TERMS STARTING WITH
initiation ::: Initiation A rite of passage ceremony marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. In the context of Ritual Magick and esotericism, initiation is considered to cause a fundamental process of change to begin within the person being initiated. The initiator, being in possession of a certain power or state of being, transfers this power or state to the person being initiated, the Initiate.
initiation ::: n. --> The act of initiating, or the process of being initiated or introduced; as, initiation into a society, into business, literature, etc.
The form or ceremony by which a person is introduced into any society; mode of entrance into an organized body; especially, the rite of admission into a secret society or order.
initiation. See ABHIsEKA.
initiation
initiation: The introduction, through test and ceremony, of a person into an occult society.
Initiation: Admission to one of the formal degrees or classifications in an esoteric or occult discipline.
Initiation ::: A process through which one learns to attune to a paradigm and learns to become effective practicing magic within that paradigm. It can also refer to the more intimate journey of self-discovery and learning that one undergoes – usually through the lens of a paradigm – about the nature of identity, consciousness, and reality.
Initiation: A test to pass a young mage from the ranks of apprentice to full responsibility within a Tradition.
Initiation [from Latin initio entering into, beginning] Generally, the induction of a pupil into a new way of living and into secret knowledge by the aid of a competent teacher. In ancient times initiation or the Mysteries were uniform and one everywhere, but as times passed, each country — though basing its Mysteries and initiation ceremonies on the one original wisdom common to mankind — followed manners of conducting the procedures native to the psychology and temperament of the different peoples. In still later times most of the original wisdom was but dimly remembered; and the Mysteries and the initiation ceremonies degenerated into little more than ceremonial rites, with more or less academic or theological teaching accompanying them — as was the case in the Mysteries of Greece, for instance; although it is true that there were genuine initiates in Greece down to the fall of the Mediterranean civilizations.
Initiation ::: In olden times there were seven -- and even ten -- degrees of initiation. Of these seven degrees, threeconsisted of teachings alone, which formed the preparation, the discipline, spiritual and mental andpsychic and physical -- what the Greeks called the katharsis or "cleansing." When the disciple wasconsidered sufficiently cleansed, purified, disciplined, quiet mentally, tranquil spiritually, then he wastaken into the fourth degree, which likewise consisted partly of teaching, but also in part of directpersonal introduction by the old mystical processes into the structure and operations of the universe, bywhich means truth was gained by first-hand personal experience. In other words, to speak in plain terms,his spirit-soul, his individual consciousness, was assisted to pass into other planes and realms of being,and to know and to understand by the sheer process of becoming them. A man, a mind, an understanding,can grasp and see, and thereby know, only those things which the individual entity itself is.After the fourth degree, there followed the fifth and the sixth and the seventh initiations, each in turn, andthese consisted of teachings also; but more and more as the disciple progressed -- and he was helped inthis development more and more largely as he advanced farther -- there was evolved forth in him thepower and faculties still farther and more deeply to penetrate beyond the veils of maya or illusion; until,having passed the seventh or last initiation of all of the manifest initiations, if we may call them that, hebecame one of those individuals whom theosophists call the mahatmas.
INITIATION Process in esoteric training where the disciple (his monad) under the guidance of his teacher (a member of a higher natural kingdom) breaks through to the consciousness and energy (&
TERMS ANYWHERE
Aaron’s rod: The rod, or wand, with a serpent twined round it, which was used in the Mosaic ceremony of initiation; it appears to have contained the sacred fire. Now commonly employed as an emblem signifying a physician; similar to the caduceus of Hermes.
abhicAra. [alt. abhicara] (T. mngon spyod). In Sanskrit, "magic" or "wrathful action"; in ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, the fourth of the four activities (CATURKARMAN) of the Buddhist tantric adept. AbhicAra is broken down into mArana "killing," mohana "enchanting," stambhana "paralyzing," vidvesana "rendering harm through animosity," uccAtana "removing or driving away," and vasīkarana "subduing." After initiation (ABHIsEKA), adepts who keep their tantric commitments (SAMAYA) properly and reach the requisite yogic level are empowered to use four sorts of enlightened activity, as appropriate: these four types of activities are (1) those that are pacifying (S. sANTICARA); (2) those that increase prosperity, life span, etc. (PAUstIKA), when necessary for the spread of the doctrine; (3) those that subjugate or tame (S. VAsĪKARAnA) the unruly; and finally (4) those that are violent or drastic measures (abhicAra) such as war, when the situation requires it. In the MANJUsRĪNAMASAMGĪTI, CAnakya, Candragupta's minister, is said to have used abhicAra against his enemies, and because of this misuse of tantric power was condemned to suffer the consequences in hell. Throughout the history of Buddhist tantra, the justification of violence by invoking the category of abhicAra has been a contentious issue. PADMASAMBHAVA is said to have tamed the unruly spirits of Tibet, sometimes violently, with his magical powers, and the violent acts that RWA LO TSA BA in the eleventh century countenanced against those who criticized his practices are justified by categorizing them as abhicAra.
abhiseka. (P. abhiseka; T. dbang bskur; C. guanding; J. kanjo; K. kwanjong 灌頂). In Sanskrit, "anointment," "consecration," "empowerment," or "initiation"; a term originally used to refer to the anointment of an Indian king or the investiture of a crown prince, which by extension came to be applied to the anointment of a BODHISATTVA as a buddha. Just as a wheel-turning monarch (CAKRAVARTIN) invests the crown prince by sprinkling the crown of his head with fragrant water from all the four seas, so too do the buddhas anoint the crown of a bodhisattva when he makes his vow to achieve buddhahood. The Chinese translation, lit. "sprinkling the crown of the head," conveys this sense of anointment. In the MAHAVASTU, an early text associated with the LOKOTTARAVADA branch of the MAHASAMGHIKA school, the tenth and last stage (BHuMI) of the bodhisattva path is named abhiseka, rather than the more commonly known DHARMAMEGHABHuMI, indicating that the bodhisattva has then been initiated into the lineage of the buddhas. Abhiseka is used especially in tantric literature, such as the MAHAVAIROCANABHISAMBODHISuTRA, to refer to an initiation ceremony that empowers disciples to "enter the MAndALA," where they are then allowed to learn the esoteric formulae (MANTRA) and gestures (MUDRA) and receive the instructions associated with a specific tantric deity. In ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, a series of four initiations or empowerments are described, the vase empowerment (KALAsABHIsEKA), the secret empowerment (GUHYABHIsEKA), the knowledge of the wisdom empowerment (PRAJNAJNANABHIsEKA), and the word empowerment (sabdAbhiseka), also known as the "fourth empowerment" (caturthAbhiseka). The vase empowerment is the only one of the four that is used in the three other tantras of KRIYATANTRA, CARYATANTRA, and YOGATANTRA. A special type of consecration ceremony, called a BUDDHABHIsEKA, is conducted at the time of the installation of a new buddha image, which vivifies the inert clay, metal, or wood of the image, invests the image with insight into the dharma (e.g., through reciting some version of the formula concerning causality, or PRATĪTYASAMUTPADA), and transforms the image into a living buddha.
Accepted chela: A disciple of esoteric philosophy, who has passed the fourth initiation.
Acher (Hebrew) ’Aḥēr In an allegory in the Talmud (Hag 14b), one of four tanna’im (teachers) to enter the Garden of Delight, i.e., to seek initiation into the sacred science. His real name was ’Elisha‘ ben ’Abuyah. A famous Talmudic scholar before he “failed” the initiation, he became an apostate and was called Aher (stranger). Of the four that entered, Ben Asai looked — and died; Ben Zoma looked — and lost his reason; Aher made ravages in the plantation; and Aqiba, who had entered in peace, left in peace (Kab 67-8).
Adept: One who has attained to proficiency in any art or science. In occultism, one who has attained the stage of initiation and has become a Master of esoteric science and philosophy.
Adytum (Latin) [from Greek adytos from a not + duo to enter] plural adyta. Not to be entered; the innermost shrine of a temple. The holy of holies or sanctum sanctorum was common in the architectural plan of the temples of all ancient nations. It frequently contained a sarcophagus and the image of the god to whom the temple was dedicated. A symbol of regeneration, resurrection, and initiation. The Jews, when they become exclusive and wholly exoteric in their religious beliefs and practices, made the adytum the symbol of their national monotheism, exoterically; and esoterically a symbol of mere generation rather than regeneration. Yet the true meaning can be read in the story of David dancing before the ark, for the dance was essentially a Bacchic rite, whose meaning was unfolded only in the Mysteries; and the ark is the symbol of that vehicle in which are preserved the germs of all living things destined to repeople the earth in a new cycle.
A E I O V These five vowels (V is the classic U) were often inscribed on Roman temples, after the manner of the Greeks, who recorded the number of the root-races in their temples “by the seven vowels, of which five were framed in a panel in the Initiation halls of the Adyta” (SD 2:458).
Aethyrs ::: The Enochian Aethyrs. Essentially there are thirty planes which describe and subset reality according to the Enochian system of magic. These can be called and worked with through initiations and pathworking. This is not an area of magic that is familiar to the author of this site and will not be explored much more; it does have a reputation and power preceding it though. Caveat emptor.
Again, the building of a temple, sanctuary, Holy of Holies, etc., always signified in the occult language of ancient days the founding and dissemination throughout the world or a portion of mankind of a secret doctrine of nature. In a more restricted sense, the building of a temple referred to the actual establishment of an initiation center, where not only for such territory the ancient wisdom and its divine significances were taught, but disciples were trained and brought to the “new” or “second” birth, and thenceforth themselves became adepts or initiates. On these lines the building of Solomon’s Temple was the inauguration and establishment of the teaching of nature’s occult wisdom in Judea and surrounding territory.
Agnishtoma (Sanskrit) Agniṣṭoma [from agni fire + stoma praise, a hymn from the verbal root stu to praise, eulogize] Praise of Agni, fire; an ancient Vedic ceremony or sacrifice performed by a Brahmin desirous of obtaining svarga (heaven), who himself maintained the sacred fire. The offering to Indra and other deities was the soma. The ceremonies continued for five days, with 16 priests officiating. Although in later times it may have become merely a matter of form, originally the agnishtoma was connected with the initiation rites of the soma Mysteries.
Agyrmos (Greek) A collection of men, assembly; referred to initiation into the Mysteries, synonymous with synaxis. Hesychius called the first day of the initiation into the Mysteries of Ceres, goddess of the harvest, by these terms. The term synaxis was eventually dropped by Christians in favor of missa or mass. (BCW 11:99&n)
"Ah! Since India is the cradle of religion and since so many gods preside over her destiny, who among them will accomplish the miracle of resuscitating the city?" A. Choumel (in an article on Pondicherry in 1928) Follows response by the Mother: "Blinded by false appearances, deceived by calumnies, held back by fear and prejudice, he has passed by the side of the god whose intervention he implores and saw him not; he has walked near to the forces which will accomplish the miracle he demands and had no will to recognise them. Thus has he lost the greatest opportunity of his life—a unique opportunity of entering into contact with the mysteries and marvelswhose existence his brain has divined and to which his heart obscurely aspires. In all times the aspirant, before receiving initiation, had to pass through tests. In the schools of antiquity these tests were artificial and by that they lost the greater part of their value. But it is no longer so now. The test hides behind some very ordinary every-day circumstance and wears an innocent air of coincidence and chance which makes it still more difficult and dangerous.It is only to those who can conquer the mind’s
references and prejudices of race and education that India reveals the mystery of her treasures. Others depart disappointed, failing to find what they seek; for they have sought it in the wrong way and would not agree to pay the price of the Divine Discovery."
Ref: CWM Vol. 13, Page: 372-373
Alba Petra (Latin) White stone; “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Rev 2:17). The meaning of the white stone is initiation, the purified nature of the adept-initiate. The new name written in it is a way of expressing the new man who is thus reborn in the initiation chamber; and because he has thus become a new man, he is entitled to the new name which is that of adept-initiate. Clearly, no man knows this new name except him who receives it.
A leguminous plant bearing white or yellow flowers found in the warmer regions of the globe. In Freemasonry, acacia has a threefold symbolism: 1) immortality of the soul, as the plant continually renews itself; 2) innocence, purity, integrity; and 3) initiation or birth into a “new” life. The acacia seyal is the shrub believed to be the shittah-tree (Isaiah 41:19) that furnished the shittim-wood for the Ark of the Covenant and for the Tabernacle.
A more significant meaning of the coming forth in the day or coming forth into light, relates to the fact that these papyri give in veiled language the rites of initiation as it was practiced from earliest times by the Egyptians, the light meaning the spiritual and intellectual splendor which clothes one who has successfully passed from darkness into light.
anarambha ::: non-initiation of action.
Anastasis (Greek) Rising up; used in referring to the dead and to resurrection. However, this ancient mystical term was originally used for the rising of the initiant when, having completed the dread trials of initiation, he rose a new man, one who was reborn, or what in India was called a dvija (twice-born). Another significance belonging from earliest times to the cycle of initiation is that when a person through severe training, initiation, and a complete turning away from things of matter to things of spirit, had succeeded in becoming at one with his inner god at least on occasions, he was then considered to have arisen or to have become resurrected out of all the lower ranges of kosmic life, and to have attained self-conscious existence in the spirit. Having attained anastasis, he took his place in the hierarchy of light or compassion as one of the co-laborers with the gods.
Anointed [from Latin translation of Greek christos anointed] Smeared with sacred unguent, having oil or unguent poured on the head; a ceremony originally symbolically denoting a high degree of initiation, but later borrowed for minor purposes by the Christian churches in consecrations and coronations. A true anointed or christos is one who has achieved the great victory over self in initiation and therefore in life, and thus has become a full or complete adept or mahatma.
Apolutrosis; Secret "Redemption" is seen as being helped by the rite of initiation which helps to impart gnosis. This word refers to both the rite and what is received from it.
Aporrheta (Greek) Forbidden, secret, mystical, not to be spoken (things); secret instructions delivered to a candidate for initiation in the Mysteries. More importantly, facts of nature of rigidly esoteric character learned by adepts through initiation and improper to divulge to the uninitiated; hence spoken of as forbidden.
arambha ::: initiation [i.e. beginning].
Arambha: Mental initiation of an action; Sankalpa.
arambhan parityajya ::: abandoning all personal initiations of action. [Cf. Gita 12.16, 14.25, 18.66]
arambha ::: personal initiation of action. arambha
Archon also was the Athenian name for the supreme authority established after the abolition of royalty in 1068 BC. After 683 BC nine were chosen by election or lot, each holding office for one year, one of whom, the Archon Basileus (ruler king), was the initiated and initiating hierophant in the Mysteries of Eleusis. In accordance with all ancient initiations the initiator, whether supreme or secondary, was held to be an imbodiment, at least temporarily, of spiritual-intellectual powers which worked for the time being through him.
“Arhans and Sages of the boundless Vision are rare as is the blossom of the Udumbara tree. Arhans are born at midnight hour, together with the sacred plant of nine and seven stalks, the holy flower that opes and blooms in darkness, out of the pure dew and on the frozen bed of snow-capped heights, heights that are trodden by no sinful foot” (VS 39). The arhans born at midnight refers to the mystic births that take place during the higher initiations, the sacred plant of nine and seven stalks referring to the entire constitution of the human being, all of whose principles, elements, and spiritual and intellectual functions, become more or less operative during the initiation period.
Arthur, King (Welsh) A dual figure: historical ruler who held up for forty years or so the Saxon incursions; said to have passed (not died) at or after the Battle of Camlan (540 AD). The mythological Arthur was the son of Uther Pendragon, or Uthr Ben, the Wonderful Head. In Prydwen, his Ship of Glass, he made an expedition into Annwn (the underworld) to obtain the Pair Dadeni, or cauldron of reincarnation, the symbol of initiation. As the king that was and shall be, he appears in the Welsh version of the coming of the Kalki-avatara, which will come to pass at the end of the present yuga. After Camlan he was taken to Ynys Afallen (Apple-tree Island), to be healed of his wounds and to await his return. But the apple tree of the island, as we see in the 6th-century poem “Afallenan” by Myrddin Gwyllt, is the Tree of Wisdom. The poem tells how the tree had to be hidden and guarded, but the time would come when it should be known again: then Arthur would return, and Cadwalaor, and then “shall Wales rejoice; bright shall be her dragon (leader). The horns of joy shall sound the Song of Peace and serenity. Before the Child of the Sun, bold in his courses, evil shall be rooted out. Bards shall triumph.”
Artufas, Estufas Initiation caves or the underground secret temples of the Central American Indians, called kivas by the Indians of the southwestern United States.
As another example of its usage, when a human being through a series of high initiation casts off the chains of material existence although retaining sufficient attraction to bring about a return to such existence, this could be called a naimittika event.
Asat (Sanskrit) Asat [from a not + sat being from the verbal root as to be] Not being, non-being; used in the Indian philosophies with two meanings almost diametrically opposed: firstly, as the false, the unreal, or the manifested universe, in contrast with sat, the real; secondly, in a profoundly mystical sense, as all that is beyond or higher than sat. “Sat is born from Asat, and Asat is begotten by Sat: the perpetual motion in a circle, truly; yet a circle that can be squared only at the supreme Initiation, at the threshold of Paranirvana” (SD 2:449-50). In its lower sense, asat signifies the realms of objective nature built out of and from the various prakritis, and therefore regarded as illusory in contrast to the enduring Be-ness or sat. In its higher sense asat is that boundless and eternal metaphysical essence of space out of which, in which, and from which even sat or Be-ness itself is and endures. Asat here is parabrahman-mulaprakriti in its most abstract meaning.
As for Solomon’s 700 wives and 300 concubines, these “are merely the personations of man’s attributes, feelings, passions and his various occult powers: the Kabbalistic numbers 7 and 3 showing it plainly. Solomon himself, moreover, being, simply, the emblem of Sol — the ‘Solar Initiate’ or the Christ-Sun, is a variant of the Indian ‘Vikarttana’ (the Sun) shorn of his beams by Visvakarman, his Hierophant-Initiator, who thus shears the Chrestos-candidate for initiation of his golden radiance and crowns him with a dark, blackened aureole — the ‘crown of thorns.’ (See The Secret Doctrine for full explanation.) Solomon was never a living man. As is described in Kings, his life and works are an allegory on the trials of Initiation” (BCW 10:162-3n).
Aspirant: A disciple of esoteric philosophy, eligible for initiation.
Asrama(Sanskrit) ::: A word derived from the root sram, signifying "to make efforts," "to strive"; with the particlea, which in this case gives force to the verbal root sram. Asrama has at least two main significations. Thefirst is that of a college or school or a hermitage, an abode of ascetics, etc.; whereas the second meaningsignifies a period of effort or striving in the religious life or career of a Brahmana of olden days. Theseperiods of life in ancient times in Hindustan were four in number: the first, that of the student orbrahmacharin; second, the period of life called that of the grihastha or householder -- the period ofmarried existence when the Brahmana took his due part in the affairs of men, etc.; third, the vanaprastha,or period of monastic seclusion, usually passed in a vana, or wood or forest, for purposes of innerrecollection and spiritual meditation; and fourth, that of the bhikshu or religious mendicant, meaning onewho has completely renounced the distractions of worldly life and has turned his attention wholly tospiritual affairs.Brahmasrama. In modern esoteric or occult literature, the compound term Brahmasrama is occasionallyused to signify an initiation chamber or secret room or adytum where the initiant or neophyte is strivingor making efforts to attain union with Brahman or the inner god.
As the emblem in ancient symbolic art, representative of the soaring power of the human spirit-soul within, and from this fundamental idea the emblem has been applied to derivative symbolic ideas, such as the flight of the inner self into interior worlds during the trials of initiation, or the soaring intelligence of the initiate penetrating into the mysteries and secrets of interior worlds.
Astronomos: The title given by the priests to the Initiate in the seventh degree of the reception of the mysteries in the Initiation at Thebes in Egypt.
At a certain stage of initiation a voice speaks audibly to the candidate, as discussed in The Voice of the Silence. The Bath Qol (daughter of the voice) of the Qabbalah is a spiritual communication of somewhat the same kind; and Deity often communicates in a voice in the Old Testament. Voice is one way in which a divine presence manifests itself to a mind, as when, according to the Bible, the Lord manifested himself to Elijah in a still small voice.
Atef (Egyptian) Atef. Father; the Atef-crown was one of the crowns of Osiris (also of Khnum, less frequently of other deities) and of some kings of Egypt, especially the Ramessed line. It consisted of the tall white conical cap of Upper Egypt, flanked with a pair of ostrich plumes and having the solar disk and uraeus in front; oftentimes the cap was omitted. The atef was emblematic of the sovereignty of Egypt under the attributes of light, truth, and divinity — the feather being the hieroglyph for truth; also the “two feathers represent the two truths — life and death” mystically, while the uraeus is the symbol of initiation (TG 42, 355).
“At the mysteries of the Anthesteria . . . after the usual baptism by purification of water, the Mystae were made to pass through to another door (gate), and one particularly for that purpose, which was called, ‘the gate of Dionysus,’ and that of ‘the purified’ ” (IU 2:245-6). These were the Lesser Mysteries, preliminary and complementary to those held in the month of Boedromion (September) in Eleusis. Some scholars, seeing the analogy between climatic seasons and the stages of initiation, have supposed that the festival celebrated primarily the advent of spring and that the rites were symbolic of this; whereas others believe that the initiations were the main events and were held at times when nature harmonized with the purpose in view.
Atys or Attis (Greek) [probably from Phrygian] A deity worshiped in connection with the Great Mother, Cybele, in Phrygia and later throughout the Roman Empire. The legends concerning Cybele and Atys are similar to those of Aphrodite and Adonis in Syria, to Baal and Astarte in Sidon, to Isis and Osiris in Egypt. In certain aspects he represents the type-figure of initiation and adeptship in the mysteries of Cybele. These rites were held by the Corybantes in Phrygia during the spring equinox, in imperial Rome annually from April 4-10, and then in later times from March 15-27. The fourth stage of this festival, the Hilaria, was the favorite festival in Rome.
Augoeides [from Greek auge bright light, radiance + eidos form, shape] Bulwer-Lytton in Zanoni adopted the term from Marcus Aurelius (who says that the sphere of the soul is augoeides), using it to denote the radiant spiritual-divine human soul-ego. In Isis Unveiled it denotes the spiritual monad, atma-buddhi, and is collated with the Persian ferouer or feruer, the Platonic nous, etc. In a high degree of initiation the initiant comes face to face with this radiant presence, the luminous radiation streaming from the divine ego at the heart of the monad. When the Augoeides touches with its rays the inferior monads in the human constitution and awakens them to activity, these then becomes the various lower egos or manifested children of the divine ego.
Aureole [diminutive of Latin aureus golden] Either a special spiritual radiance adorning the heads of saints and martyrs, or a golden halo surrounding the head or whole body of a holy man. The matter is clearly explained in The Mahatma Letters as: “a counterpart of what the astronomers call the red flames in the ‘corona’ may be seen in Reichenbach’s crystals or in any other strongly magnetic body. The head of a man — in a strong ecstatic condition, when all the electricity of his system is centered around the brain, will represent — especially in darkness — a perfect simile of the Sun during such periods [eclipses]. The first artist who drew the aureoles about the heads of his Gods and Saints, was not inspired, but represented it on the authority of temple pictures and traditions of the sanctuary and the chambers of initiation where such phenomena took place” (p. 162).
Babalon: The name of the Scarlet Woman. The unusual orthography is due to Aiwaz, for it is spelt thus in The Book of the Law. The number of the name Babalon is 156 which equates it with The City of the Pyramids under the Night of Pan. See Dr. John Dee's Book of Enoch (published in part in The Equinox Volume I, nos. 7 & 8). 156 is also the number of Zion, the Sacred Mountain of Initiation.
Babel (Hebrew) Bābāh The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine. The physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven. The tower may have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace completely except only for a roc’s egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate and foredestined confusion, it is one thing; but if the tower and its inner mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.
Baphomet [from Greek baphe immersion + metis wisdom] A medieval mystic term usually identified with the goat of Mendes. The Templars of Malta were accused of worshiping Baphomet as an idol. Baphomet signifies a baptism in wisdom or initiation, but became degraded and misunderstood when the keys to its real meaning were lost. Pan, the Greek nature god, was often represented with the horns and hoofs of a goat; however, “Pan is related to the Mendesian goat, only so far as the latter represents, as a talisman of great occult potency, nature’s creative force” (TG 246).
Baptism: A rite of dedication and induction of an individual into a circle of social and religious privilege. The rite is usually of a ceremonious nature with pledges given (by proxy in the case of infants), prayers and accompanied by some visible sign (such as water, symbol of purification, or wine, honey, oil or blood) sealing the bond of fellowship. In its earliest form the rite probably symbolized not only an initiation but the magical removal of some tabu or demon possession (exorcism -- see Demonology), the legitimacy of birth, the inheritance of privilege, the assumption of a name and the expectancy of responsibility. In Christian circles the rite has assumed the status of a sacrament, the supernatural rebirth into the Divine Kingdom. Various forms include sprinkling with water, immersion, or the laying on of hands. In some Christian circles it is considered less a mystical rite and more a sign of a covenant of salvation and consecration to the higher life. -- V.F.
Baptism ::: In earliest Christianity, the rite of ritual immersion in water that initiated a person into the Christian church. The roots of baptism can be found in the Jewish purification bath (Mikvah). Very soon, pouring or sprinkling with water came into use in some churches, and the practice of baptizing infants. (See also initiation and circumcision).
Bard [from Latin bardus from Gaulish and old Brythonic probably bardos cf Welsh bardd] Exalted one, initiate, teacher; one of the three holy orders of Druidism — Druids, Bards, and Ovates. The Bards had the duty of keeping alive among the people the knowledge or intuition that there is a path that leads to wisdom and initiation. They carried this out largely by telling stories: a Mabinogi, according to Sir John Rhys, was a story belonging to the equipment of the Bards. These stories were told in such a way that their symbolic meaning might be apparent to those with intuition, but hidden from the mass. In telling the stories they used verse form a good deal, so that now in every country but Wales bard has come to mean poet. In Wales, however, it retains some relic of its original meaning: a Bard is a member of the Gorsedd, and may or may not be a poet; no poet is a Bard unless the Gorsedd has admitted him to its ranks. The Bard’s robe was of blue; that of the Druid was white; the Ovate’s green.
Bay’at (A) Initiation (to mureed), in the traditional sufi orders the only initiation, see Khilafat
bayat, biat ::: pledge; promise; initiation into a Sufi order
Besides the Mabinogi, Lady Guest’s Mabinogion contains such stories as “Culhwch and Olwen” (a repository of relics of the lost mythology) and “The Dream of Rhonabwy,” both Arthurian, but Welsh and mythological. Other stories are “Peredur, the Lady of the Fountain,” “Geraint ab Erbin,” in which the Romance, Arthurianism, and Norman influence are beginning to appear. In “Peredur” we see the cauldron, symbol of initiation with the Druids, in process of becoming the Holy Grail: Peredur and Perceval are Pair-(g)edur and Pair-cyfaill — the “servant” and the “friend” of the cauldron.
Bhutesa or Bhutesvara (Sanskrit) Bhūteśa, Bhūteśvara [from bhūta living being + īśa, īśvara lord] Lord of beings, lord of manifested entities and things; a name applied to each member of the Hindu Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Siva). Siva in exoteric mythology and popular superstition is supposed to possess the special status of lord of the bhutas or kama-lokic spooks, and is the special patron of ascetics, students of occultism, and of those training themselves in mystical knowledge; so that this superstitious characterization of Siva is an entirely exoteric distortion of a profound esoteric fact. The real meaning is that Siva, often figurated as the supreme initiator, is the lord of those who “have been,” but who now are become regenerates through initiation — the mystical idea here being of the preservation of self-conscious effort through darkness into light, from ignorance to wisdom, and from selfishness into the divine compassion of the cosmic heart. In view of the karmic past of such progressed entities, their former selves in this cosmic time period are the bhutas (have-beens) of what now they are. Bhutesa is also applied to Krishna in this sense.
Bija (Sanskrit) Bīja Sometimes Vīja. Seed or life-germ, whether of animals or plants; esoterically the original or causal source of the urge of life to express itself. “Whether it be a kosmos or universe, or the reappearance of god, deva, man, animal, plant, or mineral, or, indeed, elemental, the seed or life-germ from and out of which any one of these arises is technically called Bija, and the reference here is almost as much to the life-germ or vehicle itself, as it is to the self-urge for manifestation working through the seed or life-germ. Mystically and psychologically, the appearance of an Avatara, for instance, is due to an impulse arising in Maha-Siva, or in Maha-Vishnu (according to circumstances), to manifest a portion of the divine essence, . . . Or again, when from the chela is born the Initiate during the dread trials of initiation, the newly-arisen Master is said to have been born from the mystic Bija or Seed within his own being” (OG 18).
