-bM-^@M-^] gradually blended with the second root-race in the Permian period.
Instead of life and death, birth and death are opposites, being different phases of life. See also JIVA; PRANA
insurable ::: a. --> Capable of being insured against loss, damage, death, etc.; proper to be insured.
insure ::: v. t. --> To make sure or secure; as, to insure safety to any one.
Specifically, to secure against a loss by a contingent event, on certain stipulated conditions, or at a given rate or premium; to give or to take an insurance on or for; as, a merchant insures his ship or its cargo, or both, against the dangers of the sea; goods and buildings are insured against fire or water; persons are insured against sickness, accident, or death; and sometimes hazardous debts are insured.
interregnum ::: n. --> The time during which a throne is vacant between the death or abdication of a sovereign and the accession of his successor.
Any period during which, for any cause, the executive branch of a government is suspended or interrupted.
interval ::: n. --> A space between things; a void space intervening between any two objects; as, an interval between two houses or hills.
Space of time between any two points or events; as, the interval between the death of Charles I. of England, and the accession of Charles II.
A brief space of time between the recurrence of similar conditions or states; as, the interval between paroxysms of pain; intervals of sanity or delirium.
In the Avesta (Yasht 22), on the fourth day after death, the soul of the defunct finds itself in the presence of a maid of divine beauty or of fiendish ugliness according as he himself was good or bad, and she leads him into heaven or hell. This holy bridge and this maid are naught but karma; and as a person is essentially his own karma, the maid he meets after death is himself, divine in beauty or fiendish in ugliness; or again his constitution itself after death is the holy bridge which in the good and noble person can be traversed safely, but in the case of the wicked person who has starved his spiritual nature to a mere thread, his constitution becomes like the edge of a razor, and if there is not sufficient good and decency in the defunct to traverse this razor bridge, he falls into the lower regions.
In the EddaM-bM-^@M-^Ys Vagtamskvadet, the tale is told of the sun godM-bM-^@M-^Ys death and departure for the house of Hel, where a sumptuous apartment is furnished for him and mead is being freshly brewed for his arrival.
In the Epistles, Paul speaks of death as created by man, adding that by man also shall death be overcome. M-bM-^@M-^\For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made aliveM-bM-^@M-^] (1 Cor 15:21-2). Paul, by his own confession, was in the habit of speaking in parables and veiling mysteries under exoteric doctrines; as his Christos was in all men, it is logical to infer that his Adam was equally generic.
In the field of the philosophy of religion, Platonism becomes obscure. There is little doubt that Plato paid only lip-service to the anthropomorphic polytheism of Athenian religion. Many of the attributes of the Idea of the Good are those of an eternal God. The Republic (Book II) pictures the Supreme Being as perfect, unchangeable and the author of truth. Similar rationalizations are found throughout the Laws. Another current of religious thought is to be found m the Timaeus, Politicus and Sophist. The story of the making of the universe and man by the Demiurgus is mythic and yet it is in many points a logical development of his theory of Ideas. The World-Maker does not create things from nothing, he fashions the world out of a pre-existing chaos of matter by introducing patterns taken from the sphere of Forms. This process of formation is also explained, in the Timaeus (54 ff), in terms of various mathematical figures. In an early period of the universe, God (Chronos) exercised a sort of Providential care over things in this world (Politicus, 269-275), but eventually man was left to his own devices. The tale of Er, at the end of the Republic, describes a judgment of souls after death, their separation into the good and the bad, and the assignment of various rewards and punishments. H. Stephanus et J. Serranus (ed.), Platonis Opera (Paris, 1578), has provided the standard pagination, now used in referring to the text of Plato, it is not a critical edition. J. Burnet (ed.), Platonis Opera, 5 vol. (Oxford, 1899-1907). Platon, Oeuvres completes, texte et trad., Collect. G. Bude (Paris, 1920 ff.). The Dialogues of Plato, transl. B. Jowett, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1920). W. Pater, Plato and Platonism (London, 1909). A. E. Taylor, Plato, the Man and his Work (N. Y., 1927). P. Shorey, What Plato Said (Chicago, 1933). A. Dies, Autour de Platon, 2 vol. (Paris, 1927). U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Platon, 2 vol. (Berlin, 1919). John Burnet, Platonism (Berkeley, 1928). Paul Elmer More, Platonism (Oxford, 1931). Constantm Ritter, Essence of Plato's Philosophy (London, 1933). Leon Robin, Platon (Paris, 1935). Paul Shorey, Platonism, Ancient and Modern (Berkeley, 1938). A. E. Taylor, Platontsm and Its Influence (London, 1924). F. J. E. Woodbridge, The Son of Apollo (Boston, 1929). C. Bigg, The Christian Platomsts of Alexandria (Oxford, 1913). T. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists (Cambridge, 1918, 2nd ed ). John H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Angle-Saxon Philosophy (New York, 1931). F. J. Powicke, The Cambridge Platonists (Boston, 1927). -- V.J.B.
In the Greek, remission (of sins) meant sending away, the intent being that the disciples and the assembled believers together were able to work a change of heart in the sinner so that he would sin no more (James 5:16), not a remission of the karmic penalty due. Only much later was the power of remission taken over by the priest. Moreover, for a thousand years the formula used was M-bM-^@M-^\May Christ absolve thee,M-bM-^@M-^] superseded by M-bM-^@M-^\I absolve thee.M-bM-^@M-^] While clearly a priest may release one from the penalties imposed by his church, he cannot release anyone from the natural consequences of his acts; yet Christians have attached extreme importance to death-bed absolution by a priest. Such death-bed repentance had its origin in the fact that the last thoughts of a dying person color his afterdeath experiences, and even his next incarnation. But though well-wishers and people of high attainment can help with their counsel and example, they cannot set aside the laws of nature. Real absolution must be emancipation from error and wrongdoing, not an escape from the demands of justice or karma.
In the myths Odin rides the eight-legged steed Sleipnir, wears a blue fur coat, and is the owner of a marvelous ring, Draupnir, from which eight more drip every ninth night, symbolizing proliferating cycles of every kind. His spear is named Gungnir (swaying), perhaps an allusion to the pendulum swing between life and death which is natureM-bM-^@M-^Ys eternal way. Odin has two wolf hounds (the animal nature), Gere (greedy) and Freke (gluttonous); he feeds them, but himself subsists on wine or mead (wisdom) alone. His two ravens, Hugin (mind) and Munin (memory), fly daily over the battlefield Vigridsslatten (plain of consecration, earth), and report back to Allfather by night.
In theosophy, atoms have to be considered in relation to monads; in The Secret Doctrine gods, monads, and atoms are a triad like spirit, soul, and body. A monad is a divine-spiritual life-atom, a living being, evolving on its own plane, and a life-atom is the vehicle of the monad which ensouls it, and in turn ensouls a physical atom. The ultimates of nature are atoms on the material side, monads on the energic side; monads are indivisible, atoms divisible (a departure from the etymological meaning). Thus there is a quaternary of gods, monads, life-atoms, and physical atoms. M-bM-^@M-^\An atom may be compared to (and is for the Occultist) the seventh principle of a body or rather of a molecule. The physical or chemical molecule is composed of an infinity of finer molecules and these in their turn of innumerable and still finer molecules. Take for instance a molecule of iron and so resolve it that it becomes non-molecular; it is then, at once transformed into one of its seven principles, viz., its astral body; the seventh of these is the atom. The analogy between a molecule of iron, before it is broken up, and this same molecule after resolution, is the same as that between a physical body before and after death. The principle remains minus the body. Of course this is occult alchemy, not modern chemistryM-bM-^@M-^] (TBL 84).
In the psychological division made by the ancient Greeks, the phren stands properly for that portion of the human constitution which is ordinarily designated as human mind or reason, the typical characteristic of the human soul which undergoes its devachan. Hence it is that Homer described the shade or ghost of Patroclus as having both psyche and eidolon, or animal instincts and kama-rupic shape, but entirely without phren M-bM-^@M-^T human mind or reason, which had already shaken off the kama-rupa and gone into its devachan. The reference to the phren still existing in the kama-rupic shade of Teiresias, in the Odyssey, shows that in this case this great Greek prophet and initiate is spoken of in connection with his nirmanakayic work in the astral world. So well was this known to the ancients, that Teiresias was supposed to retain all his powers after death, while the lower principles of other mortals who died became shades.
In the Zohar and Talmud, the place of purification. After death, Dumah (the Angel of Death, or the shadowy land of silence, the region of the astral dead M-bM-^@M-^T SheM-bM-^@M-^Yol, Hades, the underworld) leads the impure Neshamah to the dwelling of GeiM-bM-^@M-^Y Hinnom, where it must be purified in order to proceed upon its journey (Zohar i 218b). Just as cities need a crematorium for purifying purposes, so has the earth a gehenna, a planet like our own which is M-bM-^@M-^\termed by the occultists the eighth sphere . . . on which all the dross and scorification of the cosmic matter pertaining to our planet is in a continual state of remodellingM-bM-^@M-^] (IU 1:328).
Involution ::: The reverse process or procedure of evolution. As evolution means the unfolding, the unwrapping, therolling forth, of what already exists and is latent, so involution means the inwrapping, the infolding, theingoing of what previously exists or has been unfolded, etc. Involution and evolution never in anycircumstances can be even conceived of properly as operative the one apart from the other: every act ofevolution is an act of involution, and vice versa. To illustrate, as spirit and matter are fundamentally oneand yet eternally coactive and interactive, so involution and evolution are two names for two phases ofthe same procedure of growth, and are eternally coactive and interactive. As an example, the so-calleddescent of the monads into matter means an involution or involving or infolding of spiritual potenciesinto material vehicles which coincidently and contemporaneously, through the compelling urge of theinfolding energies, unfold their own latent capacities, unwrap them, roll them forth; and this is theevolution of matter. Thus what is the involution of spirit is contemporaneously and pari passu theevolution of matter. Contrariwise, on the ascending or luminous arc when the involved monadic essencesbegin to rise towards their primordial spiritual source they begin to unfold or unwrap themselves aspreviously on the descending arc they had infolded or inwrapped themselves. But this process ofunfolding or evolution of the monadic essences is contemporaneous with and pari passu with theinfolding and inwrapping, the involution, of the material energies and powers.Human birth and death are outstanding illustrations or examples of the same thing. The child is born, andas it grows to its full efflorescence of power it evolves or rolls forth certain inherent characteristics orenergies or faculties, all derived from the human being's svabhava or ego. Contrariwise, when the declineof human life begins, there is a slow infolding or inwrapping of these same facilities which thus seemgradually to diminish. These facilities and energies thus evolved forth in earth-life are the working of theinnate spiritual and intellectual and psychical characteristics impelling and compelling the vehicular orbody sides of the human constitution to express themselves as organs becoming more and more perfectas the child grows to maturity.After death the process is exactly the reverse. The material or vehicular side of the being grows less andless strong and powerful, more and more involved, and becoming with every step in the process moredormant. But contemporaneously and coincidently the distinctly spiritual and intellectual powers andfaculties themselves become released from the vehicles and begin to expand into ever largerefflorescence, attaining their maximum in the devachan. It is only the usual carelessness in accuratethinking that induces the idea that evolution is one distinct process acting alone, and that involution -about which by the way very little is heard -- is another process acting alone. The two, as said above, arethe two phases of activity of the evolving monads, and these phases exist contemporaneously at anymoment, each of the two phases continually acting and interacting with the other phase. They areinseparable.Just so with spirit and matter. Spirit is not something radically distinct from and utterly separate frommatter. The two are fundamentally one, and the two are eternally coactive and interactive.There are several terms in Sanskrit which correspond to what the theosophist means by evolution, butperhaps the best general term is pravritti, meaning to "revolve" or to "roll forwards," to unroll or tounwrap. Again, the reverse procedure or involution can probably best be expressed in Sanskrit by theterm nivritti, meaning "rolling backwards" or "inwrapping" or "infolding." A term which is frequentlyinterchangeable with evolution is emanation. (See also Evolution)
Iormungandr (Icelandic) [from Iormun huge, vast, superhuman + gandr magic, enchantment or andr spirit] In the Norse Edda, the Midgard serpent which girds the earth, one of three gigantic offspring of Loki. The other two are Fenris, the wolf destined to devour the sun when its life is spent, and Hel, queen of the realms of death. Iormungandr may refer to the equator, the plane of the ecliptic and, in a still larger context, to the Milky Way.
Isis-Osiris mysteries: Egyptian mysteries (q.v.) which were practiced widely around the Mediterranean, commemorating the death and resurrection of Osiris.
"It [death] has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there already M-bM-^@M-^T it is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of all M-bM-^@M-^T at any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
"It is necessary to understand clearly the difference between the evolving soul (psychic being) and the pure Atman, self or spirit. The pure self is unborn, does not pass through death or birth, is independent of birth or body, mind or life or this manifested Nature.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
It is the human principle of understanding paralleling manas (TG 94); also the fourth of the five inner faculties. On the Chinvat Bridge after death the soul meets its daena in the form of a maiden whose appearance varies according to the soulM-bM-^@M-^Ys deeds on earth.
It was by Kore as the spouse of Hades that the bright side of death was revealed. She thus belonged preeminently to the Eleusinian Mysteries and one of the mystical dramas enacted for the instruction of neophytes was the rape of Persephone in which she was represented as in possession of the third eye. Blavatsky places her among the kabiria (SD 2:363).
I. Vienna Circle; Logical Positivsm, Logical Empiricism. The Vienna Circle, founded by M. Schlick (q.v.) in 1924, ending with his death in 1936. Among its members: G. Bergmann, R. Carnap (q.v.), H. Feigl, Ph. Frank (q.v.), K. G&oUML;del (q.v.), H. Hahn (d. 1934), O. Neurath, F Waismann. Seen historically, the movement shows influences from three sides the older empiricism and positivism, especially Hume, Mill, Mach; methodology of empirical science, as developed by scientists since about the middle of the 19th century, e.g., Helmholtz, Mach, Poincare. Duhem, Boltzmann, Einstein; symbolic logic and logical analysis of language as developed especially by Frege, Whitehead and Russell, Wittgenstein. Russell (q.v.) was the first to combine these trends and therefore had an especially strong influence. The views developed in the V. C. have been called Logical Positivism (A. E. Blumberg and H. Feigl, J. Phil. 28, 1931); many members now prefer the term "Logical Empiricism". Among the characteristic features: emphasis on scientific attitude and on co-operation, hence emphasis on intersubjective (q.v.) language and unity of science. Empiricism: every knowledge that is factual (see Meaning, Kinds of, 1), is connected with experiences in such a way that verification or direct or indirect confirmation is possible (see Verification). The emphasis on logical analysis of language (see Semiotic) distinguishes this movement from earlier empiricism and positivism. The task of philosophy is amlysis of knowledge, especially of science; chief method: analysis of the language of science (see Semiotic; Meaning, Kinds of). Publications concerning the historical development of this movement and its chief views: Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis, Wien 1929 (with bibliography). O. Neurath, Le Developpement du Cercle de Vienne, et l'Avenir de l'Empirisme Logique, 1935. C. W. Morris, Logical Positivism, Pragmatism, and Scientific Empiricism, Paris 1937. E. Nagel, "Impressions and Appraisals of Analytic Philosophy in Europe", I, II, tic Empiricism in Germany, and the Present State of its Problems. Ibid. E. Nagel, "The Fight for Clarity: Logical Empiricism", Amer. Scholar, 1938. Many papers by members of the group have been published in "Erkenntnis" since 1930, now continued as "Journal of Unified Science". Compare M. Black, "Relations between Logical Positivism and the Cambridge School of Analysis", J. Un. Sc. 8, 1940. II. Scientific Empiricism. A wider movement, comprising besides Logical Empiricism other groups and individuals with related views in various countries. Also called Unity of Science Movement.
Jadoogar Jadugar (Hindi) In India, one who practices jadu or sorcery. Believed by the populace to be the possessor of the evil eye inasmuch as such a sorcerer is able to inspire hatred or love at will, cause sudden maladies or even death, and cause disease among cattle, in addition to other practices of a necromantic character.
Jaggannath: Sanskrit for lord of the world. A variant name of Vishnu, the Preserver, under which he is worshipped in Puri. The most notable feature of his worship is the M-bM-^@M-^\car festival,M-bM-^@M-^] in which a great car bearing a huge image of Jaggannath is hauled by thousands of worshippers from his temple to the Garden House, some four miles away. In former days, many worshipers would hurl themselves under the huge wheels, to be crushed to death. (Also called Juggernaut.)
janma-mrtyu-jara-duakhair vimuktomrtam asnute ::: free from birth and death and age and grief enjoys immortality. [Gita 14.20]
janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhi-dukha-dosanudarsanam ::: the perception of the defects of existence, birth and disease and death and old age and sorrow. [Gita 13.9]
jara-marana-moksaya mam asritya yatanti ye ::: [they who, having resorted to Me, strive for release from age and death] [Gita 7.29]
jara-marana-moksaya yatanti ::: [they strive for release from age and death]. [see the preceding]
Jara-marana (Sanskrit) JarM-DM-^A-maraM-aM-9M-^Ga [from jarM-DM-^A aging, old age from the verbal root jM-aM-9M-^[ to age, grow old + maraM-aM-9M-^Ga dying, death from the verbal root mM-aM-9M-^[ to die] Old and age and death. The skandhas or groups of attributes M-bM-^@M-^T everything finite in the human constitution which is brought over from the last life as karmic tendencies or impulses M-bM-^@M-^T reunite at a personM-bM-^@M-^Ys new birth. They thus constitute his new personality, making the new person not only the child of the person of the last life, but actually a reappearance of that personality plus whatever changes or modifications death and the devachanic interval have brought to pass. After the maturity of the incarnating person is reached, these skandhas which form the human personality slowly begin to weaken and separate in preparation for death. This process continuing finally brings about jara-marana, decrepitude and death.
Jaras (Sanskrit) Jaras [from the verbal root jM-aM-9M-^[ to become old] The becoming old, decay, old age; a hunter in the Mahabharata who accidentally wounded Krishna and caused his death. Mystically, it may be described as that vital cyclic power of constant movement in manifested beings by which youth becomes maturity and then old age, then producing infancy, youth, maturity, and old age again.
Jaspers, Karl: (1883-) Inspired by Nietzsche's and Kierkegaard's psychology, but aiming at a strictly scientific method, the "existentialist" Jaspers analyzes the possible attitudes of man towards the world; the decisions which the individual must make in inescapable situations like death, struggle, change, guilt; and the various ways in which man meets these situations. Motivated by the boundless desire for clarity and precision, Jaspers earnestly presents as his main objective to awaken the desire for a fuller, more genuine philosophy, these three methods of philosophizing which have existed from te earliest times to the present: Philosophical world orientation consisting in an analysis of the limitations, incompleteness and relativity of the researches, methods, world pictures of all the sciences; elucidation of existence consisting of a cognitive penetration into reality on the basis of the deepest inner decisions experienced by the individual, and striving to satisfy the deepest demands of human nature; the way of metaphysics, the never-satisfied and unending search for truth in the world of knowledge, conduct of life and in the seeking for the one being, dimly seen through antithetic thoughts, deep existential conflicts and differently conceived metaphysical symbols of the past. Realizing the decisive problematic relation between philosophy and religion in the Middle Ages, Jaspers elevates psychology and history to a more important place in the future of philosophy.
Java Aleim (Hebrew) YM-DM-^UhovM-DM-^Ah M-bM-^@M-^YElM-EM-^MhM-DM-+m More commonly Jehovah Elohim. Lord God M-bM-^@M-^T in Genesis (ch 1) the word M-bM-^@M-^Yelohim is used; in chapter 2, Yehovah or Lord makes its appearance; and elsewhere the words are combined into Yehovah M-bM-^@M-^YElohim. In the esoteric philosophy of Mesopotamia, used as a term for the head of a college of priests (M-bM-^@M-^YElohim) which at one time flourished in Chaldea; the possessor of the M-bM-^@M-^\word,M-bM-^@M-^] passing it on to his successor only at the moment of death. See also ELOHIM
jaw ::: n. --> One of the bones, usually bearing teeth, which form the framework of the mouth.
Hence, also, the bone itself with the teeth and covering.
In the plural, the mouth.
Fig.: Anything resembling the jaw of an animal in form or action; esp., pl., the mouth or way of entrance; as, the jaws of a pass; the jaws of darkness; the jaws of death.
A notch or opening.
jaws ::: 1. In pl. The bones of the skull that frame the mouth and serve to open it; the bones that hold the teeth. 2. In pl. Anything resembling a pair of jaws or evoking the concept of grasping and holding, as the M-bM-^@M-^Xjaws of death" etc.
jejunum ::: n. --> The middle division of the small intestine, between the duodenum and ileum; -- so called because usually found empty after death.
jeopardy ::: n. --> Exposure to death, loss, or injury; hazard; danger. ::: v. t. --> To jeopardize.
jerusalem ::: n. --> The chief city of Palestine, intimately associated with the glory of the Jewish nation, and the life and death of Jesus Christ.
Jhumur: M-bM-^@M-^\Bound by death. Death is a beginning and a limitation. The beginning is birth, the end is death. Man seems to be caught between these two terms but that is not all we are.M-bM-^@M-^]
Jhumur: M-bM-^@M-^\Mother speaks of the four great asuras who seem to have taken over the world. The earth becomes the fulcrum or territory of these forces. The Kaliyuga is exactly the world that has been taken over by the dark forces. And iron is that which doesnM-bM-^@M-^Yt like to change or to reflect light. It is not transparent so there is a sense of resistance, of hardness, of darkness. The Indian word Kala, which is M-bM-^@M-^XtimeM-bM-^@M-^Y is also one of the names of death. From that you have also Kali. It is darkness, associated with blackness and yet it is also time, mortality.M-bM-^@M-^]
Jhumur: M-bM-^@M-^\These are not just images and not just there for effect. They represent certain movements in the being, certain forces that are universal, independent. It is not one man who suffers. At a certain level of existence these experiences are universal. There are forces that are at work on these levels, forces that really prey on man, really hound him in that sense. You canM-bM-^@M-^Yt seem to escape them. When one is semi-conscious or lives as we do in an in-between state, not knowing exactly which is your direction, you have this force really at your heels, pushing you sometimes into suffering, into death. You feel that you have been deserted. Sometimes there is a notion of karma, at other times you feel that it is some force that is pushing you. These are universal forces in the field of life, in the field of the subconscient, in the unconsciousness. On these levels they are not images they are powers which Sri Aurobindo has given a certain shape, form, image.M-bM-^@M-^]
jiva. ::: the individual self, ego or "I"-sense; ego-self which is subject to birth and death; individuality; the illusory person or self that is essentially non-existent, being a fabrication of the mind which obscures the true experience of the real Self; the appearance or illusion of a separate individual consciousness; limited consciousness which appears "as if" it is an embodied soul
Jivatman, soul, psychic being ::: The Jivatma or spirit is self- existent above the manifested or instrumental being ; It is supe- rior to birth and death, always the same, the individual Self or Atman. It is the eternal true being of the individual.
Jivatman, soul, the Psychic Being ::: The soul is a spark of the Divine which is not seated above the manifested being, but comes down into the manifestation to support its evolution in the material world. It is at first an undifferentiated power of the divine consciousness, containing all possibilities, but at first unevolved possibilities, which have not yet taken form, but to which it is the function of evolution to give form. This spark is there in all living beings, from the lowest to the highest. The psychic being is formed by the soul in its evolution. It supports the mind, vital, body, grows by their experiences, carries the nature from life to life. It is the psychic or caitya purusa. The Self or Atman being free and superior to birth and death, the experience of the Jivatman and its unity with the supreme or universal Self brings the sense of liberation; but for the transformation of the life and nature the awakening of the psychic being is indispensable. The psychic being realises its oneness with the true being, the Jivatman, but it does not change into it.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 148-149
John von Neumann "person" /jon von noy'mahn/ Born 1903-12-28, died 1957-02-08. A Hungarian-born mathematician who did pioneering work in quantum physics, game theory, and {computer science}. He contributed to the USA's Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb. von Neumann was invited to Princeton University in 1930, and was a mathematics professor at the {Institute for Advanced Studies} from its formation in 1933 until his death. From 1936 to 1938 {Alan Turing} was a visitor at the Institute and completed a Ph.D. dissertation under von Neumann's supervision. This visit occurred shortly after Turing's publication of his 1934 paper "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungs-problem" which involved the concepts of logical design and the universal machine. von Neumann must have known of Turing's ideas but it is not clear whether he applied them to the design of the IAS Machine ten years later. While serving on the BRL Scientific Advisory Committee, von Neumann joined the developers of {ENIAC} and made some critical contributions. In 1947, while working on the design for the successor machine, {EDVAC}, von Neumann realized that ENIAC's lack of a centralized control unit could be overcome to obtain a rudimentary stored program computer. He also proposed the {fetch-execute cycle}. His ideas led to what is now often called the {von Neumann architecture}. {(http://sis.pitt.edu/~mbsclass/is2000/hall_of_fame/vonneuma.htm)}. {(http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/VonNeumann.html)}. {(http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/54nord/)}. (2004-01-14)
Just as in the superior M-bM-^@M-^Xolams there are the analogic divisions into the ten Sephiroth, likewise in this lowest sphere there are ten degrees, each growing denser and darker in its descent farther from the Sephirothic ray. The first two degrees of this descending scale are considered as absence of visible form M-bM-^@M-^T termed in Genesis Tohu Bohu. The third degree is termed the abode of darkness (the darkness which covered the face of the earth of Genesis). Then follow, in descent, the seven infernal halls ShebaM-bM-^@M-^X Heichaloth, or hells in which are distributed the various princes of darkness and entities undergoing purgation M-bM-^@M-^T the prince of the whole region being SamaM-bM-^@M-^Yel (the angel of M-bM-^@M-^\venomM-bM-^@M-^] or death).
Ka (Egyptian) Ka plural kau. Equivalent to the astral double, model-body, or linga-sarira. The ancient Egyptians held that when a human being was born, the ka was born with him and remained with him throughout his life. Even after death it remained in the tomb with the corpse; it was popularly believed that the offerings placed on graves were made to perpetuate the ka. Furthermore, the gods possessed them, each deity being said to have many kau; thus in one text the god Ra is said to possess seven bau (souls) and 14 kau. Even cities were held to possess kau in the heaven world.
Kalasamhara ::: [Siva as the destroyer of Time or Death]
kala. ::: time; a unit of time; part; aspect; bit; death; fate; black
Kali ::: Hinduism. One of the manifestations and titles of the wife of Shiva and mother goddess Devi, especially in her role as a goddess of death and destruction. KaliM-bM-^@M-^Ys
kali ::: hinduism. One of the manifestations and titles of the wife of Shiva and mother goddess Devi, especially in her role as a goddess of death and destruction. **Kali"s.
Kali Yuga (Sanskrit) Kali Yuga Iron age or black age; the fourth and last of the four great yugas constituting a mahayuga (great age), the other three being the krita or satya yuga, treta yuga, and dvapara yuga. The kali yuga is the most material phase of a beingM-bM-^@M-^Ys or groupM-bM-^@M-^Ys evolutionary cycle. The fifth root-race is at present in its kali yuga, which is stated to have commenced at the moment of KrishnaM-bM-^@M-^Ys death, usually given as 3102 BC. The Hindus also assert that at the first moment of kali yuga there was a conjunction of all the planets. Although the kali yuga is our present profoundly materialistic age, in which only one fourth of truth prevails among humanity, making a period often called an age black with horrors, its swift momentum permits one to do more with his energies, good or bad, in a shorter time than in any other yuga. This period will be followed by the krita yuga of the next root-race.
Kama-loka is the abode of the disimbodied astral forms called kama-rupas and of the still highly vitalized astral entities who quit physical existence as suicides and executed criminals who, thus violently hurled out of their bodies before the term of natural death, are as fully alive as ever they were on earth, lacking only the physical body and its linga-sarira. In addition the kama-loka contains elementaries and lost souls tending to avichi. All these entities remain in kama-loka until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental and emotional impulses that created these eidolons of human and animal passions and desires. The second death takes place in kama-loka, after the upper duad frees itself of the lower, material human elements before entering devachan. M-bM-^@M-^\If, contrariwise, the entity in the kama-loka is so heavy with evil and is so strongly attracted to earth-spheres that the influence of the monad cannot withdraw the Reincarnating Ego from the Kama-rupa, then the latter with its befouled M-bM-^@M-^XsoulM-bM-^@M-^Y sinks lower and lower and may even enter the Avichi. If the influence of the monad succeeds, as it usually does, in bringing about the M-bM-^@M-^Xsecond death,M-bM-^@M-^Y then the kama-rupa becomes a mere phantom or kama-rupic spook, and begins instantly to decay and finally vanishes away, its component life-atoms pursuing each one the road whither its attractions draw itM-bM-^@M-^] (OG 76). The highest regions of kama-loka blend into the lowest regions of devachan, while the grossest and lowest regions of kama-loka bend into the highest regions of avichi.