Bija (sometimes Vija)(Sanskrit) ::: This word signifies "seed" or "life-germ," whether of animals or of plants. But esoterically itssignification is far wider and incomparably more abstruse, and therefore difficult to understand withoutproper study. The term is used in esotericism to designate the original or causal source and vahana or"vehicle" of the mystic impulse or urge of life, or of lives, to express itself or themselves when the timefor such self-expression arrives after a pralaya, or after an obscuration, or again, indeed, duringmanvantara. Whether it be a kosmos or universe, or the reappearance of god, deva, man, animal, plant,mineral, or elemental, the seed or life-germ from and out of which any one of these arises is technicallycalled bija, and the reference here is almost as much to the life-germ or vehicle itself as it is to theself-urge for manifestation working through the seed or life-germ. Mystically and psychologically, theappearance of an avatara, for instance, is due to an impulse arising in Maha-Siva, or in Maha-Vishnu(according to circumstances), to manifest a portion of the divine essence, in either case, when theappropriate world period arrives for the appearance of an avatara. Or again, when from the chela is bornthe initiate during the dread trials of initiation, the newly-arisen Master is said to have been born from themystic bija or seed within his own being. The doctrine connected with this word bija in its occult andesoteric aspects is far too profound to receive more than a cursory and superficial treatment.
initiation ::: Initiation A rite of passage ceremony marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. In the context of Ritual Magick and esotericism, initiation is considered to cause a fundamental process of change to begin within the person being initiated. The initiator, being in possession of a certain power or state of being, transfers this power or state to the person being initiated, the Initiate.
initiation ::: n. --> The act of initiating, or the process of being initiated or introduced; as, initiation into a society, into business, literature, etc.
The form or ceremony by which a person is introduced into any society; mode of entrance into an organized body; especially, the rite of admission into a secret society or order.
initiation. See ABHIsEKA.
initiation
initiation: The introduction, through test and ceremony, of a person into an occult society.
Bka' brgyud. (Kagyü). In Tibetan, "Oral Lineage" or "Lineage of the Buddha's Word"; one of the four main sects of Tibetan Buddhism. The term bka' brgyud is used by all sects of Tibetan Buddhism in the sense of an oral transmission of teachings from one generation to the next, a transmission that is traced back to India. Serving as the name of a specific sect, the name Bka' brgyud refers to a specific lineage, the MAR PA BKA' BRGYUD, the "Oral Lineage of Mar pa," a lineage of tantric initiations, instructions, and practices brought to Tibet from India by the translator MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS in the eleventh century. Numerous sects and subsects evolved from this lineage, some of which developed a great deal of autonomy and institutional power. In this sense, it is somewhat misleading to describe Bka' brgyud as a single sect; there is, for example, no single head of the sect as in the case of SA SKYA or DGE LUGS. The various sects and subsects, however, do share a common retrospection to the teachings that Mar pa retrieved from India. Thus, rather than refer to Bka' brgyud as one of four sects (chos lugs), in Tibetan the Mar pa Bka' brgyud is counted as one of the eight streams of tantric instruction, the so-called eight great chariot-like lineages of achievement (SGRUB BRGYUD SHING RTA CHEN PO BRGYAD), a group which also includes the RNYING MA, the BKA' GDAMS of ATIsA, and the instructions on "severance" (GCOD) of MA GCIG LAB SGRON. In some Tibetan histories, Mar pa's lineage is called the Dkar brgyud ("White Lineage"), named after the white cotton shawls worn by its yogins in their practice of solitary meditation. The reading Dka' brgyud ("Austerities Lineage") is also found. The lineage from which all the sects and subsects derive look back not only to Mar pa, but to his teacher, and their teachers, traced back to the tantric buddha VAJRADHARA. Vajradhara imparted his instructions to the Indian MAHASIDDHA TILOPA, who in turn transmitted them to the Bengali scholar and yogin NAROPA. It was NAropa (in fact, his disciples) whom Mar pa encountered during his time in India, receiving the famous NA RO CHOS DRUG, or the six doctrines of NAropa. Mar pa returned to Tibet, translated the texts and transmitted these and other teachings (including MAHAMUDRA, the hallmark practice of Bka' brgyud) to a number of disciples, including his most famous student, MI LA RAS PA. These five figures-the buddha Vajradhara, the Indian tantric masters Tilopa and NAropa, and their Tibetan successors Mar pa and Mi la ras pa (both of whom were laymen rather than monks)-form a lineage that is recognized and revered by all forms of Bka' brgyud. One of Mi la ras pa's chief disciples, the physician and monk SGAM PO PA BSOD NAMS RIN CHEN united the tantric instructions he received from Mi la ras pa and presented them in the monastic and exegetical setting that he knew from his studies in the Bka' gdams sect. Sgam po pa, therefore, appears to have been instrumental in transforming an itinerant movement of lay yogins into a sect with a strong monastic element. He established an important monastery in the southern Tibetan region of Dwags po; in acknowledgment of his importance, the subsequent branches of the Bka' brgyud are sometimes collectively known as the DWAGS PO BKA' BRGYUD. The Bka' brgyud later divided into what is known in Tibetan as the "four major and eight minor Bka' brgyud" (BKA' BRGYUD CHE BZHI CHUNG BRGYAD). A number of these subsects no longer survive as independent institutions, although the works of their major figures continue to be studied. Among those that survive, the KARMA BKA' BRGYUD, 'BRI GUNG BKA' BRGYUD, and 'BRUG PA BKA' BRGYUD continue to play an important role in Tibet, the Himalayan region, and in exile.
Blavatsky, commenting on the Pistis Sophia, says that the Jordan is “the mystic ‘River’ which stopped the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt ‘which is the body’ (V, 7)” (BCW 13:30n); the Philosophumena (bk 8, ch 3) states that at Jesus’ baptism he left his “impression” in the Jordan, so that after his physical body had been destroyed by crucifixion, his soul “might put on the body, which had been impressed in the water when he was baptized, instead of the fleshly body” — an allegory of initiation. See also ERIDANUS; HAP; MANO
Brahmana (Sanskrit) Brāhmaṇa Also Brahman, Brahmin. As a noun, a member of the highest of the four orthodox Hindu castes during the Vedic and post-Vedic periods. The other three Hindu castes are Kshattriya, Vaisya, and Sudra. Originally an individual became a Brahmana through personal merit and initiation, but gradually priestcraft by degrees entered in, so that the son of a Brahmana became a Brahmana by right or family protection first, then by that of descent. The rights of blood-descent in time replaced the nobler rights of genuine merit, and thus arose the rigid cast of the Brahmanas. Blavatsky says that a true Brahmana is one who has become a dvija (twice-born or initiate) and one “ ‘whose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the moon-plant (Soma),’ and who is a ‘Trisuparna’ [“three-leaved or -winged” or active in the highest three principles], for he has understood the secret of the Vedas” (SD 1:209-10). Dvija and trisuparna, although still used in India, are used merely by courtesy and ancient custom; in archaic ages the titles were properly borne, because merited, and were descriptive rather than complimentary.
Brahmasrama (Sanskrit) Brahmāśrama [from brahman the supreme principle + āśrama sacred building, hermitage] Mystically, an esoteric seat, an initiation chamber, or secret room where the initiant strives to attain union with Brahman or the inner god. Also a temple, in which the sacred mysteries of the wisdom-religion are taught. Used as well to signify the headquarters of an esoteric school.
brahma upadesa. ::: initiation into the spiritual path of Brahman-realisation
Bread and Wine “The outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace,” bread and wine stand at once for the actual elements used in initiation ceremonies and for the attainments of which they are symbolic. Taking the Bacchic Mysteries as an example, wine was given as the blood of the grape and of Bacchus, blood signifying life, and Bacchus representing the mystic Logos which “was made flesh.” So the whole rite means the imparting to the candidate of the divine life by conscious union of his lower self with the god within — a union brought about by the self-devised efforts of the lower self. In the same way, bread or grain symbolized the intellectual aspect of the attainment, intellect being the “body” of the spiritual influx.
Catharsis [from Greek katharsis cleansing from katharos pure] Cleansing, purgation; used by Aristotle for the cleansing of the emotions of the audience through experiencing a work of art, such as a drama. Also the preliminary discipline in the ancient Mysteries, where the lower nature of the aspirant is purified, fitting him or her for higher training, knowledge, and initiation. The three lowest degrees “consisted of teachings alone, which formed the preparation, the discipline, mental and spiritual and psychic and physical; what the Greeks called the katharsis or ‘cleansing’; and when the disciple was considered sufficiently cleansed, purified, disciplined, quiet mentally, tranquil spiritually, then he was taken into the fourth degree” (Fund 608). See also INITIATION; MYSTERIES.
caturthAbhiseka. (T. dbang bzhi pa; C. disi guanding; J. daishi kanjo; K. chesa kwanjong 第四灌頂). In Sanskrit, "fourth empowerment"; the fourth of the four empowerments or initiations employed in ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, the other three being the vase empowerment (KALAsABHIsEKA), the secret empowerment (GUHYABHIsEKA), and the knowledge of the consort empowerment (PRAJNAJNANABHIsEKA). After having engaged in sexual union with a consort in the third empowerment, in this fourth and final empowerment, the practitioner seeks to attain the state of innate bliss (sahajAnanda) with the mind of clear light (PRABHASVARACITTA), in a vision like the natural color of the autumn sky at dawn, free from moonlight, sunlight, and darkness. The initiation is also called the "word empowerment" (sabdAbhiseka) because the teacher will identify this state for the disciple.
Ceridwen, Cauldron of (Welsh) Symbol of initiation in Welsh Druidic literature; a Bard was one who had been in the Cauldron of Ceridwen, called also pair dadeni (the cauldron of rebirth). In passing out from Wales to Europe, it became the Holy Grail; thus Parsifal, or Perceval, is Pair-cyfaill, the “Companion of the Cauldron.”
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.
Chhinnamasta Tantrika (Sanskrit) Chinnamastā Tāntrika [from chinna severed + masta head] Buddhist tantric sect named for the goddess Chhinnamasta, represented with a decapitated head. In their highest initiation, the adept “must ‘cut off his own head with the right hand, holding it in the left.’ Three streams of blood gush out from the headless trunk. One of these is directed into the mouth of the decapitated head . . .; the other is directed toward the earth as an offering of the pure, sinless blood to mother Earth; and the third gushes toward heaven, as a witness for the sacrifice of ‘self-immolation.’ Now, this had a profound Occult significance which is known only to the initiated . . .” (BCW 4:265-6).
Clothed with the Sun. See INITIATION
Comasonry: A variety of Freemasonry permitting the initiation of women, too.
Communion In Christian Churches, the sacrament of the Eucharist, an ancient pagan rite early adopted by Christendom. It originally signified communion of the human self with its inner god, a state attained more or less perfectly during initiation, or by those who have attained the power thus to communicate, and symbolized in the Mysteries by ceremonial rites similar to those which the Church has borrowed. See also BREAD AND WINE
Concentration With meditation, an equivalent for certain parts of yoga, as found in samadhi, dharana; the removal or surmounting of distractions originating in the mind and centering the latter on the spiritual and intellectual objective to be attained, which in the best sense is union with the inner god, the divine monad — a conscious identification of oneself with the universal through the individual’s innate divinity. The method of meditative concentration prescribed in the Bhagavad-Gita is to perform all the duties of life without either attachment or avoidance. The hindrances to concentration which are to be removed are those arising from anger, lust, vanity, fear, sloth, etc. Such obstacles are removed by lifting the mind above them or by deliberately ignoring them, since directly fighting with them serves to concentrate the mind on them, thus defeating the object aimed at; and by cultivating the spirit of impersonal love and the light of wisdom which it evokes. Thus the blending of the personal self with the impersonal self is achieved by an orderly process of self-directed evolution, first by unselfish work in the cause of humanity, continued in the various degrees of chelaship, culminating in initiation.
conception ::: n. --> The act of conceiving in the womb; the initiation of an embryonic animal life.
The state of being conceived; beginning.
The power or faculty of apprehending of forming an idea in the mind; the power of recalling a past sensation or perception.
The formation in the mind of an image, idea, or notion, apprehension.
The image, idea, or notion of any action or thing which
Corax (Greek) The raven; the lowest degree, that of servant, in the Mithraic systems of initiation, these various degrees corresponding to the different grades on a rising scale attained by the advancing neophyte.
Crown also signifies the summit of attainment in initiation, spiritual sovereignty, or dignity or splendor, and is much used in those senses in both the Old and New Testaments, and was typically so employed in pagan initiatory rites.
Crucifixion The Christian doctrine of the crucifixion contains at least three elements: 1) the ancient method of execution, in use among the Romans, of fastening the victim to a tree, post, or cross; 2) the rite used in initiation; and 3) the emblem of the god in man becoming incarnate. In the initiation ceremony, which not only represented but in ancient times was the culminating event in a person’s regeneration, the candidate was laid bound upon a cruciform couch, which symbolized the matter to which his consciousness is bound, while the ego-soul was liberated to experience other realms of being.
Cry from the Cross The cry of the expiring Jesus — given in the Gospels as “Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani” (Matt 27:46) [in Mark it is Eloi]; translated in Greek “Theemou, Theemou, hinati me ’egkatelipes”; and then translated into English as “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” — is a curious instance of mistranslation, for the Hebrew words as quoted mean, “My God, my God, how thou hast glorified me!” On the other hand, Psalms 22:1 has the words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” but here the Hebrew for forsaken is ‘azabtani (forsaken me). There seems to have been a desire to represent the cry from the cross as a fulfillment of these words of Psalms. What Jesus really uttered, according to the Hebrew, was a cry of ecstasy over the peace of attainment, clarification, and liberation. The cry in Psalms is that of the candidate for initiation left to his unaided resources, to achieve or fail by them and them alone — which is the only fair and certain test of ability.
Cryphius [from Greek kryphios secret, occult] In the Mithraic Mysteries, the second degree of initiation or the candidate at that state.
Dand, Danda (Sanskrit) Daṇḍa “The three and seven-knotted bamboo of Sannyasis given to them as a sign of power, after their initiation” (BCW 2:119). Used by raja yogis to store the essence of the yogi’s power: “recognizing this power in himself, he endows the given object with it and concentrates it in the object, . . . Then, when occasion arises, using his own will and discretion, he aims, in one direction or another, this power, the twofold quality of which is attraction and repulsion. . . . By such means he transforms also the wand or danda into a vahana, filling it with his own power and spirit and giving it for the time being his own properties” (Caves and Jungles 594; also 596-8)
diksa ::: [initiation].
Diksha: Initiation; consecration.
Diksha (Sanskrit) Dīkṣā [from the verbal root dīkṣ to consecrate or dedicate oneself] Preparation or consecration in exoteric matters for a religious ceremony; or the undertaking, equally in exoteric matters, of religious observances for a specific purpose, as well as the observances themselves; also initiation. As a proper noun, Diksha or initiation is personified as the wife of Soma (the Moon). Diksha again signifies preparatory training of the neophyte for initiation.
diksha &
Dikshita (Sanskrit) Dīkṣita [past participle of the verbal root dīkṣ to consecrate or dedicate oneself] Consecrated, initiated; to dedicate oneself in training for initiation, which is exoterically alluded to in Hindu works as training for the performance of the soma sacrifice; hence as a noun, an initiate.
Dkon mchog rgyal po. (Konchok Gyalpo) (1034-1102). A Tibetan master renowned as the founder of the SA SKYA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a member of the 'Khon clan and a descendent of one of the first seven Tibetans to be ordained as a Buddhist monk (SAD MI BDUN). He studied primarily under the translator 'BROG MI SHĀKYA YE SHES, receiving teachings and initiations of the new translations (GSAR MA), particularly the HEVAJRATANTRA. He was also instructed in the doctrine of "path and result" (LAM 'BRAS), which had originally been transmitted by the great Indian adept VIRuPA. In 1073, Dkon mchog rgyal po founded SA SKYA monastery, one of the sect's principal institutions, and the seat of Tibetan political power for nearly a century; he also served as its first abbot. His son, SA CHEN KUN DGA' SNYING PO, became another important Sa skya hierarch and served as the monastery's third abbot.
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.
Easter [from Eostre or Ostara goddess of spring] In the northern hemisphere, the time of the renewal of life in nature, and therefore the appropriate season for celebrating the mystery of rebirth and regeneration. Easter day was close to the time of one of the four sacred seasons connected with the equinoxes and solstices, which were individually celebrated in the ancient Mysteries as representatives of the four main phases of the drama of initiation. It was the second stage of initiation when the awakened person, in whom the Christ had already been born (as celebrated at a winter solstice), was preparing to become a conqueror of self and then a teacher. Easter today is the result of a confusion and compromise between this ancient spring festival (chiefly in its Northern European form) with ecclesiastical legends and the Jewish Feast of the Passover (pesah). Good Friday, following the Christian version of this ancient theme, commemorates the descent of the Christ into the tomb, and the Sunday following, which is the third day counting inclusively, celebrates the resurrection. Due to a confusion in early Christian thought, there are certain aspects of the Easter celebration which properly pertain to the winter solstice, which the Christians, however, have rightly held as commemorating the birth of Christ. The Jewish ecclesiastical calendar was lunar, and the attempt to reconcile the solar calendar with the date of the Passover as fixed by the lunar calendar resulted in protracted disputes, ending in the present compromise with its fluctuating date. The use of eggs at Easter is symbolic of rebirth and shows the influence of the ancient rites, especially of Northern Europe.
Enforceable Requirements::: Conditions or limitations in permits issued under the Clean Water Act, Section 402 or 404 that, if violated, could result in the issuance of a compliance order or initiation of a civil or criminal action under federal or applicable state laws. If a permit has not been issued, the term includes any requirement which, in the Regional Administrator's (RA) judgment, would be included in the permit when issued. Where no permit applies, the term includes any requirement which the RA determines is necessary for the best practical waste treatment technology to meet applicable criteria.
Enoch, Onech (Hebrew) Ḥanōkh Initiation or initiated; hence also hierophant. In the Bible (Genesis 4, 5), “there are three distinct Enochs — the son of Cain, the son of Seth, and the son of Jared; but they are all identical, and two of them are mentioned for the purposes of misleading. The years of only the last two are given, the first one being left without further notice.” He is the great grandfather of Noah, and stands for the first subrace of the fifth root-race (BCW 14:86&n).
Enoichion (Greek-Hebrew) [from Hebrew ḥanakh to make narrow, be narrow; pressure; hence to initiate, train into the paths of consecration or dedication; probably from ḥanōkh (Enoch) initiated, initiator] The root-meaning of narrowness, that which is straightened or close, is reminiscent of the New Testament saying: “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way” (Matthew 7:14) — a direct reference to initiation. Thus enoichion can be rendered as a seer. “Esoterically and spiritually Enoichion means the ‘Seer of the Open Eye,’ the inner spiritual eye” (SD 2:530).
Entered apprentice: In Freemasonry, one who has been given the first degree of initiation.
Epopteia: The advanced degree of initiation in the Eleusinian mysteries.
Epoptes (Greek) [from epi at, upon + opt to see] Sometimes epopt. In the Eleusinian Mysteries, seer, overseer, master mason, one who has the vision sublime; an initiate into the highest degree of the Mysteries (epopteia) who had attained, among other spiritual faculties and powers, that of spiritual clairvoyance. The state attained, epopteia, was the seventh and highest degree of initiation in the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the inner god shone forth through the human being, so that the candidate was at one with his inner divinity.
ESOTERIC HISTORY AFTER 1875 The instrument the planetary hierarchy had chosen for the task of publicizing the knowledge which had been kept secret since Atlantis was H. P. Blavatsky (1831-1891). Blavatsky was enjoined not to give out any esoteric facts without special permission in each individual case. She was not to mention anything about the planetary hierarchy.
The truth, or the knowledge of reality, is only to be given gradually, with sparing facts, to a mankind unprepared to receive it. It is necessary to find connections to established fictions of which people have heard enough for them to believe that they comprehend what it all is about. A new, revolutionary system of ideas would be rejected off hand as a mere fantastic invention. It could not be comprehended, let alone understood, without careful preparation.
The most important reason, which probably only esotericians are able to understand, is the fact of the dynamic energy of ideas.
Once the esoteric knowledge was permitted to be published there was no longer any need of initiation into the old knowledge orders, nobody having been initiated into anyone of them since 1875. Although those initiated in previous incarnations were not given the opportunity to revive all their old knowledge, enough was made known, and besides hinted at, for them to be able to discover the most essential by themselves.
The most important esoteric facts to be found in the works of Sinnett, Judge, and
Hartmann &
“Every nation had its exoteric and esoteric religion, the one for the masses, the other for the learned and elect. For example, the Hindus had three degrees with several sub-degrees. The Egyptians had also three preliminary degrees, personified under the ‘three guardians of the fire’ in the Mysteries. The Chinese had their most ancient Triad Society: and the Tibetans have to this day their ‘triple step’: which was symbolized in the ‘Vedas by the three strides of Vishnu. . . . The old Babylonians had their three stages of initiation into the priesthood (which was then esoteric knowledge); the Jews, the Kabbalists and mystics borrowed them from the Chaldees, and the Christian Church from the Jews” (TG 333).
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 “are duly and truly prepared, worthy and well qualified,” else the penalty is death to the one so revealing the Word or secrets.
Familiar Spirit “A man or woman having a familiar spirit” is the translation in the Old Testament of the Hebrew ’Ob or Aub, which means a sorcerer or necromancer, and in The Secret Doctrine (1:364n) is translated serpent. Such a person is a medium who is more or less under the control of this elemental or elementary, miscalled spirit, by whom he may be entranced; and is to be distinguished sharply from an adept or genuine theurgist, who is in self-conscious control of his own higher faculties through initiation following due and long preparation. These familiar spirits are equivalent to the Greek daimones, and to elementals and elementaries.
Fellow of the Craft: In Freemasonry, an individual who has attained the second degree of initiation.
fivefoldkiss ::: Five-fold kiss This is a traditional Wiccan ritual practice, normally undertaken during initiations. However, it is also used as a greeting between the High Priest and Priestess of a coven. Each of the five parts of the body, symbolic of the five points of the pentagram, are ritually kissed.
For the student of the Esoteric Philosophy, initiation is the casting aside of the enclosing or involving sheaths of consciousness and psychic integuments freeing the spiritual glory within.
For the use of the cross in initiation ceremonies, see also CRUCIFIXION.
Gemara’ (Hebrew) Gĕmārā’ [from the verbal root gāmar to complete, perfect] Teaching leading to full initiation; the supplementary part of the Talmud based upon the Mishnah. The arrangement of the present Gemara’ is attributed originally to Rabbi Ashi (352-427).
Gishin. (義眞) (781-833). Japanese monk who was the first head (zasu) of the TENDAISHu. At a young age, Gishin became the student of the Japanese monk SAICHo, who dwelled on HIEIZAN. He later went to the monastery of DAIANJI and studied the VINAYA under the Chinese vinaya master GANJIN. Gishin also studied Chinese under Jiken (d.u.) of ToDAIJI. In 804, the novice Gishin followed his teacher Saicho to China where he primarily served as an interpreter for his teacher. That same year, Saicho and Gishin arrived at the monastery of Guoqingsi on Mt. Tiantai (in present-day Zhejiang province). There, Gishin was ordained, receiving the full monastic precepts. The next year, both Saicho and Gishin received the "perfect teaching" (C. YUANJIAO) BODHISATTVA precepts (engyo bosatsukai) of the FANWANG JING from the reputed seventh patriarch of the TIANTAI tradition Daosui (d.u.) at the monastery of Longxingsi. Before their return to Japan that year, both Saicho and Gishin purportedly received initiation into the "two realms" (RYoBU) of the KONGoKAI (vajradhātu) and TAIZoKAI (garbadhātu) MAndALAs from a certain Shunxiao (d.u.) during their sojourn in Yuezhou (present-day Zhejiang province). After Saicho's death in 823, Gishin was given permission to construct a MAHĀYĀNA precepts platform (daijo kaidan) at his monastery of ENRYAKUJI. In 832, he was appointed the first head (zasu) of the Tendai school on Mt. Hiei.
Gnosis (Greek) [cf Sanskrit jnana knowledge] Knowledge; used by Plato and the Neoplatonists to signify the divine knowledge (gupta-vidya) attained through initiation; and means for the student the active penetration into and going beyond the veils of mind, by which process a true vision of reality is to be obtained.
God-parents Christian law, strong in the Greek Orthodox Church, weaker in the Roman Catholic, and forgotten in the Protestant, based in the fact that once a spiritual teacher begins to teach the disciple, he takes on the student’s karma in connection with the occult sciences until the student becomes in turn a master. The god-parents “tacitly take upon themselves all the sins of the newly baptised child — (anointed, as at the initiation, a mystery truly!) — until the day when the child becomes a responsible unit, knowing good and evil” (BCW 9:156, cf 9:285-6).
Golden Dawn ::: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. An esoteric organization operating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that set the stage for the revival of the Western occult tradition and which contributed much to current philosophy and approaches to magic, divination, and initiation.
Grade ::: In the process of initiation, especially in various esoteric orders, these are distinct levels that either require certain experiences to be had or rituals undertaken.
Granting that there may be some historical background for the Biblical account, it is nevertheless allegorical throughout. Blavatsky compares the measurements given in the Bible with those of the Great Pyramid and the Tabernacle of Moses, all of which were constructed upon the same abstract formula derived from the number of years in the precessional cycle, and also upon integral values of pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Moses symbolized these “under the form and measurements of the tabernacle, that he is supposed to have constructed in the wilderness. On these data the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon’s Temple — a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is simply, and as much a solar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif, of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical temple, the symbol of the cycle of Initiation, coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses” (SD 1:314-5). And she refers to “the undeniable, clear, and mathematical proofs that the esoteric foundations, or the system used in the building of the Great Pyramid, and the architectural measurements in the Temple of Solomon (whether the latter be mythical or real), Noah’s ark, and the ark of the Covenant, are the same” (SD 2:465).
guhyābhiseka. (T. gsang dbang; C. mimi guanding; J. himitsukanjo; K. pimil kwanjong 秘密灌頂). In Sanskrit, "secret empowerment," the second of the four empowerments or initiations employed in the ANUTTARAYOGA tantras, the other three being the vase empowerment (KALAsĀBHIsEKA), which precedes the secret empowerment (guhyābhiseka), and the knowledge of the consort empowerment (PRAJNĀJNĀNĀBHIsEKA) and the fourth empowerment (CATURTHĀBHIsEKA), which both follow it. The secret empowerment is intended for initiates who have already received the full vase empowerment. In the secret empowerment, the disciple presents his master with a fully qualified consort. The consort, representing wisdom (PRAJNĀ), and the master, representing method (UPĀYA), then unite sexually. A drop of the fluid that results from their union, called BODHICITTA, is then placed on the tongue of the disciple, who swallows it. In the next empowerment, "the knowledge of the consort," the disciple then engages in sexual union with the same consort, inducing increasing levels of bliss. Although later monastic exegetes would interpret these empowerments symbolically, it appears that they were actually practiced as the tantric systems developed in India, and they continued to be practiced among certain groups of adepts in Tibet.
hasta diksha. ::: spiritual initiation in which the Guru places his hand on the head of the disciple
Heaven and Hell In Christian theology, the abodes of Deity and the celestial hierarchy on the one hand, and of Satan and his fallen angels on the other hand; the final goal of those who are saved and of those who are damned. The origin of the doctrine is founded in the ancient Mystery teachings concerning the human afterdeath experiences and the corresponding experiences passed through by the candidate for initiation. Hell may be likened to kama-loka and also avichi, though neither is eternal. Kama-loka is better represented, however, by purgatory. Heaven is a reflection of devachan, blended also with ideas of nirvanic states. Thus heaven and hell should both be used in the plural, as is commonly the case in their non-Christian equivalents: Elysium, nirvana, Paradise, Valhalla, Olympus, and many other names for heaven; and Tartarus, Gehenna, She’ol, Niflheim, etc., for hell.
Heracles (Greek) Herakles Hercules (Latin) [probably from heros free man, cf Latin herus lord of a household; or “renowned through Hera”] Son of Zeus and Alcmene, greatest of the Greek heroes. He delivers Prometheus from Zeus, and slays the two serpents representing the nodes of the moon. The passage of the sun through the zodiacal signs typifies the twelve labors of Heracles, in this case denoting the energies of the cosmic Logos working on various planes, and also in the microcosmic sphere the trials through which an initiant must pass before reaching adeptship. In one of his highest aspects he is a solar entity, self-born, and possibly equivalent to Thor of Scandinavia (SD 1:131-2). He is the first-begotten, in some ways equivalent to Bel of Asia Minor and to Siva in India (SD 2:492). He is one of the minor logoi who strive to endow humankind with higher faculties. Again, he appears as the sun god who descends to Hades (cave of initiation) in order to deliver the denizens there from their bonds, thus being equivalent to Mahasura and Lucifer.
Hermes was the Greek god of mystical thinking and interpretations, corresponding to the Egyptian Thoth, both divinities being overseers or hierophants of works of initiation concealing the archaic secrets of the god-wisdom. Thus the ascription to Hermes of profoundly mystical allegories is properly assigned, whoever their actual writers may have been.
Hierogrammatists [from Greek hierogrammateus from hieros sacred + grammateus scribe] Applied by Greek writers to the sacred scribes of ancient Egypt, who wrote and read the sacred records, and among whose functions was that of the instruction of initiants or neophytes preparing for initiation.