Kama-Loka(Sanskrit) ::: A compound which can be translated as "desire world," which is accurate enough, but onlyslightly descriptive. It is a semi-material plane or rather world or realm, subjective and invisible tohuman beings as a rule, which surrounds and also encloses our physical globe. It is the habitat ordwelling-place of the astral forms of dead men and other dead beings -- the realm of the kama-rupas ordesire-bodies of defunct humans. "It is the Hades," as H. P. Blavatsky says, "of the ancient Greeks, andthe Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows."It is in the kama-loka that the second death takes place, after which the freed upper duad of the humanbeing that was enters the devachan. The highest regions of the kama-loka blend insensibly into the lowestregions or realms of the devachan; and, conversely, the grossest and lowest regions of the kama-lokablend insensibly into the highest regions of the avichi.When the physical body breaks up at death, the astral elements of the excarnate entity remain in thekama-loka or "shadow world," with the same vital centers as in physical life clinging within them, stillvitalizing them; and here certain processes take place. The lower human soul that is befouled withearth-thought and the lower instincts cannot easily rise out of the kama-loka, because it is foul, it isheavy; and its tendency is consequently downwards. It is in the kama-loka that the processes ofseparation of the monad from the kama-rupic spook or phantom take place; and when this separation iscomplete, which is the second death above spoken of, then the monad receives the reincarnating egowithin its bosom, wherein it enjoys its long rest of bliss and recuperation. If, contrariwise, the entity inthe kama-loka is so heavy with evil and is so strongly attracted to earth spheres that the influence of themonad cannot withdraw the reincarnating ego from the kama-rupa, then the latter with its befouled soulsinks lower and lower and may even enter the avichi. If the influence of the monad succeeds, as it usuallydoes, in bringing about the second death, then the kama-rupa becomes a mere phantom or kama-rupicspook, and begins instantly to decay and finally vanishes away, its component life-atoms pursuing eachone the road whither its attractions draw it.
Kama Rupa: A Sanskrit term used in metaphysics and esoteric philosophy to designate a subjective, astral form which lives on after the death of the physical body; an eidolon. The Kama Rupa is believed to fade away and disintegrate gradually, although necromantic practices and ardent wishes of surviving kin may draw it back into the terrestrial sphere and extend its existence, causing it to become a vampire which feeds on the life force of those who called it back.
Kama-Rupa(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word signifying "desire body." It is that part of man's inner constitution in whichdwell or inhere the various desires, affections, hates, loves -- in short, the various mental and psychicalenergies. After death it becomes the vehicle in the astral worlds of the higher principles of the man thatwas. But these higher principles are nevertheless scarcely conscious of the fact, because the rupture ofthe golden cord of life at the moment of the physical death plunges the cognizing personal entity into amerciful stupor of unconsciousness, in which stupor it remains a longer or shorter period depending uponits qualities of spirituality or materiality. The more spiritual the man was the longer the period ofmerciful unconsciousness lasts, and vice versa.After death, as has been frequently stated elsewhere, there occurs what is called the second death, whichis the separation of the immortal part of the second or intermediate duad from the lower portions of thisduad, which lower portions remain as the kama-rupa in the etheric or higher astral spheres which areintermediate between the devachanic and the earthly spheres. In time this kama-rupa gradually fades outin its turn, its life-atoms at such dissolution passing on to their various and unceasing peregrinations.It is this kama-rupa which legend and story in the various ancient world religions or philosophies speakof as the shade, and which it has been customary in the Occident to call the spook or ghost. It is, in short,all the mortal elements of the human soul that was. The kama-rupa is an exact astral duplicate, inappearance and mannerism, of the man who died; it is his eidolon or "image." (See also Second Death)
Kama-rupa (Sanskrit) KM-DM-^Ama-rM-EM-+pa [from kM-DM-^Ama desire + rM-EM-+pa body, form] The desire body; the portion of the human inner constitution in which inhere the various mental and psychic energies. After death it becomes the vehicle in the kama-loka of the usually unconscious higher principles of the person that was.
Kamsa, Kansa (Sanskrit) KaM-aM-9M-^Csa, KaM-aM-9M-^CM-EM-^[a A tyrannical king of Mathura in ancient India, evil uncle of Krishna. When it was foretold that the eighth child of Devaki would kill him, he endeavored to destroy all of her children; so the parents fled with Krishna, their eighth child. Then Kansa ordered all male children of the land to be killed, but Krishna escaped M-bM-^@M-^T a legend paralleling the massacre of the infants by King Herod of Palestine in the New Testament. In the legends surrounding great religious figures, M-bM-^@M-^\everyone of them, whether at their birth or afterwards, is searched for, and threatened with death (yet never killed) by an opposing power (the world of Matter and Illusion), whether it be called a king Kamsa, king Herod, or king Mara (the Evil Power)M-bM-^@M-^] (BCW 14:141). Thus Kamsa in one aspect stands for the opposing power in initiation rites. Krishna, as it was predicted, finally killed his persecutor.(SD 2:48, 504n, 604n; BCW 8:378)
Kha or Khat (Egyptian) [from khaM-DM-^A to set aside, cast away] The physical body, whether alive or dead. It refers to the unimportance of the physical body in the human constitution, abandoned or cast off at death, or indeed temporarily abandoned in the case of initiates who were elsewhere than in the body.
Khu (Egyptian) Khu. The human spirit-soul, closely connected with the heart (ab), and considered to be everlasting; usually depicted in hieroglyphics in the form of a heron. Massey makes it equivalent with manas, but Lambert makes it equivalent to divine spirit (SD 2:632-3). Elsewhere Blavatsky emphasizes the duality of the khu: the M-bM-^@M-^\justifiedM-bM-^@M-^] khu, absolved of sin by Osiris after death, which continues to live a second life; and the khu M-bM-^@M-^\which died a second time,M-bM-^@M-^] doomed to wander about and torture the living, as they are able to assume any form and enter into living bodies. This first type is equivalent to the reincarnating ego or immortal human soul. The second type is identical with the Roman larvae, lares, simulacrum, or shade, the Chinese houen, the theosophical elementary, and the necromantic M-bM-^@M-^\spiritM-bM-^@M-^] (cf BCW 7:155-17, 190-3).
KingM-bM-^@M-^Ys Chamber (Pyramid of Cheops) An initiation chamber and holy of holies of the Egyptian Mysteries, a symbol of the womb of nature and of regeneration through rebirth. M-bM-^@M-^\On the days of the Mysteries of Initiation, the candidate, representing the solar god, had to descend into the Sarcophagus, and represent the energizing ray, entering into the fecund womb of Nature. Emerging from it on the following morning, he typified the resurrection of life after the change called Death. In the great Mysteries his figurative death lasted two days, when with the Sun he arose on the third morning, after a last night of the most cruel trials. While the postulant represented the Sun M-bM-^@M-^T the all-vivifying Orb that M-bM-^@M-^XresurrectsM-bM-^@M-^Y every morning but to impart life to all M-bM-^@M-^T the Sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principleM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:462; cf. SD 2:466&n). See also INITIATION
knell ::: n. --> The stoke of a bell tolled at a funeral or at the death of a person; a death signal; a passing bell; hence, figuratively, a warning of, or a sound indicating, the passing away of anything.
To sound as a knell; especially, to toll at a death or funeral; hence, to sound as a warning or evil omen. ::: v. t.
Krishna (Sanskrit) KM-aM-9M-^[M-aM-9M-
Kua: Trigram. See Pa kua. Kuei: Man's spirit after death; earthly spirits coexisting with heavenly spirits (shen); the passive or negative (yin) aspect of the soul as against the active or positive (yang) aspect which is called hun; the operation of the passive cosmic principle, yin, (in Neo-Confucian-ism), -- W.T.C.
Kwei (Chinese) Also Kuei. Generally, evil spirits or demons; used in Taoism in connection with yin, referring to beings supposed to be connected with the dark side of nature. Yin is regarded as a universal kwei divisible into myriads of particles. Union of the kwei and shen causes life, activity; their separation causes death. Man is likewise composed of a kwei and shen, the kwei representing the dark side of his nature.
Labyrinth [from Greek labyrinthos probably from laura crypt] The complex prison built for King Minos of Crete by Daedalus to house the Minotaur. Theseus succeeded in finding his way out with the aid of the thread given him by the kingM-bM-^@M-^Ys daughter, Ariadne. Symbolically, it may be the celestial labyrinth, into which the souls of the departed plunge, and also its earthly counterpart, as shown in the tortuous subterranean chambers in ancient Egypt, or similar constructions under temples in various ancient lands. These labyrinths also symbolized the races of mankind, and the succession of gods, demigods, and heroes who preceded mortal kings. These underground chambers in general were used as initiation chambers in the Mysteries, where candidates were taught by actual experience various truths regarding human destiny after death; hence there was an exact analogy between the physical construction of these chambers and the truths thus symbolized. The labyrinth therefore refers both to an inner and outer mystery. One of the coins unearthed at Knossos in Crete showed a diagram of such a maze, and this identical pattern, exact to the last important detail, has been found among the Pima Indians of Arizona (cf Theosophical Path, April 1925). Clearly its real significance was common knowledge to initiates in all parts of the world.
landfall ::: n. --> A sudden transference of property in land by the death of its owner.
Sighting or making land when at sea.
Lararium (Latin) A shrine for holding the lares (images of the household gods) and similar relics in the houses of ancient Romans. The lares are described as those parts of the human constitution left behind by the immortal monad after death, these remnants being of different classes because belonging to different planes. The Latins grouped them under three general planes: manes, lares, and lemures. The lemures were virtually the kama-lokic shades or shells, and so likewise were the larvae; the lares were at once the ancestral images in a family or of a city, and at the same time more mystically the quasi-personalized astral forces hovering around and thus becoming tutelary influences M-bM-^@M-^T a Roman belief difficult to describe; whereas the manes corresponded more closely to excarnate human monads. See also LARVA
Later the mythological account describes warlike combats between the two. Horus popularly represented the bright, upward motion of the sun M-bM-^@M-^T resulting in spring and summer; Set represented the downward motion, the mythologic account dwelling upon the fact that Set stole the light from the sun, resulting in autumn and winter. The combats engaged in by Set are rendered in four themes: against Horus, resulting in night coming upon day; against Ra, the sun god; against his brother, Osiris, resulting in the latterM-bM-^@M-^Ys death; and against Horus the Younger who was striving to avenge the death of his father, Osiris. In the fight between Osiris and Set (or Typhon), Typhon is in one sense the shadow, and hence the material aspect of Osiris, M-bM-^@M-^\Osiris is the ideal Universe, Siva the great Regenerative Force, and Typhon the material portion of it, the evil side of the god, or the Destroying SivaM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 90).
legitim ::: a. --> The portion of movable estate to which the children are entitled upon the death of the father.
Lemminkainen (Finnish) A hero of the Kalevala, the son of Lempi. He does battle with the serpent of Tuoni (death) in the Finnish version of the archaic tale, so common in ancient mythologies. Lemminkainen, however, does not slay the serpent, but conquers it by means of the magic words: M-bM-^@M-^\But the hero, quick recalling, speaks the master-words of knowledge, words that came from distant ages, words his ancestors had taught him, words his mother learned in childhoodM-bM-^@M-^] (rune 26).
lethe ::: n. --> Death.
A river of Hades whose waters when drunk caused forgetfulness of the past.
Oblivion; a draught of oblivion; forgetfulness.
lethiferous ::: a. --> Deadly; bringing death or destruction.
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 manM-bM-^@M-^Ys life those which are intimately connected with an individual are in a state of constant flux and reflux, 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 M-bM-^@M-^T through food or by osmosis, or in breathing creatures through the air that is inspired or expired M-bM-^@M-^T 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.
Life-Atoms ::: The physical body is composed essentially of energy, of energies rather, in the forms that are spoken ofin modern physical science as electrons and protons. These are in constant movement; they areincessantly active, and are what theosophists call the imbodiments or manifestations of life-atoms. Theselife-atoms are inbuilt into man's body during the physical life which he leads on earth, although they arenot derivative from outside, but spring forth from within himself -- at least a great majority of them aresuch. This is equivalent to saying that they compose both his physical as well as his intermediate nature,which latter is obviously higher than the physical.When the man dies -- that is to say, when the physical body dies -- its elements pass, each and all, intotheir respective and appropriate spheres: some into the soil, to which those that go there are drawn bymagnetic affinity, an affinity impressed upon their life-energies by the man when alive, whoseovershadowing will and desires, whose overlordship and power, gave them that direction. Others passinto the vegetation from the same reason that the former are impelled to the mineral kingdom; others passinto the various beasts with which they have, at the man's death, magnetic affinity, psychic affinity moreaccurately, an affinity which the man has impressed upon them by his desires and various impulses; andthose which take this path go to form the interior or intermediate apparatus of the beasts into which theypass. So much for the course pursued by the life-atoms of the man's lowest principles.But there are other life-atoms belonging to him. There are life-atoms, in fact, belonging to the sphere ofeach one of the seven principles of man's constitution. This means that there are life-atoms belonging tohis intermediate nature and to his spiritual nature and to all grades intermediate between these two higherparts of him. And in all cases, as the monad "ascends" or "rises" through the spheres, as he goes step bystep higher on his wonderful postmortem journey, on each such step he discards or casts off thelife-atoms belonging to each one of these steps or stages of the journey. With each step, he leaves behindthe more material of these life-atoms until, when he has reached the culmination of his wonderfulpostmortem peregrination, he is, as Paul of the Christians said, living in "a spiritual body" -- that is tosay, he has become a spiritual energy, a monad.Nature permits no absolute standing still for anything, anywhere. All things are full of life, full of energy,full of movement; they are both energy and matter, both spirit and substance; and these two arefundamentally one -- phases of the underlying reality, of which we see but the maya or illusory forms.The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man'sconstitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man's body are asnumerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, decillions upondecillions of them, in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a being which isliving, moving, growing, never standing still -- evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimatelybecomes divinity.
life ::: n. --> The state of being which begins with generation, birth, or germination, and ends with death; also, the time during which this state continues; that state of an animal or plant in which all or any of its organs are capable of performing all or any of their functions; -- used of all animal and vegetable organisms.
Of human beings: The union of the soul and body; also, the duration of their union; sometimes, the deathless quality or existence of the soul; as, man is a creature having an immortal life.
Light Light ranges from the arcana of cosmic being to the physical light that turns the vanes of some scientific mill. As the opposite of darkness, evil, ignorance, sleep, and death, it signifies wisdom, goodness, and life. In one sense it is a permutation of mulaprakriti, and as such is that root-substance which can never become objective to mortals in this race or round. It is objective only in relation to that Darkness which is absolute Light. Otherwise it includes both spirit and matter. Three kinds are enumerated: the abstract and absolute, which is darkness; the light of the unmanifest-manifest or Second Logos; and the latter reflected in the dhyani-chohans, minor logoi, and thence shed upon the lower and more objective planes. In a high aspect, it is daiviprakriti or the light of the Logos, the synthesis of the seven cosmic forces; descending through the planes of manifestation, it condenses into forms; physical matter itself is a condensation of light. Through light everything is thus brought into being. Being a root of mental self, it also therefore is the root of physical self (SD 1:430).
Limbo or Limbus [from Latin limbus border] The fringe of hell, according to the Scholastic conception, which was used by Dante and Milton in their epics. In patristic theology, it was regarded as a place for the souls of people who had lived before Christ, or imbeciles and unbaptized infants. Also in some churches it is regarded as a kind of purgatory or waiting place for the soul after death. Similar to kama-loka.
Linga-Sarira(Sanskrit) ::: Linga is a word which means "characteristic mark," hence "model," "pattern." Sarira, "form,"from a verb-root sri, meaning "to molder" or "to waste away," the word thus signifying "impermanence."The sixth substance-principle, counting downwards, of which man's constitution is composed. Themodel-body, popularly called astral body, because it is but slightly more ethereal than the physical body,and is in fact the model or framework around which the physical body is builded, and from which, in asense, the physical body flows or develops as growth proceeds.At death the linga-sarira or model-body remains in the astral realms and finally fades out, dissolving paripassu, atom by atom, with the atoms of the physical corpse. These astral realms are not one single plane,but a series of planes growing gradually more ethereal or spiritual as they approach the inward spheres ofnature's constitution or structure. The linga-sarira is formed before the body is formed, and thus serves asa model or pattern around which the physical body is molded and grows to maturity; it is as mortal as isthe physical body, and disappears with the physical body.
Lost Word According to the Masonic ritual of the third or Master MasonM-bM-^@M-^Ys degree, the Word which was in the possession of the three Grand Masters of the Craft, King Solomon, Hiram of Tyre, and Hiram Abif, and could be given only when the three were M-bM-^@M-^\present and agreed,M-bM-^@M-^] was said to have been lost on the death of Hiram Abif, in consequence of which it was decreed that until the True Word was again found, a Substitute Word should be used. By the death of Hiram Abif not only was the MasterM-bM-^@M-^Ys True Word lost, but it was discovered that there were no plans upon the Trestle-Board for continuing the work of the building of the Temple. This gives a clue to the meaning of the Lost Word which M-bM-^@M-^\ought to stand as M-bM-^@M-^Xlost wordsM-bM-^@M-^Y and lost secrets, in general, for that which is termed the lost M-bM-^@M-^XWordM-bM-^@M-^Y is no word at all, as in the case of the Ineffable NameM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 191). Communicated to man in the childhood of the human race, these lost secrets were passed on from hierophant to hierophant in turn.
Luciferians A Christian sect formed in the 4th century by Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari. He was an ardent supporter of the Athanasians against the Arians, but split off from the other Athanasian prelates because they were not sufficiently intolerant in their opposition of the Arians. The sect perished after his death and left no distinctive doctrine of importance.
Lunar Chain, Moon-Chain The planetary chain of the solar system which, although now dead and in decay, was the former imbodiment of our present earth-chain. When the life forces inherent in a globe of a planetary chain have completed seven rounds on that globe, these life forces progressively pass out into a laya-center which then becomes, after a time period determined by karma, the vital nucleus for the corresponding globe or the next imbodiment of that planetary chain. This took place on the lunar chain as the globes of this chain in the preceding chain-manvantara reached the end of their life-term in manifestation, and died in serial order from the first to the last globe. Thus each globe of the lunar chain as it died became a lunar globe-corpse still infilled with the molecular life of the globe, but deprived of all its higher, more ethereal and spiritual parts M-bM-^@M-^T exactly as happens at the death and decay of a human physical body. Though globe D of the moon-chain, as an instance in point, thus passed into invisibility with the disintegration of its molecular components and with the passage of cosmic ages, yet we are able to discern its phantom, our moon, because our senses, correlated to the physical plane of matter of our chain, are also correlated to what on the lunar chain would be astral matter, and thus are able to perceive what is actually the kama-rupa or astral shell of globe D of the lunar chain (our moon). Hence the earth-chain is the child or reimbodiment of the lunar chain.
luser "jargon, abuse" /loo'zr/ A {user}; especially one who is also a {loser}. ({luser} and {loser} are pronounced identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at {MIT}. Under {ITS}, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's attention, it printed out some status information, including how many people were already using the computer; it might print "14 users", for example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to patch the system to print "14 losers" instead. There ensued a great controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want to be called losers to their faces every time they used the computer. For a while several hackers struggled covertly, each changing the message behind the back of the others; any time you logged into the computer it was even money whether it would say "users" or "losers". Finally, someone tried the compromise "lusers", and it stuck. Later one of the ITS machines supported "luser" as a request-for-help command. ITS died the death in mid-1990, except as a museum piece; the usage lives on, however, and the term "luser" is often seen in program comments. See: also {LART}. Compare: {tourist}, {weenie}. [{Jargon File}] (1998-07-01)
lynch ::: v. t. --> To inflict punishment upon, especially death, without the forms of law, as when a mob captures and hangs a suspected person. See Lynch law.
Madan (Tamil) One that looks like a cow; wicked elementals or other astral and subastral sprites or nature spirits, half-brutes or half-monsters. They are particularly helpful to sorcerers of evil intent, as they are used for striking people and cattle with sudden illness and even death.
MAHAKALI. ::: Goddess of the supreme strength ; with her are all mights and spiritual force and severest austerity of lapas and swiftness to the battle and the victory and the laughter, the attahosya, that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance. .*M-bM-^@M-"
Mahamara (Sanskrit) MahM-DM-^AmM-DM-^Ara [from mahM-DM-^A great + mM-DM-^Ara death from the verbal root mM-aM-9M-^[ to die] The great destroyer; the king of the maras (temptations), and often called the Great Ensnarer. This character is usually represented M-bM-^@M-^\with a crown in which shines a jewel of such lustre that it blinds those who look at it, this lustre referring of course to the fascination exercised by vice upon certain naturesM-bM-^@M-^] (VS 76). It is due to the power of maya or seductive illusion that mahamara or the different maras possess their sway over sentient beings.
mahasamadhi. ::: the Great Union; a sage's conscious departure from the physical body at death
Mahasaurya Manvantara and Pralaya [from Sanskrit mahM-DM-^A great + saurya solar] The life period or period of manifestation of the solar system, or its death and dissolution. See also MANVANTARA; PRALAYA (FSO)
Main works of Husserl: Philosophie der Anthmetik, 1891; Logische Untersuchungen, 1900; Ideen z. e. reinen PhM-CM-$nomenologie u. Phenomologische Philos., 1913; Vorlesungen z. Phanom. d. inneren Bewusstseine, 1928; Formale u. transz. Logik, 1929; Meditations Cartesiennes Introd. a la Phenomenologie, 1931; Die Krisis der europM-CM-$ischen Wissensch u.d. transz. Phanomenologie, I, 1936; Erfahrung u. Urteil. Untersuch. u. Genealogie der Logik, 1939. Hussism: The Reformatory views of John Hus (1370-1415). A popular agitator and finally martyr, Hus stood between Wycliffe and Luther in the line of continental Protestant Reformers. He rested authority upon Scripture and defied ecclesiastical bans. The Hussite wars (1419-1432) following his death epitomized the growing nationalism and desire for religious reform. -- V.F.
malignant ::: a. --> Disposed to do harm, inflict suffering, or cause distress; actuated by extreme malevolence or enmity; virulently inimical; bent on evil; malicious.
Characterized or caused by evil intentions; pernicious.
Tending to produce death; threatening a fatal issue; virulent; as, malignant diphtheria. ::: n.
Manas(Sanskrit) ::: The root of this word means "to think," "to cogitate," "to reflect" -- mental activity, in short.The center of the ego-consciousness in man and in any other quasi-self-conscious entity. The thirdsubstance-principle, counting downwards, of which man's constitution is composed.Manas springs forth from buddhi (the second principle) as the fruit from the flower; but manas itself ismortal, goes to pieces at death -- insofar as its lower parts are concerned. All of it that lives after death isonly what is spiritual in it and that can be squeezed out of it, so to say -- the "aroma" of the manas;somewhat as the chemist takes from the rose the attar or essence of roses. The monad or atma-buddhithereupon takes that "all" with it into the devachan, after the second death has taken place. Atman, withbuddhi and with the higher part of manas, becomes thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Strictlyspeaking, this is the divine monad within its vehicle -- atman and buddhi -- combined with the humanego in its higher manasic element; but they are joined into one after death, and are hence spoken of as thespiritual monad.The three principles forming the upper triad exist each on its own plane in consciousness and power; andas human beings we continuously feel their influence despite the enshrouding veils of a psychical andastral-physical character. We know of each principle only what we have so far evolved forth of it. All weknow, for instance, of the third principle (counting from the top), the manas, is what we have so farassimilated of it in this fourth round. The manas will not be fully developed in us until the end of the nextround. What we now call our manas is a generalizing term for the reincarnating ego, the higher manas.
"Man, born into the world, revolves between world and world in the action of Prakriti and Karma. Purusha in Prakriti is his formula: what the soul in him thinks, contemplates and acts, that always he becomes. All that he had been, determined his present birth; and all that he is, thinks, does in this life up to the moment of his death, determines what he will become in the worlds beyond and in lives yet to be. If birth is a becoming, death also is a becoming, not by any means a cessation.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays on the Gita
Manicheism: A mystical religio-philosophical doctrine, instituted in Persia by Mani (Manes or Manichaeus), a Magian who, upon conversion to Christianity, sought to synthesize the latter with the dualism of Zoroastrianism, and became a martyr to his faith. The Manicheist creed teaches that to combat the powers of darkness, the mother of light created the first man. As Buddha and Zoroaster, he worked illumination among men; as Jesus, the Son of Man, he had to suffer, become transfigured and symbolize salvation by his apparent death at the cross; as spirit of the sun he attracts all connatural light particles to himself. But final salvation from the throes of evil demons is accomplished by ascetic living, reminding of the Hindu code of ethics, and belief in Mani as the prophesied paraclete.
Manicheism, a religio-philosophical doctrine which spread from Persia to the West and was influential during the 3rd and 7th century, was instituted by Mani (Grk. Manes, Latinized: Manichaeus), a Magian who, upon conversion to Christianity, sought to synthesize the latter with the dualism of Zoroastrianism (q.v.), not without becoming a martyr to his faith. To combat the powers of darkness, the mother of light created the first man. As Buddha (q.v.) and Zoroaster he worked illumination among men ; as Jesus, the Son of Man, he had to suffer, become transfigured and symbolize salvation by his apparent death at the cross; as spirit of the sun he attracts all connatural light particles to himself. But final salvation from the throes of evil demons is accomplished by ascetic living, reminding of the Hindu code of ethics (see Indian Ethics), and belief in Mani as the prophesied paraclete (John 14.16-17). Revived once more in the Occident during the crusades by the Cathari. -- K.F.L.
Man ::: Man is in his essence a spark of the central kosmic spiritual fire. Man being an inseparable part of theuniverse of which he is the child -- the organism of graded consciousness and substance which thehuman constitution contains or rather is -- is a copy of the graded organism of consciousnesses andsubstances of the universe in its various planes of being, inner and outer, especially inner as being by farthe more important and larger, because causal.Human beings are one class of "young gods" incarnated in bodies of flesh at the present stage of theirown particular evolutionary journey. The human stage of evolution is about halfway between theundeveloped 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 spiritand substance being fundamentally one, hence, man is de facto a sheaf or bundle of matters of variousand differing grades of ethereality, or of substantiality; and so are all other entities and thingseverywhere.Man's nature, and the nature of the universe likewise, of which man is a reflection or microcosm or "littleworld," 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 isconcerned, we may take the New Testament division of the Christians, which gives the same triformconception of man, that he is composed of spirit, soul, body -- remembering, however, that all these threewords are generalizing terms.Man stands at the midway point of the evolutionary ladder of life: below him are the hosts of beings lessthan 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 ofthe evolutionary unfoldment of the inherent faculties and powers immanent in the individuality of theinner god -- the ever-living, inner, individualized spirit.Man, then, like everything else -- entity or what is called "thing" -- is, to use the modern terminology ofphilosophical scientists, an "event," that is to say, the expression of a central consciousness-center ormonad passing through one or another particular phase of its long, long pilgrimage over and throughinfinity, and through eternity. This, therefore, is the reason why the theosophist often speaks of themonadic consciousness-center as the pilgrim of eternity.Man can be considered as a being composed of three essential upadhis or bases: first, the monadic ordivine-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 thethird upadhi we may call the vital-astral-physical.These three bases spring from three different lines of evolution, from three different and separatehierarchies of being. This is the reason why man is composite. He is not one sole and unmixed entity; heis a composite entity, a "thing" built up of various elements, and hence his principles are to a certainextent separable. Any one of these three bases can be temporarily separated from the two others withoutbringing about the death of the man physically. But the elements that go to form any one of these basescannot 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 differenthierarchies or states, often spoken of as three different planes of being. The lowest comes from thevital-astral-physical earth, ultimately from the moon, our cosmogonic mother. The middle, the manasicor intellectualintuitional, from the sun. The monadic from the monad of monads, the supreme flower oracme, or rather the supreme seed of the universal hierarchy which forms our kosmical universe oruniversal kosmos.