Human mediumship is a voluntary, or more often involuntary, subjection to the lower planes of astral substance which, while more ethereal than ordinary matter, yet are of a quality more gross, more powerful, and usually more malefic. Entrance into these astral realms produces a species of astral intoxication, from the delusion of strange because unknown and often unequilibrated forces, deceptive astral pictures; and the astral intoxication is increased because of considering these experiences as wonder-phenomena. In other words, the conditions and experiences sensed are as genuine, and as unreliable and utterly useless, as are the hallucinations of the delirious or insane. Only an occultist of masterful will and great purity of life can rise consciously to the spiritual plane and, looking down on the astral levels below, understand, control, and remember what he sees. In untrained mediumship the atoms and molecules of the astrally “controlled” body which the alien astral entity uses to mold into a form and to move with its own desire-impulses, retain this astral psychomagnetic imprint. With repeated trances, the medium grows continuously and progressively less than his individual self, because of his thoughts and feelings becoming mixed with, overlaid, or blurred by ideas and emotions which per se are abnormal and misleading. He therefore becomes irresponsible as a source of genuine spiritual knowledge and prevision, and still less responsible as a guardian of sacred truths. Because of this, untrained mediumship precludes initiation into the Mysteries as the person’s faith in his astral “control” would dominate him instead of the rules of the sanctuary.
Iddhi (Pali) Iddhi [from the verbal root sidh to succeed, attain an objective, reach accomplishment] Equivalent to the Sanskrit siddhi, used to signify the powers or attributes of perfection: powers of various kinds, spiritual and intellectual as well as astral and physical, acquired through training, discipline, initiation, and individual holiness. In Buddhism it is generally rendered “occult power.” There are two classes of iddhis, the higher of which, according to the Digha-Nikaya and other Buddhist works, are eight in number: 1) the power to project mind-made images of oneself; 2) to become invisible; 3) to pass through solid things, such as a wall; 4) to penetrate solid ground as if it were water; 5) to walk on water; 6) to fly through the air; 7) to touch sun and moon; and 8) to ascend into the highest heavens. The same work represents the Buddha as saying: “It is because I see danger in the practice of these mystic wonders that I loathe and abhor and am ashamed thereof” (1:213) — a true statement although iddhis are powers of the most desirable kind when pertaining to the higher nature, for they are of spiritual, intellectual, and higher psychical character. It is only when iddhis or siddhis are limited to the meaning of the gross astral psychic attributes that the Buddha properly condemns them as being dangerous always, and to the ambitious and selfish person extremely perilous. Further, it was an offense against the regulations of the Brotherhood (Samgha) for any member to display any powers before the laity.
from The Sufi Message, Volume XII, My Initiation in Sufism
IIH ::: Initiation Into Hermetics. A work by Franz Bardon that discusses modern Hermetic theory and gives exhaustive lists and details of exercises and practices involving consciousness and magic. One of the best modern-day handbooks of practical occult exercises.
Illuminati (Latin) The enlightened, adepts; a title assumed in Europe by different bodies of mystics at different times, claiming to have attained the faculty of direct vision of divine truth, and also applied popularly to later bodies, such as Swedenborgians and Rosicrucians. Its most recent and common use is in reference to a secret society, partly religious, apparently partly political, which arose in Germany toward the end of the 18th century, spread its influence over other countries, had degrees of initiation, and entered into relationships with Masonic lodges.
In a more mystical sense, the same series of ideas is connected with emblems such as the solar boat of ancient Egypt carrying the seeds of life across the waters of space from one cosmic world to another; even the navis or nave of a temple or church was connected with the original idea of the birth of the new person, the nave being but a later popular appearance of the initiation chamber of the sanctuary, which was the womb of the new life giving birth to the reborn — the dvijas of ancient India.
In a mystical sense, the Book of the Dead is a veiled rendition of the passage of the defunct through the various tests and trials of kama-loka before entering devachan; and of the trials of initiation which were but copies, at least in its lower degrees, of the postmortem pilgrimage of the dead.
inauguration ::: n. --> The act of inuagurating, or inducting into office with solemnity; investiture by appropriate ceremonies.
The formal beginning or initiation of any movement, course of action, etc.; as, the inauguration of a new system, a new condition, etc.
In Buddhist works four degrees of training, in these cases equivalent to initiation, are given: 1) srotapatti (he who has entered the stream), one who has commenced the task of transmuting the forces of his nature to the purposes of his higher self; 2) sakridagamin (he who comes once more), one who will be reborn on earth only once again before reaching the lower degrees of nirvana; 3) anagamin (he who does not come), one who will no longer be reincarnated anymore, unless the choice be made to remain on earth in order to help humanity; and 4) arhat or arhan (the worthy one), one who at will can and does experience nirvana even during his life on earth.
In cases of ecstasy, on the other hand — or of the true seer — there is supernormal activity of the mental-spiritual nature of the person whose human soul in being freed or absent from its kama-manasic desires and consciousness, becomes allied with his higher mind. Thus he becomes intellectually highly lucid, spiritually conscious, and illumined. His now quiescent personal self offers no bar to the reality of the light of truth flowing into him from his own higher nature. His condition, whether a spontaneous exaltation, a state self-induced, or invoked at will, is a direct contrast with the mediumistic state. He is vividly self-conscious of his experience, and he retains the memory of it. Such an exalted state of entrancement is only possible for those individuals who are prepared by great purity of life and a trained will, which are also prerequisites for the mystic rites of the higher initiations.
inception ::: n. --> Beginning; commencement; initiation.
Reception; a taking in.
In connection with initiation, it means a minor manifestation of the inner god to the candidate, as contrasted with theophany, which takes place in a higher degree, and is the appearance of the inner god.
In connection with the Mysteries of Cybele in Crete, initiation in the temples of the Curetes was extremely arduous, lasting a lunar month (27 days), during which the initiant was left by himself in a crypt, undergoing the severest kind of tests; Pythagoras is stated to have successfully undergone initiation in these rites (TG 91).
Initiant [from Latin initio entering into, beginning] One who is preparing for initiation, as distinguished from one who has been initiated — the latter being an initiate. One who is an initiate in one degree may be only an initiant as to a higher degree.
Initiate [from Latin initio entering into, beginning] One who has entered into or begun, or passed at least one initiation in the sacred Mysteries; initiates can therefore be of various degrees. Synonymous with reborn, dvija (twice-born), Son of the Sun, etc.
Initiates ::: Those who have passed at least one initiation and therefore those who understand the mystery-teachingsand who are ready to receive them at some future time in even larger measure. Please note the distinctionbetween initiant and initiate. An initiant is one who is beginning or preparing for an initiation. An initiateis one who has successfully passed at least one initiation. It is obvious therefore that an initiate is alwaysan initiant when he prepares for a still higher initiation.The mystery-teachings were held as the most sacred treasure or possession that men could transmit totheir descendants who were worthy postulants. The revelation of these mystery-doctrines under the sealof initiation, and under proper conditions to worthy depositaries, worked marvelous changes in the livesof those who underwent successfully the initiatory trials. It made men different from what they werebefore they received this spiritual and intellectual revelation. The facts are found in all the old religionsand philosophies, if these are studied honestly. Initiation was always spoken of under the metaphor orfigure of speech of "a new birth," a "birth into truth," for it was a spiritual and intellectual rebirth of thepowers of the human spirit-soul, and could be called in all truth a birth of the soul into a loftier andnobler self-consciousness. When this happened, such men were called "initiates" or the reborn. In India,such reborn men were anciently called dvija, a Sanskrit word meaning "twice-born." In Egypt suchinitiates or reborn men were called "Sons of the Sun." In other countries they were called by other names.
Initiation: Admission to one of the formal degrees or classifications in an esoteric or occult discipline.
Initiation ::: A process through which one learns to attune to a paradigm and learns to become effective practicing magic within that paradigm. It can also refer to the more intimate journey of self-discovery and learning that one undergoes – usually through the lens of a paradigm – about the nature of identity, consciousness, and reality.
Initiation: A test to pass a young mage from the ranks of apprentice to full responsibility within a Tradition.
Initiation [from Latin initio entering into, beginning] Generally, the induction of a pupil into a new way of living and into secret knowledge by the aid of a competent teacher. In ancient times initiation or the Mysteries were uniform and one everywhere, but as times passed, each country — though basing its Mysteries and initiation ceremonies on the one original wisdom common to mankind — followed manners of conducting the procedures native to the psychology and temperament of the different peoples. In still later times most of the original wisdom was but dimly remembered; and the Mysteries and the initiation ceremonies degenerated into little more than ceremonial rites, with more or less academic or theological teaching accompanying them — as was the case in the Mysteries of Greece, for instance; although it is true that there were genuine initiates in Greece down to the fall of the Mediterranean civilizations.
Initiation ::: In olden times there were seven -- and even ten -- degrees of initiation. Of these seven degrees, threeconsisted of teachings alone, which formed the preparation, the discipline, spiritual and mental andpsychic and physical -- what the Greeks called the katharsis or "cleansing." When the disciple wasconsidered sufficiently cleansed, purified, disciplined, quiet mentally, tranquil spiritually, then he wastaken into the fourth degree, which likewise consisted partly of teaching, but also in part of directpersonal introduction by the old mystical processes into the structure and operations of the universe, bywhich means truth was gained by first-hand personal experience. In other words, to speak in plain terms,his spirit-soul, his individual consciousness, was assisted to pass into other planes and realms of being,and to know and to understand by the sheer process of becoming them. A man, a mind, an understanding,can grasp and see, and thereby know, only those things which the individual entity itself is.After the fourth degree, there followed the fifth and the sixth and the seventh initiations, each in turn, andthese consisted of teachings also; but more and more as the disciple progressed -- and he was helped inthis development more and more largely as he advanced farther -- there was evolved forth in him thepower and faculties still farther and more deeply to penetrate beyond the veils of maya or illusion; until,having passed the seventh or last initiation of all of the manifest initiations, if we may call them that, hebecame one of those individuals whom theosophists call the mahatmas.
INITIATION Process in esoteric training where the disciple (his monad) under the guidance of his teacher (a member of a higher natural kingdom) breaks through to the consciousness and energy (&
inition ::: n. --> Initiation; beginning.
In later mythology Surya is particularly identified with Savitri as one of the twelve adityas of the sun in the twelve months of the year, and his seven-horsed chariot is described as driven by Aruna (dawn). Surya was represented also as the husband of Sanjna (spiritual consciousness, cosmic or human), and the offspring of Aditi (space), mother of all the gods. One legend represents Surya as crucified on a lathe by Visvakarman — his father-in-law, the creator of gods and men, and their carpenter — and having an eighth part of his rays cut off, which deprives his head of its effulgency, creating round it a dark aureole — “a mystery of the last initiation, and an allegorical representation of it” (TG 313).
Inner God Used for the higher self or divine monad, the focus of divine-spiritual individuality in the human constitution, especially in connection with the degree of initiation when the candidate comes into communion with his true spiritual self, the god within.
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 — the birth or awakening of the inner Buddha or Christos in the neophyte. This was called the coming or advent of the god within.
In seeking to explain the meaning of these records we are faced with the difficulty of interpreting an ancient science into terms of modern ideas. The science of those days was a comprehensive whole, which has become decomposed into sundered fragments, which seem to us, because of having lost the keys to the ancient wisdom which brought about the construction of these noble monuments, to be unrelated to each other. Were the pyramids initiation chambers, records of astronomical data, of mathematical truths, or of standard measurements? They were all of these and more. When the candidate passed through the processes of initiation he enacted in his own person the self-same processes which occur on the cosmic scale, on the principle of the master-key of analogy, the size, shape, and orientation of the passages and chambers signifying at once cosmic and human mysteries.
In the ancient Mysteries and in esoteric teachings of the great religions, references to partaking of flesh and blood are purely symbolic figures of speech, the mystical idea being that of partaking of wisdom and gaining understanding through union with the divinity whose name was used, such union being achieved during initiation, the communicant thereby acquiring spiritual strength and nobler life in common with the initiator.
In the fifth initiation, called in ancient Greece theophany (the appearance of a god), the candidate meets for at least a fleeting moment his own spiritual ego face to face, and in the most successful of these cases, for a time actually becomes one with it. Epiphany signifies a minor form of theophany.
In the mystic language of ancient time, a holy mountain universally signified a school of esoteric teaching. Just as a mountain on earth raises its summits towards the free heaven, and therefore mystically towards spirit and the gods, so in the ancient esoteric schools the training and the initiations conducted raised the neophytes or initiants towards the spirit, both cosmically and inner, and hence likewise towards the gods. See also PARNASSUS
In theosophical literature Bharata has also been applied to an ancient sacred land. “ ‘Happy are those who are born, even from the condition of gods, as men, in Bharata-Varsha!’ exclaim the incarnated gods themselves, during the Third Root-Race. Bharata is India, but in this case it symbolized the chosen land in those days, and was considered the best of the divisions of Jambu-dwipa, as it was the land of active (spiritual) works par excellence; the land of initiation and of divine knowledge” (SD 2:369).
In theosophical literature, generally used for an initiate in the original sense of the word: one who really and actually is twice-born — the first time physically, the second time spiritually and intellectually through initiation. The modern-day purely ceremonial and ritualistic observance of “passing through a silver or golden cow” (TG 107) is a faithful but purely physical emblematic ceremony of which even among most modern Brahmins the real and original meaning has been utterly forgotten. Just as in ancient Egypt, from archaic times in Hindustan the cow has always been considered the symbol of Mother Nature, who brings to birth all things out of her ever fertile and continuously productive womb; gold has always stood for the sun, the parent of the human spiritual and intellectual faculties, while silver stood for the moon, parent of the lower human mind. Thus, just as human beings through repeated rebirths through the womb of nature grows through evolution in all parts of their constitution, so through initiation does a person become a twice-born or dvija, by being reborn from either the sun or the moon — both of them organs of Mother Nature.
In theosophy initiation is generally used in reference to entering into the sacred wisdom under the direction of initiates, in the schools of the Mysteries. By initiation the candidate quickens natural evolution and thus anticipates the growth which will be achieved by the generality of humanity at a much later time in developmental evolution. He or she unfolds from within the latent spiritual and intellectual powers, thus raising individual self-consciousness to a corresponding level. The induction into the various degrees was aptly spoken of as a new birth.
In the seventh degree, theopathy (the suffering a god — suffering oneself to be one’s own inner god), the personal self has become permanently at-one with the inner divinity. The successful passing of the seventh trial resulted in the initiant’s becoming a glorified Christ, to be followed by the last or ultimate stage of this degree known in Buddhism as achieving buddhahood or nirvana. Since limits cannot be set to attainment, however, still loftier stages of spiritual and intellectual unfolding or initiation await those who have already attained the degree of buddhahood.
“It is admitted that, however inferior to the classical Sanskrit of Panini, the language of the oldest portions of Rig Veda, notwithstanding the antiquity of its grammatical forms, is the same as that of the latest texts. Every one sees — cannot fail to see and to know — that for a language so old and so perfect as the Sanskrit to have survived alone, among all languages, it must have had its cycles of perfection and its cycles of degeneration. And, if one had any intuition, he might have seen that what they call a ‘dead language’ being an anomaly, a useless thing in Nature, it would not have survived, even as a ‘dead’ tongue, had it not its special purpose in the reign of immutable cyclic laws; and that Sanskrit, which came to be nearly lost to the world, is now slowly spreading in Europe, and will one day have the extension it had thousands upon thousands of years back — that of a universal language. The same as to the Greek and the Latin: there will be a time when the Greek of Aeschylus (and more perfect still in its future form) will be spoken by all in Southern Europe, while Sanskrit will be resting in its periodical pralaya; and the Attic will be followed later by the Latin of Virgil. Something ought to have whispered to us that there was also a time — before the original Aryan settlers among the Dravidian and other aborigines, admitted within the fold of Brahmanical initiation, marred the purity of the sacred Sanskrita Bhasha — when Sanskrit was spoken in all its unalloyed subsequent purity, and therefore must have had more than once its rise and fall. The reason for it is simply this: classical Sanskrit was only restored, if in some things perfected, by Panini. Panini, Katyayana, or Patanjali did not create it; it has existed throughout cycles, and will pass through other cycles still” (Five Years of Theosophy 419-20).
Jacobites A Christian sect in 6th century Syria “which held that Christ had only one nature and that confession was not of divine origin. They had secret signs, passwords and a solemn initiation with mysteries” (TG 161).
Jesus [Latin of Greek Iesous from Hebrew Yēshūa‘ contraction of Yĕhōshua‘ a proper name meaning savior or helper, or that which is spacious or widespread] Indubitably a historical character, whose life as narrated in the Gospels is pure allegory, a story of the initiation chamber. There is a story current from medieval times among the Jews, mentioned in the Sepher Toledoth Yeshua‘ (Book of the Generations of Jesus), to the effect that the Jesus of the Gospels was a Jehoshua ben Panthera, a Jewish adept living about 100 BC. Jesus illustrates the typical sequence in occult history: 1) the coming of a leader or teacher to a people needing to be led and taught; 2) his passing, followed by the adoration, even worship, of his followers; 3) the gradual transformation of historic facts into more or less embroidered legends or mythological tales, which in time cluster so thickly about his memory that his identity as a person, and even his name, are lost; 4) the myth, allegory, or legend; and 5) the efforts of other, later teachers to explain, interpret, and reinstate this earlier teacher, now a purely mythic figure or else materialized and misunderstood.
jiezhi. (J. kaisei; K. haeje 解制). In Chinese, lit. "relaxed rule"; the end of an intensive period of meditation during the summer season (anju; see ANGO), sometimes applied to the end of the winter retreat season as well. The term is most commonly used within the CHAN (ZEN and SoN) tradition with reference to its meditative retreats. The term contrasts with the homophonous JIEZHI, "binding rule," the initiation of a retreat.
jiezhi. (J. kessei; K. kyolche 結制). In Chinese, lit. "binding rule"; the initiation of an intensive period of meditative retreat during the summer season (anju; see ANGO), sometimes applied to the winter retreat season as well. The term is most commonly used within the CHAN (ZEN and SoN) tradition with reference to its meditative retreats. The two terms jiezhi and anju are often used interchangeably or even in compound to generally refer to this three-month-long summer retreat. The term contrasts with the homophonous JIEZHI, "relaxed rule," the conclusion of a retreat.
'Jigs med gling pa. (Jikme Lingpa) (1729-1798). A Tibetan exegete and visionary, renowned as one of the premier treasure revealers (GTER STON) in the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. 'Jigs med gling pa was born in the central Tibetan region of 'Phyong rgyas (Chongye), and from an early age recalled many of his previous incarnations, including those of the Tibetan king KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN, the scholars SGAM PO PA and KLONG CHEN PA and, in his immediately preceding birth, Chos rje gling pa. After a period of monastic education, in his late twenties, he undertook an intense series of meditation retreats, first at Dpal ri monastery and then at the CHIMS PHU cave complex near BSAM YAS. In one of the numerous visions he experienced during this period, he received the KLONG CHEN SNYING THIG, or "Heart Sphere of the Great Expanse," from a dĀKINĪ at the BODHNĀTH STuPA in Kathmandu. The revelation of this text is considered a "mind treasure" (dgongs gter), composed by Padmasambhava and revealed to the mind of a later disciple. 'Jigs med gling pa kept this revelation secret for seven years before transcribing it. The klong chen snying thig corpus systematized by 'Jigs med gling pa, including numerous explanatory texts, tantric initiations, and ritual cycles, became a seminal component of the RDZOGS CHEN teachings in the Rnying ma sect. While based in central Tibet, 'Jigs med gling pa was also influential in Tibet's eastern regions, serving as spiritual teacher to the royal family of SDE DGE and supervising the printing of the collected Rnying ma tantras in twenty-eight volumes. His patrons and disciples included some of the most powerful and prestigious individuals from Khams in eastern Tibet, and his active participation in reviving Rnying ma traditions during a time of persecution earned him a place at the forefront of the burgeoning eclectic or nonsectarian (RIS MED) movement. Numerous subsequent visionaries involved in promulgating the movement identified themselves as 'Jigs med gling pa's reincarnation, including 'JAM DBYANG MKHYEN BRTSE DBANG PO, MDO MKHYEN BRTSE YE SHES RDO RJE, DPAL SPRUL RIN PO CHE, and DIL MGO MKHYEN BRTSE. See also GTER MA.
Job (Hebrew) ’Iyyōb Persecuted, tried; one of the books in the Bible, depicting the story of Job, regarded by Blavatsky as far older than the Pentateuch. She points out that there is no reference to any of the Hebrew patriarchs, that Jehovah is not mentioned in the poem itself, that there is no mention of the Sabbatical institution, and that there is a direct discussion on the worship of the heavenly bodies (prevailing in those days in Arabia). “The Book of Job is a complete representation of ancient initiation and the trials which generally precede this grandest of all ceremonies. The neophyte perceives himself deprived of everything he valued, and afflicted with foul disease. His wife appeals to him to adore God and die; there was no more hope for him” (IU 2:494-5). Elihu the hierophant teaches Job, now ready to learn the meaning of his experience, and Job is able to contact his own higher self or inner god.
Jonah, Jonas (Hebrew) Yōnāh Dove; a Hebrew prophet, son of Amitai, about whom the Bible story relates that he heard the voice of the Lord commanding him to go to Nineveh and cry out against the city because of its wickedness. But instead of following the command, Jonah set off upon a vessel bound to Jaffa, was subsequently cast overboard and swallowing by a “big fish,” in which he remains three days. This is reminiscent of the three days allotted to the initiation experience, and also of the fact that fish is a mystery-term imbodying the idea of either an advanced adept whose consciousness swims in the ether of space or, as in this place, an emblem of the initiation chamber. Further, primitive Christians often spoke of Jesus as the big fish and of themselves as little fishes (pisciculi).
Kālacakratantra. (T. Dus kyi 'khor lo rgyud). A late ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA that was highly influential in Tibet. Although the title of the tantra is often translated as "Wheel of Time," this translation is not attested in the text itself. Kālacakra is the name of the central buddha of the tantra, and the tantra deals extensively with time (kāla) as well as various macrocosmic and microcosmic cycles or wheels (CAKRA). According to legend, King SUCANDRA came to India from his kingdom of sAMBHALA and asked that the Buddha set forth a teaching that would allow him to practice the dharma without renouncing the world. In response, the Buddha, while remaining at Vulture Peak (GṚDHRAKutAPARVATA) in RĀJAGṚHA in the guise of a monk, set forth the Kālacakratantra at Dhānyakataka in southern India (near present-day Amarāvatī) in the guise of the buddha Kālacakra. The king returned to sambhala, where he transcribed the tantra in twelve thousand verses. This text is referred to as the root tantra (mulatantra) and is no longer extant. He also wrote a commentary in sixty thousand verses, also lost. He built a three-dimensional Kālacakra MAndALA at the center of the country, which was transformed into an ideal realm for Buddhist practice, with 960 million villages. The eighth king of sambhala, MaNjusrīkīrti, condensed the original version of the tantra into the abridged version (the Laghukālacakra). A later king of sambhala, Pundarīka, composed the VIMALAPRABHĀ commentary, considered crucial for understanding the tantra. These two texts were eventually transported from sambhala to India. Internal evidence in the text makes it possible to date the composition of the tantra rather precisely to between the dates 1025 and 1040 CE. This was the period of Muslim invasions of northern India under Mahmud of Ghazni, during which great destruction of Buddhist institutions occurred. The tantra, drawing on Hindu mythology, describes a coming apocalyptic war in which Buddhist armies will sweep out of sambhala, defeat the barbarians (mleccha), described as being followers of Madhumati (i.e., Muhammad), and restore the dharma in India. After its composition in northern India, the tantra was promulgated by such figures as Pindo and his disciple ATIsA, as well as NĀROPA. From India, it spread to Nepal and Tibet. The millennial quality of the tantra has manifested itself at particular moments in Tibetan history. Prior to World War II, the PAn CHEN LAMA bestowed the Kālacakra initiation in China in an effort to repel the Japanese invaders. The fourteenth DALAI LAMA has given the initiation many times around the world to promote world peace. ¶ The tantra is an anuttarayogatantra dedicated to the buddha Kālacakra and his consort Visvamātā. However, it differs from other tantras of this class in several ways, including its emphasis on the attainment of a body of "empty form" (sunyatābimba) and on its six-branched yoga (sadangayoga). The tantra itself, that is, the Laghukālacakra or "Abridged Kālacakra," has five chapters, which in the Tibetan commentarial tradition is divided into three sections: outer, inner, and other or alternative. The outer, corresponding to the first chapter, deals with the cosmos and treats such topics as cosmology, astrology, chronology, and eschatology (the story of the apocalyptic war against the barbarians is told there). For example, this section describes the days of the year; each of the days is represented in the full Kālacakra mandala as 360 golden (day/male) and dark (night/female) deities in union, with a single central Kālacakra and consort (YAB YUM) in the center. The universe is described as a four-tiered mandala, whose various parts are homologous to the cosmic body of a buddha. This section was highly influential in Tibetan astrology and calendrics. The new calendar of the Tibetans, used to this day, starts in the year 1027 and is based on the Kālacakra system. The inner Kālacakra, corresponding to the second chapter, deals with human embryology, tantric physiology, medicine, yoga, and alchemy. The human body is described as a microcosm of the universe. The other or alternative Kālacakra, corresponding to the third, fourth, and fifth chapters, sets forth the practice of Kālacakra, including initiation (ABHIsEKA), SĀDHANA, and knowledge (JNĀNA). Here, in the stage of generation (UTPATTIKRAMA), the initiate imagines oneself experiencing conception, gestation, and birth as the child of Kālacakra and Vismamātā. In the stage of completion (NIsPANNAKRAMA), one practices the six-branched yoga, which consists of retraction (pratyāhāra), concentration (DHYĀNA), breath control (PRĀnĀYĀMA), retention (dhāranā), recollection (ANUSMṚTI), and SAMĀDHI. In the last of these six branches, 21,600 moments of immutable bliss are created, which course through the system of channels and CAKRAS to eliminate the material aspects of the body, resulting in a body of "empty form" and the achievement of buddhahood as Kālacakra. The Sekoddesatīkā of Nadapāda (or Nāropa) sets forth this distinctive six-branched yoga, unique to the Kālacakra system. ¶ BU STON, the principal redactor of the canon in Tibetan translation, was a strong proponent of the tantra and wrote extensively about it. DOL PO PA SHES RAB RGYAL MTSHAN, a fourteenth-century JO NANG PA writer, championed the Kālacakra over all other Buddhist writings, assigning its composition to a golden age (kṛtayuga). Red mda' ba gzhon nu blo gros, an important scholar associated with SA SKYA sect, regarded the tantra as spurious. TSONG KHA PA, who was influenced by all of these writers, accepted the Kālacakratantra as an authentic ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA but put it in a category by itself.
kalasābhiseka. (T. bum dbang; C. baoping guanding; J. hobyokanjo; K. pobyong kwanjong 寶瓶灌頂). In Sanskrit, "vase empowerment," "jar empowerment," or "pot empowerment"; one of the four empowerments or initiations (ABHIsEKA) of ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, the other three being the secret empowerment (GUHYĀBHIsEKA), the knowledge of the consort empowerment (PRAJNĀJNĀNĀBHIsEKA), and the fourth empowerment (CATURTHĀBHIsEKA). The vase empowerment is the only one of the four that is used in the three other tantras of KRIYĀTANTRA, CARYĀTANTRA, and YOGATANTRA. The term itself generally is meant to designate a series of empowerments or initiations, variously enumerated, but commonly counted as five: the water, crown, vajra, bell, and name empowerments, with a sixth, called the vajra master (VAJRĀCĀRYA) added in yogatantra and anuttarayogatantra. The vase empowerment may be publicly performed, often in large gatherings, and is considered a prerequisite for the three other empowerments.
Kamsa, Kansa (Sanskrit) Kaṃsa, Kaṃśa 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 — a legend paralleling the massacre of the infants by King Herod of Palestine in the New Testament. In the legends surrounding great religious figures, “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)” (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)
Kaspar One of the three Magi or wise men in Christian legend. In Egypt the scribe of the gods or the recorder was Tehuti (Thoth), who was also the god of wisdom, equivalent to Hermes or Mercury: always present at initiations, and the presiding influence, as initiator, at all ancient initiations. Looking at the Christian story in this context, infant is a name for a “newly born” initiate, who thus is a twice-born (Sanskrit dvija). The star refers to the esoteric wisdom which taught the wise men of the time that the cycle in its turning had brought about the birth of an avatara, a manifestation on this earth of a certain starry or solar divinity. See also BALTHAZAR; MELCHIOR
King’s 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. “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 — the all-vivifying Orb that ‘resurrects’ every morning but to impart life to all — the Sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle” (SD 2:462; cf. SD 2:466&n). See also INITIATION
kirigami. (切紙). In Japanese, "secret initiation documents" (lit. "strips of paper"), ; secret instructions or formulas written on individual pieces of paper, which were used in the medieval Japanese traditions, including the SoTOSHu, to transmit esoteric knowledge and monastic routines. Kirigami were a central pedagogical feature in many fields involving apprenticeships in medieval Japan and were used to transmit knowledge about acting, poetic composition, martial arts, and religious practice. Soto Zen kirigami were also elaborations of the broader Chinese monastic codes (shingi; see QINGGUI) and focused on the secret rituals that a Zen abbot would perform in private, including consecration, funerals, and transmission of precepts or a dharma lineage. Many kirigami also provide short, targeted instruction on individual Zen cases (koan; C. GONG'AN), such as the correct sequence of questions and answers, or the appropriate "capping phrase" (JAKUGO), that would prove mastery of a specific koan. Because kirigami were also kept hidden away in Soto monasteries and were known only to the abbots, access to them was a potent symbol of the abbots' enhanced religious authority.
Kukai. (空海) (774-835). In Japanese, "Sea of Emptiness"; monk who is considered the founder of the tradition, often referred to as the SHINGONSHu, Tomitsu, or simply MIKKYo. He is often known by his posthumous title KoBo DAISHI, or "Great Master Who Spread the Dharma," which was granted to him by Emperor Daigo in 921. A native of Sanuki province on the island of Shikoku, Kukai came from a prominent local family. At the age of fifteen, he was sent to Nara, where he studied the Chinese classics and was preparing to become a government official. However, he seems to have grown disillusioned with this life. At the age of twenty, Kukai was ordained, perhaps by the priest Gonso, and the following year he took the full precepts at ToDAIJI. He is claimed to have experienced an awakening while performing the Kokuzo gumonjiho, a ritual dedicated to the mantra of the BODHISATTVA ĀKĀsAGARBHA. While studying Buddhist texts on his own, Kukai is said to have encountered the MAHĀVAIROCANĀBHISAMBODHISuTRA and, unable to find a master who could teach him to read its MANTRAs, decided to travel to China to learn from masters there. In 804, he was selected as a member of a delegation to China that set sail in four ships; SAICHo was aboard another of the ships. Kukai eventually traveled to the Tang capital of Chang'an, where he studied tantric MIJIAO Buddhist rituals and theory under HUIGUO and Sanskrit under the Indian monk PRAJNA. Under the direction of his Chinese master, Kukai was initiated into the two realm (ryobu) MAndALA lineages of YIXING, sUBHAKARASIMHA, VAJRABODHI, and AMOGHAVAJRA. In 806, Kukai returned to Japan; records of the texts and implements he brought with him are preserved in the Shorai mokuroku. Little is known about his activities until 809, when he moved to Mt. Takao by imperial request. Kukai described his new teachings as mikkyo, or "secret teachings," VAJRAYĀNA (J. kongojo), and MANTRAYĀNA (J. shingonjo). At the core of Kukai's doctrinal and ritual program was the belief that all acts of body, speech, and mind are rooted in, and expressions of, the cosmic buddha MAHĀVAIROCANA (see VAIROCANA), as the DHARMAKĀYA. Kukai argued that the dharmakāya itself teaches through the artistic and ritual forms that he brought to Japan. Once his teachings gained some renown, Kukai conducted several ABHIsEKA ceremonies, including one for the TENDAI patriarch SAICHo and his disciples. However, Kukai and Saicho's relationship soured when Kukai refused to transmit the highest level of initiation to Saicho. In 816, Emperor Saga granted Kukai rights to KoYASAN, to serve as a training center for his Shingon mikkyo tradition. In early 823, Kukai was granted the temple of ToJI in Kyoto, which became a second center for the Shingon tradition. In the summer of 825, Kukai built a lecture hall at Toji, and in 827 he was promoted to senior assistant high priest in the Bureau of Clergy. In 829, he built an abhiseka platform at Todaiji. In early 834, he received permission to establish a Shingon chapel within the imperial palace, where he constructed a mandala altar. Kukai passed into eternal SAMĀDHI (J. nyujo) in 835 on Mt. Koya, and it is said that he remains in his mausoleum in meditation waiting for the BODHISATTVA MAITREYA to appear. Kukai authored a number of important texts, including the BENKENMITSU NIKYoRON, a treatise outlining the inherent differences of kengyo (revealed) and mikkyo (inner) teachings; Sokushin jobutsugi, a treatise on the doctrine of attainment of buddhahood in "this very body" (J. SOKUSHIN JoBUTSU); Unjigi, a text describing the contemplation of Sanskrit syllables (S. BĪJA, J. shuji); Shojijissogi, a text outlining Kukai's theory of language in which all sounds and letters are themselves full embodiments of the dharmakāya's teachings; and his magnum opus, the HIMITSU MANDARA JuJuSHINRON, in which Kukai makes his case for recognizing Shingon mikkyo as the pinnacle of Buddhist wisdom. Kukai was an accomplished calligrapher, poet, engineer, and sculptor and is also said to have invented kana, the Japanese syllabary.
Kuklos Anankes, Kuklos Anagkes (Greek) The circle or wheel of necessity; may stand for the journey of the disimbodied entity to the state of devachan and back to earth, which was at times symbolized by the serpent-mounds, the serpent swallowing his tail, and other emblems of the dragon, all of which among other things denote cyclic time. In the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis were celebrated the sacred Mysteries of kuklos anankes, in which the candidates for initiation were given actual instructions in the inexorable laws traced for every disimbodied soul.
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 king’s 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.
Liberation of the self from the causes of illusion is sometimes spoken of in relation to the seven sensitive and sensory veils, especially with reference to the human manas principle. Emancipation consists in recognizing that these veils, of which the lower four are by far the most illusory, are the perceivers, and that the function of the true self is those higher faculties which collate and discriminate among perceptions of all kinds and which reach final and true judgment. The self sees or ascertains truth; the veils perceive and are caught by the webs of illusion. The one who has achieved this is said to have attained the fire of knowledge, which destroys not only illusion but even destroys the causes leading to the planes of illusion. Vishnu, among the Vaishnavas in India, and Siva among the Saivas, or indeed of any other divinity, can be considered the cause of final emancipation when used for the true self, exactly as Christians may claim with perfect truth that the Christ (in man) is the shower of final emancipation. The successive emancipation from the seven veils marks seven stages of initiation. Buddhi, from this standpoint the highest, most diaphanous, and therefore the closest to reality of the veils, is said to be transformed into the tree whose fruit is emancipation.
Lion In Christian mystical thought one of the four sacred animals of the Bible, associated with the evangelist Mark and, as in the mystical thought of other peoples, representing intense energy, sometimes undaunted courage, and occasionally the solar fire. The lion was a favorite symbol with the ancients, for instance with the Chaldeans, and as a leitmotif of Chaldean art is found extensively. It is also found frequently on Gnostic gems and as emblem and as symbol among the ancient Mithraists, where the lion was one of the stages of instruction and initiation.
Loa ::: Also "Lwa". The principal spirits of Haitian Vodou that are served as part of initiation into and practice within its tradition.
logon ::: 1. (jargon) login.2. (networking) In ACF/VTAM, an unformatted session-initiation request for a session between two logical units. (1996-03-07)
logon 1. "jargon" {login}. 2. "networking" In {ACF}/{VTAM}, an unformatted session-initiation request for a session between two {logical units}. (1996-03-07)
MahāvairocanābhisaMbodhisutra. (T. Rnam par snang mdzad chen po mngon par rdzogs par byang chub pa rnam par sprul ba byin gyis rlob pa shin tu rgyas pa mdo; C. Da piluzhena chengfo shenbian jiachi jing/Dari jing; J. Daibirushana jobutsu jinben kajikyo/Dainichikyo; K. Tae Pirojana songbul sinbyon kaji kyong /Taeil kyong 大毘盧遮那成佛神 變加持經/大日經). In Sanskrit, "The Discourse on the Enlightenment of Mahāvairocanā"; a scripture also known as the Mahāvairocanasutra and the VairocanābhisaMbodhitantra; the full title of the work is MahāvairocanābhisaMbodhivikurvitādhisthānavaipulyasutra ("Extensive Sutra on the Enlightenment, Transformations, and Empowerment of MAHĀVAIROCANĀ"). This scripture is an early Buddhist TANTRA, which was probably composed sometime between the mid-sixth and seventh centuries, around the time that the MANTRAYĀNA was emerging as distinct strand of MAHĀYĀNA Buddhism; the text is later classified as both a YOGATANTRA and a CARYĀTANTRA. It was first translated into Chinese by sUBHAKARASIMHA and YIXING in 724-725, and would become one of the two most important tantras for East Asian esoteric Buddhism (the other being the SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAMGRAHA). The text was translated into Tibetan in the early ninth century; the Tibetan version contains an additional seven chapters, called the "continuation" (uttaratantra), that do not appear in the Chinese version. Among the commentaries to the text, the most important is that of BUDDHAGUYHA and that of the Chinese translators, subhakarasiMha and Yixing. The tantra is set forth as a dialogue between VAJRAPĀnI and the buddha Mahāvairocanā. The central topics of the text are BODHICITTA, KARUnĀ, and UPĀYA, which the buddha VAIROCANA explains are respectively the cause, root, and culmination of his own omniscience. Much of the text deals with the traditional tantric topics of initiation (ABHIsEKA), MANTRA recitation, MUDRĀ, visualization, and the description of the MAndALA.
mandala. (T. dkyil 'khor; C. mantuluo; J. mandara; K. mandara 曼荼羅). In Sanskrit, lit. "circle"; a polysemous term, best known for its usage in tantric Buddhism as a type of "circular diagram." Employed widely throughout South, East, and Central Asia, mandala are highly flexible in form, function, and meaning. The core concept of mandala originates from the Sanskrit meaning "circle," where a boundary is demarcated and increasing significance is accorded to areas closer to the center; the Tibetan translation (dkyil 'khor) "center periphery" emphasizes this general scheme. In certain contexts, mandalas can have the broad sense of referring to circular objects ("mandala of the moon") or a complete collection of constituent parts ("mandala of the universe"). This latter denotation is found in Tibetan Buddhism, where a symbolic representation of the universe is offered to buddhas and bodhisattvas as a means of accumulating merit, especially as a preliminary practice (SNGON 'GRO). Mandalas may have begun as a simple circle drawn on the ground as part of a ritual ceremony, especially for consecration, initiation, or protection. In its developed forms, a mandala is viewed as the residential palace for a primary deity-located at the center-surrounded by an assembly of attendant deities. This portrayal may be considered either a symbolic representation or the actual residence; it may be mentally imagined or physically constructed. The latter constitutes a significant and highly developed contribution to the sacred arts of many Asian cultures. Mandalas are often depicted two dimensionally by a pattern of basic geometric shapes and are most commonly depicted in paint or colored powders. These are thought of almost as architectural floor plans, schematic representations viewed from above of elaborate three-dimensional structures, mapping an ideal cosmos where every element has a symbolic meaning dependent upon the ritual context. Mandalas are occasionally fashioned in three dimensions from bronze or wood, with statues of deities situated in the appropriate locations. When used in a private setting, such as in the Buddhist visualization meditation of deity yoga (DEVATĀYOGA), the practitioner imagines the entire universe as purified and transformed into the transcendent mandala-often identifying himself or herself with the form of the main deity at the center. In other practices, the mandala is visualized within the body, populated by deities at specific locations. In public rituals, including tantric initiations and consecration ceremonies, a central mandala can be used as a common basis for the participation of many individuals, who are said to enter the mandala. The mandala is also understood as a special locus of divine power, worthy of ritual worship and which may confer "blessings" upon devotees. Religious monuments (BOROBUDUR in Java), institutions (BSAM YAS monastery in Tibet), and even geographical locations (WUTAISHAN in China) are often understood as mandalas. Mandalas have also entered the popular vocabulary of the West. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed theories of cognition incorporating mandalas as an analytical model. The fourteenth DALAI LAMA has used the KĀLACAKRA mandala as a means of spreading a message of peace throughout the world. See also KONGoKAI; TAIZoKAI.
mantra ::: Mantra A chanted sacred mystic syllable, word or verse used in meditation and japa (continuous chanting, i.e. repetition of a mantra) to still the mind, to balance the inner bodies, and to attain other desired aims. In her book Initiations and Initiates in Tibet, Alexandra David-Neel speaks briefly of the mystical use of the mantra, Aum mani padme hum! (The Jewel is in the Lotus!). Each of the six syllables refers us to a specific world or universe. As the practitioner breathes in while repeating the mantra, the worlds come into being within his body, an event he is to visualise. As he breathes out, they dissolve into nothingness.
Māratika. (T. 'Chi ba mthar byed). A cave in eastern Nepal near the town of Rumjitar, called Haileshi in Nepali, believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be the site where PADMASAMBHAVA and his consort MANDĀRAVĀ undertook the practice of longevity for three months. According to traditional accounts, in a vision the couple received initiation and blessings directly from the buddha AMITĀYUS, and Padmasambhava attained the state of a VIDYĀDHARA with the power to control the duration of his life.
Mar pa Chos kyi blo gros. (Marpa Chokyi Lodro) (1012-1097). A renowned Tibetan translator and lay Buddhist master who played an important role in the later transmission (PHYI DAR) of Buddhism from India to Tibet. He is regarded as the Tibetan founder of the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism, which traces its lineage to India and the MAHĀSIDDHAs TILOPA and NĀROPA. In his traditional biographies, Mar pa is generally regarded as a reincarnation of the Indian mahāsiddha DOMBĪ HERUKA. Mar pa was born to wealthy landowners in the southern Tibetan region of LHO BRAG and quickly proved to be a gifted child. As an adult, Mar pa was characterized as having a volatile temper, although ultimately compassionate. His parents sent their son to study Sanskrit and Indian vernacular languages with the translator 'BROG MI SHĀKYA YE SHES in western Tibet. Because resources for studying Buddhism in Tibet were limited as the so-called dark period between the earlier dissemination (SNGA DAR) and later dissemination (phyi dar) came to an end, Mar pa decided to make the harrowing journey to India to seek instruction from Buddhist masters. He would make three journeys there over the course of his life. He first spent three years in Nepal, acclimating to the new environment and continuing his study of local languages. There he met two Nepalese teachers, Chitherpa and Paindapa, who offered many religious instructions but also encouraged Mar pa to seek out the master who would become his chief guru, the great SIDDHA NĀROPA. According to tradition, Mar pa studied under Nāropa at the forest retreat of Pullahari, receiving initiations and teachings of several important tantric lineages, especially those of the BKA' 'BABS BZHI (four transmissions) that Nāropa had received from his principal teacher TILOPA. Despite the fame of this encounter, contemporary Tibetan sources indicate that Mar pa himself never claimed to have studied directly with Nāropa, who had already passed away prior to Mar pa's trip to India. Mar pa's other great master was the Indian siddha MAITRĪPA, from whom he received instruction in MAHĀMUDRĀ and the tradition of DOHĀ, or spiritual song. Mar pa received other tantric transmissions from Indian masters such as JNānagarbha and Kukkurīpā. Upon his return to Tibet, Mar pa married several women, the most well known being BDAG ME MA, who figures prominently in the life story of MI LA RAS PA. He began his career as teacher and translator, while also occupying himself as landowner and farmer. He had intended to pass his dharma lineage to his son DARMA MDO SDE, for whom Mi la ras pa's famous tower was built, but the child was killed in an equestrian accident. Mar pa's accumulated instructions were later passed to four principal disciples: Ngog Chos sku rdo rje (Ngok Choku Dorje), Mes tshon po (Me Tsonpo), 'Tshur dbang nge (Tsur Wangnge), and the renowned YOGIN and poet Mi la ras pa. At least sixteen works translated from Sanskrit by Mar pa are preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. He is also known as Mar pa LO TSĀ BA (Marpa the Translator) and Lho brag pa (Man from Lhodrak). Among the biographies of Mar pa, one of the most famous is that by GTSANG SMYON HERUKA.
Master mason: In Freemasonry, a person who has been awarded the third degree of initiation.
mauna diksha. ::: silent initiation
Mi la ras pa. (Milarepa) (1028/40-1111/23). The most famous and beloved of Tibetan YOGINs. Although he is associated most closely with the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism, he is revered throughout the Tibetan cultural domain for his perseverance through hardship, his ultimate attainment of buddhahood in one lifetime, and for his beautiful songs. The most famous account of his life (the MI LA RAS PA'I RNAM THAR, or "The Life of Milarepa") and collection of spiritual songs (MI LA'I MGUR 'BUM, or "The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa") are extremely popular throughout the Tibetan world. The themes associated with his life story-purification of past misdeeds, faith and devotion to the GURU, ardor in meditation and yogic practice, and the possibility of attaining buddhahood despite the sins of his youth-have inspired developments in Buddhist teaching and practice in Tibet. Mi la was his clan name; ras pa is derived from the single cotton robe (ras) worn by Tibetan anchorites, an attire Milarepa retained for most of his life. The name is therefore an appellation, "The Cotton-clad Mi la." Although his dates are the subject of debate, biographies agree that Mi la ras pa was born to a wealthy family in the Gung thang region of southwestern Tibet. He was given the name Thos pa dga', literally "Delightful to Hear." At an early age, after the death of his father, the family estate and inheritance were taken away by Mi la ras pa's paternal aunt and uncle, leaving Mi la ras pa, his mother, and his sister to suffer poverty and disgrace. At the urging of his mother, Mi las ras pa studied sorcery and black magic in order to seek revenge. He was successful in his studies, causing a roof to collapse during a wedding party hosted by his relatives, with many killed. Eventually feeling remorse and recognizing the karmic consequences of his deeds, he sought salvation through the practice of Buddhism. After brief studies with several masters, he met MAR PA CHOS KYI BLO GROS, who would become his root guru. Mar pa was esteemed for having traveled to India, where he received valuable tantric instructions. However, Mar pa initially refused to teach Mi la ras pa, subjecting him to all forms of verbal and physical abuse. He made him undergo various ordeals, including constructing single-handedly several immense stone towers (including the final tower built for Mar pa's son called SRAS MKHAR DGU THOG, or the "nine-storied son's tower"). When Mi la ras pa was at the point of despair and about to abandon all hope of receiving the teachings, Mar pa then revealed that the trials were a means of purifying the negative KARMAN of his black magic that would have prevented him from successfully practicing the instructions. Mar pa bestowed numerous tantric initiations and instructions, especially those of MAHĀMUDRĀ and the practice of GTUM MO, or "inner heat," together with the command to persevere against all hardship while meditating in solitary caves and mountain retreats. He was given the initiation name Bzhad pa rdo rje (Shepa Dorje). Mi la ras pa spent the rest of his life practicing meditation in seclusion and teaching small groups of yogin disciples through poetry and songs of realization. He had little interest in philosophical discourse and no tolerance for intellectual pretension; indeed, several of his songs are rather sarcastically directed against the conceits of monastic scholars and logicians. He was active across southern Tibet, and dozens of locations associated with the saint have become important pilgrimage sites and retreat centers; their number increased in the centuries following his death. Foremost among these are the hermitages at LA PHYI, BRAG DKAR RTA SO, CHU DBAR, BRIN, and KAILĀSA. Bhutanese tradition asserts that he traveled as far as the STAG TSHANG sanctuary in western Bhutan. Foremost among Milarepa's disciples were SGAM PO PA BSOD NAMS RIN CHEN and RAS CHUNG PA RDO RJE GRAGS. According to his biography, Mi la ras pa was poisoned by a jealous monk. Although he had already achieved buddhahood and was unharmed by the poison, he allowed himself to die. His life story ends with his final instructions to his disciples, the account of his miraculous cremation, and of how he left no relics despite the pleas of his followers.
Miles (Latin) Soldier; name given to the candidate who passed the third stage of initiation into the Mithraic Brotherhood.
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 Masonry is undeniably the dim and hazy reflection of primeval Occult Masonry, of the teaching of those divine Masons who established the Mysteries of the prehistoric and prediluvian Temples and Initiation, raised by truly superhuman Builders” (BCW 14:168).
Muluk-taoos, Muluk-taus (Arabic, Yezidi) The lord peacock; symbol of the principal deity worshiped by the Yezidis, who is regarded as accomplishing the work of creation under the command of the supreme Deity. Although looked upon as a fallen angel and the source of all evil, he is not named the Devil, but is the emblem of intellectual pride on the one hand, and of hundred-eyed cosmic intelligence or intellect on the other: referring to the equivalent Persian legend of the creation of the peacock by the Evil One. The hundred-eyed peacock, however, may also stand for initiation, wisdom, the bird of the gods and goddesses connected with secret learning (SD 2:514; TG 218).
Mystagogy [from Greek mystes an initiated person + agogos a conductor] Initiation into the Mysteries; also the teachings and practices of the Mysteries. The initiator was a mystagog.
Mysteries: In occultism or esoteric philosophies, this term is used in general for any occult discipline or body of teachings or practice, the nature and meaning of which cannot be divulged to non-initiates. Specifically, rites of antiquity in which priests, initiates and neophytes enacted allegorical scenes from the lives of gods and goddesses, the secret meaning of which was explained to new adherents upon initiation. (See Dionysian mysteries; Eleusinian mysteries; Isis-Osiris mysteries; Mithraism; mystery cult; Orphic mysteries; Phrygian mysteries.)
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)
Mystically speaking, there are two baptisms: that of water and that of fire; the former pertaining to the plane of matter, the latter to that of spirit. In the New Testament, John the Baptist says: “I baptize you with water, but a greater than I shall come, who will baptize you with fire.” Jesus instructs Nicodemus as to the two births: the birth of water and the birth of the spirit. Baptism was therefore a ceremonial pertaining to an inferior degree of initiation.
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.
Nabathean Agriculture was translated about 1860 by Orientalist Chwolsohn into German from the Arabic translation of the Chaldean, widely considered a forgery. The Jewish scholar Maimonides (1135-1204), however, spoke pointedly of it as a specimen of archaic literature, though he disagreed with its teachings. Chwolsohn describes the book as a complete initiation into the mysteries of the “pre-Adamite” nations, and a compendium of Chaldean and other ancient lore. But the book shows periods of incalculable duration and numberless dynasties preceding the so-called Adamic race. The doctrines propounded therein were originally told by Saturn to the Moon, who communicated them to her eidolon, who revealed them to the author of the original work, Qu-tamy.
Name, Sacred Most names are labels, and according to ancient occult theory to disclose the real name of a being is to evoke the presence of that being, a knowledge which is made use of in magical evocations. To name the Deity would be an initiation, a revelation, fit only for ears prepared to receive it. Supreme deities are said to be ineffable — their names cannot or may not be spoken — as was the case with the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, IHVH, often written Jehovah, Jahveh, etc., but whose real pronunciation was secret and sacred. Qabbalists, in order to screen the real mystery-name of ’eyn soph (the boundless), substituted the name of one of the personal creative ’elohim, the hermaphrodite Jah-Eve; and the name was made sacred in order to conceal the deception (SD 2:126). As a substitute for Jehovah the name ’Adonai (my Lords), was afterwards used when reading the ancient Hebrew scriptures aloud for and instead of the characters, which appeared written on the manuscript, because YHVH was considered too holy for utterance.
Naqib (A) Leader, adjutant, herald a title that Hazrat Inayat Khan gave to mureeds equal in initiation and competence as the Khalif, the duties of guiding mureeds. They could not attend Jamiat Am meetings without specific invitation.
Neichi Toin. (1557-1629). Important Mongolian teacher who helped to spread Buddhism in Inner Mongolia; his traditional biography appears in a work entitled Cindamani-yin erike. Neichi Toin was the son of a Torghud noble. In order to comply with his father's wishes, he married and fathered a child, but left the family home in his late twenties and traveled to Tibet. He spent several years at BKRA SHIS LHUN PO monastery, where he studied with the first PAn CHEN LAMA, BLO BZANG CHOS KYI RGYAL MTSHAN, receiving tantric initiation from him. He excelled particularly in practices associated with YAMĀNTAKA. In the 1590s, he returned to Mongolia, first to the Khalka region and then to Hohhot, where he spent the next thirty years living as a yogin with a group of disciples. His biography, which seems to take the story of MI LA RAS PA as its model, describes his habitation in mountain caves, his practice of GTUM MO, his unconventional behavior, and his performance of various miracles. He is said to have worn blue and green robes and to have taken money intended for monasteries and given it to the poor. Around 1629, he went to Eastern Mongolia, where he sought to spread Buddhism, bringing him into conflict with local shamans. He secured the support of powerful nobles, leading to the founding of four monasteries in the region. Although a devotee of the DGE LUGS PA, he ran afoul of the fifth DALAI LAMA (NGAG DBANG BLO BZANG RGYA MTSHO), who criticized him for giving the YAMĀNTAKA initiation to those without the proper qualification and for claiming to be the incarnation of TSONG KHA PA. On a more political level, it appears that the Dalai Lama was concerned that a Mongol was developing a strong following outside the bounds of the Dge lugs hierarchy controlled from LHA SA. When a formal complaint was brought against Neichi Toin, the Manchu emperor deferred to the Dalai Lama, who declared that Neichi Toin did not have the necessary qualifications to be a high lama. He was therefore purged and his followers disbanded.
Neophyte: A novice in occult or esoteric discipline. A candidate for initiation into the mysteries.
Neophyte [from Greek neophytos newly-grown] One who, precisely because he has newly grown, is newly reborn, signifying one who has already passed successfully at least the first degree in initiation. Used for a novice in the Greek Septuagint and the New Testament, and often used for a candidate for initiation into the Mysteries, though not found in Greek literature in that sense; mystae, for example, describes neophytes or beginners who have already passed the first stages in initiation and who are therefore sworn to silence.
nispannakrama. (T. rdzogs rim; C. yuanman cidi; J. enmanshidai; K. wonman ch'aje 圓滿次第). In Sanskrit, "stage of completion" (also called saMpannakrama and utpannakrama); one of the two major phases of ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA practice, the other being the UTPATTIKRAMA, variously translated as the "stage of generation," "creation stage," or "development stage." The stage of generation is considered the preparation for the stage of completion. After having received initiation (ABHIsEKA), during the stage of generation the practitioner engages in the practice of detailed visualization of himself or herself as a deity and the environment as a MAndALA. Meditation on emptiness (suNYATĀ) is also involved. The central point of the practice is to vividly imagine oneself as the buddha one is going to become and thus simulate the process whereby this achievement will occur. The stage of completion is the period in which the actual achievement of buddhahood by the path of anuttarayogatantra occurs. Here, the meditator engages in practices that cause the winds (PRĀnA) to enter the central channel (AVADHuTĪ) and gather at the heart CAKRA, causing the mind of clear light (PRABHĀSVARA) to become manifest, at which point the three states of death, intermediate state (ANTARĀBHAVA), and rebirth are transformed respectively into the DHARMAKĀYA, SAMBHOGAKĀYA, and NIRMĀnAKĀYA of a buddha.
novitiate ::: n. --> The state of being a novice; time of initiation or instruction in rudiments.
Hence: Time of probation in a religious house before taking the vows.
One who is going through a novitiate, or period of probation; a novice.
The place where novices live or are trained.
Od is also used, together with the Hebrew words ob (’ob) and aour (’or), by Eliphas Levi to denote aspects of the astral light. Ob is a well-known word for sorcery and necromancy, for a sorcerer or necromancer, as well as occasionally signifying an astral shade or spook. Aour, on the contrary, signifies light, brilliance, and hence revelation and the light of initiation.
of loyalty, oath of allegiance; initiation as a disciple of a religious guide.
One of the ideas which early Christianity took over from the esoteric teaching of the Mediterranean peoples, the apostolic succession was originally derived from the passing on of light from one adept to another at initiation, thus constituting what is called the guruparampara or the succession of teacher following teacher in regular serial order. A similar institution existed in the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose hierophants were drawn from one family, the Eumolpidae, as well as in many other parts of the world.
Oracle A divine saying, or the place or means by which a divine message is communicated. The soul, according to Plato, has a certain innate prophetic power. The person in whom this power is fully manifest needs no means of communication; in some it may be manifest temporarily and under certain conditions. In the Greek Heroic ages, deities spoke or appeared directly to man, as we see in Homer. Later, indirect means of communication were used, which may be classed under the general name of oracular. In some cases the intervention of a seer was employed, as in the Sibyllae of Rome and the Pythian seeress of Delphi. Sometimes the “spirits” of the dead were consulted, as in the case of Saul and the wise woman of Endor, and Aeneas and Anchises. The earth and the chthonic deities played an important part: at Delphi, though Apollo was consulted, yet the priestess was entranced, as alleged, through the influence of vapors from the earth; sometimes descent into subterranean caves was necessary, and the inquirer might have to undergo experiences analogous to those of one who dies, as in initiation. Again, it was often customary for the inquirer to sleep in a sacred place to obtain in a dream a revelation from the presiding deity. Or the message might be conveyed by some sign requiring the skill of a diviner for its interpretation, but this comes under the head of divination and omens. The whole purpose was to supplement the intelligence of the incarnate man by appealing to truly spiritual intelligences.
’Or (Hebrew) ’Ōr [from ’ōr to be or become light] Also aior, aour, aur. Light, with secondary meanings of dawn, daybreak, lightning; the light of life; mystically light in the sense of instruction, knowledge, hence doctrine. Metaphorically, happiness, prosperity, guidance, and a teacher. By extension when used with paneh (face), to make the face shine, said of a candidate during initiation.