Marcus Aurelius: (121-180 A.D.) The Roman Emperor who as a Stoic endowed chairs in Athens for the four great philosophical schools of the Academy, the Lyceum, The Garden and the Stoa. Aurelius' Stoicism, tempered by his friend Fronto's humanism, held to a rational world-order and providence as well as to a notion of probable truth rather than of the Stoic infallibilism. In the famous 12 books of Meditations, the view is prominent that death was as natural as birth and development was the end of the individual and should elicit the fear of no one. His harsh treatment of the Christians did not coincide with his mild nature which may have reflected the changed character of Stoicism brought on by the decadence of Rome.
martyrdom ::: n. --> The condition of a martyr; the death of a martyr; the suffering of death on account of adherence to the Christian faith, or to any cause.
Affliction; torment; torture.
martyr ::: n. --> One who, by his death, bears witness to the truth of the gospel; one who is put to death for his religion; as, Stephen was the first Christian martyr.
Hence, one who sacrifices his life, his station, or what is of great value to him, for the sake of principle, or to sustain a cause. ::: v. t.
martyr ::: one who makes great sacrifices or suffers much, even death, in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.
Marx, Karl: Was born May 5, 1818 in Trier (Treves), Germany, and was educated at the Universities of Bonn and Berlin. He received the doctorate in philosophy at Berlin in 1841, writing on The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Natural Philosophy, which theme he treated from the Hegelian point of view. Marx early became a Left Hegelian, then a Feuerbachian. In 1842-43 he edited the "Rheinische Zeitung," a Cologne daily of radical tendencies. In 1844, in Paris, Marx, now calling himself a communist, became a leading spirit in radical groups and a close friend of Friedrich Engels (q.v.). In 1844 he wrote articles for the "Deutsch-FranzM-CM-6sische JahrbM-CM-
Mastaba (Arabic) [from maM-aM-9M-
M-bM-^@M-^\After death . . . there occurs what is called the M-bM-^@M-^Xsecond death,M-bM-^@M-^Y which is the separation of the immortal part of the second or intermediate Duad from the lower portions of this Duad, which lower portions remain as the kama-rupa in the etheric or higher astral spheres which are intermediate between the devachanic and the earthly spheres. In time this kama-rupa gradually fades out in its turn, its life-atoms at such dissolution passing on to their various and unceasing peregrinations.
M-bM-^@M-^\All disease is a means towards some new joy of health, all evil & pain a tuning of Nature for some more intense bliss & good, all death an opening on widest immortality. Why and how this should be so, is GodM-bM-^@M-^Ys secret which only the soul purified of egoism can penetrate.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
M-bM-^@M-^\An end have these bodies of an embodied soul that is eternal;M-bM-^@M-& it is not born nor dies nor is it that having been it will not be again. It is unborn, ancient, everlasting; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. As a man casts from him his worn-out garments and takes others that are new, so the embodied being casts off its bodies and joins itself to others that are new. Certain is the death of that which is born and certain is the birth of that which dies M-bM-^@M-&.M-bM-^@M-^] Gita. The Life Divine
M-bM-^@M-^\A philosophy of change?(1) But what is change? In ordinary parlance change means passage from one condition to another and that would seem to imply passage from one status to another status. The shoot changes into a tree, passes from the status of shoot to the status of tree and there it stops; man passes from the status of young man to the status of old man and the only farther change possible to him is death or dissolution of his status. So it would seem that change is not something isolated which is the sole original and eternal reality, but it is something dependent on status, and if status were non-existent, change also could not exist. For we have to ask, when you speak of change as alone real, change of what, from what, to what? Without this M-bM-^@M-^XwhatM-bM-^@M-^Y change could not be.
M-bM-^@M-^\As for immortality, it cannot come if there is attachment to the body,M-bM-^@M-^Tfor it is only by living in the immortal part of oneself which is unidentified with the body and bringing down its consciousness and force into the cells that it can come. I speak of course of yogic means. The scientists now hold that it is (theoretically at least) possible to discover physical means by which death can be overcome, but that would mean only a prolongation of the present consciousness in the present body. Unless there is a change of consciousness and change of functionings it would be a very small gain.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\Death has no reality except as a process of life. Disintegration of substance and renewal of substance, maintenance of form and change of form are the constant process of life; death is merely a rapid disintegration subservient to lifeM-bM-^@M-^Ys necessity of change and variation of formal experience. Even in the death of the body there is no cessation of Life, only the material of one form of life is broken up to serve as material for other forms of life.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
M-bM-^@M-^\Death is the question Nature puts continually to Life and her reminder to it that it has not yet found itself. If there were no siege of death, the creature would be bound for ever in the form of an imperfect living. Pursued by death he awakes to the idea of perfect life and seeks out its means and its possibility.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\Death is there because the being in the body is not yet developed enough to go on growing in the same body without the need of change and the body itself is not sufficiently conscious. If the mind and vital and the body itself were more conscious and plastic, death would not be necessary.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\Before man could become male and female physically, his prototype, the creating Elohim, had to arrange his Form on this sexual plane astrally. That is to say, the atoms and the organic forces, descending into the plane of the given differentiation, had to be marshaled in the order intended by Nature, so as to be ever carrying out, in an immaculate way, that law which the Kabala calls the balance, through which everything that exists does so as male and female in its final perfection, in this present stage of materiality. Chochmah, Wisdom, the Male Sephiroth, had to diffuse itself in, and through, Binah, intelligent Nature, or UnderstandingM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:84). After the separation, the third eye began to disappear, and death as we now understand it was not known until then.
M-bM-^@M-^\Bereft of all that pertains to the real entity, the genuine man, the bhuta is as much a corpse in the astral realms as is the decaying physical body left behind at physical death; and consequently, astral or psychical intercourse of any kind with these shells is productive only of evil. The bhutas, although belonging in the astral world, are magnetically attracted to physical localities similar in type to the remnants of impulses still inhering in them. The bhuta of a drunkard is attracted to wine-cellars and taverns; the bhuta of one who has lived a lewd life is attracted to localities sympathetic to it; the thin and tenuous bhuta of a good man is similarly attracted to less obnoxious and evil placesM-bM-^@M-^] (OG 17-18).
M-bM-^@M-^\Be thyself, immortal, and put not thy faith in death; for death is not of thyself, but of thy body. For the Spirit is immortality.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
M-bM-^@M-^\Birth is an assumption of a body by the spirit, death is the casting off [of] the body; there is nothing original in this birth, nothing final in this death. Before birth we were; after death we shall be. Nor are our birth and death a single episode without continuous meaning or sequel; it is one episode out of many, scenes of our drama of existence with its denouement far away in time.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
M-bM-^@M-^\But it is probable that the theosophic effort which Jesus attempted to initiate did not endure for fifty years after his death. Almost immediately after his passing, his disciples, all half-instructed, and in some cases almost illiterate, men . . . foisted upon the world of their time the forms and beliefs of early Christianity; and had there been nothing but these, that religious system had not lived another fifty years. But what happened? During the oncoming of the dark cycle after Jesus (which began as before said about the time of Pythagoras), the last few rays from the setting sun of the ancient light shone feebly in the minds of certain of these Christian Fathers, Clement of Alexandria for one, and Origen of Alexandria for another, and in one or two more like these, who had been initiated at least in the lowest of some of the then degenerate pagan Mysteries; and these men entered into the Christian Church and introduced some poor modicum of that light, . . . which they still cherished; and these rays they derived mainly from the Neo-pythagorean and the Neoplatonic systemM-bM-^@M-^] (Fund 486-7).
M-bM-^@M-^\By self-realisation of Brahman as our self we find the force, the divine energy which lifts us beyond the limitation, weakness, darkness, sorrow, all-pervading death of our mortal existence; by the knowledge of the one Brahman in all beings and in all the various movement of the cosmos we attain beyond these things to the infinity, the omnipotent being, the omniscient light, the pure beatitude of that divine existence.M-bM-^@M-^] The Upanishads
M-bM-^@M-^\Devanagari is as old as the Vedas, and held so sacred that the Brahmans, first under penalty of death, and later on, of eternal ostracism, were not even allowed to mention it to profane ears, much less to make known the existence of their secret temple librariesM-bM-^@M-^] (Five Years of Theosophy 360).
M-bM-^@M-^\Even Science believes that one day death may be conquered by physical means and its reasonings are perfectly sound. There is no reason why the supramental Force should not do it. Forms on earth do not last (they do in other planes) because these forms are too rigid to grow expressing the progress of the spirit. If they become plastic enough to do that there is no reason why they should not last.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\He who is the high and low, the saint and the sinner, the god and the worm, Him worship, the visible, the knowable, the real, the omnipresent; break all other idols. In whom there is neither past life nor future birth, nor death nor going nor coming, in whom we always have been and always will be one, Him worship; break all other idols.M-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y The Synthesis of Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\If birth is a becoming, death also is a becoming, not by any means a cessation. The body is abandoned, but the soul goes on its way, M-bM-^@M-&M-bM-^@M-^] Essays on the Gita
M-bM-^@M-^\Immortality is not the survival of the mental personality after death, though that also is true, but the waking possession of the unborn & deathless self of which body is only an instrument and a shadow.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
M-bM-^@M-^\It [death] has no separate existence by itself, it is only a result of the principle of decay in the body and that principle is there alreadyM-bM-^@M-^Tit is part of the physical nature. At the same time it is not inevitable; if one could have the necessary consciousness and force, decay and death is not inevitable. But to bring that consciousness and force into the whole of the material nature is the most difficult thing of allM-bM-^@M-^Tat any rate, in such a way as to annul the decay principle.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\It is necessary to understand clearly the difference between the evolving soul (psychic being) and the pure Atman, self or spirit. The pure self is unborn, does not pass through death or birth, is independent of birth or body, mind or life or this manifested Nature.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\ . . . Khem is Horus avenging the death of his father Osiris, hence punishing the Sins of man when he becomes a disembodied Soul. Thus the defunct M-bM-^@M-^XOsirifiedM-bM-^@M-^Y became the god Khem, who M-bM-^@M-^Xgleans the field of Aanroo,M-bM-^@M-^Y i.e., he gleans either his reward or punishment, as that field is the celestial locality (Devachan) where the defunct is given wheat, the food of divine justiceM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 1:220-21).
M-bM-^@M-^\Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual M-bM-^@M-^Xmicrocosm,M-bM-^@M-^Y and the death or dissolution of the physical Universe (its passage into the realm of the Spiritual) . . . M-bM-^@M-^XWhen the Sun passes away behind the 30th degree of Makara and will reach no more the sign of the Meenam (pisces) then the night of Brahma has comeM-bM-^@M-^Y M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:579 & n).
M-bM-^@M-^\Man, born into the world, revolves between world and world in the action of Prakriti and Karma. Purusha in Prakriti is his formula: what the soul in him thinks, contemplates and acts, that always he becomes. All that he had been, determined his present birth; and all that he is, thinks, does in this life up to the moment of his death, determines what he will become in the worlds beyond and in lives yet to be. If birth is a becoming, death also is a becoming, not by any means a cessation.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays on the Gita
M-bM-^@M-^\M-bM-^@M-& immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some kind of personal survival of the bodily death; we are immortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds: the spiritM-bM-^@M-^Ys timeless existence is the true immortality.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
M-bM-^@M-^\Mercury in his psychopompic character, conducting and guiding with the caduceus the souls of the dead to Hades and even raising the dead to life with it, . . . shows the dual power of the Secret Wisdom: the black and the white magic. It shows this personified Wisdom guiding the Soul after death, and its power to call to life that which is dead M-bM-^@M-^T a very deep metaphor . . .M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:364).
M-bM-^@M-^\Out of imperfection we have to construct perfection, out of limitation to discover infinity, out of death to find immortality, out of grief to recover divine bliss, out of ignorance to rescue divine self-knowledge, out of matter to reveal Spirit. To work out this end for ourselves and for humanity is the object of our Yogic practice.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
M-bM-^@M-^\Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; M-bM-^@M-&M-bM-^@M-^] (From a letter of Sri Aurobindo to a disciple. Included as a Note at the preface to Savitri.)
M-bM-^@M-^\The Phoenix M-bM-^@M-^T called by the Hebrews Onech (from Phenoch, Enoch, symbol of a secret cycle and initiation), and by the Turks, Kerkes M-bM-^@M-^T lives a thousand years, after which, kindling a flame, it is self-consumed; and then, reborn from itself M-bM-^@M-^T it lives another thousand years, up to seven times seven . . . when comes the day of Judgment. The M-bM-^@M-^Xseven times seven,M-bM-^@M-^Y 49, are a transparent allegory, and an allusion to the forty-nine M-bM-^@M-^XManus,M-bM-^@M-^Y the Seven rounds, and the seven times seven human cycles in each Round on each globe. The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a race cycle, and the mystical tree Ababel M-bM-^@M-^T the M-bM-^@M-^XFather TreeM-bM-^@M-^Y in the Kuran M-bM-^@M-^T shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix; the M-bM-^@M-^XDay of JudgmentM-bM-^@M-^Y meaning a M-bM-^@M-^Xminor PralayaM-bM-^@M-^Y . . . M-bM-^@M-^XThe Phoenix is very plainly the same as the Simorgh, the Persian roc, and the account which is given us of this last bird, yet more decisively establishes the opinion that the death and revival of the Phoenix exhibit the successive destruction and reproduction of the world, which many believed to be effected by the agency of a fiery delugeM-bM-^@M-^Y . . . and a watery one in turnM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:617).
M-bM-^@M-^\There is no such thing as death, for it is the body that dies and the body is not the man. That which really is, cannot go out of existence, though it may change the forms through which it appears, just as that which is non-existent cannot come into being. The soul is and cannot cease to be. This opposition of is and is not, this balance of being and becoming which is the mindM-bM-^@M-^Ys view of existence, finds its end in the realisation of the soul as the one imperishable self by whom all this universe has been extended. Finite bodies have an end, but that which possesses and uses the body, is infinite, illimitable, eternal, indestructible. It casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new; and what is there in this to grieve at and recoil and shrink? This is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being once and passing away will never come into being again. It is unborn, ancient, sempiternal; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. Who can slay the immortal spirit? Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry. Eternally stable, immobile, all-pervading, it is for ever and for ever. Not manifested like the body, but greater than all manifestation, not to be analysed by the thought, but greater than all mind, not capable of change and modification like the life and its organs and their objects, but beyond the changes of mind and life and body, it is yet the Reality which all these strive to figure.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays on the Gita
M-bM-^@M-^\The true soul secret in us,M-bM-^@M-^Tsubliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil,M-bM-^@M-^Tthis veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
M-bM-^@M-^\The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find outM-bM-^@M-^Tif we reject the way out of the old sagesM-bM-^@M-^Tthe way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\The world we live in is not a meaningless accident that has unaccountably taken place in the void of Space; it is the scene of an evolution in which an eternal Truth has been embodied, hidden in a form of things, and is secretly in process of unfoldment through the ages. There is a meaning in our existence, a purpose in our birth and death and travail, a consummation of all our labour. All are parts of a single plan; nothing has been idly made in the universe; nothing is vain in our life.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
M-bM-^@M-^\This conception of the Person and Personality, if accepted, must modify at the same time our current ideas about the immortality of the soul; for, normally, when we insist on the soulM-bM-^@M-^Ys undying existence, what is meant is the survival after death of a definite unchanging personality which was and will always remain the same throughout eternity. It is the very imperfect superficial IM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y of the moment, evidently regarded by Nature as a temporary form and not worth preservation, for which we demand this stupendous right to survival and immortality. But the demand is extravagant and cannot be conceded; theIM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y of the moment can only merit survival if it consents to change, to be no longer itself but something else, greater, better, more luminous in knowledge, more moulded in the image of the eternal inner beauty, more and more progressive towards the divinity of the secret Spirit. It is that secret Spirit or divinity of Self in us which is imperishable, because it is unborn and eternal. The psychic entity within, its representative, the spiritual individual in us, is the Person that we are; but the IM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y of this moment, theIM-bM-^@M-^YM-bM-^@M-^Y of this life is only a formation, a temporary personality of this inner Person: it is one step of the many steps of our evolutionary change, and it serves its true purpose only when we pass beyond it to a farther step leading nearer to a higher degree of consciousness and being. It is the inner Person that survives death, even as it pre-exists before birth; for this constant survival is a rendering of the eternity of our timeless Spirit into the terms of Time.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
M-bM-^@M-^\Truth is a difficult and strenuous conquest. One must be a real warrior to make this conquest, a warrior who fears nothing, neither enemies nor death, for with or against everybody, with or without a body, the struggle continues and will end by Victory.M-bM-^@M-^] Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 15.
M-bM-^@M-^T stumblings and deviations, hard and seemingly insuperable obstacles and wounds and suffering cannot be escaped and even death or utter downfall are not impossible. Only when the cons- cious integral surrender to the Divine has been learned by mind and life and body, can the way of the Yoga become easy, straight, swift and safe.
M-bM-^@M-^\We have to face the futureM-bM-^@M-^Ys offer of death as well as its offer of life, and it need not alarm us, for it is by constant death to our old names and forms that we shall live most vitally in greater and newer forms and names.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
M-bM-^@M-^\When we study this Life as it manifests itself upon earth with Matter as its basis, we observe that essentially it is a form of the one cosmic Energy, a dynamic movement or current of it positive and negative, a constant act or play of the Force which builds up forms, energises them by a continual stream of stimulation and maintains them by an unceasing process of disintegration and renewal of their substance. This would tend to show that the natural opposition we make between death and life is an error of our mentality, one of those false oppositionsM-bM-^@M-^Tfalse to inner truth though valid in surface practical experienceM-bM-^@M-^Twhich, deceived by appearances, it is constantly bringing into the universal unity.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
M-bM-^@M-^YOb (Hebrew) M-bM-^@M-^YM-EM-^Lb Also aub. A necromancer, one who M-bM-^@M-^\calls up the deadM-bM-^@M-^] in order to learn from them future events; secondarily, the spirit of divination in the necromancer; and thirdly, the apparition, shade, or kama-rupa itself which is raised. M-bM-^@M-^YOb is M-bM-^@M-^\the messenger of death used by the sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluidM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 1:76), the lowest aspect of the astral light M-bM-^@M-^T M-bM-^@M-^\or rather, its pernicious evil currentsM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 237). As the astral light in its lower aspects was sometimes symbolized by a serpent, so was M-bM-^@M-^Yob often thus symbolized. As signifying the powers of darkness, the denizens in the lower regions of the astral light, and the evil and immoral practices of necromancy, it is the opposite of the Shemitic word M-bM-^@M-^Yor (light, glory; to enlighten, inflame with wisdom and knowledge), used also for mystic revelations and the communication of esoteric truth.
Medicine As the healing art, medicine is as old as thinking man. Before the latent fires of mind were lighted in the third root-race, disease and death were unknown. However, with the physicalization of protoplastic humanity, and the separation of the sexes, the unnatural linking with the animals in the third and fourth root-races disordered the harmonious relations between man and nature. In addition, self-conscious manM-bM-^@M-^Ys continued evolution into matter, with the involution of his spiritual nature, brought about forms of disorder, disease, and physical death. Then, beings from higher spheres descended, and dynasties of divine kings and spiritual guides taught men, leading them to the invention of all the arts and sciences, including the medical use of plants (cf SD 2:364).
Medicine was originally a divine science, providing for the well-being of the spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and physical man. Archaic medicine included a profound knowledge of genuine astrology, of true alchemy, of occult physiology, of the finer forces vibrating as sound, color, form, thought, and feeling, and whatever related man to his home universe of natural law and order. This was the basis of the natural M-bM-^@M-^\magicM-bM-^@M-^] which tradition has linked with the medical art. This knowledge was dual in its power to work for life or death, for good or evil ends. Its full comprehension required not only a trained intellect, but the intuitive understanding of a pure spiritual nature. Nevertheless, the Atlanteans acquired enough knowledge of the use of dangerous powers that they became M-bM-^@M-^T albeit with numerous and noteworthy exceptions M-bM-^@M-^T a nation of sorcerers. Then, the white magicians established the Mystery schools in which to safeguard the sacred teachings from evildoers and to protect humanity from their influence. Thus, the deeper truths of the healing art have ever since been entrusted only to pledged disciples and initiates. Such fragments of it as have been rediscovered by intuitive physicians from time to time have usually been in keeping with the general cultural level of their civilization. The exceptions have been men who have frequently been too far ahead of their times to be understood. Such a man was Paracelsus in medieval Europe, persecuted for heretical teachings such as the psychoelectric and magnetic play of sidereal forces which linked man with the stars M-bM-^@M-^T the spiritus vitae in man came from the spiritus mundi.
metempsychosis ::: n. --> The passage of the soul, as an immortal essence, at the death of the animal body it had inhabited, into another living body, whether of a brute or a human being; transmigration of souls.
Metempsychosis: The doctrine that the soul occupies another body after the death of the gross body. While the classical concept of metempsychosis includes the belief that the soul dwelling in a human may later occupy an animal body, too, occultists hold that the soul occupying a human body can be reincarnated in another human body only, and deny that the soul can migrate into a physical body on a lower scale of physical evolution.
Mictlan: The underworld which is the abode of the dead in Aztec mythology; it is ruled by Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead, and his wife, Mictlancihuatl, goddess of death.
Mind and life in the body are in the state of Death because by Ignorance they fail to realise Sachchidananda. Realising perfectly Sachchidananda, they can convert themselves, Mind into the nature of the Truth, vijnana, Life into the nature of caitanya, Body into the nature of sat, that is, into the pure essence. When this cannot be done perfectly in the body, the soul realises its true state in other forms of existence or worlds, the sunlit worlds and states of felicity, and returns upon material existence to complete its evolution in the body. A progressively perfect realisation [of Sachchidananda] in the body is the aim of human evolution.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 17, Page: 41-42
minos ::: n. --> A king and lawgiver of Crete, fabled to be the son of Jupiter and Europa. After death he was made a judge in the Lower Regions.
Mirku (Chaldean) Noble crown; the savior from death of the gods, regarded as the creator of the Dark Race (Zalmat-qaqadi). The class of intelligent beings in the universe who through evolution bring about progressive unfolding growth from within outwards of all beings and entities, who thus are at one stage of their evolution the Dark Race, because sunken in matter, but are saved by the germs of intelligence expanding into cosmic realization within themselves. Hence the describing of intellect or intelligence as noble crown.
misericordia ::: n. --> An amercement.
A thin-bladed dagger; so called, in the Middle Ages, because used to give the death wound or "mercy" stroke to a fallen adversary.
An indulgence as to food or dress granted to a member of a religious order.
Mishnah, authorities of: The authorities cited in the Mishnah as rings in "golden chain" of the Jewish masorah (tradition) are: Sopherim (scribes) known also as Anshe Keneseth Hagedolah (men of the great synod), beginning with Ezra of the Bible and terminating with Simeon the Just. Five Zugoth (duumviri) the last pair being the noted Hillel and Shamai. The former was according to E. Renan's hypothesis, a teacher of Jesus, Tannaim (repeaters) --They numbered 277 and are divided into 5 generations. In the first generation were men who still held office in the temple of Jerusalem and witnessed its destruction (70 A.D.). The second generation counts the celebrated Nasi Rabban Gamaliel II and R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, excommunicated for opposing the rule of the majority, R. Ishmael who was held hostage in Rome, and R. Akiba, supporter of Bar Koheba who suffered a martyr's death by the Romans, Elisha b, Abuiah, the heretic.
Mistletoe, Mistilteinn (Icelandic) [from mistil + teinn twig] A parasitic plant held in high esteem among the Druids and Anglo-Saxon peoples as well as the Norse. The Druids are said to have used it as a medicinal herb. In Norse mythology it is instrumental in bringing about the death of Balder (the sun god) at the instigation of Loki, through the agency of Hoder, the blind god of darkness and ignorance.
Mithraism: A mystery cult or religion originating in Persia, very popular in the Roman Empire. Its hero-divinity, Mithra, devoted his life on earth to the service of mankind and was believed by his followers to have ascended to heaven and to continue to help the faithful in their fight against the forces of evil. The Mithraists had a very elaborate process of initiation, and the candidate had to pass through seven grades, symbolizing the passage of the soul after death through the seven heavens to the final dwelling place of the blessed. Mithraism restricted its membership to men.
Modern Freemasonry includes many Rites and Degrees, all the so-called higher degrees being based upon the three fundamental craft degrees M-bM-^@M-^T 1) Entered Apprentice; 2) Fellow Craft; and 3) Master Mason M-bM-^@M-^T which degrees alone comprise true Masonic secrets and have any valid claim to descent from ancient Masonry. The lessons or keynotes of these three degrees are respectively 1) ethical, to subdue the passions; 2) intellectual, the training of the mind, the seven liberal arts and sciences, and the mounting of the stairway of wisdom; and 3) spiritual, the conquest of death. The lessons in each degree are enforced and illustrated by appropriate symbols and allegories. The central theme of modern Masonry is the building of King SolomonM-bM-^@M-^Ys Temple; the death of Hiram Abif and the consequent loss of the Word; the raising of Hiram Abif, and the communication of a Substitute Word.
Mohammed dictated these suras to his immediate followers, who memorized them. But when some of these original reciters had lost their lives in the conflicts which occurred after the death of Mohammed, Omar suggested to Caliph M-bM-^@M-^YAbu-Bekr (the successor of Mohammed) that they be reduced to writing. The commission to collect as many as possible of the narrations or parts of the revelations was given to Zaid, a native of Medina who had often acted as an amanuensis to Mohammed. This collection became the first Koran, which Azid wrote down in Arabic. Some years later a second redaction was made and all previous parts or manuscripts were burned: Zaid dictated the work to four scribes, and these four copies have come down to our own day.
moksha. :::final liberation from birth, death and re-birth; the state of abiding as the Self; complete freedom &
moribund ::: a. --> In a dying state; dying; at the point of death. ::: n. --> A dying person.
mortal ::: a. --> Subject to death; destined to die; as, man is mortal.
Destructive to life; causing or occasioning death; terminating life; exposing to or deserving death; deadly; as, a mortal wound; a mortal sin.
Fatally vulnerable; vital.
Of or pertaining to the time of death.
Affecting as if with power to kill; deathly.
Human; belonging to man, who is mortal; as, mortal wit or
mortality ::: n. --> The condition or quality of being mortal; subjection to death or to the necessity of dying.
Human life; the life of a mortal being.
Those who are, or that which is, mortal; the human cace; humanity; human nature.
Death; destruction.
The whole sum or number of deaths in a given time or a given community; also, the proportion of deaths to population, or to a
mortally ::: adv. --> In a mortal manner; so as to cause death; as, mortally wounded.
In the manner of a mortal or of mortal beings.
In an extreme degree; to the point of dying or causing death; desperately; as, mortally jealous.
mortal ::: n. 1. A human being. adj. 2. Of or relating to humankind; human. 3. Belonging to this world. 4. Causing death; fatal. mortal"s, mortals.
mortiferous ::: a. --> Bringing or producing death; deadly; destructive; as, a mortiferous herb.
mortification ::: n. --> The act of mortifying, or the condition of being mortified
The death of one part of an animal body, while the rest continues to live; loss of vitality in some part of a living animal; gangrene.
Destruction of active qualities; neutralization.
Subjection of the passions and appetites, by penance, absistence, or painful severities inflicted on the body.
mort ::: n. --> A great quantity or number.
A woman; a female.
A salmon in its third year.
Death; esp., the death of game in the chase.
A note or series of notes sounded on a horn at the death of game.
The skin of a sheep or lamb that has died of disease.
mortuary ::: a. --> A sort of ecclesiastical heriot, a customary gift claimed by, and due to, the minister of a parish on the death of a parishioner. It seems to have been originally a voluntary bequest or donation, intended to make amends for any failure in the payment of tithes of which the deceased had been guilty.
A burial place; a place for the dead.
A place for the reception of the dead before burial; a deadhouse; a morgue.