Our notion of free will is apt to be tainted with the excessive individualism of the human ego and to assume the figure of an independent will acting on its own isolated account, in a complete liberty without any determination other than its own choice and single unrelated movement. This idea ignores the fact that our natural being is a part of cosmic Nature and our spiritual being exists only by the supreme Transcendence. Our total being can rise out of subjection to fact of present Nature only by an identification with a greater Truth and a greater Nature. The will of the individual, even when completely free, could not act in an isolated independence, because the individual being and nature are included in the universal Being and Nature and dependent on the all-overruling Transcendence. There could indeed be in the ascent a dual line. On one line the being could feel and behave as an independent self-existence uniting itself with its own impersonal Reality; it could, so self-conceived, act with a great force, but either this action would be still within an enlarged frame of its past and present self-formation of power of Nature or else it would be the cosmic or supreme Force that acted in it and there would be no personal initiation of action, no sense therefore of individual free will but only of an impersonal cosmic or supreme Will or Energy at its work. On the other line the being would feel itself a spiritual instrument and so act as a power of the Supreme Being, limited in its workings only by the potencies of the Supernature, which are without bounds or any restriction except its own Truth and self-law, and by the Will in her. But in either case there would be, as the condition of a freedom from the control of a mechanical action of Nature-forces, a submission to a greater conscious Power or an acquiescent unity of the individual being with its intention and movement in his own and in the world’s existence.” The Life Divine
Pastophori (Greek) Shrine-bearers; a class of candidates for initiation, especially in ancient Egypt, who bore the coffin containing the defunct — the sun god killed and resurrected — in the ceremony at which a candidate for higher initiation has to pass through the portals of death.
Pater (Greek, Latin) Father; the seventh and last degree of initiation in the Mithraic Brotherhood.
triggering - Initiation of an action in a circuit which then functions for a predetermined time. Example: The duration of one sweep in a cathode ray tube.
P.G.M. ::: Papyri Graecae Magicae. A collection of papyrus manuscripts from ancient Graeco-Roman Egypt that is the basis for some modern paradigms of magic and initiation. Several notable rites detailed or discussed on this site are derived from workings in the P.G.M. including the "Calling of the Sevenths to Induce Equilibrium" and the "Stele of Jeu".
'Phags pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan. (Pakpa Lodro Gyaltsen) (1235-1280). An eminent scholar of the SA SKYA sect of Tibetan Buddhism, famed for the position of political power he held at the court of the Mongol emperor of Qubilai Khan (r. 1260-1294). He is also revered as one of the five great Sa skya forefathers (SA SKYA GONG MA RNAM LNGA). 'Phags pa's uncle, SA SKYA PAndITA, was summoned to the court of the Mongol prince Godan in 1244, eventually meeting the prince in 1247. 'Phags pa and his younger brother accompanied their uncle during this journey. After Sa skya Pandita cured Godan Khan of a disease and converted him to Buddhism, the khan appointed him as regent of Tibet under Mongol patronage, and the young 'Phags pa was invited to remain at the Mongol court. After the death of Godan Khan, Qubilai Khan summoned 'Phags pa to his court (at what would come to be called Shangdu), seeking to solidify Mongol rule over Tibet by controlling the politically powerful Sa skya leaders. En route, he gave teachings in eastern Tibet and converted the Rdzong gsar region from BON to Buddhism, establishing the Sa skya tradition there. According to some accounts, 'Phags pa arrived at Qubilai Khan's court in 1253. He soon impressed the emperor with his erudition and display of magical powers, which apparently outshone those of other religious figures at the Mongol court, defeating Daoist priests in debate. By 1258, 'Phags pa had so impressed his hosts, first the emperor's wife Chabi and then Qubilai himself, that he was asked to bestow tantric initiations and teachings, thus converting the imperial couple to Buddhism. According to an arrangement suggested by Chabi, 'Phags pa would sit in a lower position than the emperor during state rituals, and the emperor would sit in a lower position than 'Phags pa in religious rituals. 'Phags pa would later identify Qubilai Khan as an incarnation of MANJUsRĪ and as a CAKRAVARTIN. In 1260, the year Qubilai ascended to the rank of Great Khan, 'Phags pa was given the official positions of imperial preceptor (C. dishi) and state preceptor (C. GUOSHI). In this latter position, he was the head of the Buddhist clergy of the entire empire, including Tibet, although he himself remained in China. A new office of dpon chen (great minister) was created for a Mongol-appointed Tibetan official who would serve as civil and military administrator for Tibet. In 1280, 'Phags pa died, allegedly having been poisoned by the dpon chen. The relationship between 'Phags pa and Qubilai is often cited as the model for the subsequent relationship between Tibet and China known as "patron and priest" (YON MCHOD). According to the Tibetan view, this relationship was formed between the leading lama of Tibet (a position later filled by the DALAI LAMAs) who acted as chief spiritual advisor and priest to the emperor, who in return acted as patron and protector of the lama and the dominion of the Buddhist realm, Tibet. 'Phags pa is often called by the honorific title chos rgyal, or "dharma king," and is also credited with creating in 1269 a new script for the pan-empire use of the Mongolian language. The square forms of the 'Phags pa script had been thought by some scholars to have been the model for the creation of the indigenous Korean alphabet of Han'gŭl in the mid-fifteenth century. However, it is now generally believed that the shapes of the Han'gŭl letters mimic the mouth's shape when articulating classes of consonants, although probably with some influence from the 'Phags pa forms.
'pho ba. (powa). In Tibetan, "transferring consciousness," a tantric practice included among the "six yogas of NĀROPA" (NĀ RO CHOS DRUG) by which one is able to eject one's consciousness from one's body (through the aperture at the top of the skull) at the moment of death and send it into a pure realm, with SUKHĀVATĪ of the buddha AMITĀBHA generally the preferred destination. In order to gain this ability, the practitioner requires instruction and initiation. Although the practice is found in all sects of Tibetan Buddhism (as well as in BON), it is particularly associated with the BKA' BRGYUD, and within it the 'BRI GUNG. It is one of the few forms of meditation in Tibet that is practiced by laypeople and one of the few forms that is practiced in a group setting.
Phorminx (Greek) The seven-stringed lyre of Apollo, which he gave to Orpheus; representing the sevenfold mystery of initiation, and other corresponding septenates. Among these, mainly perhaps, the seven-stringed lyre stands for seven-principled nature, both built by and producing sound when the breath of the spirit sweeps over its strings (principles or elements).
Planet ::: In terms of planetary magic this refers to one of the seven classical planets in Hermetic astrology. In respect to initiation, a planet is more of a primordial archetype that reality tends to coalesce around: something that is fundamental to the experiences that we have; it can also be viewed as a current through which the experience that is human consciousness is tapped into. The planet, as worked with in planetary magic, is associated with a certain Kabbalistic Sephirah and can generally be viewed as the same thing. The physical planets do not exactly correspond to the archetypal ones we reference here. Also called "spheres" on this site.
prajNājNānābhiseka. (T. shes rab ye shes kyi dbang). In Sanskrit, lit., "knowledge of the wisdom empowerment," with wisdom (PRAJNĀ) here referring to a tantric consort. It is the third of the four empowerments or initiations employed in the ANUTTARAYOGATANTRAs, the other three being the vase empowerment (KALAsĀBHIsEKA) and the secret empowerment (GUHYĀBHIsEKA) that precede it, and the fourth empowerment (CATURTHĀBHIsEKA), which follows it. Having received the vase empowerment, in the secret empowerment the disciple ingests a drop of fluid (called BODHICITTA) that results from the sexual intercourse of his master and a consort. In the knowledge of the consort empowerment, the disciple engages in sexual union with the same consort, resulting in increasing levels of bliss, which is said to result as a drop (BINDU) that ascends through the central channel (AVADHuTĪ). Although later monastic exegetes would interpret these empowerments symbolically, it appears that they were originally practiced as the tantric systems developed in India, and they continued to be practiced among certain groups of adepts in Tibet.
prarabdha (karma) ::: mechanical action of the instruments of the prakrti continuing by force of old impulsion and habit or continued initiation of past energy.
Probation The process of testing undergone by an aspirant to initiation, who may be simply watched to see how he will meet the temptations and trials of life, or may be caused to encounter certain experiences specially designed to test his powers. The latter is very rare and appertains only to certain conditions of occult training. Life is the great school, and a person tests himself by his actions and reactions to himself and to surrounding nature. He alone thus defines or classifies himself. A candidate taking a vow places himself under such specific watching because he has issued a challenge to his lower nature, which thereupon begins a defensive warfare against him. The process is similar in principle to that undergone by an aspirant to a position of responsibility in worldly affairs, but the aspirant to wisdom has to dig deep into his own nature: he arrays against himself powers that formerly slept, ventures into regions where unknown dangers must be encountered, and by his own will and intelligence climbs the ladder to luminous victory and undreamed of success, or if he fails — he fails but to try again.
Promised Land Exoterically, the so-called Holy Land of Palestine, which was promised to the Hebrews as the goal of their wanderings. All peoples of the earth cherish the hope of reaching a Promised Land where peace, happiness, and prosperity will once again be the endowment of the human race. Esoterically it is nirvana or the pristine spiritual laya-state from which issued the eternal monad and to which it shall ultimately return. It also refers to the sublime consummation of human evolutionary destiny which will take place at the end of the seventh round on the last globe of our planetary chain; and to the reaching by the neophyte through self-devised efforts and initiation of the full status of mahatmaship or minor dhyan-chohanship even on this earth.
Pryderi (Welsh) Anxiety, deep thought, meditation; son of Pwyll Pen Annwn. With Pwyll, a custodian of the cauldron of reincarnation (or initiation) in Caer Pedryfan in Annwn.
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 — the Egyptian Hermes — conducts the candidate.
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.
Pusa yingluo benye jing. (J. Bosatsu yoraku hongokyo; K. Posal yongnak ponop kyong 菩薩瓔珞本業經). In Chinese, "Book of the Original Acts that Adorn the Bodhisattva," in two rolls, translation attributed to ZHU FONIAN (fl. c. 390); a Chinese indigenous sutra (see APOCRYPHA) often known by its abbreviated title of Yingluo jing. The Yingluo jing was particularly influential in the writings of CHAN and TIANTAI exegetes, including such seminal scholastic figures as TIANTAI ZHIYI, who cited the sutra especially in conjunction with discussions of the BODHISATTVA MĀRGA and Mahāyāna VINAYA. The Yingluo jing is perhaps best known for its attempt to synthesize the variant schemata of the Buddhist path (mārga) into a comprehensive regimen of fifty-two BODHISATTVA stages: the ten faiths, the ten abidings, the ten practices, the ten transferences, and the ten grounds (see C. DAsABHuMI; BHuMI); these then culminate in the two stages of buddhahood, virtual or equal enlightenment (dengjue) and sublime enlightenment (miaojue), which the Yingluo jing calls respectively the immaculate stage (wugou di, S. *amalabhumi) and the sublime-training stage (miaoxue di). The Yingluo jing is one of the first texts formally to include the ten faiths in its prescribed mārga schema, as a preliminary level prior to the initiation onto the bodhisattva path proper, which is said to occur at the time of the first arousal of the thought of enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPĀDA) on the first level of the ten abidings. The text therefore adds an additional ten steps to the forty-two named stages of the path outlined in the AVATAMSAKASuTRA (C. Huayan jing), providing a complete fifty-two-stage path, one of the most comprehensive accounts of the mārga to be found in East Asian Buddhist literature. The Yingluo jing also offers one of the most widely cited descriptions of the threefold classification of Buddhist morality (C. sanju jingji; S. sĪLATRAYA), a categorization of precepts found typically in YOGĀCĀRA-oriented materials. The Yingluo jing describes these as (1) the moral code that maintains both the discipline and the deportments (= S. SAMVARAsĪLA) through the ten perfections (PĀRAMITĀ); (2) the moral code that accumulates wholesome dharmas (= S. kusaladharmasaMgrāhaka) through the eighty-four thousand teachings; and (3) the moral code that aids all sentient beings (= S. SATTVĀRTHAKRIYĀ), through exercising loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity (viz. the four BRAHMAVIHĀRA). The Yingluo jing specifies that these three categories of precepts are the foundation of morality for all bodhisattvas. The provenance and authorship of the Pusa yingluo benye jing have long been matters of controversy. In the fifth-century Buddhist catalogue CHU SANZANG JI JI, the compiler Sengyou lists the Pusa yingluo benye jing among miscellaneous works by anonymous translators. In the 594 scriptural catalogue Zhongjing mulu, the scripture is ascribed to Zhu Fonian, while the LIDAI SANBAO JI instead claims that the text was translated by the dhyāna master Zhiyan in 427. Later cataloguers generally accept the attribution to Zhu Fonian, though some note that the translation style differs markedly from that found in other of his renderings. The attribution to Zhu Fonian is also suspect because it includes passages and doctrines that seem to derive from other indigenous Chinese sutras, such as the RENWANG JING, FANWANG JING, etc., as well as passages that appear in earlier Chinese translations of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA, PUSA BENYE JING, SHENGMAN JING, Pusa dichi jing, and DA ZHIDU LUN. Both internal and external evidence therefore suggests that the Yingluo jing is a Chinese apocryphon from the fifth century. ¶ The Pusa yingluo benye jing should be distinguished from the Pusa benye jing ("Basic Endeavors of the Bodhisattvas"), translated by ZHI QIAN (fl. c. 220-252), an authentic translation that offers one of the earliest accounts of the ten stages (S. dasavihāra, DAsABHuMI) translated into Chinese. (It is usually known by its abbreviated title of Benye jing.) This text seems to combine the accounts of the ten bodhisattva stages found in the GAndAVYuHA (viz., AvataMsakasutra) and the MAHĀVASTU and may have been the inspiration for the composition of this indigenous Chinese sutra. (Zhu Fonian also translated a Pusa yingluo jing, which may be how his name became associated with this apocryphal Pusa yingluo benye jing.)
Python (Greek) The serpent slain by Apollo, who was therefore also called Pythius. At one time the world was covered with temples to the sun and dragon: the Ophites adopted it from Egypt, whither it had come from India. It is seen in the story of Bel and the Dragon, of St. George or St. Michael and the Dragon, of Osiris and Typhon, Krishna and Kaliya, and the Lord God and the Serpent of Eden. The cosmic dragon represents the shadow side of the logos, and the opposition between these two is the so-called war in heaven. The dual nature of the serpent is seen in Rahu and Ketu, the Dragon’s head and tail; and Typhon or Apophis, slain by Horus is also called Set, who is in one of his permutations Hermes, god of wisdom, and whose name likewise is that of the Biblical Seth and Satan. In initiations the inner enlightened individual had to confront his lower passions, now personified into a veritable astral monster, and to be either its victor or its victim; when victorious he became the spiritual serpent in its other sense of the dragon of wisdom. This double meaning has its correspondence in the fact that snakes shed their skin and reemerge purified, just as the neophyte through training and initiation sheds the Old Person and reemerges from the tests as the New Person.
quote :::Devotion requires an ideal, and the ideal of the Sufis is the God-ideal. They attain to this ideal by a gradual process. They first take bayat, initiation, from the hand of one whose presence gives them confidence that he will be a worthy counselor in life and a guide on the path as yet untrodden...
raksā. [alt. rāksā] (P. rakkhā; T. srung ba; C. yonghu; J. ogo; K. ongho 擁護). In Sanskirt, "protection," "safeguard," referring to ritual actions or practices that are intended to ward off baleful and impure influences. These protective acts are often performed as a preliminary step in constructing a MAndALA, performing an initiation ritual (ABHIsEKA), or cultivating meditative practices. The ritual is performed by inviting or imagining deities who purify the body, speech, and mind of the practitioner, and remove all inner and outer obstacles and evils; a common form of the Tibetan ritual utilizes a distinctive form of propitiatory offering (S. bali) called a GTOR MA (torma), small conical cakes. The officiating tantric master (VAJRĀCĀRYA) attracts the negative forces (T. gegs) to the offering, where they are propitiated or bound and led away from the assembly. Setting up a "wheel of protection" is an integral part of many ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA ritual practices (SĀDHANA) (see RAKsĀCAKRA). A "protection cord" (raksāsutra; T. srung skud) is ritually embued with protective power by a tantric master and given to each supplicant at the start of an initiation ritual; this is a piece of string or a narrow strip of cloth, usually red, that is tied around the neck, arm, or the wrist to protect the wearer. Tibetan religious figures often give visitors a "protection cord" as a gift. Small amulets (T. ga'u) housing protective buddhas, relics, or tightly rolled copies of ritual invocations or mantras believed to be particularly efficacious against harm are also carried on a belt or around the neck. See also PARITTA; RATANASUTTA.
raksācakra. (T. srung gi 'khor lo). In Sanskrit, "wheel of protection," a figurative wheel used to destroy internal and external evils during tantric rituals and meditative practices. The wheel is created through ritual actions or visualization as a preliminary step in constructing a MAndALA, performing an initiation ritual (ABHIsEKA), or cultivating meditative practices. The wheel has various intents, including maintaining the faithfulness of the disciple toward one's master, destroying the power of an enemy, preventing the intrusion of baleful influences, preventing infectious diseases, or averting a curse. For example, in the GUHYASAMĀJATANTRA, a practitioner visualizes a wheel with ten spokes, representing the ten directions (DAsADIs). Each spoke is occupied by the ten wrathful deities (dasakrodha), who conquer enemies or inner hindrances, the names and the locations of which are as follows: YAMĀNTAKA (east), PrajNāntaka (south), Padmāntaka (west), Vighnāntaka (north), ACALA (northeast), takkirāja (southeast), Nīladanda (southwest), Mahābala (northwest), Usnīsacakravartin (zenith), and Sumbha (nadir). The practitioner then imagines demonic beings filling the areas between the spokes, so that, as the wheel turns, the spokes destroy the demons. In a more detailed explanation, the demons are also bound by ropes and put in well-like cells in the ground. This wheel is also called "wheel of the ten spokes" (dasacakra).
Remission of Sins Remission in the New Testament (Greek aphesis, Latin remissio) means sending away, discharge. The original meaning of remission of sins was the sending away of sinfulness from one’s heart, the purification of one’s nature, resulting from pledging oneself to a new way of life, undergoing initiation, passing through the second birth. In Christianity remission of sins has come to imply the action of deity through a divine agent, as is supposed to have been the case in Jesus. Jesus’ statement at the Last Supper: “This is my blood of the new testament (covenant, dispensation), which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt 26:28), echoes the initiatory rites of the ancient Mysteries, the remission of sins here meaning that when the vitality (blood) of the immanent Christ in the individual becomes the directing influence in his life, there is then no room for sins, which thereafter are discharged, sent away, refused. The karmic consequence, however, of previous sin must in all cases be worked out.
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 — 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.
RFC 2543 ::: (networking, standard) One of the RFCs describing Session Initiation Protocol. .(2000-07-08)
RFC 2543 "networking, standard" One of the {RFCs} describing {Session Initiation Protocol}. {(rfc:2543)}. (2000-07-08)
Rje btsun dam pa. (Jetsün Dampa). In Tibetan, "excellent lord," the Tibetan name of the Khalkha Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the lineage of incarnate lamas who serve as head of the DGE LUGS sect in Mongolia, also known as Bogd Gegen. The lineage was established by the fifth DALAI LAMA, who, after his suppression of the JO NANG sect, declared that the renowned Jo nang scholar TĀRANĀTHA had been reborn in Mongolia, thus taking an important line of incarnations from a rival sect and transferring it to his own Dge lugs sect. The first Rje btsun dam pa was Blo bzang bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan (1635-1723), known in Mongolian as Bogdo Zanabazar or simply Zanabazar. He was the son of the Mongol prince Gombodorj, the Tosiyetu Khan, ruler of the Khan Uula district of Mongolia, and himself became the head of the Khalkha Mongols. He and the second Rje btsun dam pa lama were direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Zanabazar was ordained at the age of five and recognized as the incarnation of Tāranātha, this recognition confirmed by the fifth Dalai Lama and first PAn CHEN LAMA. He spent 1649-1651 in Tibet where he received initiations and teachings from the two Dge lugs hierarchs. Zanabazar is remembered especially as a great sculptor who produced many important bronze images. He was also a respected scholar and a favorite of the Manchu Chinese Kangxi emperor. During the Qing dynasty, the Rje btsun dam pa was selected from Tibet, perhaps in fear that a Mongol lama would become too powerful. During the Qing, it was said that the Qing emperor, the Dalai Lama, and the Rje btsun dam pa were incarnations of MANJUsRĪ, AVALOKITEsVARA, and VAJRAPĀnI, respectively. When northern Mongolia sought independence, the eighth Rje btsun dam pa (1869-1924) assumed the title of emperor of Mongolia, calling himself Boghda Khan (also "Bogd Khan"). He was the head of state until his death in 1924, after which the Communist government declared the end of the incarnation line. However, 'Jam dpal rnam grol chos kyi rgyal mtshan was recognized in LHA SA as the ninth Rje btsun dam pa; he fled into exile in India in 1959.
Rudra-Siva (Sanskrit) Rudra-Śiva Siva in the form of the regenerating god; also “the great Yogi, the forefather of all the Adepts — in Esotericism one of the greatest Kings of the Divine Dynasties. Called ‘the Earliest’ and the ‘Last,’ he is the patron of the Third, Fourth, and the Fifth Root-Races. For, in his earliest character, he is the ascetic Dig-ambara, ‘clothed with the Elements,’ Trilochana, ‘the three-eyed’; Pancha-anana, ‘the five-faced,’ an allusion to the past four and the present fifth race, for, though five-faced, he is only ‘four-armed,’ as the fifth race is still alive. He is the ‘God of Time,’ Saturn-Kronos, as his damaru (drum), in the shape of an hour-glass, shows; and if he is accused of having cut off Brahma’s fifth head, and left him with only four, it is again an allusion to a certain degree in initiation, and also to the Races” (SD 2:502n). See also RUDRA
Sacred science: In occult terminology, the esoteric philosophical secrets taught and disclosed as a part of the initiation to the highest degree in the mysteries (q.v.).
Saicho. (最澄) (767-822). In Japanese, "Most Pure"; the monk traditionally recognized as the founder of the TENDAISHu in Japan; also known as Dengyo Daishi (Great Master Transmission of the Teachings). Although the exact dates and place of Saicho's birth remain a matter of debate, he is said to have been born to an immigrant Chinese family in omi province east of HIEIZAN in 767. At age eleven, Saicho entered the local Kokubunji and studied under the monk Gyohyo (722-797), a disciple of the émigré Chinese monk Daoxuan (702-766). In 785, Saicho received the full monastic precepts at the monastery of ToDAIJI in Nara, after which he began a solitary retreat in a hermitage on Mt. Hiei. In 788, he built a permanent temple on the summit of Mt. Hiei. After Emperor Kanmu (r. 781-806) moved the capital to Kyoto in 794, the political significance of the Mt. Hiei community and thus Saicho seem to have attracted the attention of the emperor. In 797, Saicho was appointed a court priest (naigubu), and in 802 he was invited to the monastery of Takaosanji to participate in a lecture retreat, where he discussed the writings of the eminent Chinese monk TIANTAI ZHIYI on the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA. Saicho and his disciple GISHIN received permission to travel to China in order to acquire Tiantai texts. In 804, they went to the monastery or Guoqingsi on Mt. Tiantai and studied under Daosui (d.u.) and Xingman (d.u.), disciples of the eminent Chinese Tiantai monk JINGQI ZHANRAN. Later, they are also known to have received BODHISATTVA precepts (bosatsukai) from Daosui at Longxingsi. He is also said to have received tantric initiation into the KONGoKAI and TAIZoKAI (RYoBU) MAndALAs from Shunxiao (d.u.). After nine and a half months in China, Saicho returned to Japan the next year with numerous texts, which he catalogued in his Esshuroku. Emperor Kanmu, who had been ill, asked Saicho to perform the esoteric rituals that he had brought back from China as a therapeutic measure. Saicho received permission to establish the Tendai sect and successfully petitioned for two Tendai monks to be ordained each year, one for doctrinal study and one to perform esoteric rituals. After the death of Kanmu in 806, little is known of Saicho's activities. In 810, he delivered a series of lectures at Mt. Hiei on the Saddharmapundarīkasutra, the SUVARnAPRABHĀSOTTAMASuTRA, and the RENWANG JING ("Scripture for Humane Kings"). In 812, Saicho also constructed a meditation hall known as the Hokkezanmaido. Later, Saicho is also said to have received kongokai initiation from KuKAI at the latter's temple Takaosanji, but their relations soured after a close disciple of Saicho's left Saicho for Kukai. Their already tenuous relationship was sundered completely when Saicho requested a tantric initiation from Kukai, who replied that Saicho would need to study for three years with Kukai first. Saicho then engaged the eminent Hossoshu (FAXIANG ZONG) monk Tokuitsu (d.u.) in a prolonged debate concerning the buddha-nature (see BUDDHADHĀTU, FOXING) and Tendai doctrines, such as original enlightenment (see HONGAKU). In response to Tokuitsu's treatises Busshosho and Chuhengikyo, Saicho composed his Shogonjikkyo, Hokke kowaku, and Shugo kokkaisho. Also at this time, Saicho began a prolonged campaign to have an independent MAHĀYĀNA ordination platform established at Mt. Hiei. He argued that the bodhisattva precepts as set forth in the FANWANG JING, traditionally seen as complementary to monastic ordination, should instead replace them. He argued that the Japanese were spiritually mature and therefore could dispense entirely with the HĪNAYĀNA monastic precepts and only take the Mahāyāna bodhisattva precepts. His petitions were repeatedly denied, but permission to establish the Mahāyāna ordination platform at Mt. Hiei was granted a week after his death. Before his death Saicho also composed the Hokke shuku and appointed Gishin as his successor.
samayamudrā. (T. dam tshig gi phyag rgya; C. sanmoye yin; J. sanmayain; K. sammaya in 三摩耶印). In Sanskrit, "seal of the vow," "seal of time," or "seal of the symbol," all three denotations related to objects of meditation in tantric Buddhism. The samayamudrā is usually listed as the third of four "seals" (MUDRĀ), "seal" here being used in the sense of a doorway through which one must pass in order to attain full realization; the other three are the KARMAMUDRĀ, the JNĀNAMUDRĀ, and the MAHĀMUDRĀ. In the context of sexual yoga, the term is also used to refer to a tantric consort who maintains the tantric pledges, as opposed to a karmamudrā (a consort who does not maintain such pledges) and a jNānamudrā (a consort who is not a physical person but is visualized in meditation). As "seal of the vow," the samayamudrā involves sustained focus on one's intention to keep a specific set of vows received as part of one's initiation (ABHIsEKA, dīksā) into tantric practice. As "seal of time," samaya carries its temporal denotation and the meditation involves an abandonment of past and future for the sake of a sustained experience of the present moment. As "seal of the symbol," the object of attention is a symbolic representation of various aspects of a buddha, BODHISATTVA, or deity.
samaya. (T. dam tshig; C. sanmoye; J. sanmaya; K. sammaya 三摩耶). In Sanskrit and Pāli, "vow," "occasion," a polysemous term within the tradition. This term is especially important in tantric Buddhism, where it refers to a specific set of vows (see SAMVARA) taken in conjunction with an initiation rite (ABHIsEKA, dīksā). These vows are considered to represent a powerful bond between student and teacher and a commitment to maintain them is deemed essential to success in tantric practice. A breech of one's samaya vows is often said to have serious consequences, including rebirth in hell. Pledging to keep tantric practices secret and pledging never to bring harm to one's teacher are two examples of a samaya vow. A student of tantra will often take more and more of these vows as he or she progresses. In the Tibetan categorization of tantras into four sets, these vows are systematized into codes. In ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA, there is a set list of nineteen samayas associated with the PANCATATHĀGATA. The term samaya may also refer to the symbolic representation of a buddha, BODHISATTVA, or deity, such as with a VAJRA, a sword, or a lotus flower. These symbols may represent the divinity itself or more often an attribute of that divinity, such as a vow taken by a buddha or bodhisattva. ¶ In Sanskrit, samaya also indicates a general unit of time that is understood as one specific occasion or as a season of the year. The term samaya is often seen in ABHIDHARMA analyses of distinct chronological moments. For example, in the AttHASĀLINĪ, a Pāli commentary on the DHAMMASAnGAnI, BUDDHAGHOSA analyzes the term samaya into five specific meanings related to the passage of time.
Samothrace An island in the north Aegean celebrated for a school of the Mysteries, more profound than the Mysteries of Eleusis, “perhaps the oldest [Mysteries] ever established in our present race” (TG 287). The island is of volcanic formation and connected with traditions of a deluge. Its Mysteries were related to the worship of the kabiri, the holy fires of the most occult powers of nature, which legend says formed on the seven localities of the island the kabir born of the Holy Lemnos sacred to Vulcan. It was colonized by Phoenicians and before them by the mysterious Pelasgians who came from the East, which indicates its connection with the ancient Mysteries of India. Here was enacted every seven years the Mysteries — what the Shemitic peoples of Asia Minor called the Sod. The sacred fire preserved at Samothrace was communicated to the candidates of initiation, who thus began a new life — the real meaning of baptism by fire and the spirit.
Sanjna-veshin (Sanskrit) Sañjñā-veṣin One who wears the robe of understanding or spiritual consciousness, the initiation robe donned by these entering nirvana.
sankalparambha ::: initiation.
sanmitsu. (C. sanmi, K. sammil 三密). In Japanese, "three secrets" or "three mysteries"; an esoteric Buddhist teaching that posits that the body, speech, and mind of sentient beings, which are understood to be the source of the three forms of KARMAN in standard Buddhist doctrine, abide in a nondual relationship with the body, speech, and mind of MAHĀVAIROCANA, the DHARMAKĀYA buddha. All speech is therefore in actuality the speech of this buddha, all forms are his body, and all mental formations are at their root the mind of Mahāvairocana. The doctrine of the three mysteries appears in various strata of MAHĀYĀNA materials, but is featured most prominently in esoteric literature. In China, TIANTAI thinkers such as TIANTAI ZHIYI and ZHANRAN argued that the Buddha taught via his NIRMĀnAKĀYA, SAMBHOGAKĀYA, or dharmakāya, depending on the capacities of his audience. On another level, however, these three bodies of the Buddha were said to be nondual. In Japan, KuKAI argued that all beings had the capacity to experience the teaching of the dharmakāya directly, a position that later Japanese TENDAI thinkers argued was implicit in the earlier Chinese Tiantai teachings on the three mysteries. Kukai's sanmitsu theory held that ordinary beings may rapidly realize their buddha-nature through ABHIsEKA, or ritual initiation, and ADHIstHĀNA, or ritual empowerment, which allowed for the efficacious performance of MUDRĀ, the chanting of MANTRA and DHĀRAnĪ, and the contemplation of the MAndALA of a chosen object of devotion. These forms of initiation and empowerment, when followed by these three modes of ritual comportment, were said to reveal that the sublime reality of buddhahood is alive within the mundane reality that beings ordinarily inhabit. Once the body, speech, and mind of beings and buddhas are recognized as nondual, an ordinary being is then able to acquire SIDDHI, or supernatural powers, which may be used to effect change in the world, up to and including achieving buddhahood in this very body (J. SOKUSHIN JoBUTSU; C. JISHEN CHENGFO).
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 nature’s fecund womb, and emerged therefrom, which symbolized resurrection after death. In the King’s 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.
sarvarambha-parityagi ::: one who has flung away from him all initiation. [Gita 14.25]
Sati or Satet (Egyptian) Sati or Satet [from the verbal root sat to pour out, shoot, throw, emanate, evolve forth] Worshiped at Abu or Elephantine, the consort of Khnemu, and sister-goddess of Anqet, and the second member of a triad. Together with Khnemu her attributes are watery, so that she is depicted as sprinkling water and scattering seed. She was associated with Isis-Sothis, and at Dendera with Isis-Hathor; and was associated by the Greeks with Hera. Her temple at Abu was considered one to the holy places in ancient Egypt, for in the Book of the Dead the Osirified defunct mentions that he has visited the Temple of Satet which was one of the ancient initiation localities. With Isis she was connected with the star Sept (Sirius), where dwelt the soul of Isis.
Sat (Sanskrit) Sat [from the verbal root as to be] Being; the real, the enduring fundamental essence of the world, “for Sat is in itself neither the ‘existent,’ nor ‘being.’ Sat is the immutable, the ever present, changeless and eternal root, from and through which all proceeds. But it is far more than the potential force in the seed, which propels onward the process of development, or what is now called evolution. It is the ever becoming, though the never manifesting. Sat is born from Asat and ASAT is begotten by sat: the perpetual motion in a circle, truly; yet a circle that can be squared only at the supreme Initiation, at the threshold of Paranirvana” (SD 2:449-50).
Saturnalia (Latin) [from Saturnus Saturn] A Roman festival held on the 17th of December and for a week following, honoring the deity Saturnus; undoubtedly this was the beginning of the occult festival held in celebration of the winter solstice. Saturnus was identified by Roman scholars with the Greek Kronos, though his attributes at times are rather those of Demeter, who presides over the gifts of earth. Legend states that Tullus Hostilius founded the festival, but also that Romulus founded it under the name of Brumalia [from bruma winter solstice]. This is the time when the sun enters Capricorn, one of the houses of Saturn. The observances described are almost identical with those which we associate with Christmas; and Christmas again links up with a Norse version of the solstice festival. There was a general relaxation of discipline and social barriers; a spirit of joy and mirth; the interchange of gifts; abolition of distinctions of rank and social casts; no fighting or punishment. All over Europe, in Ancient Mexico, and in many other places, candles or fires were lighted. Even the harmless familiar Christmas and New Year festivals are themselves but exoteric forms of what in its essence was a dramatic presentation of the mysteries of initiation appropriate to this particular one of the four sacred seasons. Saturnalia has got its present meaning from the licentiousness into which this celebration degenerated.
Saul (Hebrew) Shā’ūl A Biblical king; of particular interest is his anointing and initiation by Samuel, who said: “the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man” (I Sam 10:6). After his initiation he was able to prophesy, but after he became king, the spirit of prophecy left him. Although Saul prohibited divination or necromancy by means of those who had familiar spirits, he himself commanded the wise woman of Endor to bring before him the spirit of Samuel.
Schools of the Prophets “Schools established by Samuel for the training of the Nabiim (prophets). Their method was pursued on the same lines as that of a Chela or candidate for initiation into the occult sciences, i.e., the development of abnormal faculties or clairvoyance leading to Seership. Of such schools there were many in days of old in Palestine and Asia Minor. That the Hebrews worshipped Nebo, the Chaldean god of secret learning, is quite certain, since they adopted his name as an equivalent of Wisdom” (TG 294).
Sdom gsum rab dbye. (Domsum Rapye). In Tibetan, "Clear Differentiation of the Three Vows," an important work by the Tibetan master SA SKYA PAndITA KUN DGA' RGYAL MTSHAN. Composed in verse, around 1232, it deals with the three vows or codes: the PRĀTIMOKsA vows, the BODHISATTVA vows, and the tantric vows (SAMAYA). In Tibet, it was considered possible, and in some cases ideal, for the Buddhist practitioner to receive and maintain all three sets of precepts: the monk's precepts (prātimoksa), which from the Tibetan perspective derived from the HĪNAYĀNA; the bodhisattva precepts, which derived from the MAHĀYĀNA, and the tantric precepts, which derived from the VAJRAYĀNA. However, there was a wide range of opinion on the relation among these three and how to resolve contradictions among them. The "Clear Differentiation of the Three Vows" is not an exposition of the three sets of precepts, but rather a polemical work in which Sa skya Pandita criticizes interpretations of the three then current in the other sects of Tibetan Buddhism. Sa skya Pandita's own view, in brief, was that the prātimoksa and the bodhisattva precepts provided the foundation for the tantric precepts, such that someone receiving tantric initiation should already hold the other two sets. The work provoked hostile responses from those whose views were criticized in the text, leading Sa skya Pandita to reply to his critics in a series of letters. His text sparked the development in subsequent centuries of a genre of texts on the three vows or codes (SDOM GSUM).
Seer In its highest sense, one who discerns truths clearly by the use of the real inner vision, the Eye of Siva; who can see throughout the ranges of space and time belonging to a universe — not barring intuitions of the spaces and times of other surrounding universes. But it is also used for a number of varying degrees of ability to see clairvoyantly in the astral light. Swedenborg is sometimes called a seer, which he was in small degree, but because he was untrained, what he saw was mainly peculiar to himself, as is the case with seers of the same class. Instructions for aspirants to wisdom are replete with warnings as to the manifold dangers and deceptions of the astral light, and the obstacles thrown up by the unpurified and undisciplined nature of the disciple. The ability to become a true spiritual seer using the inner eye, means the fruits of many lives of aspiration and training, involving the successful passing of many trials and initiations. The science called gupta-vidya is due to the collaboration and teaching of real seers, whose trained faculties enable them to have direct vision of actualities.
Session Initiation Protocol "protocol" (SIP) A very simple text-based application-layer control {protocol}. It creates, modifies, and terminates {sessions} with one or more participants. Such sessions include {Internet telephony} and {multimedia} conferences. It is described in {RFC 2543}. (2000-05-31)
Session Initiation Protocol ::: (protocol) (SIP) A very simple text-based application-layer control protocol. It creates, modifies, and terminates sessions with one or more participants. Such sessions include Internet telephony and multimedia conferences.It is described in RFC 2543.(2000-05-31)
Several different keys are needed to interpret the Revelations of John: “no less that the Book of Job, the whole Revelation, is simply an allegorical narrative of the Mysteries and initiation therein of a candidate, who is John himself. . . . The numbers seven, twelve, and others are all so many lights thrown over the obscurity of the work” (IU 2:351; cf SD 2:93&n, 516).
Sex As applied to the organism as a whole, the differentiation of the reproductive function and the character of being male and female. Organisms reproduce their kind in various ways: fission, gemmation, parthenogenesis, hermaphrodite reproduction, and sexual reproduction. In the course of evolution, organisms pass from one method to another; the passage from the hermaphrodite method to the one in which the sexes are in separate individuals took place in the animals in the third root-race of this round on this globe, and shortly afterwards in humanity (SD 2:184), the latter then being in the fifth subrace of the third root-race. The process of separation did not occur suddenly, but slowly. This is often called the Fall, and is so in one sense, since it is a descent from spirit toward matter, and was an initiation of the beasts. “THEY (the animals) BEGAN TO BREED. The TWOFOLD MAN (then) SEPARATED ALSO. HE (man) SAID: “LET US AS THEY: LET US UNITE AND MAKE CREATURES.’ THEY DID” (ibid.). But from another viewpoint, it was simply a following of the natural course of unfolding progress in evolution. The separation is symbolized by a circle with a vertical diameter.
Shingonshu. (眞言宗). In Japanese, lit. "True Word School." Shingon is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese term ZHENYAN (true word), which in turn is a translation of the Sanskrit term MANTRA. In Japan, Shingon has also come to serve as the name for the various esoteric (MIKKYo) traditions that traced their teachings back to the eminent Japanese monk KuKAI. In his voluminous oeuvre, such as the HIMITSU MANDARA JuJuSHINRON, HIZo HoYAKU, Sokushin jobutsugi, and Shoji jissogi, Kukai laid the foundations of a new esoteric discourse that allowed the Buddhist institutions of the Heian period to replace Confucian principles as the ruling ideology of Japan. Kukai was able to effect this change by presenting the court and the Buddhist establishment with an alternative conception of Buddhist power, ritual efficacy, and the power of speech acts. Through Kukai's newly imported ritual systems, monks and other initiated individuals were said to be able to gain access to the power of the cosmic buddha Mahāvairocana, understood to be the DHARMAKĀYA, leading to all manner of feats, from bringing rain and warding off disease and famine, to achieving buddhahood in this very body (SOKUSHIN JoBUTSU). Kukai taught the choreographed ritual engagement with MAndALA, the recitation of MANTRAs and DHĀRAnĪ, and the performance of MUDRĀ and other ritual postures that were said to transform the body, speech, and mind of the practitioner into the body, speech, and mind of a particular buddha. Kukai's ritual teachings grew in importance to the point that he was appointed to the highest administrative post in the Buddhist establishment (sogo). From this position, Kukai was able to establish ordination platforms at the major monasteries in Nara and the capital in Kyoto. Later, the emperor gave Kukai both ToJI in Kyoto and KoYASAN, which subsequently came to serve as important centers of esoteric Buddhism. Kukai's Shingon mikkyo lineages also flourished at the monasteries of Ninnaji and DAIGOJI under imperial support. Later, Toji rose as an important institutional center for the study of Kukai's esoteric Buddhist lineages under the leadership of the monk Kangen (853-925), who was appointed head (zasu) of Toji, Kongobuji, and Daigoji. The Mt. Koya institution also grew with the rise of KAKUBAN, who established the monasteries of Daidenboin and Mitsugonin on the mountain. Conflict brewed between the monks of Kongobuji and Daidenboin when Kakuban was appointed the head of both institutions, a conflict that eventually resulted in the relocation of Daidenboin to nearby Mt. Negoro in Wakayama. The Daidenboin lineage came to be known as the Shingi branch of Shingon esoteric Buddhism. Attempts to unify the esoteric Buddhist traditions that claimed descent from Kukai were later made by Yukai (1345-1416), who eradicated the teachings of the "heretical" TACHIKAWARYu from Mt. Koya, and worked to establish a Kukai-centered Shingonshu orthodoxy. By the late medieval period, the major monastic landholding institutions in Kyoto, Nara, and Mt. Koya, many of which were profoundly influenced by the teachings of Kukai, suffered economic hardship with the initiation of the Warring States period (1467-1573) and the growing popularity of the so-called "Kamakura Schools" (e.g., JoDOSHu, JoDO SHINSHu, ZENSHu, and NICHIRENSHu). In particular, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) had crushed the major Buddhist centers on HIEIZAN. However, Mt. Koya, which was still a thriving center for the study of Kukai's Shingon esoteric Buddhism, was spared the same fate because the monks resident at the mountain successfully convinced Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) not to burn down their center. Thanks to the political stability of the Tokugawa regime, studies of esoteric Buddhism thrived until the harsh persecution of Buddhism by the Meiji government (see HAIBUTSU KISHAKU). As an effort to recover from the Meiji persecution, the disparate traditions of esoteric Buddhism came together under the banner of the Shingonshu, but after World War II, the various sub-lineages reasserted their independence.
Sibac or Zibak (Quiche) The pith of a little rush or reed, which the ancient Quiches used for making mats. In the Popol Vuh, woman is described as being made out of the sibac; however, “Sibac means ‘egg’ in the mystery language of the Artufas (or Initiation caves)” (SD 2:181n).
Sibyl [from Greek sibylla probably from sios bylla Doric for dios boule she that tells the will of Zeus] Often confused with the Greek Pythia, Sibyls are reputed to have been possessed of occult knowledge, the power of prophecy and divination, and the inner sight. Practically nothing is known about their occult life, though in many cases they seem to have been initiates. Greek and Latin writers name ten, of whom the most famous is the Sibyl of the Cave of Cumae whom Aeneas consulted just before going down to Avernus (Aen 4:10) — a veiled record of one stage in the initiation journey. Others were the Delphian, Babylonian, Libyan, Cimmerian, Erythraean, Samian, Hellespontine, Phrygian, and Tiburtine Sibyls.
Sigalions [from Greek sigao to be silent] Images of Harpocrates, the deity borrowed by the Greeks from one aspect of the Egyptian Horus, said to have been born with his finger on his lips and so represented in his statues. He thus becomes the emblem of both neophyte and initiate who seals in silence of both mind and voice what has been learned in the initiation crypts.
si hongshiyuan. (J. shiguzeigan/shikuseigan; K. sa hongsowon 四弘誓願). In Chinese, the "four capacious vows," commonly known in English as the "four great vows"; a specific set of vows (S. PRAnIDHĀNA) an adept takes that mark his initiation into the BODHISATTVA path and outline his continuing aspiration to seek buddhahood. There are two different formulations. By far the most common is the following list: (1) However innumerable sentient beings may be, I vow to save them all; (2) However inexhaustible the afflictions (KLEsA) may be, I vow to eradicate them all; (3) However immeasurable the teachings may be, I vow to study them all; (4) However unsurpassed the path to buddhahood may be, I vow to attain it. This version of the bodhisattva vows is generally presumed to have first been formulated by TIANTAI ZHIYI (538-597) in his MOHE ZHIGUAN. These four great bodhisattva vows are frequently recited at the conclusion of MAHĀYĀNA Buddhist rituals in East Asia targeting both ordained and lay adherents. There is also an alternate list, known in India and Tibet, which runs as follows: (1) Those who are yet to be saved, I will save; (2) Those who are frightened, I will soothe; (3) Those who are unenlightened, I will awaken; (4) Those who are not yet in NIRVĀnA, I will bring to nirvāna.
Siloam, The Sleep of [from Hebrew the verbal root shalam wholeness, completion, perfectness, peace, health] Used by one of the highest schools of initiates in Asia Minor, Syria, and upper Egypt for one of the processes of initiation. While the candidate was plunged in deep sleep, his spiritual ego was enabled to confabulate with the gods, descend into Hades, or perform works of divinely spiritual character. When the neophyte begins the holy sleep of Siloam, he leaves the body, and his consciousness enters into the river of Lethe, the pools of quiet, where the complete work or great work of inner understanding takes place. After this he is rendered whole or perfect, is completed and is safe, and is the master of the peace and quiet of inner unity — masterhood. The same holy event has been known in all times and among all peoples under various names.
Sinai (Hebrew) Sīnai Often Har Sinai (Mount Sinai). A holy mountain of the Jews, associated particularly with Moses and Jehovah (Ex 19). All races have had their holy mountains, “some. Himalayan Peaks, others, Parnassus, and Sinai. They were all places of initiation and the abodes of the chiefs of the communities of ancient and even modern adepts” (SD 2:494). The mountain has been associated with the moon, and its name links it with the Phoenician lunar deity Sin. “Mount Sinaï, the Nissi of Exodus (xvii., 15), the birthplace of almost all the solar gods of antiquity, such as Dionysus, born at Nissa or Nysa, Zeus of Nysa, Bacchus and Osiris . . . Some ancient people believed the Sun to be the progeny of the Moon, who was herself a Sun once upon a time. Sin-aï is the ‘Moon Mountain,’ hence the connexion” (TG 299). As to the fire which Moses saw upon the mountain while the multitude saw it enwrapped in clouds and smoke, fire represented the “Wisdom of the true gnosis or the real spiritual enlightenment. . . . For Moses, the fire on Mount Sinai, and the spiritual wisdom imparted; for the multitudes of the ‘people’ below, for the profane, Mount Sinai in (through) smoke, i.e., the exoteric husks of orthodox or sectarian ritualism” (SD 2:566).
SIP ::: 1. (protocol) Session Initiation Protocol.2. (text, standard) Supplementary Ideographic Plane.(2003-12-26)
SIP 1. "protocol" {Session Initiation Protocol}. 2. "text, standard" {Supplementary Ideographic Plane}. (2003-12-26)
Sisyphus The crafty; in Greek mythology, a son of Aeolus (the keeper of the winds), the most cunning of all men. He was punished in the underworld by being compelled to roll a heavy stone block up a hill, only upon reaching the summit to have it roll down again, where upon he repeats the processes endlessly. Some ancient authors say he had betrayed the Mysteries of the gods; so that one intent of the legend was to point out to the masses that betrayal of the secrets of initiation brings inevitable retribution. It also may illustrate the vanity of human ambitions, which flourish hopefully right up to the point of expected attainment, only to meet with disappointment; again it may refer to certain experiences of the disembodied relics of our personality, doomed to repeat vain acts until the energy which prompted them is worn out.
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Sod occurs frequently in the Old Testament, translated as secret or assembly, where Mysteries would be a more correct rendering: e.g., “Jacob called unto his sons, and said . . . Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. . . . come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly” (Genesis 49:1, 5-6). The Bible is “a series of historical records of the great struggle between white and black Magic, between the Adepts of the right path, the Prophets, and those of the left, the Levites, the clergy of the brutal masses. . . . The great schism that arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the first Temples and Halls of Initiation had been erected under the guidance of ‘the Sons of God,’ is allegorized in the Sons of Jacob. That there were two schools of Magic, and that the orthodox Levites did not belong to the holy one, is shown in the words pronounced by the dying Jacob” (SD 2:211).
Solomon the Wise is a type-figure, and the legendary story of his life, wisdom and glory, and temptations and apparent fall, is a variant of the traditional history of certain wise ones recounted in every world-religion. Even granting that a king names Shelomoh reigned over Judah and Israel, the Biblical account and the many traditions of his life are an allegory of initiation.
Some of the later peoples in their initiations actually did use a kind of physical soma which had the effect of bringing about a dulling of the restless brain-mind for the time being, so that the inner powers were temporarily freed from the clogging influences of the astral light and the body.
Substitute Word According to Masonic ritual, the Master’s Word was lost through the death of Hiram Abif; the other two Masters, King Solomon and King Hiram agree that the Word shall be used as a substitute for the Master’s word, until such time as the true one is discovered. Among the Pythagoreans the ineffable Word “was considered the Seventh and highest of all, for there are six minor substitutes, each belongs to a degree of initiation” (IU 2:418). Among the Jews, ’Adonai is spoken as a substitute for the Tetragrammaton, incorrectly transliterated in the Bible as Jehovah, and always pronounced as Adonai.
Suspended Animation Cases of extreme insensibility where the vital activity has temporarily ceased, and the person appears to be dead. Outstanding examples are seen in persons resuscitated from drowning; in cases of those Oriental fakirs who are revived after being buried alive for days or weeks; and in those spiritual adepts who leave their body at will, and consciously go thousands of miles in their mayavi-rupa (thought-body). In the higher degrees of initiation, the trained initiant leaves his protected body while, in his higher nature, he traverses extraterrestrial spheres of existence. The adept comes and goes when the occasion justifies the effort, because his lives of training and aspiration have made him master of his lower nature, and enabled him to live and act in his liberated spiritual principle. These and other states of suspended animation show that the conscious existence of the inner man is not dependent upon his physical body.
Syzygy [from Greek syzygia conjunction] Used in reference to the geocentric conjunction of the Sun, Moon, Venus, and Mercury, or some of them, the occurrence being especially favorable for certain initiations, particularly at the time of the winter solstice, because at such periods the influences of these bodies cooperate in producing the necessary occult natural conditions. Astronomically syzygy refers to the union in a more or less straight line as seen from the earth, of any two or more bodies with the earth.
Talisman [from Arab from Greek telesma completion, initiation, incantation] A charm made by engraving, for instance, the seal or sigil of a certain planet on a disc of metal corresponding to that planet, the operation being done at a time when the influence of that planet is strong. This, being worn, secured the help or influence of the genius of the planet, and is thought to be protective against one or another evil influence. The application extends beyond the planets, and an indefinite number of signs might be used to propitiate or protect against various genii, evil or good.
tantra. (T. rgyud; C. tanteluo; J. dantokura; K. tant'ŭngna 檀特羅). In Sanskrit, lit. "continuum"; a term derived from the Sanskrit root √tan ("to stretch out," "to weave"), having the sense of an arrangement or a pattern (deployed not only in a ritual, but in military and political contexts as well). The term is thus used to name a manual or handbook that sets forth such arrangements, and is not limited to Buddhism or to Indian religions more broadly. Beyond this, the term is notoriously difficult to define. It can be said, however, that tantra does not carry the connotation of all things esoteric and erotic that it has acquired in the modern West. In Buddhism, the term tantra generally refers to a text that contains esoteric teachings, often ascribed to sĀKYAMUNI or another buddha. Even this, however, is problematic: there are esoteric texts that do not carry the term tantra in their title (such as the VAJRAsEKHARASuTRA), and there are nonesoteric texts in whose title the term tantra appears (such as the UTTARATANTRA). Scholars therefore tend to define tantra (in the textual sense) based on specific sets of elements contained in the texts. These include MANTRA, MAndALA, MUDRĀ, initiations (ABHIsEKA), fire sacrifices (HOMA), and feasts (GAnACAKRA), all set forth with the aim of gaining powers (SIDDHI), both mundane and supramundane. The mundane powers are traditionally enumerated as involving four activities: pacification of difficulties (sĀNTIKA), increase of wealth (PAUstIKA), control of negative forces (VAsĪKARAnA), and destruction of enemies (ABHICĀRA). The supramundane power is enlightenment (BODHI). The texts called tantras began to appear in India in the late seventh and early eighth centuries CE, often written in a nonstandard (some would say "corrupt") Sanskrit that included colloquial elements and regional terms. These anonymous texts (including such famous works as the GUHYASAMĀJATANTRA, the CAKRASAMVARATANTRA, and the HEVAJRATANTRA), typically provided mantras and instructions for drawing mandalas, among a variety of other elements, but their presentation and organization were usually not systematic; these texts came to serve as the "root tantra" for a cycle of related texts. The more systematic of these were the SĀDHANA (lit. "means of achievement"), a ritual manual by a named author, which set forth the specific practices necessary for the attainment of siddhi. The standard form was to create a mandala into which one invited a deity. The meditator would either visualize himself or herself as the deity or visualize the deity as appearing before the meditator. Various offerings would be made, mantras would be recited, and siddhis would be requested. Although scholars continue to explore the relation between the tantras and the MAHĀYĀNA sutras, tantric exegetes viewed the tantras, like the Mahāyāna sutras, as being the word of the Buddha (BUDDHAVACANA) and as setting forth forms of practice consistent with the bodhisattva vow and the quest for buddhahood, albeit more quickly than by the conventional path, via what came to be referred to as the VAJRA vehicle (VAJRAYĀNA). Thus, it was said that the Mahāyāna was divided into the pāramitānaya, the "mode of the perfections" set forth in the Mahāyāna sutras, and the mantranaya, the "mode of the mantras" set forth in the tantras. These two are also, although less commonly, known as the sutrayāna and the TANTRAYĀNA. In this context, then, the term "tantra" is often used by tantric exegetes in contrast to "sutra," which is taken to mean the corpus of exoteric teachings of the Buddha. For those who accept the tantras as the word of the Buddha, the term "sutras and tantras" would thus refer to the entirety of the Buddha's teachings. The corpus of tantras was eventually classified by late Indian Buddhist exegetes into a number of schemata, the most famous of which is the fourfold division into KRIYĀTANTRA, CARYĀTANTRA, YOGATANTRA, and ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA.
tantric vows. (T. rig 'dzin gyi sdom pa; *vidyādharasaMvara). Any of a number of vows taken as part of a tantric initiation and to be maintained as part of tantric practice. Many tantras list disparate sets of rules, the best known being that found in the Rgyud rdo rje rtse mo (the Tibetan version of the VAJRAsEKHARASuTRA, a SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAMGRAHA explanatory tantra). Such texts enumerate "restraints" or "vows" (SAMVARA) and pledges (SAMAYA) connected with the five buddha families (BUDDHAKULA; PANCATATHĀGATA), and possibly an ordination and confession ceremony modeled on the PRĀTIMOKsA. These disparate rules were later codified more systematically in a number of tantric texts: the so-called root infractions in the Vajrayānamulāpatti attributed to AsVAGHOsA, and an even shorter list of secondary vows in the Vajrayānasthulāpatti attributed to NĀGĀRJUNA. In addition, rules of deportment toward the guru were set forth in works such as the GURUPANCĀsIKĀ ("Fifty Stanzas on the Guru"), also attributed to Asvaghosa. In Tibet, these rules were codified and commented on at length in the "three vow" (SDOM GSUM) literature. The "root infractions" are the following: (1) to disparage the guru, (2) to overstep the words of the buddhas, (3) to be cruel to one's VAJRA siblings (disciples of the same guru), (4) to abandon love for sentient beings, (5) to abandon the two types of BODHICITTA, (6) to disparage the doctrines of one's own and others' schools, (7) to proclaim secrets to the unripened, (8) to scorn the aggregates, (9) to have doubts about the essential purity of all phenomena, (10) to show affection to the wicked, (11) to have false views about emptiness, (12) to disillusion the faithful, (13) not to rely on the pledges, and (14) to disparage women. It is noteworthy that, unlike the prātimoksa, the infractions here involve attitudes and beliefs, in addition to transgressions of body and speech. It was generally said that receiving the bodhisattva vows was a prerequisite for receiving tantric vows; the prior receipt of prātimoksa precepts was optional. In expositions of the "three vows," tantric vows are the third, after the prātimoksa precepts and the bodhisattva precepts. Especially in Tibet there is extensive discussion of the compatibility of the three sets of vows. See also TRISAMVARA.
Ta pho gtsug lag khang. (Tapo Tsuklakang). An important Tibetan Buddhist institution, also known as Ta pho chos 'khor, located at an altitude of ten thousand feet (3,050 m.) along the Spiti River in the modern-day Lahoul and Spiti region of Himachal Pradesh in northwest India. It is situated along two of the former routes of travel between India and Tibet. Over its long existence, Ta pho has been an important center for both scholarship and artistic activity and remains an active Tibetan monastery, preserving many important Buddhist manuscripts, scroll paintings, statues, and murals. It was established in 996 by the king of the western Tibetan region of GU GE YE SHES 'OD and the translator RIN CHEN BZANG PO. According to traditional histories, at the age of seventeen, Rin chen bzang po was sent to India together with a group of twenty other youths by King Ye shes 'od to study Sanskrit and Indian vernacular languages. Rin chen bzang po made several trips to India, spending a total of seventeen years in Kashmir and the Buddhist monastic university of VIKRAMAsĪLA before returning to Tibet. He is said to have founded 108 monasteries, among which was Ta pho. Among the many monasteries of western Tibet, it was second in importance only to THO LING and was the repository of a trove of old Tibetan texts that contributed to greater understanding of the formation of the Tibetan canon (BKA' 'GYUR). In 1996, the fourteenth DALAI LAMA gave the KĀLACAKRA initiation at Ta pho in commemoration of the one thousandth anniversary of the monastery's founding.