Motion The essential characteristic of abstract motion, whether in space, time, or consciousness, commonly manifesting as change. Absolute abstract motion is one of two aspects under which is symbolized Be-ness, the other being abstract space, yet these are and must be one in essence; it is also called the Great Breath. On the planes of manifestation, motion prevails as the positive pole, equivalent to jivatman, spirit, etc., according to which plane is meant. Consciousness and thought are manifestations of motion in the guise of active intelligence, and are necessarily connected with their appropriate forms of prakriti or mulaprakriti. The beginning of differentiation is spoken of as the beginning of change. Life manifests as motion, and its passing from plane to plane produces what is called birth and death. Absolute motion and what humans call absolute rest M-bM-^@M-^T really but another form of incessant motion M-bM-^@M-^T converge into one. The tendency of cosmic motion is ever toward the spiral; in kinematics, simple harmonic motion generates ellipses, of which the straight line and the circle are limiting cases.
mourner ::: n. --> One who mourns or is grieved at any misfortune, as the death of a friend.
One who attends a funeral as a hired mourner.
mrityu&
mr.tam (mritam) ::: death.
mrtyu ::: death.
mrtyum tirtva amrtam asnute ::: he crosses beyond death and enjoys Immortality. [Isa 14]
mr.tyur vaM-LM-^D prabhavati (mrityur va prabhavati) ::: death has power.(This phrase, forming the first sortilege of 9 October 1914, occurs in a sentence in Shankara"s commentary on SM-LM-^AvetaM-LM-^DsM-LM-^Avatara Upanis.ad 2.12 which is part of the second sortilege of the same date. The complete sentence means: "Over that Yogi neither disease nor old age nor death has power.M-bM-^@M-^])
myriologue ::: n. --> An extemporaneous funeral song, composed and sung by a woman on the death of a friend.
Mysteries ::: The Mysteries were divided into two general parts, the Less Mysteries and the Greater.The Less Mysteries were very largely composed of dramatic rites or ceremonies, with some teaching; theGreater Mysteries were composed of, or conducted almost entirely on the ground of, study; and thedoctrines taught in them later were proved by personal experience in initiation. In the Greater Mysterieswas explained, among other things, the secret meaning of the mythologies of the old religions, as, forinstance, the Greek.The active and nimble mind of the Greeks produced a mythology which for grace and beauty is perhapswithout equal, but it nevertheless is very difficult to explain; the Mysteries of Samothrace and of Eleusis-- the greater ones -- explained among other things what these myths meant. These myths formed thebasis of the exoteric religions; but note well that exotericism does not mean that the thing which is taughtexoterically is in itself false, but merely that it is a teaching given without the key to it. Such teaching issymbolic, illusory, touching on the truth -- the truth is there, but without the key to it, which is theesoteric meaning, it yields no proper sense.We have the testimony of the Greek and Roman initiates and thinkers that the ancient Mysteries ofGreece taught men, above everything else, to live rightly and to have a noble hope for the life after death.The Romans derived their Mysteries from those of Greece.The mythological aspect comprises only a portion -- and a relatively small portion -- of what was taughtin the Mystery schools in Greece, principally at Samothrace and at Eleusis. At Samothrace was taught thesame mystery-teaching that was current elsewhere in Greece, but here it was more developed andrecondite, and the foundation of these mystery-teachings was morals. The noblest and greatest men ofancient times in Greece were initiates in the Mysteries of these two seats of esoteric knowledge.In other countries farther to the east, there were other Mystery schools or "colleges," and this wordcollege by no means necessarily meant a mere temple or building; it meant association, as in our modernword colleague, "associate." The Teutonic tribes of northern Europe, the Germanic tribes, whichincluded Scandinavia, had their Mystery colleges also; and teacher and neophytes stood on the bosom ofMother Earth, under Father Ether, the boundless sky, or in subterranean receptacles, and taught andlearned. The core, the heart, the center, of the teaching of the ancient Mysteries was the abstruseproblems dealing with death. (See also Guru-parampara)
Mystery cult; mystery religion: This term is commonly employed to mean any religion or cult to which initiates are admitted by secret rites, the meaning of which cannot be divulged to the public; the possession of this esoteric knowledge is believed to insure special blessings for the devoted initiate both in earthly life and after physical death. The term is frequently used for the mysteries (q.v.) of classical Greece and Egypt although it is not very appropriate in this application, since these cults did not demand exclusive allegiance of the adherents and did not preclude their acceptance and observance of other gods and ritual practices.
Mystic Death An experience at a certain stage of initiation, where the candidate undergoes the experiences of virtual death, differing from actual death in that his body is prevented from dissolution so that he may resume it when the trial has been passed. Through its symbolic representation in the exoteric Mystery dramas, it has passed into the substance of religious creeds where it has been adapted to those formulas, as in the story or mythos of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is, among other things, a description of some of the experiences undergone by such a candidate.
mytilotoxine ::: n. --> A poisonous base (leucomaine) found in the common mussel. It either causes paralysis of the muscles, or gives rise to convulsions, including death by an accumulation of carbonic acid in the blood.
n.**1. Not subject to death. Immortal, immortal"s, Immortal"s, immortals, Immortals, immortals", Immortals". adj. 2. Everlasting; perpetual; constant. 3. Not subject to death or decay; having perpetual life. 4. Of or relating to immortal or divine beings or concepts. 5. Never to be forgotten; everlasting. adv. immortally.**
Nakshatra (Sanskrit) NakM-aM-9M-
necrobiosis ::: n. --> The death of a part by molecular disintegration and without loss of continuity, as in the processes of degeneration and atrophy.
necrophobia ::: n. --> An exaggerated fear of death or horror of dead bodies.
necrosis ::: n. --> Mortification or gangrene of bone, or the death of a bone or portion of a bone in mass, as opposed to its death by molecular disintegration. See Caries.
A disease of trees, in which the branches gradually dry up from the bark to the center.
Nephthys (Greek) Nebt-het (Egyptian) Nebt-M-aM-8M-%et. Lady of the house; an Egyptian deity, especially associated with the Underworld. Generally regarded as the daughter of Seb and Nut, sister of Osiris, Isis, and Set. In earliest times she is always SetM-bM-^@M-^Ys consort, giving birth of Anubis (Anpu). But more often she is mentioned with Isis, as the faithful sister. She was the personification of darkness; while Isis symbolized birth, growth, development, and vigor, Nephthys typified death, immobility, and the fountain of all. As in the case of Mut and Hathor, the darkness spoken of was the darkness of spirit as the womb of cosmic space, and hence the association of her name and attributes with death and the afterlife M-bM-^@M-^T death being the reservoir of all that has lived, and therefore the fountain of all that shall live in the future, the reproductions of the former. Isis represented the part of the world that is visible M-bM-^@M-^T hence the light or manifested part or day; Nephthys, or Neith, the part which is invisible M-bM-^@M-^T hence mystical, holy, and everlasting night, the precursor of day, and dark only because its mysteries in their fullness are utterly inscrutable to human intelligence. Thus one was associated with the things which are in manifestation, the other with those which are to come, or which forever are and produce what is to come.
Nidana (Sanskrit) NidM-DM-^Ana [from ni down, into + the verbal root dM-DM-^A to bind] That which binds, to earth or to existence, philosophically speaking. Originally meaning bond, rope, halter M-bM-^@M-^T that which binds. From this arose the implication of binding cause, or bonds of causation, and hence in Buddhist philosophy it signifies cause of existence, the concatenation of cause and effect. The twelve nidanas given as the chief causes are: 1) jati (birth) according to one of the chatur-yoni, the four modes of entering incarnation, each mode placing the being in one of the six gatis; 2) jara-marana (decrepitude) and death, following the maturity of the skandhas; 3) bhava, which leads every sentient being to be born in this or another mode of existence in the trailokya and gatis; 4) upadana, the creative cause of bhava which thus becomes the cause of jati, and this creative cause is the clinging to life; 5) trishna (thirst for life, love, attachment); 6) vedana (sensation) perception by the senses, the fifth skandha; 7) sparsa (the sense of touch) contact of any kind, whether mental or physical; 8) shadayatana (the organs of sensation) the inner or mental astral seats of the organs of sense; 9) nama-rupa (name-form, personality, a form with a name to it) the symbol of the unreality of material phenomenal appearances; 10) vijnana, the perfect knowledge of every perceptible thing and of all objects in their concatenation and unity; 11) samskara, action on the plane of illusion; and 12) avidya (nescience, ignorance) lack of true perception.
Niflhel (Icelandic) [from nifl mist, nebula + Hel queen of the realms of death, daughter of Loki (mind)] In Norse myths, this realm of unliving matter comprises worlds of death and decay beneath our own, where substances that once built former worlds are ground to mist, recycled for use in worlds yet to come. In the Edda a giant is said to have come from worlds beneath Niflhel, which suggests an ancient, even beginningless past, unfathomed depths of matter from which progress is made toward future unimaginable heights of spirit.
Nirriti (Sanskrit) NirM-aM-9M-^[ti [from nir the verbal root M-aM-9M-^[ to go out, dissolve, decay] Dissolution, destruction; often personified in the Vedas as the goddess of death and decay. Virtually synonymous with pralaya.
Nitya Pralaya (Sanskrit) Nitya-pralaya Constant or perpetual destruction of all that is; continuous dissolution, taking place imperceptibly and without cessation in everything from sun or planet to the atom. It is continuous change, which can take place only by the destruction of the preceding condition or state, a state in which the indwelling entity remains, while its various principles and vehicles undergo incessant change. Nitya thus has no absolute reference to time period, but rather to unceasing, continuous changes or modifications of living things or beings, to growth and decay, life and death, as exemplified by the continuous change of the cells of our bodies.
nonage ::: n. --> The ninth part of movable goods, formerly payable to the clergy on the death of persons in their parishes.
Time of life before a person becomes of age; legal immaturity; minority.
not put to death; not killed.
November One of the twelve months of the European year received from the Romans. All Saints Day (November 1) of the Christian calendar, which replaced, especially in Celtic lands, a previous festival dedicated not only to all the dead, and especially the worthy dead, but likewise to endings M-bM-^@M-^T an idea connected with death. M-bM-^@M-^\The Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, therefore, when, while all the fires were extinguished on the 1st of November, their sacred and inextinguishable fires alone remained to illumine the horizon . . .M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:759).
Nox: In Roman mythology, the goddess personifying the night; daughter of Chaos, mother of the Day and the Light, of Dreams and Death.
obit ::: n. --> Death; decease; the date of one&
obituary ::: n. --> That which pertains to, or is called forth by, the obit or death of a person; esp., an account of a deceased person; a notice of the death of a person, accompanied by a biographical sketch.
A list of the dead, or a register of anniversary days when service is performed for the dead.
obiyuary ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the death of a person or persons; as, an obituary notice; obituary poetry.
Obscuration should not be confused with pralaya, dissolution or death; obscuration is rest or dormancy, analogous to sleep:
Obscuration ::: This is a word coined by A. P. Sinnett, one of the pioneers in theosophical propaganda. A far better wordthan obscuration would have been dormancy or sleep, because this word obscuration actually ratherobscures the sense. A man is not "obscured" when he sleeps. The inner faculties may be so, in a sense;but it is better actually to state in more appropriate words just what the real condition is. It is that ofsleep, or latency -- of dormancy, rather. Thus when one of the seven kingdoms has passed through itsseven periods of progress, of evolution, it goes into dormancy or obscuration.Likewise when the seven kingdoms -- from the first elemental kingdom upwards to the human -- havefinished their evolution on globe A (for instance) during the first round, globe A then goes intoobscuration, that is, into dormancy; it goes to sleep. Everything left on it is now dormant, is sleeping,awaiting the incoming, when round two begins, of the life-waves which have just left it. Again, when thelife-waves have run their full sevenfold course, or their seven stock-races or root-races on globe B, thenglobe B in its turn goes into dormancy or obscuration, which is not pralaya; and the distinction betweenpralaya and obscuration is an extremely important one. It may be possible in popular usage at times tocall the state of dormancy by the name of pralaya in a very limited and particular sense; but pralayareally means disintegration and disappearance, like that of death. But obscuration is sleep -- dormancy.Thus is it with each one of the seven globes of the planetary chain, one after the other, each one goinginto obscuration when a life-wave has left it, so far as that particular life-wave is concerned. When thefinal or rather the last representatives of the last root-race of the last life-wave leave it, each globe thengoes to sleep or into dormancy.During a planetary obscuration or planetary rest period, at the end of a round, the entities leave the lastglobe, the seventh, and enter into a (lower) nirvanic period of manvantaric repose, answering to thedevachanic or between-life state of the human entity between one life on earth and the next life on earth.There is one very important point of the teachings to be noted here: a globe when a life-wave leaves itdoes not remain in obscuration or continuously dormant until the same life-wave returns to it in the nextround. The life-waves succeed each other in regular file, and each life-wave as it enters a globe has itsperiod of beginning, its efflorescence, and its decay, and then leaves the globe in obscuration so far asthat particular life-wave is concerned. But the globe within a relatively short time receives a succeedinglife-wave, which runs through its courses and leaves the globe again in obscuration so far as this lastlife-wave is concerned, etc. It is obvious, therefore, that a period of obscuration on any globe of theplanetary chain is much shorter than the term of a full planetary round.
obsequy ::: n. --> The last duty or service to a person, rendered after his death; hence, a rite or ceremony pertaining to burial; -- now used only in the plural.
Obsequiousness.
obstruction ::: n. --> The act of obstructing, or state of being obstructed.
That which obstructs or impedes; an obstacle; an impediment; a hindrance.
The condition of having the natural powers obstructed in their usual course; the arrest of the vital functions; death.
Odic Chord The astral body, model-body, or linga-sarira is connected with the physical body by an extensible chord of astral-vital substance, which allows the astral to separate locally from the physical for a certain distance, as happens in sleep and trance, without severing the actual connection. When the chord is severed, however, physical death ensues. This chord is called magnetic and odic M-bM-^@M-^T words borrowed from the speculations of Reichenbach and the animal magnetists M-bM-^@M-^T for want of a better term.
"Of course, that is the real fact M-bM-^@M-^T death is only a shedding of the body, not a cessation of the personal existence. A man is not dead because he goes into another country and changes his clothes to suit that climate.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
Of especial interest is the account of the heroM-bM-^@M-^Ys journey to the regions of the dead (Tuonela), thence to bring back with him the black swan. He is sent thither with but one arrow and his bow; but he is unsuccessful in returning to the upper regions, owing to the fact that he does not know the magic words enabling him to counteract the bite of an adder from the Stream of the Dead. Similar to the Egyptian account in the story of Osiris, there is the plaint of the bereaved mother, the search for her son, and finally the recovery of the body of Lemminkainen, which had been severed into five pieces and cast into the river of death. The mother is unable to restore her son to life, however, even though with divine aid she was able to make the body whole and heal the wounds with balsam obtained by a honeybee (Mehilainen). Finally she instructs the bee how to fly to the greatest deity, Ukko, on the seventh heaven: by way of the moon and the Great Bear. The honeybee makes the flight successfully, returning with the life-giving essence (the balm of the Creator), and the mother brings her son back to life once more.
of, pertaining to, or causing death; deadly; fatal.
omega ::: n. --> The last letter of the Greek alphabet. See Alpha.
The last; the end; hence, death.
On the cosmic scale Ragnarok brings to a close a universal cycle of activity. When a world dies the god Heimdal, guardian of the rainbow bridge between the realms of the gods and Midgard, domain of humanity, blows the Gjallarhorn, summoning the gods of life to the final battle against the forces of destruction. Lesser judgments take place when single world systems reach their term, as recorded in the M-bM-^@M-^\Lay of OdinM-bM-^@M-^Ys CorpseM-bM-^@M-^] (Odins Korpgalder), which deals with a death of one planet, and relates the deitiesM-bM-^@M-^Y efforts to elicit from the planetary soul an accounting of its past cycle of activity.
On the death of Balder, the sun god, at the hands of his blind brother Hoder, Odin laid Draupnir on his sonM-bM-^@M-^Ys funeral pyre; Hermod, sent as messenger of Odin to the realm of Hel, queen of the dead, received it back and returned it to Odin.
Ordinary usage has attached the meaning of death or annihilation to abhava, but only because to the materialistic mind that which cannot be cognized by the sense organs has no existence. Like other philosophical terms, it has a dual meaning: nonbeing or nonexistence, when taken objectively; mystically, the only true being, that of spirit which is nonbeing to those who do not accept spiritual realms and their life.
Orphic mysteries: The ancient Greek mystery cult which developed from the Dionysian mysteries (q.v.). The Orphics eliminated the orgiastic elements of the Dionysian rites, and invested their mysteries with a more sober and speculative character, emphasizing the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of reincarnation, the M-bM-^@M-^\Great Circle of Necessity.M-bM-^@M-^] They taught a symbolism in which, for instance, the relationship of the One to the many was clearly enunciated, and they sought to influence their destiny after death by austerity and pure living.
Osiris: The most widely worshipped god of ancient Egypt, god of the dead, husband of Isis, father of Horus. He was worshipped also as the great Creator. His cult included human sacrifices, for which in later periods animal sacrifices were permitted to be substituted. His death and resurrection was the central theme of the Isis-Osiris mysteries.
::: "Out of imperfection we have to construct perfection, out of limitation to discover infinity, out of death to find immortality, out of grief to recover divine bliss, out of ignorance to rescue divine self-knowledge, out of matter to reveal Spirit. To work out this end for ourselves and for humanity is the object of our Yogic practice.M-bM-^@M-^] *Essays Divine and Human
pang ::: n. --> A paroxysm of extreme pain or anguish; a sudden and transitory agony; a throe; as, the pangs of death. ::: v. t. --> To torture; to cause to have great pain or suffering; to torment.
paradise ::: 1. The abode of righteous souls after death; heaven. 2. A place of ideal beauty or loveliness. 3. Fig A state of delight. Paradise, paradisal.
paradise ::: n. --> The garden of Eden, in which Adam and Eve were placed after their creation.
The abode of sanctified souls after death.
A place of bliss; a region of supreme felicity or delight; hence, a state of happiness.
An open space within a monastery or adjoining a church, as the space within a cloister, the open court before a basilica, etc.
A churchyard or cemetery.
Pasa (Sanskrit) PM-DM-^AM-EM-^[a [from the verbal root paM-EM-^[ to fasten, bind] A snare, noose, tie, bond, chain, fetter M-bM-^@M-^T both literally and figuratively. Especially used in connection with Yama, the Hindu god of death, represented as carrying a noose. The Jains and Buddhists use the term for anything that binds or fetters the soul, e.g., the outer world of matter and sense. M-bM-^@M-^\As an emblem of M-bM-^@M-^Xdoor, gate, mouth, the place of outletM-bM-^@M-^Y it signifies the M-bM-^@M-^Xstrait gateM-bM-^@M-^Y that leads to the kingdom of heaven, far more than the M-bM-^@M-^Xbirth-placeM-bM-^@M-^Y in a physiological sense.
passion ::: n. --> A suffering or enduring of imposed or inflicted pain; any suffering or distress (as, a cardiac passion); specifically, the suffering of Christ between the time of the last supper and his death, esp. in the garden upon the cross.
The state of being acted upon; subjection to an external agent or influence; a passive condition; -- opposed to action.
Capacity of being affected by external agents; susceptibility of impressions from external agents.
Pastophori (Greek) Shrine-bearers; a class of candidates for initiation, especially in ancient Egypt, who bore the coffin containing the defunct M-bM-^@M-^T the sun god killed and resurrected M-bM-^@M-^T in the ceremony at which a candidate for higher initiation has to pass through the portals of death.
Paurusha Pralaya or Manvantara (Sanskrit) PauruM-aM-9M-
Pelagianism: The teaching of Pelagius of Britain who was active during the first quarter of the fifth century in Rome, North Africa, and Palestine. He denied original sin and the necessity of baptism in order to be freed from it. Death was not a punishment for sin, and men can be saved without the aid of divine grace. By justification men are purged of their sins through faith alone. Pelagius was notably influenced by Stoic doctrines. He and his followers refused to submit to the decisions of the Church, which repeatedly condemned their tenets, largely owing to the efforts of Augustine. -- J.J.R.
perdition ::: n. --> Entire loss; utter destruction; ruin; esp., the utter loss of the soul, or of final happiness in a future state; future misery or eternal death.
Loss of diminution.
perishable ::: a. --> Liable to perish; subject to decay, destruction, or death; as, perishable goods; our perishable bodies.
persecute ::: v. t. --> To pursue in a manner to injure, grieve, or afflict; to beset with cruelty or malignity; to harass; especially, to afflict, harass, punish, or put to death, for adherence to a particular religious creed or mode of worship.
To harass with importunity; to pursue with persistent solicitations; to annoy.
persecution ::: n. --> The act or practice of persecuting; especially, the infliction of loss, pain, or death for adherence to a particular creed or mode of worship.
The state or condition of being persecuted.
A carrying on; prosecution.
Pessimism: (Lat. pessimus, the worst) The attitude gained by reflection on life, man, and the world (psychiatrically explained as due to neurotic or other physiological conditions, economically to over-population, mechanization, rampant utilitarianism; religiously to lack of faith; etc.) which makes a person gloomy, despondent, magnifying evil and sorrow, or holding the world in contempt. Rationalizations of this attitude have been attempted before Schopenhauer (as in Hesiod, Job, among the Hindus, in Byron, Giacomo Leopardi, Heine, Musset, and others), but never with such vigor, consistency, and acumen, so that since his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung we speak of a 19th century philosophic literature of pessimism which considers this world the worst possible, holds man to be born to sorrow, and thinks it best if neither existed. Buddhism (q.v.) blames the universal existence of pain, sorrow, and death; Schopenhauer the blind, impetuous will as the very stuff life and the world are made of; E. v. Hartmann the alogical or irrational side of the ill-powerful subconscious; Oswald Spengler the Occidental tendency toward civilization and hence the impossibility of extricating ourselves from decay as the natural terminus of all organic existence. All pessimists, however, suggest compensations or remedies; thus, Buddhism looks hopefully to nirvana (q.v.), Schopenhauer to the Idea, v. Hartmann to the rational, Spengler to a rebirth through culture. See Optimism. -- K.F.L.
Phaeton, Phaethon (Greek) Shining one; son of Helios, the sun, who wheedles his father into letting him drive the chariot of the sun across the heavens for one day, loses control of the horses of the sun, and nearly sets the earth on fire. M-bM-^@M-^\Phaeton meeting with his death while carrying heat to the frozen stars of the boreal regions, awakening at the Pole the Dragon made rigid by cold, and being hurled down into the Eridan, is an allegory referring directly to the changes of climate in those distant times when, from a frigid Zone, the polar lands had become a country with a moderate and warm climate, etc.M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:770).
Phrygian mysteries: The mysteries or esoteric rites widely observed around the Mediterranean, centered around the mother-goddess Cybele who mourned the death of the youthful male deity Attis until he returned to life in the springtime.
Physical body: The material, perishable, gross body which is destroyed at death.
Physical Body The most material sheath or instrument used by the forces manifesting as the human composite nature. This body is the evolutionary product of the inner manM-bM-^@M-^Ys experience during vast ages of time in and through all the kingdoms of nature. Thus the reimbodying ego, having acquired knowledge of the earthM-bM-^@M-^Ys manifesting forms and forces, combines or correlates the principles and products of the mineral and vegetal life-atoms in its animal body, while evolving through its human incarnations. The atoms of a personM-bM-^@M-^Ys body which are dispersed on earth at death, are karmically drawn to him again in the next life. As the quality of his own thought and feeling has been impressed upon these atoms, their automatic magnetic return to him insures the justice of his self-made physical heredity.
Physical death is the dissolution of the physical form ; but all form does not disappear by death.
Pisces: (The Fishes): The twelfth sign of the zodiac. Its symbol represents a pair of great sea-horses or sea-lions, yoked together, who dwell in the innermost regions of the sea; symbolical of life after death; of bondageM-bM-^@M-^Tthe inhibiting of self-expression except through others; and of the struggle of the soul within the body. The Sun is in Pisces annually from February 21 to March 20. Astrologically it is the thirty-degree arc immediately preceding the passing of the Sun over the point of the Spring Equinox occupying a position along the Ecliptic from 330M-BM-0 to 360M-BM-0. It is the M-bM-^@M-^\mutableM-bM-^@M-^] quality of the element Water: negative, cold, moist, obeying, fruitful; also effeminate, idle, sickly and unfortunate. Ruler: Jupiter; or by some moderns: Neptune. Exaltation: Venus. Detriment: Mercury. Fall: Mercury. Symbolic interpretation: Bondage, captivity; the inhibition of natural expression.
Planes of existence: All schools of occultism teach that the conscious personality of man lives on after the death of the physical body, and that life in the physical world, in the physical body is merely a plane of existence, after which there follows life on the astral plane and then on the mental plane.
Planet of Death. See EIGHTH SPHERE
Plato: (428-7 - 348-7 B.C.) Was one of the greatest of the Greek philosophers. He was born either in Athens or on the island of Aegina, and was originally known as Aristocles. Ariston, his father, traced his ancestry to the last kings of Athens. His mother, Perictione, was a descendant of the family of Solon. Plato was given the best elementary education possible and he spent eight years, from his own twentieth year to the death of Socrates, as a member of the Socratic circle. Various stories are told about his supposed masters in philosophy, and his travels in Greece, Italy, Sicily and Egypt, but all that we know for certain is that he somehow acquired a knowledge of Pythagoreanisrn, Heracleitanism, Eleaticism and othei Pre-Socratic philosophies. He founded his school of mathematics and philosophy in Athens in 387 B.C. It became known as the Academy. Here he taught with great success until his death at the age of eighty. His career as a teacher was interrupted on two occasions by trips to Sicily, where Plato tried without much success to educate and advise Dionysius the Younger. His works have been very well preserved; we have more than twenty-five authentic dialogues, certain letters, and some definitions which are probably spurious. For a list of works, bibliography and an outline of his thought, see Platonism. -- V.J.B.
plotinist ::: n. --> A disciple of Plotinus, a celebrated Platonic philosopher of the third century, who taught that the human soul emanates from the divine Being, to whom it reunited at death.
Plurality of causes: The doctrine according to which identical events can have two or more different causes. "It is not true that the same phenomenon is always produced by the same causes," declared J. S. Mill, author of the doctrine. Quite the contrary, "many causes may produce some kind of sensation, many causes may produce death." Mill's position was not taken in support of the doctrine of free will or of that of chance, but rather in opposition to an old contention of the physicists, among whom Newton stated that "to the same natural effect we must, as far as pssible, ascribe the same cause." The subsequent controversy has shown that Mill's position was based on the confusion between "the same phenomenon" and "the same kind of phenomena". It is doubtless true that the same kind of phenomena, say death, can be produced by many causes, but only because we take the phenomenon broadly, nevertheless, it may remain true that each particular phenomenon can be caused only by a very definite cause or by a very definite combination of causes. In other words, the broader we conceive the phenomenon, the more causes are likely to apply to it. -- R.B.W.
Polar Cells, Polar Globules, or Polar Bodies Two minute cells thrown off by the unfertilized ovum in its process of maturation. Blavatsky speaks of the first stages of a germ-cellM-bM-^@M-^Ys development when the nuclear changes include the formation of double cone or spindle M-bM-^@M-^\within the cell. This spindle approaches the surface of the cell, and one half of it is extruded in the form of what are called the M-bM-^@M-^Xpolar cells.M-bM-^@M-^Y These polar cells now die, and the embryo develops from the growth and segmentation of the remaining part of the nucleus which is nourished by the substance of the cell. Then why could not beings have lived thus, and been created in this way M-bM-^@M-^T at the very beginning of human and mammalian evolutionM-bM-^@M-^] The death of the polar cells M-bM-^@M-^\would now correspond to the change introduced by the separation of the sexes, when gestation in utero, i.e., within the cell, became the ruleM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:117).
Popular legend describes Demeter as mother of Persephone, who while gathering flowers on the Nysian plain was seized by Hades and carried to the Underworld. Searching disconsolate for her lost child, Demeter came to the dwelling of Celeus at Eleusis, where she was hospitably received although her identity was unknown. On condition of being given the sole care of the kingM-bM-^@M-^Ys son who was ill with fever, she remained and became the childM-bM-^@M-^Ys nurse. Each night she placed the child on a bed of living coals, but the mother, discovering this, snatched the child away in alarm. Demeter then revealed herself as a goddess and, declaring that had she been left alone she would have made the child immortal, she relinquished her post in wrath. Before leaving Eleusis, however, she founded a mystical school or cult to keep alive certain otherwise secret teachings about human divinity and the life after death. The Eleusinian Mysteries, reputed to have sprung from this earlier effort, dealt particularly with the afterdeath states and the progress and experiences of the soul between earth lives.
Por immortality in its fundamental sense does not mean merely some'kind of penonal survival of the bodily death ; we are im- mortal by the eternity of our self-existence without beginning or end, beyond the whole succession of physical births and deaths through which we pass, beyond the alternations of our existence in this and other worlds ; the spiritM-bM-^@M-^Ys timeless existence is the true immortality.
posthumous ::: a. --> Born after the death of the father, or taken from the dead body of the mother; as, a posthumous son or daughter.
Published after the death of the author; as, posthumous works; a posthumous edition.
Being or continuing after one&
post-mortem ::: a. --> After death; as, post-mortem rigidity.
post-obit bond ::: --> A bond in which the obligor, in consideration of having received a certain sum of money, binds himself to pay a larger sum, on unusual interest, on the death of some specified individual from whom he has expectations.
Postpredicament: Noun generally applied since the time of Abelard to any particular one of the five conceptions, or relations, examined in detail in the tenth and following chapters of the treatise on the Categories, or Predicaments, ascribed to Aristotle, which, however, was very probably written by others after his death. -- J.J.R.
pralaya ::: 1. the end of a cycle of aeons; temporary disintegration of a universal form of existence and all the individual forms which move in its rounds. ::: 2. physical death.
Pralaya(Sanskrit) ::: A compound word, formed of laya, from the root li, and the prefix pra. Li means "to dissolve,""to melt away," "to liquefy," as when one pours water upon a cube of salt or of sugar. The cube of salt orof sugar vanishes in the water -- it dissolves, changes its form -- and this may be taken as a figure,imperfect as it is, or as a symbol, of what pralaya is: a crumbling away, a vanishing away, of matter intosomething else which is yet in it, and surrounds it, and interpenetrates it. Such is pralaya, usuallytranslated as the state of latency, state of rest, state of repose, between two manvantaras or life cycles. Ifwe remember distinctly the meaning of the Sanskrit word, our minds take a new bent in direction, followa new thought. We get new ideas; we penetrate into the arcanum of the thing that takes place. Pralaya,therefore, is dissolution, death.There are many kinds of pralayas. There is the universal pralaya, called prakritika, because it is thepralaya or vanishing away, melting away, of prakriti or nature. Then there is the solar pralaya. Sun inSanskrit is surya, and the adjective from this is saurya: hence, the saurya pralaya or the pralaya of thesolar system. Then, thirdly, there is the terrestrial or planetary pralaya. One Sanskrit word for earth isbhumi, and the adjective corresponding to this is bhaumika: hence, the bhaumika pralaya. Then there isthe pralaya or death of the individual man. Man is purusha; the corresponding adjective is paurusha:hence, the paurusha pralaya or death of man. These adjectives apply equally well to the several kinds ofmanvantaras or life cycles.There is another kind of pralaya which is called nitya. In its general sense, it means "constant" or"continuous," and can be exemplified by the constant or continuous change -- life and death -- of the cellsof our bodies. It is a state in which the indwelling and dominating entity remains, but its differentprinciples and rupas undergo continuous and incessant change. Hence it is called nitya, signifyingcontinuous. It applies to the body of man, to the outer sphere of earth, to the earth itself, to the solarsystem, and indeed to all nature. It is the unceasing and chronic changing of things that are -- the passingfrom phase to phase, meaning the pralaya or death of one phase, to be followed by the rebirth of itssucceeding phase. There are other kinds of pralayas than those herein enumerated.
precipitate ::: a. --> Overhasty; rash; as, the king was too precipitate in declaring war.
Lacking due deliberation or care; hurried; said or done before the time; as, a precipitate measure.
Falling, flowing, or rushing, with steep descent; headlong.
Ending quickly in death; brief and fatal; as, a precipitate case of disease.
predecease ::: v. t. --> To die sooner than. ::: n. --> The death of one person or thing before another.
presence ::: 1. The state or fact of being present; current existence or occurrence. 2. A divine, spiritual, or supernatural spirit or influence felt or conceived as present. 3. The immediate proximity of someone or something.
Sri Aurobindo: "It is intended by the word Presence to indicate the sense and perception of the Divine as a Being, felt as present in one"s existence and consciousness or in relation with it, without the necessity of any further qualification or description. Thus, of the M-bM-^@M-^Xineffable Presence" it can only be said that it is there and nothing more can or need be said about it, although at the same time one knows that all is there, personality and impersonality, Power and Light and Ananda and everything else, and that all these flow from that indescribable Presence. The word may be used sometimes in a less absolute sense, but that is always the fundamental significance, M-bM-^@M-^T the essential perception of the essential Presence supporting everything else.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
"But if we learn to live within, we infallibly awaken to this presence within us which is our more real self, a presence profound, calm, joyous and puissant of which the world is not the master M-bM-^@M-^T a presence which, if it is not the Lord Himself, is the radiation of the Lord within.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, M-bM-^@M-^T subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, M-bM-^@M-^T this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
"If we need any personal and inner witness to this indivisible All-Consciousness behind the ignorance, M-bM-^@M-^T all Nature is its external proof, M-bM-^@M-^T we can get it with any completeness only in our deeper inner being or larger and higher spiritual state when we draw back behind the veil of our own surface ignorance and come into contact with the divine Idea and Will behind it. Then we see clearly enough that what we have done by ourselves in our ignorance was yet overseen and guided in its result by the invisible Omniscience; we discover a greater working behind our ignorant working and begin to glimpse its purpose in us: then only can we see and know what now we worship in faith, recognise wholly the pure and universal Presence, meet the Lord of all being and all Nature.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
"The presence of the Spirit is there in every living being, on every level, in all things, and because it is there, the experience of Sachchidananda, of the pure spiritual existence and consciousness, of the delight of a divine presence, closeness, contact can be acquired through the mind or the heart or the life-sense or even through the physical consciousness; if the inner doors are flung sufficiently open, the light from the sanctuary can suffuse the nearest and the farthest chambers of the outer being.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
"There is a secret divine Will, eternal and infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, that expresses itself in the universality and in each particular of all these apparently temporal and finite inconscient or half-conscient things. This is the Power or Presence meant by the Gita when it speaks of the Lord within the heart of all existences who turns all creatures as if mounted on a machine by the illusion of Nature.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Synthesis of Yoga
"For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience. There must awake in us a constant indwelling and enveloping nearness, a vivid perception, a close feeling and communion, a concrete sense and contact of a true and infinite Presence always and everywhere. That Presence must remain with us as the living, pervading Reality in which we and all things exist and move and act, and we must feel it always and everywhere, concrete, visible, inhabiting all things; it must be patent to us as their true Self, tangible as their imperishable Essence, met by us closely as their inmost Spirit. To see, to feel, to sense, to contact in every way and not merely to conceive this Self and Spirit here in all existences and to feel with the same vividness all existences in this Self and Spirit, is the fundamental experience which must englobe all other knowledge.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Synthesis of Yoga
"One must have faith in the Master of our life and works, even if for a long time He conceals Himself, and then in His own right time He will reveal His Presence.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"They [the psychic being and the Divine Presence in the heart] are quite different things. The psychic being is one"s own individual soul-being. It is not the Divine, though it has come from the Divine and develops towards the Divine.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"For it is quietness and inwardness that enable one to feel the Presence.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"Beyond mind on spiritual and supramental levels dwells the Presence, the Truth, the Power, the Bliss that can alone deliver us from these illusions, display the Light of which our ideals are tarnished disguises and impose the harmony that shall at once transfigure and reconcile all the parts of our nature.M-bM-^@M-^] *Essays Divine and Human
The Mother: "For, in human beings, here is a presence, the most marvellous Presence on earth, and except in a few very rare cases which I need not mention here, this presence lies asleep in the heart M-bM-^@M-^T not in the physical heart but the psychic centre M-bM-^@M-^T of all beings. And when this Splendour is manifested with enough purity, it will awaken in all beings the echo of his Presence.M-bM-^@M-^] Words of the Mother, MCW, Vol. 15.
Pretyabhava (Sanskrit) PretyabhM-DM-^Ava [from pretya having died, having departed + bhM-DM-^Ava existence] The state after death; hence the future state. A very general term, referring in a vague way to the future after death, or more particularly to the temporary sojourn of a departed being in the astral light.
pronounce ::: v. t. --> To utter articulately; to speak out or distinctly; to utter, as words or syllables; to speak with the proper sound and accent as, adults rarely learn to pronounce a foreign language correctly.
To utter officially or solemnly; to deliver, as a decree or sentence; as, to pronounce sentence of death.
To speak or utter rhetorically; to deliver; to recite; as, to pronounce an oration.
To declare or affirm; as, he pronounced the book to
propitiation ::: n. --> The act of appeasing the wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making propitious.
That which propitiates; atonement or atoning sacrifice; specifically, the influence or effects of the death of Christ in appeasing the divine justice, and conciliating the divine favor.
Propitiation: The attempt by act or intent of gaining the favor of a god, removing one's guilt and the divine displeasure. Such acts have taken on innumerable forms: sacrifice of precious possessions, even of human life, of animals, by pilgrimages, tithing, self-imposed asceticism of one kind or another, fastings, rituals, tortures, contrition, etc. The substitution of some one else as an act of voluntary propitiation has found classic expression in Christian tradition in the estimation of Jesus' life and death as the supreme Ransom, Substitute and Mediator. -- V.F.
proscription ::: n. --> The act of proscribing; a dooming to death or exile; outlawry; specifically, among the ancient Romans, the public offer of a reward for the head of a political enemy; as, under the triumvirate, many of the best Roman citizens fell by proscription.
The state of being proscribed; denunciation; interdiction; prohibition.
protonotary ::: n. --> A chief notary or clerk.
Formerly, a chief clerk in the Court of King&
psychopannychism ::: n. --> The doctrine that the soul falls asleep at death, and does not wake until the resurrection of the body.
Psychopomp (Greek) A conductor of souls; applied to Charon, Apollo, and especially to Hermes, who was the conductor of souls to Hades or the Underworld and back again, an office assigned by Christians to Jesus Christ after his resurrection. The mystery of death, descent into Hades, and resurrection were enacted in initiation ceremonies, as depicted in Egyptian glyphs, where the dog-headed Anubis M-bM-^@M-^T the Egyptian Hermes M-bM-^@M-^T conducts the candidate.
Ptah (Egyptian) PtaM-aM-8M-% [from to engrave, carve, fashion] One of the most ancient deities, and in his higher attributes one of the most abstract, whose worship goes back to the earliest part of the dynastic period; the principal deity of Memphis (Men-nefer), also known as Het-ka-Ptah (the city of Ptah). The deity is also called Ptah-neb-ankh (giver of life). He was addressed as the M-bM-^@M-^\father of beginnings; creator of the eggs of the sun and moon, he who created his own image, who fashioned his own bodyM-bM-^@M-^]; and was depicted as fashioning the world-egg upon a potterM-bM-^@M-^Ys wheel. Together with Khnemu, he carried out the commands of Thoth for the creation of the universe. While Khnemu fashioned man and the animals, whether of the cosmos or of earth, Ptah was engaged in the construction of the heavens and the earth. In later times the Greeks associated him with Hephaestos, the Latins with Vulcan; but in addition to the attributes connected with the earth, in the Underworld (Tuat) Ptah was regarded as the fashioner of the bodies for the pilgrims who entered that realm after death.
Punarjanman (Sanskrit) Punarjanman [from punar again, anew + janman generation, birth, coming into being] Regeneration, rebirth, reimbodiment; it deals with the successive reimbodiments of nature and of all that it comprises, with death and initiation, and with spiritual birth. The Greek equivalent is palingenesis.
punish ::: v. t. --> To impose a penalty upon; to afflict with pain, loss, or suffering for a crime or fault, either with or without a view to the offender&
purgatory ::: a. --> Tending to cleanse; cleansing; expiatory. ::: n. --> A state or place of purification after death; according to the Roman Catholic creed, a place, or a state believed to exist after death, in which the souls of persons are purified by expiating such offenses committed in this life as do not merit eternal damnation,
qualm ::: n. --> Sickness; disease; pestilence; death.
A sudden attack of illness, faintness, or pain; an agony.
Especially, a sudden sensation of nausea.
A prick or scruple of conscience; uneasiness of conscience; compunction.
quicken ::: a. --> To make alive; to vivify; to revive or resuscitate, as from death or an inanimate state; hence, to excite; to, stimulate; to incite.
To make lively, active, or sprightly; to impart additional energy to; to stimulate; to make quick or rapid; to hasten; to accelerate; as, to quicken one&
quietus ::: a. --> Final discharge or acquittance, as from debt or obligation; that which silences claims; (Fig.) rest; death.
Regeneration [from Latin re again + generare to beget] Renewal, regrowth, spiritual rebirth; as rebirth follows upon death, regeneration follows upon destruction, hence it implies immortality. It is one meaning of the serpent or dragon symbol. The Holy of Holies of the Hebrews, and the KingM-bM-^@M-^Ys Chamber in the Egyptian pyramid of Cheops, were symbols of regeneration with the ancients, but in certain materializing interpretations became transformed into symbols of generation. Siva in the Hindu Trimurti, sometimes described as representing destruction, is better called the regenerator. The end of one cycle is the birth of another, as typified in the rebirth of the year, the festival of Easter, etc.
regicide ::: n. --> One who kills or who murders a king; specifically (Eng.Hist.), one of the judges who condemned Charles I. to death.
The killing or the murder of a king.
Reincarnating Ego In the intermediate aspect of manM-bM-^@M-^Ys being, manas-kama is the ordinary seat of human imbodied consciousness; the upper or aspiring part is buddhi-manas, the reincarnating ego, M-bM-^@M-^\that which undergoes periodical incarnation is the Sutratma, which means literally the M-bM-^@M-^XThread Soul.M-bM-^@M-^Y It is a synonym of the reincarnating Ego M-bM-^@M-^T Manas conjoined with Buddhi M-bM-^@M-^T which absorbs the Manasic recollections of all our preceding livesM-bM-^@M-^] (Key 163). At death the lower part sinks into oblivion, and the reincarnating ego passes into devachan, carrying with it the noblest aspects of the person that was. In this state it remains within the monad, while the monad peregrinates from sphere to sphere, until the time comes for reincarnation on earth. When the monad, passing through the spheres, approaches the earth, the reincarnating ego slowly reawakes to self-conscious activity, and is drawn by the karmic seeds of affinity within itself to the earth, attracting itself to the human seed whereby it builds its coming physical imbodiment.
Reincarnating Ego ::: In the method of dividing the human principles into a trichotomy of an upper duad, an intermediate duad,and a lower triad -- or distributively spirit, soul, and body -- the second or intermediate duad,manas-kama, or the intermediate nature, is the ordinary seat of human consciousness, and itself iscomposed of two qualitative parts: an upper or aspiring part, which is commonly called the reincarnatingego or the higher manas, and a lower part attracted to material things, which is the focus of whatexpresses itself in the average man as the human ego, his everyday ordinary seat of consciousness.When death occurs, the mortal and material portions sink into oblivion; while the reincarnating egocarries the best and noblest parts of the spiritual memory of the man that was into the devachan or heavenworld of postmortem rest and recuperation, where the ego remains in the bosom of the monad or of themonadic essence in a state of the most perfect and utter bliss and peace, constantly reviewing andimproving upon in its own blissful imagination all the unfulfilled spiritual yearnings and longings of thelife just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the entity now in thedevachan.But the monad above spoken of passes from sphere to sphere on its peregrinations from earth, carryingwith it the reincarnating ego, or what we may for simplicity of expression call the earth-child, in itsbosom, where this reincarnating ego is in its state of perfect bliss and peace, until the time comes when,having passed through all the invisible realms connected by chains of causation with our own planet, itslowly "descends" again through these higher intermediate spheres earthwards. Coincidently does thereincarnating ego slowly begin to reawaken to self-conscious activity. Gradually it feels, at firstunconsciously to itself, the attraction earthwards, arising out of the karmic seeds of thought and emotionand impulse sown in the preceding life on earth and now beginning to awaken; and as these attractionsgrow stronger, in other words as the reincarnating ego awakens more fully, it finds itself under thedomination of a strong psychomagnetic attraction drawing it to the earth-sphere.The time finally comes when it is drawn strongly to the family on earth whose karmic attractions orkarmic status or condition are the nearest to its own characteristics; and it then enters, or attaches itselfto, by reason of the psychomagnetic attraction, the human seed which will grow into the body of thehuman being to be. Thus reincarnation takes place, and the reincarnating ego reawakens to life on earthin the body of a little child.
Reincarnation: Rebirth of the personality, the divine essence which is the soul, in a new body, which is on the same level of the physical evolutionary scale. (Rebirth in a body belonging to a different species is called the doctrine of the transmigration of the soulM-bM-^@M-^Tq.v.). The personality in the new body usually has no conscious memory of its previous incarnation. The return to corporeal life after the death of the physical body is regarded by occultists as but a phase in the whole of a single, indivisible life. (Cf. Samsara.)
Reliquiae (Latin) Leavings; the astral shells or spooks of human beings and animals which are left in the lower strata of the astral light after death. Equivalent to the Sanskrit bhuta.
remainder ::: n. --> Anything that remains, or is left, after the separation and removal of a part; residue; remnant.
The quantity or sum that is left after subtraction, or after any deduction.
An estate in expectancy, generally in land, which becomes an estate in possession upon the determination of a particular prior estate, created at the same time, and by the same instrument; for example, if land be conveyed to A for life, and on his death to B, A&
Repentance In theology, a change of mental and spiritual habit respecting sin, involving a hatred of and sorrow because of it, and a genuine abandonment of it in conduct of life. The frequent reference made by Christians with regard to death-bed repentance, however distorted, nevertheless is based upon a truth. However, a person must always face the causes he has set in motion M-bM-^@M-^T which will appear as effects in some subsequent life, these lives being linked together with the present one by and through the skandhas.
reprisal ::: n. --> The act of taking from an enemy by way of reteliation or indemnity.
Anything taken from an enemy in retaliation.
The act of retorting on an enemy by inflicting suffering or death on a prisoner taken from him, in retaliation for an act of inhumanity.
Any act of retaliation.
rest ::: n. 1. A state of repose, quiescence, or inactivity. 2. Relief or freedom, esp. from anything that wearies, troubles, or disturbs. 3. Mental or emotional or spiritual tranquillity. 4. Termination or absence of motion. 5. The repose of death. v. 6. To cease motion, work, or activity. 7. To be, become, or remain temporarily still, quiet, or inactive. 8. To be present; dwell; linger (usually followed by on or upon). 9. To depend or rely on. rests, rested, resting.
Resurrection A rising again, implying a previous descent; a rebirth after death. In its widest sense, the universal law of cyclic renewal manifested in cosmic, solar, terrestrial, and human phenomena, applying to manvantaras, and to reawakenings of the earth and of man M-bM-^@M-^T whether humanity as a whole, races, or individuals. In the last case it means regeneration, the second birth, initiation, symbolized by the resurrection of the mystic Christ enacted in the Mysteries, when the candidate rose from that cruciform couch which he had undergone the experiences of death. In Christianity this has become an actual physical or bodily resurrection of Jesus, supported by the stories of the empty tomb and the appearances to the disciples. The dogma of the resurrection of the body, however, is pointedly related to the teaching of the migration of the life-atoms, whereby the reincarnating entity draws together the elements which it had previously discarded. There is an Arabic legend of the bone Luz, said to be one of the bones at the bottom of the spinal column, the os coccygis, as indestructible and forming the nucleus of the resurrection body. In the adytum or Holy of Holies of ancient temples was found a sarcophagus symbolizing the universal process of resurrection, but in degenerate times it was occasionally turned by ignorance into a symbol of physical procreation. Other emblems of resurrection are the frog, phoenix, and egg.
resuscitate ::: a. --> Restored to life. ::: v. t. --> To revivify; to revive; especially, to recover or restore from apparent death; as, to resuscitate a drowned person; to resuscitate withered plants.
revivor ::: n. --> Revival of a suit which is abated by the death or marriage of any of the parties, -- done by a bill of revivor.
Rites of passage: Ceremonies clustering about the great turning points of earthly life or the periods of transition from one status to another (birth, puberty, marriage, death, etc.).
Ri-thlen (East Indian) Snake-keeping; M-bM-^@M-^\a terrible kind of sorcery practised at Cherrapoonjee in the Khasi-Hills. . . . As the legend tells us: ages ago a thlen (serpent-dragon) which inhabited a cavern and devoured men and cattle was put to death by a local St. George, and cut to pieces, every piece being sent out to a different district to be burnt. But the piece received by the Khasis was preserved by them and became a kind of household god, and their descendants developed into Ri-thlens or M-bM-^@M-^Xsnake-keepers,M-bM-^@M-^Y for the piece they preserved grew into a dragon (thlen) and ever since has obsessed certain Brahmin families of that district. To acquire the good grace of their thlen and save their own lives, these M-bM-^@M-^XkeepersM-bM-^@M-^Y have often to commit murders of women and children, from whose bodies they cut out the toe and finger nails, which they bring to their thlen, and thus indulge in a number of black magic practices connected with sorcery and necromancyM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 278-9).
Root-race, First of the fourth round on globe D of our earth, composed of emanations of the lunar pitris produced by the processes of chhaya-birth M-bM-^@M-^T the ethereal lunar pitris emanated their own M-bM-^@M-^\shadowsM-bM-^@M-^] or vehicles, as colossal ovoid bodies of tenuous astral substance, to us translucent, and having but rudiments or type of color. They were spiritual and ethereal within, and more condensedly ethereal outwardly, as yet possessing latent but not active intelligence, and therefore as yet having no speech; composed of all the elements, but as yet having no living intellectual fire manifest. Their habitat was the M-bM-^@M-^\Imperishable Sacred LandM-bM-^@M-^] around the region of the north pole, where they first appeared in seven more or less distinct but overlapping localities. Their method of reproduction in the earlier periods was by one form melting into its progeny. Later the race reproduced itself by fission; in all these cases there was no death to individuals, because the individuals became their own descendants, as is exemplified in certain elementary forms of life today. This race inhabited the globe when there was more water than land on the earth, and its destruction was by fire.
Rosicrucians [from Latin rosa rose + crux cross] Rosy cross or rose cross, referring to the cross of the rose, the general medieval idea of the rose being an emblem of divine love, and the cross of renunciation and self-conquest. A medieval European mystical and quasi-occult fraternity, probably dating from about the mid-15th century. It represented one of the many cyclic attempts to reintroduce and keep alive the ancient wisdom, and its history is typical of most such enterprises. The name was first given to the disciples of a learned adept, Christian Rosenkreuz, the alleged surname itself being a German translation of rose-cross, leaving open whether Rosenkreuz was actually a family name or a surname mystically adopted to designate a particular body of mystical thought; the name Christian may be another such mystical name-adoption. At any rate, Rosenkreuz returned form a journey in Asia and founded a mystical order in Europe. He and his disciples encountered the determined opposition of the Christian Church which then held sway over so much of Europe. He dressed up his teachings in a Christian garb, using such names as Jehovah as screens for the real meaning, and communicating to his disciples the keys for an interpretation of his doctrines. He founded no formal association and built no colleges, for the utmost secrecy was necessary to escape persecution and even death. It is for these reasons that the true history of the Rosicrucians is so difficult to trace. The original Rosicrucians were fire-philosophers, successors of the theurgists and the Magi.
Rudimentary or Vestigial Organs These include a number of different tissue-remnants or organs of primitive type, some of which are only transients in the developing fetus, while others persist in the bodies of animals or man, where they are dwarfed, atrophied, or functionless as far as is known. The vermiform appendix, the ear muscles, the gill clefts, pineal gland, rudimentary tail of the embryo, etc., are referred to as affording silent testimony to the reality of functions which were vitally active in primeval life, but which have long since atrophied in the course of animal and human progress (SD 2:119). The fact of such organs in the human body is adduced in support of the Darwinian theory, but it can equally well support the theory that the mammals came from man. Again, we know that, though man did not evolve from the apes, there was a time when his form somewhat resembled that which the apes now have. The possession of distinct traces in each sex of the reproductive apparatus of the other sex is biological evidence of ancient hermaphroditism. The undifferentiated sex of the embryo during its early growth also reviews the asexual character of the first root-races. The present routine process of maturation or reduction of chromosomes in the fertilized cell, and the death of the polar cells, appear to biologists as somehow unnaturally involved. This process, however, apparently in some degree, echoes distantly the change in the third root-race from an androgynous reproductive method to that of the separated sexes. The law of retardation which operates when a higher type has been evolved, now M-bM-^@M-^\preserves hermaphroditism as the reproductive method of the majority of plants and many lower animalsM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:172n). Thus, man is not the copy but the evolutionary prototype, for M-bM-^@M-^\the potentiality of every organ useful to animal life is locked up in Man M-bM-^@M-^T the microcosm of the MacrocosmM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:685). The human form is the repertory of all mammalian forms, and nature preserves organs and functions in vestigial condition against a future time when, if these organs and functions be latent and not merely in process of disappearance, they will become active again. This accounts for the occasional reversion to utterly unknown primeval types as noted in teratology. A general unity of type has been preserved throughout the ages all through the multitude of organisms which grew out of a few basic types. M-bM-^@M-^\The economy of Nature does not sanction the co-existence of several utterly opposed M-bM-^@M-^Xground plansM-bM-^@M-^Y of organic evolution on one planetM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:683).
safety-critical system A computer, electronic or electromechanical system whose failure may cause injury or death to human beings. E.g. an aircraft or nuclear power station control system. Common tools used in the design of safety-critical systems are {redundancy} and {formal methods}. See also {aeroplane rule}.
Saint George Patron saint of England; the universal allegory of the dragonslayer reappears in Christian ecclesiasticism as the archangel Michael who slays the red dragon, and again as St. George. It is a historical mystery both how this apocryphal legend came to be attached to the name of George of Cappadocia, the ecclesiastic put to death by Diocletian for opposing him in the persecution of the Christians; and that the Roman Catholic Church should have canonized so rabid an Arian. His is another form of the story of Bel and the dragon, Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon, etc., which denote the fallen angels or kumaras who, by bringing intellectual life to earth, thereby truly conquer death.
salvation ::: n. --> The act of saving; preservation or deliverance from destruction, danger, or great calamity.
The redemption of man from the bondage of sin and liability to eternal death, and the conferring on him of everlasting happiness.
Saving power; that which saves.
Samadbi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths accord* lag as it dran^ farther and farther away from the nonnal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or calf back the soul that has receded into them ; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the sj'stem owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a lime cannot return ; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had rnhahifed it. finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary pheno- mena of death, by an act of will, or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current
Samadhi or Yogic trance retires to increasing depths according as it draws farther and farther away from the normal or waking state and enters into degrees of consciousness less and less communicable to the waking mind, less and less ready to receive a summons from the waking world. Beyond a certain point the trance becomes complete and it is then almost or quite impossible to awaken or call back the soul that has receded into them; it can only come back by its own will or at most by a violent shock of physical appeal dangerous to the system owing to the abrupt upheaval of return. There are said to be supreme states of trance in which the soul persisting for too long a time cannot return; for it loses its hold on the cord which binds it to the consciousness of life, and the body is left, maintained indeed in its set position, not dead by dissolution, but incapable of recovering the ensouled life which had inhabited it. Finally, the Yogin acquires at a certain stage of development the power of abandoning his body definitively without the ordinary phenomena of death, by an act of will,1 or by a process of withdrawing the pranic life-force through the gate of the upward life-current (udana), opening for it a way through the mystic brahmarandhra in the head. By departure from life in the state of Samadhi he attains directly to that higher status of being to which he aspires.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 520-21
Samael (Hebrew) SammM-DM-^AM-bM-^@M-^YM-DM-^Sl In the Hebreo-Chaldean Qabbalah, the Prince of Darkness, the Angel of Death or Poison, who rules the seven habitations called ShebaM-bM-^@M-^X Ha-yechaloth, zones of our globe, yet these seven habitations or infernal regions are the lower seven of the ten degrees which make the dwelling places of the beings inhabiting the fourth or lowest world of the Qabbalah, of which Samael is supposed to be the hierarch or prince. This fourth or lowest world of Qelippoth (shells) is divided into ten degrees forming the lowest hierarchy of the Qabbalistic system corresponding to the ten Sephiroth. These ten stages of the world of shells are again subdivided into three higher or relatively immaterial, and seven lower, material, or infernal ranges; and of these seven Samael is supposed to be the hierarch or ruler. The Talmud states, however, that M-bM-^@M-^\the evil Spirit, Satan, and SamaM-bM-^@M-^Yel the Angel of Death, are the sameM-bM-^@M-^] (Rabba Batra, 16a); and Samael is also there made equivalent to the Biblical serpent of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He is also termed the chief of the Dragons of Evil, and is popularly made responsible for the hot scorching wind of the desert M-bM-^@M-^T the simoom. In conjunction with Lilith he is represented as the Evil Beast (hiwyaiM-bM-^@M-^Y bishaM-bM-^@M-^Y).
samsara. ::: repetitive history; worldly bondage; earthly suffering; the continuous round of birth and death to which the individual is subjected until it attains liberation; earthly suffering
Sankhasura (Sanskrit) M-EM-^ZaM-aM-9M-^EkhM-DM-^Asura A daitya said in Hindu legend to have waged war against the gods and to have conquered them, upon which he stole the Vedas and hid them at the bottom of the sea, whence they were rescued by Vishnu in the form of a fish. There are also vague references in connection with one of the dvipas (Sankha-dvipa) and it is tempting to suppose that they are connected. Another Hindu legend mentions the killing of Sankhasura by Krishna M-bM-^@M-^T another instance of the way in which this avatara is placed in many different ages as the Krishna spirit in the world rather than as any incarnated avatara of that name: the death of Krishna is stated as having begun the kali yuga in 3102 BC, whereas Sankha-dvipa was one of the great islands of the Atlantean continental system of several million years ago.