Taphos (Greek) A tomb; in ancient Greece, the mystical tomb or sarcophagus placed in the crypt of initiation, sometimes called the adytum, and in which the neophyte lay during the trance preceding illumination. It was called a tomb because the person for the time being is “dead” — death and resurrection being involved in all ancient initiations.
Tat or Djed or Tet (Egyptian) Ṭeṭ [from the verbal root ṭeṭ to establish] The emblem of stability; the pillar found in connection with Osiris in hieroglyphic texts and inscriptions, especially in the scenes depicting what is called the funeral of Osiris, scenes which are one aspect of the initiation cycle held in the Mysteries of ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphic representation of the tat is that of a tapered pillar surmounted by four crossbars, said to represent the branches of a tree, and to be connected with the four cardinal points. It was a favorite form for amulets fashioned out of lapis lazuli and carnelian. “The top part is a regular equilateral cross. This, on its phallic basis, represented the two principles of creation, the male and the female, and related to nature and cosmos; but when the tat stood by itself, crowned with the atf (or atef), the triple crown of Horus — two feathers with the uraeus in front — it represented the septenary man; the cross, or the two cross-pieces, standing for the lower quaternary, and the atf for the higher triad” (TG 322).
Telesterion: The temple of Demeter where initiations in the Eleusinian mysteries were held.
Telete: Initiation into the mysteries (q.v.) of ancient Greece.
Thar pa rin po che'i rgyan. (Tarpa rinpoche gyen). In Tibetan, "Jewel Ornament of Liberation"; a systematic presentation of Buddhist teachings and a seminal textbook for the BKA' BRGYUD sect of Tibetan Buddhism written by SGAM PO PA BSOD RNAM RIN CHEN. The text belongs to the genre of Tibetan literature known as LAM RIM, or "stages of the path," presenting an overview of the elementary tenets of MAHĀYĀNA doctrine through scriptural citation, philosophical reflection, and direct illustration. Its clear, concise, and unpedantic style has made it accessible to generations of readers. The doctrinal content reflects Sgam po pa's training in both the BKA' GDAMS sect and the tradition of MAHĀMUDRĀ, fusing Buddhist theory prevalent in both SuTRA and TANTRA and presenting what has been called sutra mahāmudrā-a tradition of mahāmudrā that does not rely on prerequisite tantric initiations and commitments. Sgam po pa thus transmits the underlying insights of tantric theory outside traditional methods of the VAJRAYĀNA. This system was later criticized by certain scholars such as SA SKYA PAndITA KUN DGA' RGYAL MTSHAN. The work is also commonly known as the Dwags po thar rgyan, after the author's residence in the region of Dwags po (Dakpo).
That the Tammuz festival was solstitial, began with the new moon in July, and lasted for a week more or less, and that the whole ceremony comprised a dying and resurrection from the dead — all these facts point directly to one of the mysteries of the four great initiatory cycles of the year, one of which is referred to in the mystical story of Jesus in the New Testament. All the great ancient initiations comprised a purification or preparation (katharsis), a trance followed by a dying, and a later resurrection of the initiant or neophyte as a fully born initiate, adept, or new man.
The antithesis of these lofty ideas underlies the widespread prevalence of blood rites. In fact, the many blood ceremonials which mark and mar the records of so many peoples are often gross, cruel, and perverted, violating the sacredness of life by offering animal and human sacrifices. Several groups regard blood as one of the essential elements used in their numerous forms of initiations, oblations, invocations to ancestors and to spirits of various kinds. Their fixed belief that the demons or spirits invoked by these ceremonies are harmful if not propitiated, but will be gratified and nourished by the immaterial essence, savor, or fumes of the foods, alcohols, and blood offerings is not without some basis of fact; for the earth-bound kama-rupic entities and astral elementaries are attracted by, and do abstract the impalpable kama-pranic life-force from, the fumes and emanations of such offerings. These beliefs are consistent with much in the tribal customs and rites which attracts and revivifies evil entities in their own astral atmosphere. Customs like poison ordeals for so-called witches, and evil use of nature forces for injuring or destroying personal enemies, added to frequent evocations, make a vicious circle of cause and effect.
The breastplate and the physical appurtenances were but emblems, much as a ring worn on the finger is an emblem of cycling time re-entering itself, of eternity, and therefore of utter stability, which is equivalent to abstract truth and reality. These physical appurtenances are of small moment, quite as much so as was the sapphire image worn as the symbol of truth by the high judges of the Egyptians. The ’urim and tummim among the Jews were mere emblems of initiation, whereby the adept came to know light or revelation, and consequently the fullness of truth, and because of this was enabled to interpret properly the secrets of the universe, and to give proper answers often in a prophetic manner or as prophecy of what might come before him. In later times among the Jews, as indeed in other nations, the emblems occupied nearly all the attention of students and the inner significance of nearly all these emblems was lost.
The candidate for initiation into the Mithraic Mysteries had to undergo twelve “tortures” or labors, but the enumeration of the twelve or seven degrees is varied. One consisting of twelve grades is as follows: the candidate first underwent a long probation, with scourging, fasting, and ordeal of water, whereupon he became a soldier of Mithras. Before the soul of the initiant could leave the terrestrial region, it had to pass through the zodiacal grades of the Bull and the Lion, each involving further probation. Then it ascended through the region of the aether by means of the grades of the Vulture, the Ostrich, and the Crow. The soul then strove to pass into the realm of pure fire, through the stages of the Gryphon, the Perses, and the Sun. Finally the soul attained complete union with the divine nature through the grades of Father Eagle, Father Falcon, and Father of Fathers.
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 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 Eden in Genesis is a marvelous fusion of many meanings into one narrative, where the Adams of the various root-races are made into one. Eden was an ancient name for Mesopotamia and adjacent regions; and under that one name are comprised the meanings of an abode of initiates, a sacred land from which races emerged, and a goal of bliss in the future. The Eden of the Hebrew books, which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alike have located in Mesopotamia and in the now sandy lands of Persia and Afghanistan, refers also to what was in prehistoric times a great and highly developed center of culture and the civilization which there had its seat, including a number of Mystery schools. When the changing cycles brought about a degeneration and final breakup of this seat of archaic wisdom, it was represented as the loss by the then human Adam — the then race — of the Paradise in which he had dwelt. Edens and Paradises always contain trees; and these, by one interpretation, signify the initiates in the sacred land, and by another they are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Wisdom for man himself. In the Qabbalah, Eden is a place of initiation.
The egg is used in Easter celebrations as the symbol of the renewal of life. The Easter egg derives from the pagan custom of exchanging eggs at the birth-time of the year. Originally it had a deep esoteric hint completely lost sight of today where the custom is still held in the Occident, although commonly candies in the shape of eggs are exchanged. Giving a fellow disciple an egg in the old Mystery schools suggested the rebirth of nature, so apparent in the springtime, or again the initiation ceremonies that prevailed at the spring equinox, thereby expressing the hope that he too might at some time be “reborn,” able to free his spiritual nature from the enveloping shell as a chick frees itself from the egg.
The evident meaning must be connected with the old occult thought that wine, or the mead of the northern peoples where the grape and soma were unknown or uncultivated, all had the meaning of the inspiration of initiation, a kind of ecstasy of vision and knowledge brought about through initiation, of which the physical intoxication of wine, mead, or the soma juice has all the lower and materialized aspect, every spiritual thing having its material counterpart, every right-hand thought or rule in occultism having its left-hand or sorcerer perversion or counterpart. Thus in the highest initiation, even today and from immemorial time, the holy drink or potation was entirely mystical, and had a dozen of these significances, all bound up together; yet despite this fact, for some of the lower initiations where a student found difficulty in throwing off the physical and astral influences, a harmless — when administered rightly — drug or drink was given which temporarily stupefied the lower quaternary; but it is to be noted that this substitute of the physical drink came about when neophytes began to find it very difficult to do what their more spiritual forerunners had done: raising themselves solely by inner aspiration up to inspiration, by inner insight up to the epopteia or vision.
“The exoteric teaching which says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an equally celestial son — a Dhyani-Bodhisattva — who, after the decease of the Manushi (human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the fact that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the ‘Spirit of Buddha’ . . . a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator” (SD 1:109).
The Hebrew name Jah or Jehovah became identified in the mind of Christians with the name of Jesus, although Jesus never was in any wise identical with the Jewish Jehovah, but was identified in initiation through his own inner god or Father in Heaven, and the Jewish Jehovah mystically was the regent of the planet Saturn.
The Holy of Holies, however, must not be confused with initiation chambers also contained in many temples and caves of antiquity, in which during the rites of initiation the neophyte entered, was initiated, and thereafter left the sacred precincts as reborn. In ancient Egypt the holy of holies par excellence of this latter type was the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid; and the coffer there was the sarcophagus used for initiation purposes. The sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle, as from the feminine principle of nature, as a mother, was born the new “child” or disciple, now become a twice-born. The idea of the twice-born was that the physical birth came from the human mother, while the mystic birth took place from the womb of nature, of which the initiation chamber was the emblem. Hence at a much later date arose the phallic idea of the Jews that the human female womb was the maqom (the place).
The key to an understanding of the nature of the four Gospels lies in a consideration of the process which the functions and teachings of some of the Mystery schools of Asia Minor became gradually transformed into the formal religious system known as Christianity. The Gospels must have originated as extracts from the Mystery-dramas enacted in those schools. The mystical-human birth of Jesus, his trials or tests, his teachings, crucifixion, resurrection, etc., are clearly a form of the world-old and universal Mystery-drama of initiation of a human neophyte re-enacted in those ceremonies. The Gospels’ present form is the result of many copyings, recensions, omissions, additions, and alterations. They are, in fact, symbolic narratives made around the personality and individuality of a real character which thus has become a Mystery-figure; and contain also many teachings properly to be attributed to him, belonging to the general class of logia, or wise sayings of teachers, paralleled in the other world sacred scriptures. Jesus, as represented, is not historical; but there was an actual teacher, doubtless bearing the name Yeshua‘, Latinized as Jesus, who lived about a century earlier than the commonly accepted beginning of the Christian era.
The King’s 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.
Thelema ::: A philosophical and spiritual paradigm developed in the early 1900s by Aleister Crowley that emphasizes a central tenet to guide one's actions in the form of the Law of Thelema: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love under Will." Traditionally incorporating Egyptian symbolism and its pantheon, modern Thelema as practiced by groups such as the A∴A∴ and O.T.O. tends to focus on initiations based on the Kabbalah and its Visions (e.g. K&C with the HGA, crossing the Abyss, etc.). The word "magick" with a "k" at the end comes from the Thelemic writings of Aleister Crowley.
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). “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 — eleve, (the epithet which belongs to the Sun) and who is skillful in the arts” (Ragon, Orthodoxie Maçonnique 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 meaning of city of light is not merely that it was a town which revered the light of the moon, but refers to ceremonials of occult instruction and initiation which evidently were conducted in this ancient place. Ur is supposed to be the capital of the Sumerian civilization, situated on the south bank of the Euphrates near the Persian Gulf. More than 5,000 years ago it had reached a highly advanced cultural and commercial prominence. Positive proof was found at Ur of a flood which completely broke up the continuity of the history of the Mesopotamian plain dwellers, and which confirms the Babylonian, Sumerian, and Biblical traditions of a devastating flood, though of course it was only a local catastrophe. Christian Biblical scholars generally believe that Abraham’s birth in “Ur of the Chaldees” took place about 1900 or 2000 BC, but the excavations have produced nothing referable to him.
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 Mysteries were divided into the Greater and Less, inner and outer, esoteric and partly exoteric; and, as the former were guarded by well-observed secrecy the sources of ordinary information are mostly based on the latter. The more recondite Mysteries could not, from their very nature, be publicly divulged; they were revelations, appreciable only by an awakened spiritual perception and incommunicable to anyone not thus awakened. The Greater Mysteries were successive initiations for prepared candidates. The Less consisted of symbolic and dramatic representations for the public, in which, among other things, the profound symbology of the Greek mythology was employed.
The mythos of Orpheus and Eurydice is a Mystery-story of the loss of the Word — 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 — fail to bring Eurydice back with him — 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.
The name is likewise found in the Hebrew Sinay, commonly written Sinai — a moon-mountain, referring indirectly to the fact that all such places in ancient times which were named mountain of the moon or a similar title, were then centers of occult training and initiation, whether good or bad.
“the number is a blind, and there are really 49 gates, . . . These ‘gates’ typify the different planes of Being or Ens. They are thus the ‘gates’ of life and the ‘gates’ of understanding or degrees of occult knowledge. These 49 (or 50) gates correspond to the seven gates in the seven caves of Initiation into the Mysteries of Mithra (see Celsus and Kircher). The division of the 50 gates into five chief gates, each including ten — is again a blind. It is in the fourth gate of these five, from which begins, ending at the tenth, the world of Planets, thus making seven, corresponding to the seven lower Sephiroth — that the key to their meaning lies hidden. They are also called the ‘gates of Binah’ or understanding” (TG 120).
Theopathy [from Greek theos god + pathos experience, feeling] The seventh stage of initiation in the Mysteries, where the candidate becomes a selfless channel for communion with his inner god; the third and last stage of spiritual development — the first being theophany, the second theopneusty. The sense of theopathy, originally used in the Greek Mysteries, was that the adept “suffered” the full influence of the god within him, becoming a selfless, consenting channel for the divine power pouring through him, in utter disregard of the personal self. Because of the immense personal renunciation involved, such an adept was said to suffer — meaning to bear or carry the divinity within. The second of these three initiatory grades, theopneusty, was the same as the third, but in less full degree, and signified that the initiate received the inspiration from above-within and, as it were, was breathed into from above, but did not carry the full load of the spiritual fire or inspirational flow. The first stage, theophany, was by comparison a temporary occurrence and signified the appearance of one’s divinity to the initiant’s self-conscious perception; the neophyte met his own inner god face to face, and the appearance or theophany lasted for a greater or less time depending upon various circumstances.
Theopneusty [from Greek theos god + pneo breathe] Divine inspiration or inbreathing; signifying in the ancient Greek Mysteries a stage in initiation, coming between theophany and theopathy, where the candidate received the inspiration of his own inner god, but did not bear the full load of the inspirational flow to the extent that took place in theopathy.
The original, pure Bacchic rites pertained to high initiation, in which the candidate becomes conscious of his oneness with divinity. Thus Bacchus, with his symbolic serpent and wine, stands for divine inspiration. But when the keys of the sacred science were lost and symbols were interpreted literally, the rites degenerated and often became profligate. Bacchus-Dionysos also figures as the inspirer of dramatic and representative art, inspiring the individual with the divine afflatus or mystic frenzy. Originally this meant the inner communion of the candidate with his own inner god and the consequent inspiration; on a lower plane it signifies the fleeting inspiration of poet and artist, and finally it degenerated into hysteria and morbid psychic states.
Theosophic philosophy postulates four methods of reproduction (chatur-yoni) in the manifested realms which run from the divine through many intermediate degrees to the physical: 1) the highest or self-born (aupapaduka), such as the inner birth at will of gods and bodhisattvas; 2) birth from the seeds of life of various kinds on the different planes, whether they be monads or physical seminal germs; 3) egg-born (andaja), such as reptiles and birds; and finally 4) womb-born (yonija), such as man and other mammalia. These four modes of birth are not given here in the order of their importance or spirituality, for human beings, who are womb-born, at a later stage through initiation and inner development finally attain the aupapaduka birth again.
“The Phoenix — called by the Hebrews Onech (from Phenoch, Enoch, symbol of a secret cycle and initiation), and by the Turks, Kerkes — lives a thousand years, after which, kindling a flame, it is self-consumed; and then, reborn from itself — it lives another thousand years, up to seven times seven . . . when comes the day of Judgment. The ‘seven times seven,’ 49, are a transparent allegory, and an allusion to the forty-nine ‘Manus,’ 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 — the ‘Father Tree’ in the Kuran — shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix; the ‘Day of Judgment’ meaning a ‘minor Pralaya’ . . . ‘The 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 deluge’ . . . and a watery one in turn” (SD 2:617).
The prophet Enoch, supposed to have been an antediluvian, was the inventor of learning, letters, and the founder of initiatory rites. Among the Arabs Enoch is commonly called Idris, meaning the wise or learned. Again, “The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a race cycle, and the mystical tree Ababel — the ‘Father Tree’ in the Kuran — shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix” (SD 2:617). The connection with the phoenix is purely mystical, because just as the phoenix is said to be reborn from its own ashes, thus bringing about a new cycle, so the neophyte during initiation is said to be reborn from the “ashes” of his past self.
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
..the release from subconscient ignorance and from disease, duration of life at will, and a change in the functioning of the body must be among the ultimate results of a supramental change.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 35, Page: 330 ::: .Supraphysical Worlds ::: This organisation includes, as on our earth, the existence of beings who have or take forms, manifest themselves or are naturally manifested in an embodying substance, but a substance other than ours, a subtle substance tangible only to subtle sense, a supraphysical form-matter. These worlds and beings may have nothing to do with ourselves and our life, they may exercise no action upon us; but often also they enter into secret communication with earth-existence, obey or embody and are the intermediaries and instruments of the cosmic powers and influences of which we have a subjective experience, or themselves act by their own initiation upon the terrestrial world’s life and motives and happenings. It is possible to receive help or guidance or harm or misguidance from these beings; it is possible even to become subject to their influence, to be possessed by their invasion or domination, to be instrumentalised by them for their good or evil purpose. At times the progress of earthly life seems to be a vast field of battle between supraphysical Forces of either character, those that strive to uplift, encourage and illumine and those that strive to deflect, depress or prevent or even shatter our upward evolution or the soul’s self-expression in the material universe. Some of these Beings, Powers or Forces are such that we think of them as divine; they are luminous, benignant or powerfully helpful: there are others that are Titanic, gigantic or demoniac, inordinate Influences, instigators or creators often of vast and formidable inner upheavals or of actions that overpass the normal human measure. There may also be an awareness of influences, presences, beings that do not seem to belong to other worlds beyond us but are here as a hidden element behind the veil in terrestrial nature. As contact with the supraphysical is possible, a contact can also take place subjective or objective—or at least objectivised— between our own consciousness and the consciousness of other once embodied beings who have passed into a supraphysical status in these other regions of existence. It is possible also to pass beyond a subjective contact or a subtle-sense perception and, in certain subliminal states of consciousness, to enter actually into other worlds and know something of their secrets. It is the more objective order of other-worldly experience that seized most the imagination of mankind in the past, but it was put by popular belief into a gross-objective statement which unduly assimilated these phenomena to those of the physical world with which we are familiar; for it is the normal tendency of our mind to turn everything into forms or symbols proper to its own kind and terms of experience.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 21-22 Page: 806-07
There were successive degrees of initiation, of which seven are usually enumerated. Of these the first three were preparatory, consisting of discipline of the whole nature: moral, mental, and physical. At each stage, the neophyte had to pass through a carefully graded series of tests or trials in order that he might prove his inner strength and capabilities to proceed. In this manner the neophyte reached and entered the fourth degree, in which the powers of his inner god having by now become at least partially active in his daily life and consciousness, he was enabled to begin the experience of passing into other planes and realms of life and of being, and thus to learn to known them by becoming them. In this way he acquired first-hand knowledge of the truths of nature and of the universe about which he previously had been taught.
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 “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 soul” (Fund 254-5).
The same general story is found in St. George and the Dragon, Michael and Satan, etc. Apap, the serpent of evil, is slain by Aker, Set’s serpent, showing the twofold meaning of the serpent symbol. Cosmologically this means the bringing into order of the confused and turbulent principles in chaos; in the human being it refers to the trials of initiation; in astronomy, to eclipses.
The seats of initiation were often situated on mountains, which because of this were regarded as holy mountains. Often rocky caves or recesses in mountains were chosen for their inaccessibility, and used as initiation crypts or chambers for teaching; in ancient Egypt the Great Pyramid was an initiation temple.
The solstices and equinoxes mark the four corners of the esoteric year, each associated with particular psychospiritual events in the initiation cycle. The winter solstice is associated with the birth of the inner Christ or Buddha; the summer solstice with the great renunciation of personal progress made by those of the hierarchy of compassion.
“The star worshipped in Egypt and reverenced by the Occultists; by the former because its heliacal rising with the Sun was a sign of the beneficent inundation of the Nile, and by the latter because it is mysteriously associated with Thoth-Hermes, god of wisdom, and Mercury, in another form. Thus Sothis-Sirius had, and still has, a mystic and direct influence over the whole living heaven, and is connected with almost every god and goddess. It was ‘Isis in the heaven’ and called Isis-Sothis, for Isis was ‘in the constellation of the dog,’ as is declared on her monuments. ‘The soul of Osiris was believed to reside in a personage who walks with great steps in front of sothis, sceptre in hand and a whip upon his shoulder.’ Sirius is also Anubis, and is directly connected with the ring ‘Pass me not’; it is, moreover, identical with Mithra, the Persian Mystery god, and with Horus and even Hathor, called sometimes the goddess Sothis. Being connected with the Pyramid, Sirius was, therefore, connected with the initiations which took place in it. A temple to Sirius-Sothis once existed within the great temple of Denderah. To sum up, all religions are not, as Dufeu, the French Egyptologist, sought to prove, derived from Sirius, the god-star, but Sirius-Sothis is certainly found in connection with every religion of antiquity” (TG 300).
The two equinoctial epochs of each year are also highly important as they indicate conditions favorable to certain operations, initiations, and ceremonies. These times were the ones often chosen as being favored for the celebration of the ancient Mysteries and the initiation of candidates; although the two solstices, falling in December and June, are equally important.
“The ’Urim and Thummim’ originated in Egypt, and symbolized the Two Truths, the two figures of Ra and Thmei being engraved on the breastplate of the Hierophant and worn by him during the initiation ceremonies. Diodorus adds that this necklace of gold and precious stones was worn by the High Priest when delivering judgment. . . . Philo Judaeus affirms that Urim and Thummim were ‘the two small images of Revelation and Truth, put between the double folds of the breastplate,’ and passes over the latter, with its twelve stones typifying the twelve signs of the Zodiac, without explanation” (TG 355-6).
The Zohar was compiled by Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iochai, and completed by his son Rabbi Eleazar, and his secretary Rabbi Abba. “But voluminous as is the work, and containing as it does the main points of the secret and oral tradition, it still does not embrace it all. It is well known that this venerable kabalist [Simeon] never imparted the most important points of his doctrine otherwise than orally, and to a very limited number of friends and disciples, including his only son. Therefore, without the final initiation into the Mercaba the study of the Kabala will be ever incomplete, . . . Since the death of Simeon Ben-Iochai this hidden doctrine has remained an inviolate secret for the outside worlds” (IU 2:348-9).
“This Hindu sacred beverage answers to the Greek Ambrosia or nectar, drunk by the gods of Olympus. A cup of kykeon was also quaffed by the mysta at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it easily reaches Brahma, or the place of splendor (Heaven). The soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real soma; and even kings and rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. . . . We were positively informed that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the true soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few; these are the alleged descendants from the Rishis, the real Agnihotris, the initiates of the great Mysteries. The soma-drink is also commemorated in the Hindu Pantheon, for it is called King-Soma. He who drinks of it is made to participate in the heavenly king, because he becomes filled with it, as the Christian apostles and their converts became filled with the Holy Ghost, and purified of their sins. The soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it gives the divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost. According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but, at the same time it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest ‘spirit’ of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical soma, with his ‘irrational soul,’ or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature and participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven.
Thus when Jesus speaks of my Father and your Father, he means the cosmic paramatman or universal spirit presiding over our universe, of which every monad in the present solar manvantara — except those peregrinating through our solar system as visitors — is an offspring or spark; furthermore, every class of adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them together, because of identity of origin in a dhyani-buddha of our universe; and thus it is that every buddha, indeed every great adept, meets at his last initiation all the great adepts who had reached buddhahood during the preceding ages. “Such communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from the same divine ray” (Subba Row in SD 1:574). The awareness of such a community of origin pertains to planes of being far above the personal self, and it has nothing to do with so transitory a phase of human evolution as sex.
Tong-pa-ngi, Tong-pa-nid A spiritual, intellectual, and psychic condition entered upon by an adept during trial in an initiation (ML 375); the virtually unsolvable mystery of the unfathomable abysses of the spirit.
Towers An edifice which rests on earth and, mystically speaking, aspires upwards toward heaven; coming under the general description of high places appropriate, like mountaintops and other natural and artificial elevations, to the worship of celestial powers. Found in many parts of the world, their origin is lost in the obscurity of ages. Prominent among them are the round towers found in Ireland, Scotland, Corsica, Sardinia, etc., undoubtedly used for different purposes at different times: by warriors as fortresses, by priests as sanctuaries and initiation chambers, or as watchtowers, belfries, or places of refuge. The cylindrical shape indicates symbolically the great positive and active principle in nature. In the Bible the tower is erected physically, and spoken of metaphorically, as an emblem of might and aspiration.
Transfiguration Most familiar in reference to the event described in Matthew 17 where Jesus is said to have taken three disciples onto a high mountain and is transfigured before them, so that his face shines as the sun and his raiment is as white as the light; and Moses and Elias appear with him. A church festival exists in commemoration of this event. The Greek word is metamorphosis (transformation). The phenomenon occurred at a certain stage in the initiation of a candidate in the Mysteries, when his personal self made contact with the god within him, the augoeides (the glorious) and caused his body to shine with radiance.
Turning to the second meaning, in Freemasonry every degree has its password or words, which are given to the neophyte during initiation into that degree, the possession of which is a requisite for admission into the working of that degree, and to the conferring of it upon others. By means of it, initiates, as of Freemasonry, may become known to one another. In the ancient Mysteries such words were key words, words of power — not mere words or phrases which could be communicated to anyone merely after taking part in a ceremony however symbolic, but only to those who were inwardly qualified and worthy of receiving them; who, in fact, had achieved the right of demanding them. Thus in a sense such words were ineffable, not only not to be uttered but unutterable to anyone not entitled to receive them, anyone who had not attained through aspiration, self-conquest, and inner development of mind and heart that stage wherein an understanding of them would be possible. Such inner development must in fact have been begun before one could be truly initiated even into the lowest degree, and must be attained progressively in greater and greater measure as an indispensable qualification for advancement into a higher degree. This use of passwords is also seen in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
tyaga ::: a leaving, renunciation; [Gita]: the inward renunciation, an entire abandonment of all attached clinging to the fruits of our works, to the action itself or to its personal initiation or rajasika impulse, inner freedom from desire and attachment.
upadesa. ::: "of this instruction"; the spiritual guidance or teaching given by a Guru; spiritual instruction; teaching; initiation
Uraeus [from Greek ouraios of the tail] Refers to the sacred serpent of Egypt (aar, aart, aartu in Egyptian); usually only the head and neck of the serpent are represented by the ancient Egyptians in the headdress of many divinities, and in the headdress of royal persons as a symbol of power, both occult and temporal. Egyptologists state that the physical basis of the symbol is supposed to be the Egyptian asp or cobra — Naja haje, naja being closely akin to the Sanskrit naga: “Occultism explains that the uraeus is the symbol of initiation and also of hidden wisdom, as the serpent always is” (TG 355). Generally, the representation of the sacred uraeus in headdresses — before the symbol became degraded into a mere ritualistic, formalistic emblem — meant that the individual wearing it had become an initiate and bore the badge of wisdom. Two deities in particular were always represented with the uraeus, Isis and Nephthys (Neith), therefore they were termed by the Egyptians snake goddesses (aarti). The uraeus crown itself was named tept.
utpattikrama. (T. bskyed rim; C. shengqi cidi; J. shokishidai; K. saenggi ch'aje 生起次第). In Sanskrit, "stage of generation" or the "creation stage," one of the two major phases (along with the NIsPANNAKRAMA or the "stage of completion") of ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA practice. The term encompasses a wide range of practices that commence after one has received initiation (ABHIsEKA), generally involving the practice of the SĀDHANA of a particular deity with the aim of the "generation" or transformation of the body, environment, enjoyments, and activities of the practitioner into the body, environment, enjoyments, and activities of a buddha. This is done through the practice of deity yoga (DEVATĀYOGA), in which the meditator visualizes himself or herself as a buddha and the environment as a MAndALA. In the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism, MAHĀYOGA generally corresponds to the utpattikrama.