Sarcophagus (Greek) Flesh-eating; limestone in Assus in the Troad had the property of consuming the bodies placed in coffins made of it, and so was called sarcophagos lithos (flesh-eating stone) or lapis Assius (stone of Assus), and the name came to be applied to stone coffins in general. A sarcophagus was placed in the adytum of a temple and mystically signified the matrix of nature and resurrection. In initiation ceremonies the candidate, representing the energizing ray, descended into the sarcophagus representing natureM-bM-^@M-^Ys fecund womb, and emerged therefrom, which symbolized resurrection after death. In the KingM-bM-^@M-^Ys Chamber of the Great Pyramid, the candidate descended into the sarcophagus, where his body was entranced while his spiritual ego confabulated with the gods, descended into Amenti or the Underworld, and did works of charity to invisible beings; being carried during the night before the third day to the entrance of a gallery where the beams of the rising sun awoke him as an initiate.
Satyavan, as Sri Aurobindo writes,M-bM-^@M-^]M-bM-^@M-&is the soul carrying the truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance;M-bM-^@M-^]. Descended into the grip of death and ignorance, the divine realized soul, does not become ignorance but descends into death and then is saved by Savitri, the Divine Mother. After leaving his bodyM-bM-^@M-^]this house of clayM-bM-^@M-^] and wanderingM-bM-^@M-^]in far-off eternitiesM-bM-^@M-^], all the while a captive in SavitriM-bM-^@M-^Ys M-bM-^@M-^\golden handsM-bM-^@M-^] he returns and replies to his father,
Satyavan ::: M-bM-^@M-^\Son of King Dyumatsena; the tale of Satyavan and Savitri is told in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death.M-bM-^@M-^] Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri AurobindoM-bM-^@M-^Ys Works
satyavan ::: "Son of King Dyumatsena; the tale of Satyavan and Savitri is told in the Mahabharata as a story of conjugal love conquering death.M-bM-^@M-^] *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
savingly ::: adv. --> In a saving manner; with frugality or parsimony.
So as to be finally saved from eternal death.
Scarab [from Latin scarabaeus cf Greek karabos a beetle, Sanskrit M-EM-^[arabha a locust, Egyptian kheperM-HM-' from kheper to become, come into being anew] The Egyptian symbol of the god Khepera M-bM-^@M-^T the urgent spiritual impulse of creation, or regenerative revolving and reimbodiment. In modern times applied to the beetle Scarabaeus sacer or aegyptorum M-bM-^@M-^T the sacred scarab. Orientalists generally regard the scarab as the symbol of resurrection because the beetle rolls a ball of dung containing its eggs, which it leaves to be hatched by the sunM-bM-^@M-^Ys rays. This is said to represent in the small what was believed to take place in the great, that the sun was moving across the heavens holding within itself the germs which in course of stellar time evolve forth and remanifest in the solar cosmos. M-bM-^@M-^\Khem, M-bM-^@M-^Xthe sower of seed,M-bM-^@M-^Y is shown on a stele in a picture of Resurrection after physical death, as the creator and the sower of the grain of corn, which, after corruption, springs up afresh each time into a new ear, on which a scarabaeus beetle is seen poised; and Deveria shows very justly that M-bM-^@M-^XPtah is the inert, material form of Osiris, who will become Sokari (the eternal Ego) to be reborn, and afterwards be Harmachus,M-bM-^@M-^Y or Horus in his transformation, the risen god. The prayer so often found in the tumular inscriptions, M-bM-^@M-^Xthe wish for the resurrection in oneM-bM-^@M-^Ys living soulM-bM-^@M-^Y or the Higher Ego, has ever a scarabaeus at the end, standing for the personal soul. The scarabaeus is the most honoured, as the most frequent and familiar, of all Egyptian symbolsM-bM-^@M-^] (TG 293).
searcher ::: n. --> One who, or that which, searhes or examines; a seeker; an inquirer; an examiner; a trier.
Formerly, an officer in London appointed to examine the bodies of the dead, and report the cause of death.
An officer of the customs whose business it is to search ships, merchandise, luggage, etc.
An inspector of leather.
An instrument for examining the bore of a cannon, to
Second Death Adopted from its use by the ancients, such as the Greeks and Romans who wrote and taught of the second death even publicly (cf Key 98-9). When a person dies the three lower of his seven principles (sthula-sarira, linga-sarira, prana) are immediately cast off, and the four higher principles (kama, manas, buddhi, atman) enter kama-loka, there to await the second death. The length of time that this fourfold entity remains in kama-loka is determined by the general characteristics of the life just ended on earth: if there has been during life but small attachment in the intermediate nature (kama-manas) to things of earth, there will perforce by little or nothing to hold the entity in kama-loka, which it will traverse relatively rapidly; and the preparation for the entry into the next state of consciousness or devachan proceeds normally and smoothly.
Second Death ::: This is a phrase used by ancient and modern mystics to describe the dissolution of the principles of manremaining in kama-loka after the death of the physical body. For instance, Plutarch says: "Of the deathswe die, the one makes man two of three, and the other, one out of two." Thus, using the simple divisionof man into spirit, soul, and body: the first death is the dropping of the body, making two out of three; thesecond death is the withdrawal of the spiritual from the kama-rupic soul, making one out of two.The second death takes place when the lower or intermediate duad (manas-kama) in its turn separatesfrom, or rather is cast off by, the upper duad; but preceding this event the upper duad gathers unto itselffrom this lower duad what is called the reincarnating ego, which is all the best of the entity that was, allits purest and most spiritual and noblest aspirations and hopes and dreams for betterment and for beautyand harmony. Inherent in the fabric, so to speak, of the reincarnating ego, there remain of course theseeds of the lower principles which at the succeeding rebirth or reincarnation of the ego will develop intothe complex of the lower quaternary. (See also Kama-Rupa)
Second death: In occultism, the dissolution or disintegration of remains of man which dwell in the kamaloka (q.v.) after the death of the physical body.
Seven magical works: In medieval occultism, works of magic were classified in the following seven groups: Works of light and riches, works of mystery and divination, works of science and skill, works of retribution and punishment, works of love, works of intrigue, works of malediction and death.
sheath ::: M-bM-^@M-^\M-bM-^@M-& sheaths is simply a term for bodies, because each is superimposed on the other and acts as a covering and can be cast off. Thus the physical body itself is called the food sheath and its throwing off is what is called death.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
Should the human personality be of a heavily gross and materialistic type so that very few spiritual impulses are gathered in after death by the higher triad, then this higher triad is reincarnated almost immediately because there was nothing in the life just lived to call for the devachan experience of the personality. There can be no devachan for the manasic personality unless this personality has had in the life just lived at least a modicum of spiritual thought, yearning, and impulse. It is the higher manas which experiences devachan because of the spiritual qualities inherent in this higher manas and to which it has given imperfect expression in the life just lived. It is in devachan that this higher manas has its field of spiritual-mental activity, where it receives its due compensation, its mead of reward, for all the spiritual disappointments, sufferings, and imperfect expressions which it had to bear during earth-life.
Shraddha: An ancestral rite performed all over India at the death of a person and from time to time thereafter, to provide the ancestral spirit with a new body and to aid it in its progress from lower worlds to higher ones and back to earth.
Shruti: M-bM-^@M-^\List or set of controls. Life and death, formation and dissolution.M-bM-^@M-^]
Shu: (a) Statecraft, craft, tact, or method for a ruler to keep the ministers and the people under control, "to award offices according to their responsibilities, to hold actualities in accordance with their names, to exercise the power of life and death, and to make use of the ability of the ministers." See fa chia. (Legalists).
"Silent and therefore formless, changing and therefore impermanent, now dead, now living, equal with Heaven and Earth, moving with the spiritual and the intelligent, disappearing -- where? Suddenly -- whither? . . . -- These were some aspects of the system of Tao of the ancients. Chuang Chow (Chuang Tzu) heard of them and was delighted . . . He had personal communion with the spirit of Heaven and Earth but no sense of pride in his superiority to all things. He did not condemn either right or wrong, so he was at ease with the world . . . Above he roams with the Creator; below he makes friends of those who transcend beginning and end and make no distinctions between life and death . . ." -- W.T.C.
Skandha(s)(Sanskrit) ::: Literally "bundles," or groups of attributes, to use H. P. Blavatsky's definition. When deathcomes to a man in any one life, the seeds of those causes previously sown by him and which have not yetcome forth into blossom and full-blown flower and fruit, remain in his interior and invisible parts asimpulses lying latent and sleeping: lying latent like sleeping seeds for future flowerings into action in thenext and succeeding lives. They are psychological impulse-seeds lying asleep until their appropriatestage for awakening into action arrives at some time in the future.In the case of the cosmic bodies, every solar or planetary body upon entering into its pralaya, itsprakritika-pralaya -- the dissolution of its lower principles -- at the end of its long life cycle, exists inspace in the higher activity of its spiritual principles, and in the dispersion of its lowest principles, whichlatter latently exist in space as skandhas in a laya-condition.When a laya-center is fired into action by the touch of wills and consciousnesses on their downward way,becoming the imbodying life of a solar system, or of a planet of a solar system, the center manifests firston its highest plane, and later on its lower plane. The skandhas are awakened into life one after another:first the highest ones, next the intermediate ones, and lastly the inferior ones, cosmically and qualitativelyspeaking.The term skandhas in theosophical philosophy has the general significance of bundles or groups ofattributes, which together form or compose the entire set of material and also mental, emotional, andmoral qualities. Exoterically the skandhas are "bundles" of attributes five in number, but esoterically theyare seven. These unite at the birth of man and constitute his personality. After the death of the body theskandhas are separated and so remain until the reincarnating ego on its downward path into physicalincarnation gathers them together again around itself, and thus reforms the human constitutionconsidered as a unity.In brief, the skandhas can be said to be the aggregate of the groups of attributes or qualities which makeeach individual man the personality that he is; but this must be sharply distinguished from theindividuality.
slay ::: v. t. --> To put to death with a weapon, or by violence; hence, to kill; to put an end to; to destroy.
somatic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to the body as a whole; corporeal; as, somatic death; somatic changes.
Of or pertaining to the wall of the body; somatopleuric; parietal; as, the somatic stalk of the yolk sac of an embryo.
Some parallels from other religions are the luminous San-tusita (Bodhisat) appearing to Maya and announcing the coming birth of Gautama Buddha; the Hindu legend that there would be born the son of the Virgin (Krishna), the date of whose death marked the beginning of kali yuga; and in Egypt where scenes of an annunciation appear in the temple of Luxor.
something caused or dictated by fate; esp. misfortune often resulting in death.
Soul and Self ::: The pure self is unborn, does not pass through death or birth, is independent of birth or body, mind or life or this manifested Nature. It is not bound by these things, sot limited, not alTected, even though it assumes and supports them.
soul ::: Sri Aurobindo: "The word M-bM-^@M-^Xsoul", as also the word M-bM-^@M-^Xpsychic", is used very vaguely and in many different senses in the English language. More often than not, in ordinary parlance, no clear distinction is made between mind and soul and often there is an even more serious confusion, for the vital being of desire M-bM-^@M-^T the false soul or desire-soul M-bM-^@M-^T is intended by the words M-bM-^@M-^Xsoul" and M-bM-^@M-^Xpsychic" and not the true soul, the psychic being.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"The word soul is very vaguely used in English M-bM-^@M-^T as it often refers to the whole non-physical consciousness including even the vital with all its desires and passions. That was why the word psychic being has to be used so as to distinguish this divine portion from the instrumental parts of the nature.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"The word soul has various meanings according to the context; it may mean the Purusha supporting the formation of Prakriti, which we call a being, though the proper word would be rather a becoming; it may mean, on the other hand, specifically the psychic being in an evolutionary creature like man; it may mean the spark of the Divine which has been put into Matter by the descent of the Divine into the material world and which upholds all evolving formations here.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"A distinction has to be made between the soul in its essence and the psychic being. Behind each and all there is the soul which is the spark of the Divine M-bM-^@M-^T none could exist without that. But it is quite possible to have a vital and physical being supported by such a soul essence but without a clearly evolved psychic being behind it.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"The soul and the psychic being are practically the same, except that even in things which have not developed a psychic being, there is still a spark of the Divine which can be called the soul. The psychic being is called in Sanskrit the Purusha in the heart or the Chaitya Purusha. (The psychic being is the soul developing in the evolution.)M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
"The soul or spark is there before the development of an organised vital and mind. The soul is something of the Divine that descends into the evolution as a divine Principle within it to support the evolution of the individual out of the Ignorance into the Light. It develops in the course of the evolution a psychic individual or soul individuality which grows from life to life, using the evolving mind, vital and body as its instruments. It is the soul that is immortal while the rest disintegrates; it passes from life to life carrying its experience in essence and the continuity of the evolution of the individual.M-bM-^@M-^] *Letters on Yoga
". . . for the soul is seated within and impervious to the shocks of external events. . . .M-bM-^@M-^] *Essays on the Gita
". . . the soul is at first but a spark and then a little flame of godhead burning in the midst of a great darkness; for the most part it is veiled in its inner sanctum and to reveal itself it has to call on the mind, the life-force and the physical consciousness and persuade them, as best they can, to express it; ordinarily, it succeeds at most in suffusing their outwardness with its inner light and modifying with its purifying fineness their dark obscurities or their coarser mixture. Even when there is a formed psychic being able to express itself with some directness in life, it is still in all but a few a smaller portion of the being M-bM-^@M-^T M-bM-^@M-^Xno bigger in the mass of the body than the thumb of a man" was the image used by the ancient seers M-bM-^@M-^T and it is not always able to prevail against the obscurity or ignorant smallness of the physical consciousness, the mistaken surenesses of the mind or the arrogance and vehemence of the vital nature.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Synthesis of Yoga
". . . the soul is an eternal portion of the Supreme and not a fraction of Nature.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
"The true soul secret in us, M-bM-^@M-^T subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, M-bM-^@M-^T this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
*Soul, soul"s, Soul"s, souls, soulless, soul-bridals, soul-change, soul-force, Soul-Forces, soul-ground, soul-joy, soul-nature, soul-range, soul-ray, soul-scapes, soul-scene, soul-sense, soul-severance, soul-sight, soul-slaying, soul-space,, soul-spaces, soul-strength, soul-stuff, soul-truth, soul-vision, soul-wings, world-soul, World-Soul.
Spiritism: The French form of spiritualism (q.v.), based on the belief in continued life of the conscious personality after death and in the possibility of communicating with the spirits of the deceased, but including among its principles also the belief in reincarnation, which is rejected by spiritualism. Spiritism is founded on the teachings of Hypolyte Leon Denizard Rivail of France (1804-1869), known to his followers under the name of Allan Kardec. (In France and other European countries, the word spiritisme, Spiritismus, etc. is used to denote both spiritism and spiritualism.)
Spiritualisation and transformation ::: Spiritual experiences can fix themselves in the inner consciousness and alter it, transform it, if you like ; one can realise the Divine everywhere, the Self in qU and all in the Self, the universal Shakti doing all things ; one can feel merged in the Cosmic Self or full of ecstatic bhakti or Ananda. But one may and usually does still go on in the outer parts of Nature thinking with the intellect or at best the intuitive mind, willing with a menial will, feeling joy and sorrow on the vital surface, undergoing physical oHIictions and suffering from the struggle of life in the body with death and disease.
Spiritualism: Defined by the National Spiritualist Association of America as M-bM-^@M-^\the Science, Philosophy and religion of continuous life, based upon the demonstrated fact of communication, by means of mediumship, with those who live in the Spirit World.M-bM-^@M-^] Spiritualism rejects the belief in physical reincarnation, but teaches that death is a new birth into a spiritual body, without any change in individuality and character, and without impairment of memory.
Sri Aurobindo: "Birth is the first spiritual mystery of the physical universe, death is the second which gives its double point of perplexity to the mystery of birth; for life, which would otherwise be a self-evident fact of existence, becomes itself a mystery by virtue of these two which seem to be its beginning and its end and yet in a thousand ways betray themselves as neither of these things, but rather intermediate stages in an occult processus of life.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "By immortality we mean the absolute life of the soul as opposed to the transient and mutable life in the body which it assumes by birth and death and rebirth and superior also to its life as the mere mental being who dwells in the world subjected helplessly to this law of death and birth or seems at least by his ignorance to be subjected to this and to other laws of the lower Nature.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Upanishads
Sri Aurobindo: M-bM-^@M-^\Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; M-bM-^@M-&M-bM-^@M-^] (Note at the preface to Savitri.)
Sri Aurobindo: "Satyavan is the soul carrying the divine truth of being within itself but descended into the grip of death and ignorance; . . .M-bM-^@M-^] (Author"s note at the preface to Savitri.)
*Sri Aurobindo: ". . . sheaths is simply a term for bodies, because each is superimposed on the other and acts as a covering and can be cast off. Thus the physical body itself is called the food sheath and its throwing off is what is called death.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: "The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. Impersonally, all things here, even the movements of the Ignorance, are herself in veiled power and her creations in diminished substance, her Nature-body and Nature-force, and they exist because, moved by the mysterious fiat of the Supreme to work out something that was there in the possibilities of the Infinite, she has consented to the great sacrifice and has put on like a mask the soul and forms of the Ignorance. But personally too she has stooped to descend here into the Darkness that she may lead it to the Light, into the Falsehood and Error that she may convert it to the Truth, into this Death that she may turn it to godlike Life, into this world-pain and its obstinate sorrow and suffering that she may end it in the transforming ecstasy of her sublime Ananda. In her deep and great love for her children she has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity, condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to pass though the portals of the birth that is a death, taken upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.M-bM-^@M-^] The Mother
Sri Aurobindo: "The true soul secret in us, M-bM-^@M-^T subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, M-bM-^@M-^T this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.M-bM-^@M-^] *The Life Divine
Sri Aurobindo: "Weakness puts the same test and question to the strengths and energies and greatnesses in which we glory. Power is the play of life, shows its degree, finds the value of its expression; weakness is the play of death pursuing life in its movement and stressing the limit of its acquired energy.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays in Philosophy and Yoga
step- ::: --> A prefix used before father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, child, etc., to indicate that the person thus spoken of is not a blood relative, but is a relative by the marriage of a parent; as, a stepmother to X is the wife of the father of X, married by him after the death of the mother of X. See Stepchild, Stepdaughter, Stepson, etc.
Sthula-Sarira(Sanskrit) ::: Sthula means "coarse," "gross," not refined, heavy, bulky, fat in the sense of bigness,therefore, conditioned and differentiated matter; sarira, "form," generally speaking. The lowestsubstance-principle of which man is composed, usually classified as the seventh in order -- the physicalbody.The sthula-sarira or physical hierarchy of the human body is builded up of cosmic elements, themselvesformed of living atomic entities which, although subject individually to bewilderingly rapid changes andreimbodiments, nevertheless are incomparably more enduring in themselves as expressions of themonadic rays than is the transitory physical body which they temporarily compose.The physical body is composed mostly of porosity, if the expression be pardoned; the most unreal thingwe know, full of holes, foamy as it were. At death the physical body follows the course of natural decay,and its various hosts of life-atoms proceed individually and collectively whither their natural attractionscall them.Strictly speaking, the physical body is not a principle at all; it is merely a house, man's carrier in anothersense, and no more is an essential part of him -- except that he has excreted it, thrown it out from himself-- than are the clothes in which his body is garmented. Man really is a complete human being without thesthula-sarira; and yet this statement while accurate must be taken not too literally, because even thephysical body is the expression of man's constitution on the physical plane. The meaning is that thehuman constitution can be a complete human entity even when the physical body is discarded, but thesthula-sarira is needed for evolution and active work on this subplane of the solar kosmos.
Sthula sharira: Sanskrit for physical body (q.v.)., conceived as consisting of five elements; the gross body which perishes after physical death.
stiffened ::: 1. Became rigid; hardened. 2. Became stiff, esp. as in death.
stoned ::: threw stones at, pelted with stones; esp. put to death by pelting with stones.
strangle ::: v. t. --> To compress the windpipe of (a person or animal) until death results from stoppage of respiration; to choke to death by compressing the throat, as with the hand or a rope.
To stifle, choke, or suffocate in any manner.
To hinder from appearance; to stifle; to suppress. ::: v. i.
Subtle body: In the terminology of Yoga, that essential part of the human individuality which survives physical death and continues to be reborn in the wheel of life (q.v.). It is considered to be composed of seventeen elements: five senses of perception, five senses of action, five vital energies, mind (manas) and intellect (buddhi). It is in general identical with the term etheric double (q.v.) of other schools of occultism.
Surgical patients suffering from fright and fear before or during the induction of an anesthetic take it with more difficulty, and feel more aftereffects, than those who meet it without anxiety. The first stage of general anesthesia, usually not unpleasant, ends with the loss of physical consciousness. Then begins the second, or stage of struggling more or less vigorously, evidently due to the automatic reaction of the physical body, from which its conscious astral soul is being dissociated. In the third stage, the muscles relax and the disturbed heart and lungs settle down to regular rhythm, controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, as in a deep, dreamless sleep. The self-conscious ego, thus withdrawing from its ordinary state of being, enters more or less deeply into the subjective realm of its inner life. It is in a state of what has been called, paradoxically, conscious unconsciousness. The danger here is that the soul may become so far separated from its body that it does not come back again, and then death results.
Survival: The continued existence of the personality after the change or transition called death.
taboo ::: n. --> A total prohibition of intercourse with, use of, or approach to, a given person or thing under pain of death, -- an interdict of religious origin and authority, formerly common in the islands of Polynesia; interdiction. ::: v. t. --> To put under taboo; to forbid, or to forbid the use of;
Tehmi: M-bM-^@M-^\Embodied Nothingness is Death.M-bM-^@M-^]
Tehmi: M-bM-^@M-^\The Spirit of the Void is Death.M-bM-^@M-^]
TELOCH death 358
tenebrae ::: n. --> The matins and lauds for the last three days of Holy Week, commemorating the sufferings and death of Christ, -- usually sung on the afternoon or evening of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, instead of on the following days.
terminal brain death The extreme form of {terminal illness}. What someone who has obviously been hacking continuously for far too long is said to be suffering from. [{Jargon File}]
testacy ::: n. --> The state or circumstance of being testate, or of leaving a valid will, or testament, at death.
testament ::: n. --> A solemn, authentic instrument in writing, by which a person declares his will as to disposal of his estate and effects after his death.
One of the two distinct revelations of God&
testate ::: a. --> Having made and left a will; as, a person is said to die testate. ::: n. --> One who leaves a valid will at death; a testate person.
testator ::: n. --> A man who makes and leaves a will, or testament, at death.
testatrix ::: n. --> A woman who makes and leaves a will at death; a female testator.
thanatoid ::: a. --> Deathlike; resembling death.
thanatology ::: n. --> A description, or the doctrine, of death.
thanatopsis ::: n. --> A view of death; a meditation on the subject of death.
The celebration of the complete Eleusinia consisted of Less and Greater Mysteries. In the former the produce of the earth was given a part, while in the latter emphasis was laid on its higher correspondences in connection with Mystery-teaching. As its name implies, at Eleusis were taught the doctrines concerning what will happen to man after death.
The celebration of the winter solstice, often identified with that of the new year, is virtually universal and denotes among early Christians the mystic birth of the Christ; the significance has, however, with the Christian Church, been divided between Christmas and Easter. Besides its application to the death and rebirth of the year, and to death and regeneration both cosmic and human, the symbol has special reference to the esoteric rite and exoteric drama performed in the Mysteries at this epoch, where the candidate for initiation was placed in a tomb or coffin, or on a cruciform couch, where his body remained entranced during the experiences of his liberated self, until rebirth or resurrection on the third day.
The conditions of the future birth arc determined fundamental- ly not during the stay in the psychic world but at the time of death M-bM-^@M-^T the psychic being then chooses what it should work out in the next appearance and the conditions arrange themselves accordingly.
The connections of various kinds between Aphrodite (or Venus) and the moon, represented under various names, were numerous and highly suggestive. In fact, the Aphrodite Pandemos (the common and popular) was more intimately connected with the lunar powers and attributes than even with Venus. The moon, for instance, under the name Lucina, presided over births; under the name Diana was referred to as being the giver of life and lives, of abounding vitality; and under the name Hecate was the goddess of the underworld because the bringer of disease, decrepitude, and death.
The death and rebirth of Atys represent initiation and subsequent adeptship. His impotency points directly to the perfect chastity required for the higher degrees of initiation.
The early Christian Fathers connected the moon and its functions with Jehovah M-bM-^@M-^T as the proximate but not causal M-bM-^@M-^\giver of life and death.M-bM-^@M-^] Moreover M-bM-^@M-^\With the Israelites, the chief function of Jehovah was child-giving, and the esotericism of the Bible, interpreted Kabalistically, shows undeniably the Holy of Holies in the temple to be only the symbol of the womb. . . . This idea must certainly have been borrowed by the Jews from the Egyptians and Indians . . .M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 1:264). Jehovah is likewise identified with the serpent or dragon that tempted Eve, the dragon often standing for the primordial principle.
The Egyptian god Tem is connected by Blavatsky with fohat, for Tem is M-bM-^@M-^\spoken of as the Protean god who generates other gods and gives himself the form he likes; the M-bM-^@M-^Xmaster of lifeM-bM-^@M-^Y M-bM-^@M-^Xgiving their vigour to the godsM-bM-^@M-^Y (chapter lxxiv.) He is the overseer of the gods, and he M-bM-^@M-^Xwho creates spirits and gives them shape and lifeM-bM-^@M-^Y; he is M-bM-^@M-^Xthe north wind and the spirit of the westM-bM-^@M-^Y; and finally the M-bM-^@M-^XSetting Sun of Life,M-bM-^@M-^Y or the vital electric force that leaves the body at death, wherefore the defunct begs that Toum [Tem] should give him the breath from his right nostril (positive electricity) that he might live in his second formM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 1:673-4).
The fear of death shows a vital weakness which is also contrary to a capacity for yoga. Equally, one who is under the domination of his passions, would find the yoga dilhcuU and, unless supported by a true inner call and a sincere and strong aspiration for the spiritual consciousness and union with the Divine, might very easily fall fatally and his effort come to nothing.
The Greek verb from which psyche is derived also means to chill, make cold; and this has an application to the psyche as the lower part of the human soul and therefore closely connected with the kama-rupa and astral light after death. Hence it is that those who dabble in necromantic experiments, or even in psychic experiences, often refer to a damp, chill, and often clammy sensation in the atmosphere when contact with these kama-rupic entities is made. This should be warning that such contact is not only highly unwholesome, but a danger signal that one is dealing with death and decay.
The Hinayana school is the oldest, while the Mahayana is of a later period, having originated after the death of Buddha. Yet the tenets of the latter are ancient indeed, and both schools in reality teach the same doctrine. The Mahayana system exists in different schools varying among themselves to a greater or less degree as regards interpretation of fundamental tenets which all these subordinate schools nevertheless accept.
The KingM-bM-^@M-^Ys Chamber in the Pyramid of Cheops is an Egyptian adytum, in which the candidate for initiation, representing the solar god, descended into the sarcophagus, thus representing the energizing ray entering the fecund womb of nature; whence, after a mystic death, he rose again.
The kosmic pralaya is analogous to the death of the human being. The spiritual monads are drawn into higher ranges of being, to live and evolve, while the lower elements or bodies of the universe disperse as does our physical and lower psychological vehicles after death. See also PARANISHPANNA
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 lost soul is at one pole of consciousness and the master at the other. It is between the higher human soul, and the human soul (or man proper) that lies the psychological frontier over which one must pass forwards or backwards, into regeneration or degeneration. The first leads to masterhood, the second to final annihilation. For, as attraction to matter increases, the egoic soul-quality deteriorates, and through attrition the link is broken, and the soul finally sinks into the Eighth Sphere, the Planet of Death.
The Masonic initiation was modeled on that of the Lesser Mysteries of Egypt, also used in India from time immemorial with Loka-chaksu (eye of the world) and Dinkara (day-maker or the sun). M-bM-^@M-^\In Egypt the third degree was called Porte de la Mort (the gate of death) . . . in the modern rite, one finds the reproduction of this Egyptian myth, except that in place of Osiris, inventor of the arts, or the Sun, one finds the name of Hiram, which signifies raised M-bM-^@M-^T eleve, (the epithet which belongs to the Sun) and who is skillful in the artsM-bM-^@M-^] (Ragon, Orthodoxie MaM-CM-'onnique 101-2). The slaying of Hiram signifies the annual slaying of the sun by the last three months of the year, the sun being reborn or raised at the winter solstice, one of the four great initiation periods celebrated in antiquity.
The moon M-bM-^@M-^\stands in closer relations to Earth than any other sidereal orb. The Sun is the giver of life to the whole planetary system; the Moon is the giver of life to our globe; and the early races understood and knew it, even in their infancy. She is the Queen and she is the King, and was King Soma before she became transformed into Phoebe and the chaste Diana. . . . For, if Artemis was Luna in Heaven, and, with the Greeks, Diana on Earth, who presided over child-birth and life: with the Egyptians, she was Hekat (Hecate) in Hell, the goddess of Death, who ruled over magic and enchantments. More than this: as the personified moon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana-Hecate-Luna is the three in one. For she is Diva triformis, tergemina, triceps M-bM-^@M-^T three heads on one neck, like Brahma-Vishnu-Siva.M-bM-^@M-^] (SD I:386-7) See also ARTEMIS; HECATE; MOON
The Mother: M-bM-^@M-^XThere are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical body M-bM-^@M-^S they have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount. . . the Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I don"t know what has become of him. As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted but he found it disgusting!
The Mother: M-bM-^@M-^XThere are four Asuras. Two have already been converted, and the other two, the Lord of Death and the Lord of Falsehood, made an attempt at conversion by taking on a physical bodyM-bM-^@M-^Tthey have been intimately associated with my life. The story of these Asuras would be very interesting to recount. . . the Lord of Death disappeared; he lost his physical body, and I donM-bM-^@M-^Yt know what has become of him. As for the other, the Lord of Falsehood, the one who now rules over this earth, he tried hard to be converted but he found it disgusting!
The Mysteries of ancient times, and the rites connected with them, were very largely based on the secret and carefully hid events which occurred to a person after death, so that the secrets of death, and the resurrection from death, formed a large part of the initiation ceremonies of the ancient Mysteries. Thus it was that the sarcophagus or coffin, the emblem of death, held not only the physical body of the dead person, but likewise the entranced body of the neophyte whose soul was peregrinating into the invisible worlds and in and through the Underworld.
The mythological aspect stresses the dutiful mother and faithful wife. Her sorrow upon the death of her husband, Osiris, as well as her wanderings in search of his body, are very similar to those of the Greek nature goddess Demeter searching for her daughter Persephone. To Isis is also attributed the knowledge of the potency of mantras, with which she revivifies her poisoned son, Horus.
The mythos of Orpheus and Eurydice is a Mystery-story of the loss of the Word M-bM-^@M-^T Eurydice being a personification of the esoteric wisdom. The recovery of the Word is possible only to him who, during initiation, descends into the Underworld fully prepared, and who fulfills the inescapable conditions for return therefrom in possession of the Word, as was Orpheus through his marriage with Eurydice. Should he like Orpheus lose it M-bM-^@M-^T fail to bring Eurydice back with him M-bM-^@M-^T such loss brings inevitable death, or at least a rupture between the personal man and his higher spiritual nature, so that the personal man, unprotected by his spiritual nature, becomes the prey of remorse and of the lower terrestrial passions, the Bacchantes, and is finally slain by them. But this is not necessarily final failure, for in the next or in a succeeding life he may again begin his search for the Word, and if undaunted by obstacles, even by repeated failures, he continue in his search, he may and probably will ultimately find it.
Theosophical literature attributes the origin of this practice to the Atlanteans, the intent being to prevent the life-atoms which compose the human physical body from transmigrating through the lower kingdoms. The attempt, however, was unsuccessful, because a life-atom itself is the ensouling essence of an atom, which is destroyed neither by earth, air, water, nor fire, and pursues its own pathways both during human life and after death.
Theosophy teaches the constant rebirths of the identic spiritual-intellectual individuality throughout the manvantara; and that, even after union into paranirvana, the individuality, precisely because it is then on its own higher plane or sphere of life, is not lost and will reemerge at a new manvantara to pursue its own particular cycle. This eternal monad, the spiritual-intellectual individuality, is the real and truly immortal essence of the person; and within this supreme cycle of immortality are a series of less immortalities, each representing the life cycle of one of the imbodiments of the monad. Death therefore of necessity becomes a recurrent process, precisely like birth or rebirth, and of many degrees, and simply means the dissolution of some group of lower sheaths enclosing the individual in imbodiment.
The philosophy of Aristotle was continued after his death by other members of the Peripatetic school, the most important of whom were Theophrastus, Eudemus of Rhodes, and Strato of Lampsacus. In the Alexandrian Age, particularly after the editing of Aristotle's works by Andronicus of Rhodes (about 50 B.C.), Aristotelianism was the subject of numerous expositions and commentaries, such as those of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, John Philoponus, and Simplicius. With the closing of the philosophical schools in the sixth century the knowledge of Aristotle, except for fragments of the logical doctrine, almost disappeared in the west. It was preserved, however, by Arabian and Syrian scholars; from whom, with the revival of learning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it passed again to western Europe and became in Thomas Aquinas the philosophical basis of Christian theology. For the next few centuries the prestige of Aristotle was immense; he was "the philosopher," "the master of those who know." With the rise of modern science his authority has greatly declined. Yet Aristotelianism is still a force in modern thought: in Neo-Scholasticism; in recent psychology, whose behavioristic tendencies are in part a revival of Aristotelian modes of thought; in the various forms of vitalism in contemporary biology; in the dynamism of such thinkers as Bergson; and in the more catholic naturalism which has succeeded the mechanistic materialism of the last century, and which, whether by appeal to a doctrine of levels or by emphasis on immanent teleology, seems to be striving along Aristotelian lines for a conception of nature broad enough to include the religious, moral and artistic consciousness. Finally, a very large part of our technical vocabulary, both in science and in philosophy, is but the translation into modern tongues of the terms used by Aristotle, and carries with it, for better or worse, the distinctions worked out in his subtle mind. -- G.R.M.
The planet for which the Moon stands as a substitute, sometimes called the Planet of Death, is near the Moon and also invisible to our physical senses. It has a retrograde motion and is slowly dying.
There appears to have been no question in antiquity as to the actual historical existence of a godlike man who founded the Orphic religion or Mysteries, and whose work was continued by others in direct line, some of whom took his name, for no less than six different teachers by the name of Orpheus were known. When we add to the historic account the story of Orpheus as the Magician-Bard, and the legends of his divinity, his marriage with Eurydice (esoteric wisdom), his teaching, his agony and passion, and finally his martyrM-bM-^@M-^Ys death M-bM-^@M-^T legends almost identical with some of those attached to world-saviors such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Mithra M-bM-^@M-^T it is clear that he was not only a great teacher in himself, but an important link in the Hermetic Chain of esoteric succession.
There are outer rounds and inner rounds. An inner round comprises the passage of the life-wave in any one planetary chain once from globe A to G, or from the first globe to the twelfth, and this takes place seven or twelve times in a planetary manvantara. The outer round comprises the passage of the entirety of a life-wave of a planetary chain along the circulations of the solar system, from one of the seven sacred planets to another, and in a specific serial order; and this seven or twelve times. Outer round can refer to two different events: the grand outer round, during which the spiritual monad makes a stay of varying length in each planetary chain; and the minor or small outer round, which is the post-mortem journey of the monad, after the death of an individual, to each of the planetary chains, but in this latter case its stay in each chain is relatively short. See also INNER ROUND; OUTER ROUND
There is a close connection between death, sleep, and initiation, sleep being an incomplete death and initiation being a conscious experience of the afterdeath states. See also DEVACHAN; KAMA-LOKA; PRALAYA; REIMBODIMENT; SECOND DEATH
There is after death a period In which one passes through the vital world and lives there for a time, it is only the first part of this transit that can be dangerous or painful ; in the rest one vsorks out, under certain surroundings, the remnant of the vital desires which one had in the body. As soon as one is tired of these and able to go beyond, the vital sheath is dropped and the soul, after a time needed to get rid of some mental survivals, passes into a state of rest in the psychic world and remains there till the next life on earth.
There is a mystic science attached to the caduceus, the classical emblem of medicine. To the priest-physicians in the temples, this symbol was sacred not only to the god of wisdom and healing, but stood for profound cosmic truths, knowledge of which was held in common by all initiates. It symbolized the tree of life and being. Cosmically this symbol stood for the concealed root or origin of universal duality which manifests as positive and negative, good and evil, subjective and objective, light and darkness, male and female, health and sickness, life and death.
"There is no such thing as death, for it is the body that dies and the body is not the man. That which really is, cannot go out of existence, though it may change the forms through which it appears, just as that which is non-existent cannot come into being. The soul is and cannot cease to be. This opposition of is and is not, this balance of being and becoming which is the mind"s view of existence, finds its end in the realisation of the soul as the one imperishable self by whom all this universe has been extended. Finite bodies have an end, but that which possesses and uses the body, is infinite, illimitable, eternal, indestructible. It casts away old and takes up new bodies as a man changes worn-out raiment for new; and what is there in this to grieve at and recoil and shrink? This is not born, nor does it die, nor is it a thing that comes into being once and passing away will never come into being again. It is unborn, ancient, sempiternal; it is not slain with the slaying of the body. Who can slay the immortal spirit? Weapons cannot cleave it, nor the fire burn, nor do the waters drench it, nor the wind dry. Eternally stable, immobile, all-pervading, it is for ever and for ever. Not manifested like the body, but greater than all manifestation, not to be analysed by the thought, but greater than all mind, not capable of change and modification like the life and its organs and their objects, but beyond the changes of mind and life and body, it is yet the Reality which all these strive to figure.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays on the Gita
The rules governing betrayal of the secrets were of the utmost severity, the common penalty for such infringement being death. Yet this was a sign of degeneration from the original purity of the Mysteries, for M-bM-^@M-^\never in any circumstances has the power or the force of the Lodge, has the hand of a Teacher, been raised in violence or in hatred against a betrayer, against the unfaithful, no matter how grave the crime might have been. Their punishment was in this: they were left strictly to themselves; and the inner penalty was the withdrawal of the Deathless Watcher, the higher self within, which had been consciously and successfully invoked upon entrance into the Mysteries, and in the higher degrees of initiation had been faced, literally face to face. The early and automatic penalty was inner death by the soul-loss. The betrayer lost his soulM-bM-^@M-^] (Fund 254-5).
The second death takes place when the two highest human principles, atman and buddhi, free themselves from the fourfold entity, but such separation of the monad takes place only after it has assimilated all the higher intellectual and truly spiritual attributes which the manas principle has stored up during the last life on earth. The ego then is freed from all low attractions and enters into devachanic bliss for a period according to its richness in human spiritual qualities. After the monad in the second death has abandoned the lower part of manas joined to kama, there remains the shell or spook (kama-rupa) which under normal conditions immediately begins to disintegrate in kama-loka. Thus after the second death the immortal triad M-bM-^@M-^T atman, buddhi, and all the spiritual and intellectual aroma of the manas M-bM-^@M-^T is freed, and the reimbodying ego or higher manas enters the devachanic state, and sleeps blissfully there till beginning its new cycle of descent towards reincarnation.
These kumaras are sometimes also called rudras, adityas, gandharvas, asuras, maruts, and vedhas. The seven kumaras M-bM-^@M-^T both as groups and as aggregated individuals M-bM-^@M-^T are intimately connected with the dhyani-buddhas who watch over the seven rounds of our planetary chain. The four groups of kumaras generally spoken of are connected equally intimately with the four celestial bodhisattvas of the four globes of our round, and by correspondence with the four completed root-races of our earth. They are identical with the angels of the seven planets, and their name shows their connection with the constellation Makara or Capricorn. Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual microcosm, and the death or dissolution of the physical universe (its passage into the realm of the spiritual) as are the kumaras. Mara is the god of darkness, the Fallen one, and death, i.e., death of every physical thing; but through the karmic lessons learned also the quickener of the birth of the spiritual. The kumaras are connected also with the sage Narada. An allegory in the Puranas says that the kumaras, the first progeny of Brahma, were without desire or passion, inspired with the holy wisdom, and undesirous of progeny. They refused to create, but were compelled later on to complete divine man by incarnating in him. The barhishads or lunar pitris formed the M-bM-^@M-^\senselessM-bM-^@M-^] astral-physical humanity of the early root-races. Those beings possessing the living spiritual fire were the agnishvattas or solar pitris. The sons of Brahma, the kumaras, being originally themselves unconscious (in our sense) could be of no use in supplying the mental and kamic principles, as they did not possess them: they had attained no individual karmic elevation in merit of their own as had the agnishvattas. The perfection of the kumaras was passive and negative (nirguna). The kumaras eventually M-bM-^@M-^\sacrificeM-bM-^@M-^] themselves by incarnating in mankind, thus corresponding to the manasaputras and fallen angels cast into hell (material spheres, our earth).
The Self or Atman being free and superior to birth and death, the experience of the Jivatman and its unity with the supreme
These stories refer in part to an actual great deluge in the worldM-bM-^@M-^Ys history, mainly to the sinking of the great and smaller islands of the Atlantean continental stretches. In many if not all the versions, we find that a race had become so corrupt that nature or the gods would no longer tolerate it, and destroyed it and brought forth a new race. There is usually a type-figure, like the Hebrew Noah, who builds an ark or other vessel of salvation, thus saving from the waters the righteous few to be the seeds of the new race. In many versions are traditions of the destruction of the preceding root-race, Atlantis, by water, and of the saving of various groups of human remnants to found new civilizations on lands, then or shortly later geologically speaking, emerging from the ocean. But besides the particular application to this latest cataclysm in the earthM-bM-^@M-^Ys history, the story refers to cataclysms in general, to the death of old races and the birth of new ones. The evolution of the earth goes on pari passu with that of the beings upon it. These stories are evidently allegorical as well, with reference to cosmological facts. See also ARK
The sojourn in kama-loka will be longer if the deceased has strong and active attractions earthward, for in such cases the defunct is earth-bound, and the time before the second death occurs, after which follows the entry into devachan, is in all cases proportionate to the strength of the attraction towards earth and its affairs.
The soul, on the contrary, is something. that comes down into birth and passes through death M-bM-^@M-^T although it does not itself die, for it is immortal M-bM-^@M-^T from one state to another, from the earth plane to other planes and back again to the earth'cxisteoce. ft goes on with this progression from life to life through an evolu- tion which leads it up to the human state and evolves through it all a being of itself which we call the psychic being that sup- ports the evolution and develops a physical, a vital, a mental human consciousness as its instruments of world-experience and of a disguised, imperfect, but growing self-expression. All this it does from behind a veil showing something of its divine self only in so far as the imperfection of the instrumental being will allow it. But a time comes when it is able to prepare to come out from behind the veil, take command and turn all the instru- mental nature towards a divine fulfilment. This is the beginning of the true spiritual life. The soul is able now to make itself ready for a higher evolution of manifested consciousness than the mental human M-bM-^@M-^T it can pass from the mental to the spiritual and through degrees of the spiritual to the supramental state. _ ,
The subconscient is universal as well as individual like all the other main parts of the Nature. But there are different parts or planes of the subconscient. All upon earth is based on the Inconscient as it is called, though it is not really inconscient at all, but rather a complete "sub"-conscience, a suppressed or involved consciousness, in which there is everything but nothing is formulated or expressed. The subconscient lies between this Inconscient and the conscious mind, life and body. It contains the potentiality of all the primitive reactions to life which struggle out to the surface from the dull and inert strands of Matter and form by a constant development a slowly evolving and self-formulating consciousness; it contains them not as ideas, perceptions or conscious reactions but as the fluid substance of these things. But also all that is consciously experienced sinks down into the subconscient, not as precise though submerged memories but as obscure yet obstinate impressions of experience, and these can come up at any time as dreams, as mechanical repetitions of past thought, feelings, action, etc., as "complexes" exploding into action and event, etc., etc. The subconscient is the main cause why all things repeat themselves and nothing ever gets changed except in appearance. It is the cause why people say character cannot be changed, the cause also of the constant return of things one hoped to have got rid of for ever. All seeds are there and all Sanskaras of the mind, vital and body,M-bM-^@M-^Tit is the main support of death and disease and the last fortress (seemingly impregnable) of the Ignorance. All too that is suppressed without being wholly got rid of sinks down there and remains as seed ready to surge up or sprout up at any moment.
Ref: SABCL Vol. 22-23-24, Page: 354
The sun, moon, and cross in some ancient mystical thought form a symbolic triad, closely connected with the other triads of spirit, soul, and body or of Father-Mother-Son. Lunar worship is often compared unfavorably with solar worship as referring to the material side of nature. Jehovah, for instance, is disparagingly spoken of as a lunar god. Terms such as lunar magic or the lunar path refer to other extremely important natural facts, connected with the moon in its lower occult aspect as the orb of night, of death as well as of lunar life, etc.; further, these terms are always mentioned in connection with psychic rather than spiritual powers. See also LUNAR CHAIN
The system of Aristotle as contrasted with that of Plato, is more scientific, and its tendency is to dispense with the immanence of the divine. The growing naturalistic tendency culminated with Strabo, who professed to need no divine in nature at all. Peripatetic applies to the commentators and exegetists of Aristotle who followed upon AndronicusM-bM-^@M-^Y editing of AristotleM-bM-^@M-^Ys works in the 1st century BC M-bM-^@M-^T although soon after his death the Peripatetic school, like all the other offshoots, merged into what is termed Neoplatonism.
theta ::: n. --> A letter of the Greek alphabet corresponding to th in English; -- sometimes called the unlucky letter, from being used by the judges on their ballots in passing condemnation on a prisoner, it being the first letter of the Greek qa`natos, death.
"The true mm of old did not know what it was to love life or to have death. He did not rejoice in birth nor resist death. Spontaneously he went, spontaneously he came that was all. He did not forget whence he came, nor did he seek whence he would end. He accepted things gladly, and returned them to nature without reminiscence. This is called not to hurt Tao with the human heart, nor to assist heaven with man." (Chuang Tzu, between 399-295 B.C.)
"The universe is certainly or has been up to now in appearance a rough and wasteful game with the dice of chance loaded in favour of the Powers of darkness, the Lords of obscurity, falsehood, death and suffering. But we have to take it as it is and find out M-bM-^@M-^T if we reject the way out of the old sages M-bM-^@M-^T the way to conquer. Spiritual experience shows that there is behind it all a wide terrain of equality, peace, calm, freedom, and it is only by getting into it that we can have the eye that sees and hope to gain the power that conquers.M-bM-^@M-^] Letters on Yoga
The Vishnu-Purana says of the kali yuga that the barbarians will be masters of the banks of the Indus, of Chandrabhaga and Kasmira, that M-bM-^@M-^\there will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth M-bM-^@M-^T kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness. They will inflict death on women, children, and cows; they will seize upon the property of their subjects, and be intent upon the wives of others; they will be of unlimited power, their lives will be short, their desires insatiable. . . . People of various countries intermingling with them, will follow their example; and the barbarians being powerful (in India) in the patronage of the princes, while purer tribes are neglected, the people will perish (or, as the Commentator has it, M-bM-^@M-^XThe Mlechchhas will be in the centre and the Aryas in the end.M-bM-^@M-^Y) Wealth and piety will decrease until the world will be wholly depraved. Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigations; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification. . . . a man if rich will be reputed pure; dishonesty (anyaya) will be the universal means of subsistence, weakness the cause of dependence, menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; mutual assent, marriage; fine clothes, dignity. He who is the strongest will reign; the people, unable to bear the heavy burthen, Khara bhara (the load of taxes) will take refuge among the valleys. . . . Thus, in the Kali age will decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation (pralaya). . . . When the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being which exists, of its own spiritual nature . . . shall descend on Earth . . . (Kalki Avatar) endowed with the eight superhuman faculties. . . . He will re-establish righteousness on earth, and the minds of those who live at the end of Kali Yuga shall be awakened and become as pellucid as crystal. The men who are thus changed . . . shall be the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita age, the age of purity. As it is said, M-bM-^@M-^XWhen the sun and moon and the lunar asterism Tishya and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion, the Krita (or Satya) age shall returnM-bM-^@M-^Y M-bM-^@M-^] (SD 1:377-8). See also YUGA.
"The world we live in is not a meaningless accident that has unaccountably taken place in the void of Space; it is the scene of an evolution in which an eternal Truth has been embodied, hidden in a form of things, and is secretly in process of unfoldment through the ages. There is a meaning in our existence, a purpose in our birth and death and travail, a consummation of all our labour. All are parts of a single plan; nothing has been idly made in the universe; nothing is vain in our life.M-bM-^@M-^] Essays Divine and Human
thirdings ::: n. pl. --> The third part of the corn or grain growing on the ground at the tenant&
::: "This conception of the Person and Personality, if accepted, must modify at the same time our current ideas about the immortality of the soul; for, normally, when we insist on the soul"s undying existence, what is meant is the survival after death of a definite unchanging personality which was and will always remain the same throughout eternity. It is the very imperfect superficial I'' of the moment, evidently regarded by Nature as a temporary form and not worth preservation, for which we demand this stupendous right to survival and immortality. But the demand is extravagant and cannot be conceded; theI"" of the moment can only merit survival if it consents to change, to be no longer itself but something else, greater, better, more luminous in knowledge, more moulded in the image of the eternal inner beauty, more and more progressive towards the divinity of the secret Spirit. It is that secret Spirit or divinity of Self in us which is imperishable, because it is unborn and eternal. The psychic entity within, its representative, the spiritual individual in us, is the Person that we are; but the I'' of this moment, theI"" of this life is only a formation, a temporary personality of this inner Person: it is one step of the many steps of our evolutionary change, and it serves its true purpose only when we pass beyond it to a farther step leading nearer to a higher degree of consciousness and being. It is the inner Person that survives death, even as it pre-exists before birth; for this constant survival is a rendering of the eternity of our timeless Spirit into the terms of Time.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
This condition of human consciousness differs from the devachanic state. As used above, akasic samadhi was applied to those individuals dying by accident who on earth had been of unusually pure character and life. It is a temporary condition, equivalent to an automatic reproduction in the victimM-bM-^@M-^Ys consciousness of the beautiful and holy thoughts that the person had had during incarnated life; in fact, a sort of preliminary to the devachanic state. Such dream state immediately succeeds the first condition of absolute unconsciousness which the shock of death brings to all human beings, good, bad, or indifferent. In the above cases there is no conscious kama-lokic experience whatsoever, because the shock of death has brought about the paralysis of all the lower parts of the human constitution. Only adumbrations of the consciousness of the buddhi and atman, with the most spiritual portion of manas are then active (ML 131). In certain cases the condition of samadhi in the akasic portions of the human constitution may last until what would have been the natural life term on earth is completed; and then these individuals glide into the devachanic state.
This entranced state is cultivated in modern spiritualism as a means of inviting spirit-control and of gaining special knowledge. However, the very relation of the seven human principles infallibly and necessarily prevents pure spirit from directly contacting physical matter. In the complete living man on earth, his spiritual nature M-bM-^@M-^T buddhi M-bM-^@M-^T is above, within, or beyond his higher mind (higher manas) yet can only act downwards through it. The spiritual does not directly contact or act through the lower mind and emotions (kama-manas). After death, the higher triad (atma-buddhi-manas) separates from the lower quaternary and ascends to its own realms, entirely beyond the reach of the personal man that was. Mediumship, moreover, is a negation of conscious selfhood and a reversal of natural evolutionary growth, whereby the reincarnating ego involved in material existence comes forth, step by step, taking positive, conscious control of its body, mind, and emotions. Our racial evolution reached the depths of materiality in Atlantean times, and therefrom made the turn onto the ascending arc. Hence, our future progress consists, not in trying further to materialize spirit, but in progressively spiritualizing matter.
This law applies universally to solar systems, planets, human beings, atoms, etc. The reincarnating ego is born and dies on each of the successive planes of existence through which it descends from spiritual realms to be reborn again on earth. The same rhythmic motion reversed spells death here, with the same repeated births and deaths on its ascending journey to its spiritual home.
This teaching refers to the contest between the older formative or building gods who made the M-bM-^@M-^\senselessM-bM-^@M-^] humanity, and the informing or intellectual gods who kindled the spark of consciousness and moral sense in them, as symbolized in the myth of Prometheus. When spirit becomes linked with matter, matter is at first preponderant and death prevails; but when the broken harmony becomes reestablished, mankind will become again free. M-bM-^@M-^\When man understands that M-bM-^@M-^XDeus non fecit mortemM-bM-^@M-^Y (Sap. I, 13), but that man has created it himself, he will re-become the Prometheus before his FallM-bM-^@M-^] (SD 2:422).
Tho object is to create a moral calm, a void of the passions, and so prepare for the death of egoism in the rajasic human being.
Thought-images of themselves projected, often by people at the moment of death, which appear at that time or a few hours afterwards to their friends or relatives.
threaten ::: v. t. --> To utter threats against; to menace; to inspire with apprehension; to alarm, or attempt to alarm, as with the promise of something evil or disagreeable; to warn.
To exhibit the appearance of (something evil or unpleasant) as approaching; to indicate as impending; to announce the conditional infliction of; as, to threaten war; to threaten death. ::: v. i.
Three senses of "Ockhamism" may be distinguished: Logical, indicating usage of the terminology and technique of logical analysis developed by Ockham in his Summa totius logicae; in particular, use of the concept of supposition (suppositio) in the significative analysis of terms. Epistemological, indicating the thesis that universality is attributable only to terms and propositions, and not to things as existing apart from discourse. Theological, indicating the thesis that no tneological doctrines, such as those of God's existence or of the immortality of the soul, are evident or demonstrable philosophically, so that religious doctrine rests solely on faith, without metaphysical or scientific support. It is in this sense that Luther is often called an Ockhamist. Bibliography: B. Geyer, Ueberwegs Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Phil., Bd. II (11th ed., Berlin 1928), pp. 571-612 and 781-786; N. Abbagnano, Guglielmo di Ockham (Lanciano, Italy, 1931); E. A. Moody, The Logic of William of Ockham (N. Y. & London, 1935); F. Ehrle, Peter von Candia (Muenster, 1925); G. Ritter, Studien zur Spaetscholastik, I-II (Heidelberg, 1921-1922). --E.A.M. Om, aum: (Skr.) Mystic, holy syllable as a symbol for the indefinable Absolute. See Aksara, Vac, Sabda. --K.F.L. Omniscience: In philosophy and theology it means the complete and perfect knowledge of God, of Himself and of all other beings, past, present, and future, or merely possible, as well as all their activities, real or possible, including the future free actions of human beings. --J.J.R. One: Philosophically, not a number but equivalent to unit, unity, individuality, in contradistinction from multiplicity and the mani-foldness of sensory experience. In metaphysics, the Supreme Idea (Plato), the absolute first principle (Neo-platonism), the universe (Parmenides), Being as such and divine in nature (Plotinus), God (Nicolaus Cusanus), the soul (Lotze). Religious philosophy and mysticism, beginning with Indian philosophy (s.v.), has favored the designation of the One for the metaphysical world-ground, the ultimate icility, the world-soul, the principle of the world conceived as reason, nous, or more personally. The One may be conceived as an independent whole or as a sum, as analytic or synthetic, as principle or ontologically. Except by mysticism, it is rarely declared a fact of sensory experience, while its transcendent or transcendental, abstract nature is stressed, e.g., in epistemology where the "I" or self is considered the unitary background of personal experience, the identity of self-consciousness, or the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of the manifoldness of ideas (Kant). --K.F.L. One-one: A relation R is one-many if for every y in the converse domain there is a unique x such that xRy. A relation R is many-one if for every x in the domain there is a unique y such that xRy. (See the article relation.) A relation is one-one, or one-to-one, if it is at the same time one-many and many-one. A one-one relation is said to be, or to determine, a one-to-one correspondence between its domain and its converse domain. --A.C. On-handedness: (Ger. Vorhandenheit) Things exist in the mode of thereness, lying- passively in a neutral space. A "deficient" form of a more basic relationship, termed at-handedness (Zuhandenheit). (Heidegger.) --H.H. Ontological argument: Name by which later authors, especially Kant, designate the alleged proof for God's existence devised by Anselm of Canterbury. Under the name of God, so the argument runs, everyone understands that greater than which nothing can be thought. Since anything being the greatest and lacking existence is less then the greatest having also existence, the former is not really the greater. The greatest, therefore, has to exist. Anselm has been reproached, already by his contemporary Gaunilo, for unduly passing from the field of logical to the field of ontological or existential reasoning. This criticism has been repeated by many authors, among them Aquinas. The argument has, however, been used, if in a somewhat modified form, by Duns Scotus, Descartes, and Leibniz. --R.A. Ontological Object: (Gr. onta, existing things + logos, science) The real or existing object of an act of knowledge as distinguished from the epistemological object. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ontologism: (Gr. on, being) In contrast to psychologism, is called any speculative system which starts philosophizing by positing absolute being, or deriving the existence of entities independently of experience merely on the basis of their being thought, or assuming that we have immediate and certain knowledge of the ground of being or God. Generally speaking any rationalistic, a priori metaphysical doctrine, specifically the philosophies of Rosmini-Serbati and Vincenzo Gioberti. As a philosophic method censored by skeptics and criticists alike, as a scholastic doctrine formerly strongly supported, revived in Italy and Belgium in the 19th century, but no longer countenanced. --K.F.L. Ontology: (Gr. on, being + logos, logic) The theory of being qua being. For Aristotle, the First Philosophy, the science of the essence of things. Introduced as a term into philosophy by Wolff. The science of fundamental principles, the doctrine of the categories. Ultimate philosophy; rational cosmology. Syn. with metaphysics. See Cosmology, First Principles, Metaphysics, Theology. --J.K.F. Operation: "(Lit. operari, to work) Any act, mental or physical, constituting a phase of the reflective process, and performed with a view to acquiring1 knowledge or information about a certain subject-nntter. --A.C.B. In logic, see Operationism. In philosophy of science, see Pragmatism, Scientific Empiricism. Operationism: The doctrine that the meaning of a concept is given by a set of operations. 1. The operational meaning of a term (word or symbol) is given by a semantical rule relating the term to some concrete process, object or event, or to a class of such processes, objectj or events. 2. Sentences formed by combining operationally defined terms into propositions are operationally meaningful when the assertions are testable by means of performable operations. Thus, under operational rules, terms have semantical significance, propositions have empirical significance. Operationism makes explicit the distinction between formal (q.v.) and empirical sentences. Formal propositions are signs arranged according to syntactical rules but lacking operational reference. Such propositions, common in mathematics, logic and syntax, derive their sanction from convention, whereas an empirical proposition is acceptable (1) when its structure obeys syntactical rules and (2) when there exists a concrete procedure (a set of operations) for determining its truth or falsity (cf. Verification). Propositions purporting to be empirical are sometimes amenable to no operational test because they contain terms obeying no definite semantical rules. These sentences are sometimes called pseudo-propositions and are said to be operationally meaningless. They may, however, be 'meaningful" in other ways, e.g. emotionally or aesthetically (cf. Meaning). Unlike a formal statement, the "truth" of an empirical sentence is never absolute and its operational confirmation serves only to increase the degree of its validity. Similarly, the semantical rule comprising the operational definition of a term has never absolute precision. Ordinarily a term denotes a class of operations and the precision of its definition depends upon how definite are the rules governing inclusion in the class. The difference between Operationism and Logical Positivism (q.v.) is one of emphasis. Operationism's stress of empirical matters derives from the fact that it was first employed to purge physics of such concepts as absolute space and absolute time, when the theory of relativity had forced upon physicists the view that space and time are most profitably defined in terms of the operations by which they are measured. Although different methods of measuring length at first give rise to different concepts of length, wherever the equivalence of certain of these measures can be established by other operations, the concepts may legitimately be combined. In psychology the operational criterion of meaningfulness is commonly associated with a behavioristic point of view. See Behaviorism. Since only those propositions which are testable by public and repeatable operations are admissible in science, the definition of such concepti as mind and sensation must rest upon observable aspects of the organism or its behavior. Operational psychology deals with experience only as it is indicated by the operation of differential behavior, including verbal report. Discriminations, or the concrete differential reactions of organisms to internal or external environmental states, are by some authors regarded as the most basic of all operations. For a discussion of the role of operational definition in phvsics. see P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, (New York, 1928) and The Nature of Physical Theory (Princeton, 1936). "The extension of operationism to psychology is discussed by C. C. Pratt in The Logic of Modem Psychology (New York. 1939.) For a discussion and annotated bibliography relating to Operationism and Logical Positivism, see S. S. Stevens, Psychology and the Science of Science, Psychol. Bull., 36, 1939, 221-263. --S.S.S. Ophelimity: Noun derived from the Greek, ophelimos useful, employed by Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) in economics as the equivalent of utility, or the capacity to provide satisfaction. --J.J.R. Opinion: (Lat. opinio, from opinor, to think) An hypothesis or proposition entertained on rational grounds but concerning which doubt can reasonably exist. A belief. See Hypothesis, Certainty, Knowledge. --J.K.F- Opposition: (Lat. oppositus, pp. of oppono, to oppose) Positive actual contradiction. One of Aristotle's Post-predicaments. In logic any contrariety or contradiction, illustrated by the "Square of Opposition". Syn. with: conflict. See Logic, formal, M-BM-' 4. --J.K.F. Optimism: (Lat. optimus, the best) The view inspired by wishful thinking, success, faith, or philosophic reflection, that the world as it exists is not so bad or even the best possible, life is good, and man's destiny is bright. Philosophically most persuasively propounded by Leibniz in his Theodicee, according to which God in his wisdom would have created a better world had he known or willed such a one to exist. Not even he could remove moral wrong and evil unless he destroyed the power of self-determination and hence the basis of morality. All systems of ethics that recognize a supreme good (Plato and many idealists), subscribe to the doctrines of progressivism (Turgot, Herder, Comte, and others), regard evil as a fragmentary view (Josiah Royce et al.) or illusory, or believe in indemnification (Henry David Thoreau) or melioration (Emerson), are inclined optimistically. Practically all theologies advocating a plan of creation and salvation, are optimistic though they make the good or the better dependent on moral effort, right thinking, or belief, promising it in a future existence. Metaphysical speculation is optimistic if it provides for perfection, evolution to something higher, more valuable, or makes room for harmonies or a teleology. See Pessimism. --K.F.L. Order: A class is said to be partially ordered by a dyadic relation R if it coincides with the field of R, and R is transitive and reflexive, and xRy and yRx never both hold when x and y are different. If in addition R is connected, the class is said to be ordered (or simply ordered) by R, and R is called an ordering relation. Whitehcid and Russell apply the term serial relation to relations which are transitive, irreflexive, and connected (and, in consequence, also asymmetric). However, the use of serial relations in this sense, instead ordering relations as just defined, is awkward in connection with the notion of order for unit classes. Examples: The relation not greater than among leal numbers is an ordering relation. The relation less than among real numbers is a serial relation. The real numbers are simply ordered by the former relation. In the algebra of classes (logic formal, M-BM-' 7), the classes are partially ordered by the relation of class inclusion. For explanation of the terminology used in making the above definitions, see the articles connexity, reflexivity, relation, symmetry, transitivity. --A.C. Order type: See relation-number. Ordinal number: A class b is well-ordered by a dyadic relation R if it is ordered by R (see order) and, for every class a such that a M-bM-^JM-^B b, there is a member x of a, such that xRy holds for every member y of a; and R is then called a well-ordering relation. The ordinal number of a class b well-ordered by a relation R, or of a well-ordering relation R, is defined to be the relation-number (q. v.) of R. The ordinal numbers of finite classes (well-ordered by appropriate relations) are called finite ordinal numbers. These are 0, 1, 2, ... (to be distinguished, of course, from the finite cardinal numbers 0, 1, 2, . . .). The first non-finite (transfinite or infinite) ordinal number is the ordinal number of the class of finite ordinal numbers, well-ordered in their natural order, 0, 1, 2, . . .; it is usually denoted by the small Greek letter omega. --A.C. G. Cantor, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers, translated and with an introduction by P. E. B. Jourdain, Chicago and London, 1915. (new ed. 1941); Whitehead and Russell, Princtpia Mathematica. vol. 3. Orexis: (Gr. orexis) Striving; desire; the conative aspect of mind, as distinguished from the cognitive and emotional (Aristotle). --G.R.M.. Organicism: A theory of biology that life consists in the organization or dynamic system of the organism. Opposed to mechanism and vitalism. --J.K.F. Organism: An individual animal or plant, biologically interpreted. A. N. Whitehead uses the term to include also physical bodies and to signify anything material spreading through space and enduring in time. --R.B.W. Organismic Psychology: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, an instrument) A system of theoretical psychology which construes the structure of the mind in organic rather than atomistic terms. See Gestalt Psychology; Psychological Atomism. --L.W. Organization: (Lat. organum, from Gr. organon, work) A structured whole. The systematic unity of parts in a purposive whole. A dynamic system. Order in something actual. --J.K.F. Organon: (Gr. organon) The title traditionally given to the body of Aristotle's logical treatises. The designation appears to have originated among the Peripatetics after Aristotle's time, and expresses their view that logic is not a part of philosophy (as the Stoics maintained) but rather the instrument (organon) of philosophical inquiry. See Aristotelianism. --G.R.M. In Kant. A system of principles by which pure knowledge may be acquired and established. Cf. Fr. Bacon's Novum Organum. --O.F.K. Oriental Philosophy: A general designation used loosely to cover philosophic tradition exclusive of that grown on Greek soil and including the beginnings of philosophical speculation in Egypt, Arabia, Iran, India, and China, the elaborate systems of India, Greater India, China, and Japan, and sometimes also the religion-bound thought of all these countries with that of the complex cultures of Asia Minor, extending far into antiquity. Oriental philosophy, though by no means presenting a homogeneous picture, nevertheless shares one characteristic, i.e., the practical outlook on life (ethics linked with metaphysics) and the absence of clear-cut distinctions between pure speculation and religious motivation, and on lower levels between folklore, folk-etymology, practical wisdom, pre-scientiiic speculation, even magic, and flashes of philosophic insight. Bonds with Western, particularly Greek philosophy have no doubt existed even in ancient times. Mutual influences have often been conjectured on the basis of striking similarities, but their scientific establishment is often difficult or even impossible. Comparative philosophy (see especially the work of Masson-Oursel) provides a useful method. Yet a thorough treatment of Oriental Philosophy is possible only when the many languages in which it is deposited have been more thoroughly studied, the psychological and historical elements involved in the various cultures better investigated, and translations of the relevant documents prepared not merely from a philological point of view or out of missionary zeal, but by competent philosophers who also have some linguistic training. Much has been accomplished in this direction in Indian and Chinese Philosophy (q.v.). A great deal remains to be done however before a definitive history of Oriental Philosophy may be written. See also Arabian, and Persian Philosophy. --K.F.L. Origen: (185-254) The principal founder of Christian theology who tried to enrich the ecclesiastic thought of his day by reconciling it with the treasures of Greek philosophy. Cf. Migne PL. --R.B.W. Ormazd: (New Persian) Same as Ahura Mazdah (q.v.), the good principle in Zoroastrianism, and opposed to Ahriman (q.v.). --K.F.L. Orphic Literature: The mystic writings, extant only in fragments, of a Greek religious-philosophical movement of the 6th century B.C., allegedly started by the mythical Orpheus. In their mysteries, in which mythology and rational thinking mingled, the Orphics concerned themselves with cosmogony, theogony, man's original creation and his destiny after death which they sought to influence to the better by pure living and austerity. They taught a symbolism in which, e.g., the relationship of the One to the many was clearly enunciated, and believed in the soul as involved in reincarnation. Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Plato were influenced by them. --K.F.L. Ortega y Gasset, Jose: Born in Madrid, May 9, 1883. At present in Buenos Aires, Argentine. Son of Ortega y Munillo, the famous Spanish journalist. Studied at the College of Jesuits in Miraflores and at the Central University of Madrid. In the latter he presented his Doctor's dissertation, El Milenario, in 1904, thereby obtaining his Ph.D. degree. After studies in Leipzig, Berlin, Marburg, under the special influence of Hermann Cohen, the great exponent of Kant, who taught him the love for the scientific method and awoke in him the interest in educational philosophy, Ortega came to Spain where, after the death of Nicolas Salmeron, he occupied the professorship of metaphysics at the Central University of Madrid. The following may be considered the most important works of Ortega y Gasset: Meditaciones del Quijote, 1914; El Espectador, I-VIII, 1916-1935; El Tema de Nuestro Tiempo, 1921; EspaM-CM-1a Invertebrada, 1922; Kant, 1924; La Deshumanizacion del Arte, 1925; Espiritu de la Letra, 1927; La Rebelion de las Masas, 1929; Goethe desde Adentio, 1934; Estudios sobre el Amor, 1939; Ensimismamiento y Alteracion, 1939; El Libro de las Misiones, 1940; Ideas y Creencias, 1940; and others. Although brought up in the Marburg school of thought, Ortega is not exactly a neo-Kantian. At the basis of his Weltanschauung one finds a denial of the fundamental presuppositions which characterized European Rationalism. It is life and not thought which is primary. Things have a sense and a value which must be affirmed independently. Things, however, are to be conceived as the totality of situations which constitute the circumstances of a man's life. Hence, Ortega's first philosophical principle: "I am myself plus my circumstances". Life as a problem, however, is but one of the poles of his formula. Reason is the other. The two together function, not by dialectical opposition, but by necessary coexistence. Life, according to Ortega, does not consist in being, but rather, in coming to be, and as such it is of the nature of direction, program building, purpose to be achieved, value to be realized. In this sense the future as a time dimension acquires new dignity, and even the present and the past become articulate and meaning-full only in relation to the future. Even History demands a new point of departure and becomes militant with new visions. --J.A.F. Orthodoxy: Beliefs which are declared by a group to be true and normative. Heresy is a departure from and relative to a given orthodoxy. --V.S. Orthos Logos: See Right Reason. Ostensible Object: (Lat. ostendere, to show) The object envisaged by cognitive act irrespective of its actual existence. See Epistemological Object. --L.W. Ostensive: (Lat. ostendere, to show) Property of a concept or predicate by virtue of which it refers to and is clarified by reference to its instances. --A.C.B. Ostwald, Wilhelm: (1853-1932) German chemist. Winner of the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1909. In Die Uberwindung des wissenschaftlichen Materialistmus and in Naturphilosophie, his two best known works in the field of philosophy, he advocates a dynamic theory in opposition to materialism and mechanism. All properties of matter, and the psychic as well, are special forms of energy. --L.E.D. Oupnekhat: Anquetil Duperron's Latin translation of the Persian translation of 50 Upanishads (q.v.), a work praised by Schopenhauer as giving him complete consolation. --K.F.L. Outness: A term employed by Berkeley to express the experience of externality, that is the ideas of space and things placed at a distance. Hume used it in the sense of distance Hamilton understood it as the state of being outside of consciousness in a really existing world of material things. --J.J.R. Overindividual: Term used by H. MM-CM-
Tliought-imagcs of themselves projected, often by people at the moment of death, which appear at that time or a fewM-bM-^@M-^Y hours afterwards to ibclr frleadv or relatives.
tontine ::: n. --> An annuity, with the benefit of survivorship, or a loan raised on life annuities with the benefit of survivorship. Thus, an annuity is shared among a number, on the principle that the share of each, at his death, is enjoyed by the survivors, until at last the whole goes to the last survivor, or to the last two or three, according to the terms on which the money is advanced. Used also adjectively; as, tontine insurance.
tragic ::: 1. Dreadful, calamitous, disastrous, or fatal. 2. Of, pertaining to, characterized by, or of the nature of tragedy. 3. Relating to or characteristic of dramatic tragedy or tragedies; very sad; especially involving grief or death or destruction.
trance ::: n. --> A tedious journey.
A state in which the soul seems to have passed out of the body into another state of being, or to be rapt into visions; an ecstasy.
A condition, often simulating death, in which there is a total suspension of the power of voluntary movement, with abolition of all evidences of mental activity and the reduction to a minimum of all the vital functions so that the patient lies still and apparently
Transition: A Rosicrucian term for M-bM-^@M-^\physical death.M-bM-^@M-^]
translate ::: v. t. --> To bear, carry, or remove, from one place to another; to transfer; as, to translate a tree.
To change to another condition, position, place, or office; to transfer; hence, to remove as by death.
To remove to heaven without a natural death.
To remove, as a bishop, from one see to another.
To render into another language; to express the sense of in the words of another language; to interpret; hence, to explain or
transmigration ::: n. --> The act of passing from one country to another; migration.
The passing of the soul at death into another mortal body; metempsychosis.
Transmigration ::: This word is grossly misunderstood in the modern Occident, as also is the doctrine comprised under theold Greek word metempsychosis, both being modernly supposed to mean, through the commonmisunderstanding of the ancient literatures, that the human soul at some time after death migrates into thebeast realm and is reborn on earth in a beast body. The real meaning of this statement in ancient literaturerefers to the destiny of what theosophists call the life-atoms, but it has absolutely no reference to thedestiny of the human soul, as an entity.Theosophy accepts all aspects of the ancient teaching, but explains and interprets them. Our doctrine inthis respect unless, indeed, we are treating of the case of a "lost soul,"is "once a man, always a man." Thehuman soul can no more migrate over and incarnate in a beast body than can the psychical apparatus of abeast incarnate in human flesh. Why? Because in the former case, the beast vehicle offers to the humansoul no opening at all for the expression of the spiritual and intellectual and psychical powers andfaculties and tendencies which make a man human. Nor can the soul of the beast enter into a humanbody, because the impassable gulf of a psychical and intellectual nature, which separates the twokingdoms, prevents any such passage from the one up into another so much its superior in all respects. Inthe former case, there is no attraction for the man beastwards; and in the latter case there is theimpossibility of the imperfectly developed beast mind and beast soul finding a proper lodgment in whatto it is truly a godlike sphere which it simply cannot enter.Transmigration, however, has a specific meaning when the word is applied to the human soul: the livingentity migrates or passes over from one condition to another condition or state or plane, as the case maybe, whether these latter be in the invisible realms of nature or in the visible realms, and whether the stateor condition be high or low. The specific meaning of this word, therefore, implies nothing more than achange of state or of condition or of plane: a migrating of the living entity from one to the other, butalways in conditions or estates or habitudes appropriate and pertaining to its human dignity.In its application to the life-atoms, to which are to be referred the observations of the ancients withregard to the lower realms of nature, transmigration means briefly that the particular life-atoms, which intheir aggregate compose man's lower principles, at and following the change that men call death migrateor transmigrate or pass into other bodies to which these life-atoms are attracted by similarity ofdevelopment -- be these attractions high or low, and they are usually low, because their own evolutionarydevelopment is as a rule far from being advanced. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that theselife-atoms compose man's inner -- and outer -- vehicles or bodies, and that in consequence there arevarious grades or classes of these life-atoms, from the physical upwards (or inwards if you please) to theastral, purely vital, emotional, mental, and psychical.This is, in general terms, the meaning of transmigration. The word means no more than the specificsenses just outlined, and stops there. But the teaching concerning the destiny of the entity is continuedand developed in the doctrine pertaining to the word metempsychosis.
trental ::: n. --> An office and mass for the dead on the thirtieth day after death or burial.
Hence, a dirge; an elegy.
Trishna(Sanskrit) ::: The meaning of this word is "thirst" or "longing," but it is a technical term imbodying the ideathat it is this "thirst" for the things which the human ego formerly knew, and which it wills and desires toknow again -- things familiar and akin to it from past experiences -- which draws the intermediate natureor human ego of man back again to incarnation in earth-life. It is attracted anew to what is to it old andfamiliar worlds and scenes; it thirsts for the manifested life comprising them, for the things which itformerly made akin to itself; and thus is it attracted back to those spheres which it left at some precedingperiod of its evolutionary journey through them, when death overtook it. Its attraction to return to earth isnaught but an operation of a law of nature. Here the intermediate nature or human ego sowed the seeds ofthought and of action in past lives, and here therefore must it of necessity reap their fruits. It cannot reapwhere it has not sown, as is obvious enough. It never goes whither it is not attracted or drawn.After death has released the intermediate nature, and during long ages has given to it its period of blissand rest and psychical recuperation -- much as a quiet and reposeful night's sleep is to the tired physicalbody -- then, just as a man reawakens by degrees, so does this intermediate nature or human ego bydegrees recede or awaken from that state of rest and bliss called devachan. And the seeds of thoughts, theseeds of actions which it had done in former lives, are now laid by in the fabric of itself -- seeds whosenatural energy is still unexpended and unexhausted -- and inhere in that inner psychical fabric, for theyhave nowhere else in which to inhere, since the man produced them there and they are a part of him.These seeds of former thoughts and acts, of former emotions, desires, loves, hates, yearnings, andaspirations, each one of such begins to make itself felt as an urge earthwards, towards the spheres andplanes in which they are native, and where they naturally grow and expand and develop.In this our present life, all of us are setting in motion causes in thought and in action which will bring usback to this earth in the distant future. We shall then reap the harvest of the seeds of thought and actionthat we are in this present life planting in the fields of our human nature.In the Pali books of the Orient this word is called tanha.
True Vital (Being) ::: We have two lives, one outer, involved in the physical body, bound by its past evolution in Matter, which lives and was born and will die, the other a subliminal force of life which is not cabined between the narrow boundaries of our physical birth and death, but is our true vital being behind the form of living which we ignorantly take for our real existence.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22, Page: 233
"Truth is a difficult and strenuous conquest. One must be a real warrior to make this conquest, a warrior who fears nothing, neither enemies nor death, for with or against everybody, with or without a body, the struggle continues and will end by Victory.M-bM-^@M-^] Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 15.*
Tso wang: Chinese for M-bM-^@M-^\sitting in forgetfulnessM-bM-^@M-^]; that state of absolute freedom, in which the distinctions between others and self is forgotten, in which life and death are equated, in which all things have become one. A state of pure experience, in which one becomes at one with the infinite soul.
Tso wang: 'Sitting in forgetfulness'; that state of absolute freedom, in which the distinctions between others and self is forgotten, in which life and death are equated, in which all things have become one. A state of pure experience, in which one becomes at one with the infinite. (Chuang Tzu, between 399 and 295 B.C.). -- H.H.
Umbra: Latin for shadow. In occultism, the astral body or etheric double (q.v.) which lingers about the tomb of the physical body after the death of the latter, kept there by attraction impressed on physical matter by the emanations of the body in its lifetime in the material world.
unborn ::: M-bM-^@M-^\By attaining to the Unborn beyond all becoming we are liberated from this lower birth and death; by accepting the Becoming freely as the Divine, we invade mortality with the immortal beatitude and become luminous centres of its conscious self-expression in humanity.M-bM-^@M-^] The Life Divine
undeadly ::: a. --> Not subject to death; immortal.
Under Kierkegaard's influence, he pursues an "existential" analysis of human existence in order to discuss the original philosophical question of being in a new way. He explores many hitherto unexplored phenomena which ontology disregarded. Sorge (concern), being par excellence the structure of consciousness, is elevated to the ultimate. Concern has a wholly special horizon of being. Dread (Angst), the feeling of being on the verge of nothing, represents an eminently transcendental instrument of knowledge. Heidegger gives dread a content directed upon the objective world. He unfolds the essence of dread to be Sorge (concern). As concern tends to become obscured to itself by the distracted losing of one's selfhood in the cares of daily life, its remedy is in the consideration of such experiences as conscience, forboding of death and the existential consciousness of time. By elevating Sorge to the basis of all being, he raised something universally human to the fundamental principle of the world. It is only after an elementary analysis of the basic constitution of human existence that Heidegger approaches his ultimate problem of Being and Time, in which more complicated structures such as the existential significance of death, conscience, and the power of resolute choice explain the phenomena of man's position in daily life and history.
untimely ::: a. --> Not timely; done or happening at an unnatural, unusual, or improper time; unseasonable; premature; inopportune; as, untimely frosts; untimely remarks; an untimely death. ::: adv. --> Out of the natural or usual time; inopportunely; prematurely; unseasonably.
Upanishad, Upanisad: (Skr.) One of a large number of treatises, more than 100. Thirteen of the oldest ones (Chandogya, Brhadaranyaka, Aitareya, Taittiriya, Katha, Isa, Mundaka, Kausitaki, Kena, Prasna, Svetasvatara, Mandukya, Maitri) have the distinction of being the first philosophic compositions, antedating for the most part the beginnings of Greek philosophy, others have been composed comparatively recently. The mode of imparting knowledge with the pupil sitting opposite (upa-ni-sad) the teacher amid an atmosphere of reverence and secrecy, gave these onginally mnemonic treatises their name. They are remarkable for ontological, metaphysical, and ethical problems, investigations into the nature of man's soul or self (see atman), God, death, immortality, and a symbolic interpretation of ritualistic materials and observances. Early examples of universal suffrage, tendencies to break down caste, philosophic dialogues and congresses, celebrated similes, succession of philosophic teachers, among other things, may be studied in the more archaic, classical Upanishads. See ayam atema brahma, aham brahma asmi, tat tvam asi, net neti. -- K.F.L.
urs ::: anniversary of the death of a Sufi saint, which is celebrated as their day of union with Allah
utterance ::: n. --> The act of uttering.
Sale by offering to the public.
Putting in circulation; as, the utterance of false coin, or of forged notes.
Vocal expression; articulation; speech.
Power or style of speaking; as, a good utterance.
The last extremity; the end; death; outrance.
vampire ::: n. --> A blood-sucking ghost; a soul of a dead person superstitiously believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, thus causing their death. This superstition is now prevalent in parts of Eastern Europe, and was especially current in Hungary about the year 1730.
Fig.: One who lives by preying on others; an extortioner; a bloodsucker.
Either one of two or more species of South American
viaticum ::: n. --> An allowance for traveling expenses made to those who were sent into the provinces to exercise any office or perform any service.
Provisions for a journey.
The communion, or eucharist, when given to persons in danger of death.
videhamukta. ::: one who is liberated at death; liberated one who has no body
videhamukti. ::: liberation after death; Self-realisation after leaving the body
Viewing the question from the consciousness aspect, death means the exchange of one mode of consciousness for others. We cannot say offhand that we are either mortal or immortal, since we contain various elements of both kinds. The essence of the individuality is unconditionally immortal, its sheaths or bodies are mortal in various and relative degrees.
vigesimation ::: n. --> The act of putting to death every twentieth man.
visakanya ::: [a "poison-girl" supposed to cause the death of a man making love to her; a succuba].
Vulcan death grip "jargon" A variant of {Vulcan nerve pinch} derived from a Star Trek {classic} epsisode where a non-existant "Vulcan death grip" was used to fool Romulans that Spock had killed Kirk. (1996-10-27)
Vulcan nerve pinch "jargon" (Or "three-finger salute", Vulcan death grip; from the old "Star Trek" TV series via {Commodore} {Amiga} {hackers}) The keyboard combination that forces a {soft boot} or jump to {ROM monitor} (on machines that support such a feature). On an Amiga this is done with Ctrl/Right Amiga/Left Amiga; on {IBM PCs} and many {microcomputers} it is Ctrl/Alt/Del; on {Suns}, L1-A; on some {Macintoshes}, it is "Cmd"-"Power switch"! Silicon Graphics users are obviously the most dextrous however, as these machines use the five-finger combination: Left Shift/Left Ctrl/Left Alt/Keypad Divide/F12. Compare {quadruple bucky}. [{Jargon File}] (2000-04-04)
wail ::: v. t. --> To choose; to select.
To lament; to bewail; to grieve over; as, to wail one&