Vajrabodhi. (C. Jingangzhi; J. Kongochi; K. Kŭmgangji 金剛智) (671-741). Indian ĀCĀRYA who played a major role in the introduction and translation in China of seminal Buddhist texts belonging to the esoteric tradition or MIJIAO (see MIKKYo and TANTRA); also known as Vajramati. His birthplace and family background are uncertain, although one source says that he was a south Indian native whose brāhmana father served as a teacher of an Indian king. At the age of nine, he is said to have gone to the renowned Indian monastic university of NĀLANDĀ, where he studied various texts of both the ABHIDHARMA and MAHĀYĀNA traditions. Vajrabodhi also learned the different VINAYA recensions of the eighteen MAINSTREAM BUDDHIST SCHOOLS. It is said that Vajrabodhi spent the years 701-708 in southern India, where he received tantric initiation at the age of thirty-one from NĀGABODHI (d.u.), a south Indian MAHĀSIDDHA of the VAJRAsEKHARA (see SARVATATHĀGATATATTVASAMGRAHA) line. He later traveled to Sri Lanka and then to sRĪVIJAYA before sailing to China, eventually arriving in the eastern Tang capital of Luoyang in 720. In 721, Vajrabodhi and his famed disciple AMOGHAVAJRA arrived in the western capital of Chang'an. Under the patronage of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756), Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra translated the VAJRAsEKHARASuTRA and other related texts. Vajrabodhi devoted his energy and time to spreading tantric Buddhism by establishing the ABHIsEKA or initiation platforms and performing esoteric rituals. In particular, Vajrabodhi was popular as a thaumaturge; his performance of the rituals for rainmaking and curing diseases gained him favor at the imperial court; he even gave tantric initiation to the Tang emperor Xuanzong. During his more than twenty years in China, Vajrabodhi introduced about twenty texts belonging to the Vajrasekhara textual line. Vajrabodhi attracted many disciples; the Silla monk HYECH'O (704-87), known for his travel record WANG O CH'oNCH'UK KUK CH'oN ("Record of a Journey to the Five Kingdoms of India"), also studied with him. The Japanese SHINGONSHu honors Vajrabodhi as the fifth of the eight patriarchs in its lineage, together with Nāgabodhi and Amoghavajra.
vajrācārya. (T. rdo rje slob dpon; C. jingang asheli/jingangshi; J. kongoajari/kongoshi; K. kŭmgang asari/kŭmgangsa 金剛阿闍梨/金剛師). In Sanskrit, "VAJRA master"; referring to a tantric GURU (BLA MA) who has mastered the tantric arts, received the appropriate initiations, and is qualified to confer initiations and dispense tantric teachings. He is traditionally listed as having ten qualities. ¶ The title vajrācārya is also awarded to a person who has received a specific set of initiations (ABHIsEKA) in the ANUTTARAYOGATANTRA systems. Although numerous variations occur, the main sequence of initiations in KRIYĀTANTRA, CARYĀTANTRA, and YOGATANTRA are (1) the water initiation (udakābhiseka), (2) the crown initiation (mukutābhiseka), (3) the VAJRA initiation (vajrābhiseka), (4) the bell initiation (ghantābhiseka), and (5) the name initiation (nāmābhiseka). One who has received these initiations is regarded as a vajrācārya. In the yogatantras, an additional initiation, called the vajrācārya initiation (vajrācāryābhiseka), is bestowed. In the anuttarayoga systems, this set of five or six is often condensed into one, becoming the first of four initiations, called the vajrācārya initiation or the vase initiation (KALAsĀBHIsEKA). ¶ In the Newar Buddhism of Nepal, the name vajrācārya is also used by an endogamous caste of lay priests who perform a wide variety of rituals for the Buddhist community, including life-cycle rites, fire rituals, temple rituals, protective rites. They also perform tantric initiation for high-caste members of the Newar community. According to the anuttarayoga systems, one becomes a vajrācārya as a result of a series of initiations; in the Newar community, however, it is a hereditary category.
Virgin Birth Often applied to any kind of reproduction which is not sexual, including that of human races before the separation of the sexes. In a mystical sense, it applies to some of the rites of initiation, where the candidate has to go through by an anticipatory process the experiences which mankind will live through in the course of the next two root-races. Among these was the experience of the mystical virgin birth. The corresponding fact concerning mankind of the future is, that there will be in due course of evolutionary time no more sexual birth, which will then have run its course and will have disappeared, but instead, reproduction will be by the power of kriyasakti: by thought and will.
Virupa. (Bi ru pa). Sanskrit proper name of one of the eighty-four MAHĀSIDDHAs, particularly revered in the SA SKYA sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Very little can be said with certainty about his life (whether he was a historical figure is open to question), but he may have lived at the end of the tenth century CE. He is said to have been a monk and a distinguished scholar of NĀLANDĀ monastery (in some sources, SOMAPURA), who was originally named Dharmapāla, devoting himself to scholastic study during the day and tantric practice at night. He recited the MANTRA of CAKRASAMVARA for years, but, unable to make any progress in his practice, he threw his rosary into the latrine. That night, the goddess NAIRĀTMYĀ, appeared to him in a dream, instructing him to retrieve his rosary. Over the course of six nights, she conferred initiations and instructions that allowed him to attain the sixth bodhisattva BHuMI. She also gave him a text, which is otherwise unknown in Sanskrit, whose Sanskrit title might be reconstructed as *Mārgaphalamulasāstra, the "Root Treatise on the Path and Its Fruition." Dharmapāla subsequently began to engage openly in tantric practices and was expelled from the monastery and branded "deformed" or "ugly" (virupa), whence he derived his name. Among the many stories told about him, perhaps the most famous tells of his stopping in a tavern to drink. When the tavern keeper demanded payment, he offered her the sun instead, using his ritual dagger to stop the sun in its course. The sun did not move for three days, during which time Virupa consumed huge amounts of drink. In order to set the sun on its course, the king agreed to pay his bill. Virupa eventually encountered two YOGINs who became his disciples: dombiheruka and Kṛsnacārin. In the eleventh century, the Tibetan scholar SA CHEN KUN DGA' SNYING PO of the 'Khon clan is said to have had a vision of Virupa in which he received transmission of the *Mārgaphalamulasāstra. This became the foundation for the LAM 'BRAS teachings of the Sa skya sect, where Virupa is regarded as a buddha, equal in importance to Nāropa for the BKA' RGYUD sect. His most famous work is his RDO RJE TSHIG RKANG ("Vajra Verses").
Voodoo or Voodooism [from Fongbe dialect vodunu from vodu moral and religious life of the Fons of Dahomey] A definite system of African black magic or sorcery, including various types of necromantic practice. It reached the Americas with the African slaves brought from the West Coast, and in and around the Caribbean various degrees of the cult persist and constitute a recognized if little understood social feature in the history and life of the people. Especially significant in the original Fon religion are the principal temples in the sacred forests, with symbolic hieroglyphics on the walls, depicting the exploits of their kings, voodoo legends, etc., and explaining their belief in the unknowable god Meru (Great Master); this unmanifest god, too far removed from men for them to give to him any form, dealt with them through lesser gods and nature spirit, i.e., voodoo; the priestesses serving the temple in a secret cult with four degrees of initiation, and having passwords unknown to laymen; the cult of the snake or adder as the most primitive form of the religion. Such findings in voodoo history, however degraded in course of time and overlaid by beliefs and customs of cruder native tribes, have the basic elements of a hierarchic religion so enveloped in mystery as to indicate an origin far beyond the creative imagination of any people. Rather, here in strange temples of dark mystery, were the lingering echoes of some ancient wisdom teaching of those who were truly “as wise as serpents.” The least altered of the original system is probably the voodoo music with its solemn, insistent rhythm in the mood of prayer or an invocation. This rhythm persists, even when the ritual songs in Haiti are composed entirely of Creole words, or of a series of unintelligible sounds.
Votan is “probably the same as Quetzal-Coatl; a ‘son of the snakes,’ one admitted ‘to the snake’s hole,’ which means an Adept admitted to the Initiation in the secret chamber of the Temple” (TG 366).
weikza. [alt. weikza-do]. In Burmese, a "wizard," deriving from the Pāli vijjādhara (S. VIDYĀDHARA). In Burmese popular religion, the weikza is portrayed as a powerful thaumaturge possessed of extraordinarily long life, whose abilities derive from a mastery of tranquillity meditation (P. samatha; S. sAMATHA) and a variety of occult sciences such as alchemy (B. ekiya), incantations (P. manta; S. MANTRA), and runes (B. ing, aing). Collectively, these disciplines are called weikza-lam or "the path of the wizard." Training in this path is esoteric, requiring initiation by a master (B. saya), and votaries typically are organized into semisecret societies called weikza-gaing (P. vijjāgana). Although concerned with the acquisition of supernatural powers and an invulnerable body, these attributes are ultimately dedicated to the altruistic purpose of assisting good people in times of need and protecting the Buddha's religion from evil forces. In this regard, weikza practitioners often act as healers and exorcists, and in the modern era weikza-sayas with large followings are among the country's notables, who have built monumental pagodas and restored national shrines. The perfected weikza has the ability to live until the advent of the future buddha Metteya (S. MAITREYA), at which time he can choose to pass into nibbāna (S. NIRVĀnA) as an enlightened disciple (P. sāvaka arahant; S. sRĀVAKA ARHAT), vow to become himself a solitary buddha (P. paccekabuddha; S. PRATYEKABUDDHA) or a perfect buddha (P. sammāsambuddha; S. SAMYAKSAMBUDDHA), or simply continue living as a weikza. Weikza practitioners typically eschew the practice of insight meditation (P. VIPASSANĀ; S. VIPAsYANĀ) on the grounds that this might cause them to attain nibbāna too quickly. Although largely domesticated to the prevailing worldview of Burmese THERAVĀDA orthodoxy, weikza practice and orientation ultimately derive from outside the Pāli textual tradition and show striking similarities to the Buddhist MAHĀSIDDHA tradition of medieval Bengal.
Whatever the good spirit makes, the evil spirit mars, even though “the two Spirits created the world, the Good Spirit and the Evil One” (Yasht 13, 76). When the world was created, Angra-Mainyu broke into it, and for every creation of Ahura-Mazda’s, he counter-created by his witchcraft a plague; he killed the firstborn bull that had been the first offspring and source of life on earth, created 99,999 diseases, etc. “Ahriman destroys the bull created by Ormazd — which is the emblem of terrestrial illusive life, the ‘germ of sorrow’ — and, forgetting that the perishing finite seed must die, in order that the plant of immortality, the plant of spiritual, eternal life, should sprout and live, Ahriman is proclaimed the enemy, the opposing power, the devil”; “Terrestrially, all these allegories were connected with the trials of adeptship and initiation. Astronomically, they referred to the Solar and Lunar eclipses” (SD 2:93, 380).
When Eurydice died from the bite of a venomous snake, Orpheus visited the Underworld to reclaim her, and his descent there is a veiled record of initiation. Orpheus was permitted to take Eurydice back with him on condition that he did not look back, symbolic of a stern condition for successfully traveling the mystic path. But Orpheus did look back and his union with the esoteric doctrine, personified as Eurydice, was broken. After mourning, he withdrew to Mount Rhodope, where a group of Maenads or Bacchanals tore him limb from limb.
Whereas temples or fanes of initiation were found among all peoples, as much on the plains as in the mountains, it was almost invariably the custom for centers of occult training, especially the higher branches, to be found on the lofty plateaus of mountain chains, and not solely because of the need of separation from the hurly-burly of human life as found in populated districts and their cities. An important reason why mountains or secluded spots are invariably chosen for secret training centers is that the currents and waves of the astral light become quieter and more peaceful the higher one ascends above the surface of the earth.
While the historical legend of the Buddha obtaining omniscience under the bodhi tree may be correct historically, it is also a usage of the mystical language of the Mysteries — Gautama attaining supreme wisdom and knowledge under the “wisdom tree” is but another way of saying that through initiation into the highest grades of the Mysteries, he reached the stage of buddhahood because he was already a buddha through inner evolution. Again, in India adepts of both the right- and left-hand were often referred to as trees, the path indicated by whether the tree named was beneficent or maleficent. See also ASVATTHA
White Stone “To him that overcometh will I give of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Rev 2:17). In Revelation, a symbolic record of John’s initiation, the white stone is the new, pure, inner psychological vehicle in the person which the spirit within him is enabled to acquire and work through when the victory in initiation has been won; and the new name signifies the new self which has thus become manifest in him. The stone “had the word prize engraved on it, and was the symbol of that word given to the neophyte who, in his initiation, had successfully passed through all the trials in the Mysteries. It was the potent white cornelian of the mediaeval Rosicrucians, who took it from the Gnostics” (TG 369). In exoteric rites this truth was represented by the gift of an actual stone or gem, and we hear of the alba petra (white stone) of initiation; while the Gnostic gems and their inscriptions are well known. It also calls to mind the philosopher’s stone.
will, free ::: Sri Aurobindo: Our notion of free will is apt to be tainted with the excessive individualism of the human ego and to assume the figure of an independent will acting on its own isolated account, in a complete liberty without any determination other than its own choice and single unrelated movement. This idea ignores the fact that our natural being is a part of cosmic Nature and our spiritual being exists only by the supreme Transcendence. Our total being can rise out of subjection to fact of present Nature only by an identification with a greater Truth and a greater Nature. The will of the individual, even when completely free, could not act in an isolated independence, because the individual being and nature are included in the universal Being and Nature and dependent on the all-overruling Transcendence. There could indeed be in the ascent a dual line. On one line the being could feel and behave as an independent self-existence uniting itself with its own impersonal Reality; it could, so self-conceived, act with a great force, but either this action would be still within an enlarged frame of its past and present self-formation of power of Nature or else it would be the cosmic or supreme Force that acted in it and there would be no personal initiation of action, no sense therefore of individual free will but only of an impersonal cosmic or supreme Will or Energy at its work. On the other line the being would feel itself a spiritual instrument and so act as a power of the Supreme Being, limited in its workings only by the potencies of the Supernature, which are without bounds or any restriction except its own Truth and self-law, and by the Will in her. But in either case there would be, as the condition of a freedom from the control of a mechanical action of Nature-forces, a submission to a greater conscious Power or an acquiescent unity of the individual being with its intention and movement in his own and in the world"s existence.” *The Life Divine
Wing(s) Often signifying flight, but more accurately the soaring power of the spirit, literally or metaphorically, as in the wings of Mercury, of Christian, Hebrew, and other angelic figures of the Mesopotamian nations, of the horse Pegasus, of the sphinxes representative of the several human powers, of the winged dragons, of the winged wheels mentioned in Ezekiel’s vision of initiation, and also as descriptive of the workings of fohat. The eternal bird, the flutter of whose wings produces life, represents the dual forces proceeding from boundless space, and the emblem is equivalent to Hansa, the Hindu bird of wisdom. Similar to this is the winged globe of Egypt.
“With this fish, with the waters in general, and, for the Christians, with the Jordan waters in particular, the whole program of the ancient Mystery-Initiation is connected. The whole of the New Testament is an allegorical representation of the Cycle of Initiation, i.e., the natural birth of man in sin or flesh, and of his second or spiritual birth as an Initiate followed by his resurrection after three days of trance — a mode of purification — during which time his human body or Astral was in Hades or Hell, which is the earth, and his divine Ego in Heaven or the realm of truth” (BCW 11:495).
Wordpassing, Passwords Communication or passing of the word or words in two contexts: 1) in the sacred Mysteries, by one hierophant just before his death to his successor; and 2) as the culminating act of initiation, from the initiate to the candidate or neophyte, as in Freemasonry by the Master of the Lodge, representing King Solomon, to the candidate after his raising.
wuxiang jie. (J. musokai; K. musang kye 無相戒). In Chinese, "formless precepts"; a type of precept mentioned in the LIUZU TAN JING, where they are said to help constrain practitioners so that they are able to gain enlightenment. The formless precepts reflect the early CHAN community's effort to offer its own understanding of the MAHĀYĀNA precepts. Although no clear explanation of exactly what these precepts are is provided in the text, the wuxiang jie are said to be the premier type of precepts, which are superior to the usual types of constraints taught in earlier types of Buddhism, which sought to develop wholesome ways of action and deter unwholesome actions. The conferral of these precepts appears to have occurred at the start of a kind of initiation ceremony, which subsequently followed with acceptance of the four great vows (SI HONGSHIYUAN), repentance (chan), the three refuges (TRIsARAnA), and PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ.
Yet on the upward arc of an evolutionary cycle, partaking of this sacred ambrosial food signifies initiation, the partaking by the initiant in the Mysteries of the “drink” of spiritual immortality. This drink is symbolized by the cup and its contained liquid, but actually is the receiving into the consciousness from the inner nature of the life-giving streams, the draught of everlasting life, or the elixir of life. After partaking of this ambrosial elixir, brought about by lives of selflessness and by final initiation, the adept learns to live in the minor and intermediate spheres of the solar system as a fully self-conscious co-laborer with the gods in their cosmic work. Such are the higher nirmanakayas, true buddhas, etc.
yi dam. In Tibetan, a term often translated as "meditational deity" or "tutelary deity." In the practice of Buddhist tantra, it is the enlightened being, whether male or female, peaceful or wrathful, who serves as the focus of one's SĀDHANA practice. One is also to visualize one's tantric teacher (VAJRĀCĀRYA) as this deity. The term is of uncertain origin and does not seem to be a direct translation of a Sanskrit term, although istadevatā is sometimes identified with the term. The etymology that is often given sees the term as an abbreviation of yid kyi dam tshig, meaning "commitment of the mind." Traditionally, the yi dam is selected by throwing a flower onto a MAndALA, with the deity upon whom the flower lands becoming the "chosen deity." However, when one receives a tantric initiation, the central deity of that tantra typically becomes the yi dam, with daily practices of offering and meditation often required. Through the propitiation of the deity and recitation of MANTRA, it is said that the deity will bestow accomplishments (SIDDHI). In the practice of DEVATĀYOGA, one meditates upon oneself as that deity in order to achieve buddhahood in the form of that deity. The yi dam is considered one of the three roots (rtsa gsum) of tantric practice, together with the GURU and the dĀKINĪ: the guru is considered to be the source of blessings; the yi dam, the source of accomplishments; and the dākinī, the source of activities. These three roots are considered the inner refuge, with the Buddha, DHARMA, and SAMGHA being the outer refuge, and the channels (NĀdĪ), winds (PRĀnA), and drops (BINDU) being the secret refuge.
Yoga Vidya (Sanskrit) Yoga vidyā [from yoga union + vidyā knowledge, science] Spiritual knowledge, the attaining of liberation, moksha, or initiation. Practically identical with jnana-vidya.
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4 Aleister Crowley
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1 Thomas Moore
1 Ronald Decker and Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett
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1 Rene Guenon: Initiation And Spiritual Realization (1952)
1 Peter J Carroll
1 Manly P Hall
1 Israel Regardie
1 Hermes: On Initiation
1 Eliphas Levi
1 Dion Fortune
1 Alice Bailey
1 The Mother
1 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 Sri Aurobindo
1 Jetsun Milarepa
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1:Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
2:Mouna is the best and the most potent diksha. Silent initiation changes the hearts of all. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
3:The knowledge of the divine nature is the sole truth and this truth cannot he discovered, nor even its shadow, in this world full of lies, of changing appearances. and of errors. ~ Hermes: On Initiation, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
4:The truth is that there is really no 'profane realm' that could in any way be opposed to a 'sacred realm'; there is only a 'profane point of view', which is really none other than the point of view of ignorance. ~ Rene Guenon: Initiation And Spiritual Realization (1952) #KEYS
5:As one becomes proficient in the work of the Order and one's insight and understanding develops, it will become apparent that all of these methods may be tied together and unified to become a magical engine by means of which the Mountain of Initiation may be scaled and the Kingdom of Heaven reached, so that man aspires to God and God aspires to man. ~ Israel Regardie, The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, #KEYS
6:In the ancient system of initiation, the truth seeker must pass through a second birth, and those who attained this exalted state were known thereafter as 'the twice born.' Only one who has been born again can understand the mysteries of heaven. This new birth, however, is not attained by merely joining a sect. It must be personally earned through a complete regeneration of character and conduct.
~ Manly P Hall,#KEYS
7:During the dark night there is no choice but to surrender control, give in to unknowing, and stop and listen to whatever signals of wisdom might come along. It's a time of enforced retreat and perhaps unwilling withdrawal. The dark night is more than a learning experience; it's a profound initiation into a realm that nothing in the culture, so preoccupied with external concerns and material success, prepares you for. ~ Thomas Moore, #KEYS
8: To make it more simple for general comprehension: after initiation, the mystic is merged in the occultist, for he has become a student of occult law; he has to work with matter, with its manipulation and uses, and he has to master and control all lower forms of manifestation, and learn the rules... yet he will still have to find the God within his own being, before he can safely venture on the path of occult law. ~ Alice Bailey, in Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 147, (1922) #KEYS
9:In Magick, on the contrary, one passes through the veil of the exterior world (which, as in Yoga, but in another sense, becomes "unreal" by comparison as one passes beyond) one creates a subtle body (instrument is a better term) called the Body of Light; this one develops and controls; it gains new powers as one progresses, usually by means of what is called 'initiation': finally, one carries on almost one's whole life in this Body of Light, and achieves in its own way the mastery of the Universe. ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears, #KEYS
10:It is therefore sufficient to start by one of them and find the point at which it meets the other at first parallel lines of advance and melts into them by its own widenings. At the same time a more difficult, complex, wholly powerful process would be to start, as it were, on three lines together, on a triple wheel of soul-power But the consideration of this possibility must be postponed till we have seen what are the conditions and means of the Yoga of self-perfection. For we shall see that this also need not be postponed entirely, but a certain preparation of it is part of and a certain initiation into it proceeds by the growth of the divine works, love and knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#KEYS
11:At one stage in the initiation procedure, Christian tells us...the postulant climbs down an iron ladder, with seventy-eight rungs, and enters a hall on either side of which are twelve statues, and, between each pair of statues, a painting. These twenty-two paintings, he is told, are Arcana or symbolic hieroglyphs; the Science of Will, the principle of all wisdom and source of all power, is contained in them. Each corresponds to a "letter of the sacred language" and to a number, and each expresses a reality of the divine world, a reality of the intellectual world and a reality of the physical world. The secret meanings of these twenty-two Arcana are then expounded to him. ~ Ronald Decker and Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett, A Wicked Pack of Cards - The Origins of the Occult Tarot, #KEYS
12:Part 2 - Initiation
6. The Road of Trials:Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favorite phase of the myth-adventure. It has produced a world literature of miraculous tests and ordeals. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage. The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and really perilous path of initiatory conquests and moments of illumination. Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed-again, again, and again. Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unsustainable ecstasies and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land. ~ Joseph Campbell,#KEYS
13:In ancient times the disciple had to undergo severe tests to prove his ability for initiation. Here we do not follow that method. Apparently there is no test and no trial. But if you see the truth, you will find that here it is much more difficult. There the disciple knew that he was undergoing a period of trial and after he had passed through some outward tests, he was taken in. But here you have to face life and you are watched at every moment. It is not only your outer actions that count. Each and every thought and inner movement is seen, every reaction is noticed. It is not what you do in the solitude of the forest, but what you do in the thick of the battle of life that is important.
Are you ready to submit yourself for such tests? Are you ready to change yourself completely? You will have to throw off your ideas, ideals, values, interests and opinions. Everything will have to be learnt anew. If you are ready for all this, then take a plunge; otherwise don't try to step in. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#KEYS
14:There are two Paths to the Innermost: the Way of the Mystic, which is the way of devotion and meditation, a solitary and subjective path; and the way of the occultist, which is the way of the intellect, of concentration, and of trained will; upon this path the co-operation of fellow workers is required, firstly for the exchange of knowledge, and secondly because ritual magic plays an important part in this work, and for this the assistance of several is needed in most of the greater operations. The mystic derives his knowledge through the direct communion of his higher self with the Higher Powers; to him the wisdom of the occultist is foolishness, for his mind does not work in that way; but, on the other hand, to a more intellectual and extrovert type, the method of the mystic is impossible until long training has enabled him to transcend the planes of form. We must therefore recognize these two distinct types among those who seek the Way of Initiation, and remember that there is a path for each. ~ Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and Their Work and The Training and Work of the Initiate, #KEYS
15:The key one and threefold, even as universal science. The division of the work is sevenfold, and through these sections are distributed the seven degrees of initiation into is transcendental philosophy.
The text is a mystical commentary on the oracles of Solomon, ^ and the work ends with a series of synoptic schedules which are the synthesis of Magic and the occult Kabalah so far as concerns that which can be made public in writing. The rest, being the esoteric and inexpressible part of the science, is formulated in magnificent pantacles carefully designed and engraved. These are nine in number, as follows
(1) The dogma of Hermes;
(2) Magical realisation;
(3) The path of wisdom and the initial procedure in the work
(4) The Gate of the Sanctuary enlightened by seven mystic rays;
(5) A Rose of Light, in the centre of which a human figure is extending its arms in the form of a cross;
(6) The magical laboratory of Khunrath, demonstrating the necessary union of prayer and work
(7) The absolute synthesis of science;
(8) Universal equilibrium ;
(9) A summary of Khunrath's personal embodying an energetic protest against all his detractors. ~ Eliphas Levi, The History Of Magic,#KEYS
16:Central to shamanism is the perception of an otherworld or series of otherworlds. This type of astral or aetheric dimension containing various powers entities and forces allows real effects to be created in this world. The shaman's soul journeys through this dimension while in ecstatic or drug-induced state of trance. The journey may be undertaken for divinatory knowledge, to cure sickness, to deliver a blow to enemies, or to find game animals. Prospective shamans are usually selected from those with a nervous disposition. They may either be assigned to shamanic instruction or are driven to it by a power present in the shamanic culture. Initiation invokes a journey into the otherworld, a meeting with spirits and a death-rebirth experience. In the deathrebirth experience, the candidate has a vision of his body being dismembered, often by fantastic beings or animal spirits, and then reassembled from the wreckage. The new body invariably contains an extra part often described as an additional bone or an inclusion of magical quartz stones or sometimes an animal spirit. This experience graphically symbolizes the location of the aetheric force field within the body or the addition of various extra powers to it.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#KEYS
17:9. Atonement with the Father/Abyss:Atonement consists in no more than the abandonment of that self-generated double monster-the dragon thought to be God (superego) and the dragon thought to be Sin (repressed id). But this requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself, and that is what is difficult. One must have a faith that the father is merciful, and then a reliance on that mercy. Therewith, the center of belief is transferred outside of the bedeviling god's tight scaly ring, and the dreadful ogres dissolve. It is in this ordeal that the hero may derive hope and assurance from the helpful female figure, by whose magic (pollen charms or power of intercession) he is protected through all the frightening experiences of the father's ego-shattering initiation. For if it is impossible to trust the terrifying father-face, then one's faith must be centered elsewhere (Spider Woman, Blessed Mother); and with that reliance for support, one endures the crisis-only to find, in the end, that the father and mother reflect each other, and are in essence the same. The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands-and the two are atoned. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
18:Response To A Logician :::
I bow at the feet of my teacher Marpa.
And sing this song in response to you.
Listen, pay heed to what I say,
forget your critique for a while.
The best seeing is the way of "nonseeing"
the radiance of the mind itself.
The best prize is what cannot be looked for
the priceless treasure of the mind itself.
The most nourishing food is "noneating"
the transcendent food of samadhi.
The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking"
the nectar of heartfelt compassion.
Oh, this self-realizing awareness
is beyond words and description!
The mind is not the world of children,
nor is it that of logicians.
Attaining the truth of "nonattainment,"
you receive the highest initiation.
Perceiving the void of high and low,
you reach the sublime stage.
Approaching the truth of "nonmovement,"
you follow the supreme path.
Knowing the end of birth and death,
the ultimate purpose is fulfilled.
Seeing the emptiness of reason,
supreme logic is perfected.
When you know that great and small are groundless,
you have entered the highest gateway.
Comprehending beyond good and evil
opens the way to perfect skill.
Experiencing the dissolution of duality,
you embrace the highest view.
Observing the truth of "nonobservation"
opens the way to meditating.
Comprehending beyond "ought" and "oughtn't"
opens the way to perfect action.
When you realize the truth of "noneffort,"
you are approaching the highest fruition.
Ignorant are those who lack this truth:
arrogant teachers inflated by learning,
scholars bewitched by mere words,
and yogis seduced by prejudice.
For though they yearn for freedom,
they find only enslavement. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#KEYS
19:So then let the Adept set this sigil upon all the Words he hath writ in the book of the Works of his Will. And let him then end all, saying: Such are the Words!2 For by this he maketh proclamation before all them that be about his Circle that these Words are true and puissant, binding what he would bind, and loosing what he would loose. Let the Adept perform this ritual right, perfect in every part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and dusk, for two moons; next thrice, noon added, for three moons; afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four moons four times every day. Then let the Eleventh Moon be consecrated wholly to this Work; let him be instant in constant ardour, dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat and sleep.3 For know that the true Formula4 whose virtue sufficed the Beast in this Attainment, was thus:
INVOKE OFTEN
So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth The Beast, and prayeth his own Angel that this Book be as a burning Lamp, and as a living Spring, for Light and Life to them that read therein.
1. There is an alternative spelling, TzBA-F, where the Root, "an Host," has the value of 93. The Practicus should revise this Ritual throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and make it his own peculiar property. The spelling here suggested implies that he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 6; that he is a warrior in the army of Will, and of the Sun. 93 is also the number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.
2. The consonants of LOGOS, "Word," add (Hebrew values) to 93 [reading the Sigma as Samekh = 60; reading it as Shin = 300 gives 333], and ΕΠΗ, "Words" (whence "Epic") has also that value; ΕΙ∆Ε ΤΑ ΕΠΗ might be the phrase here intended; its number is 418. This would then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural conclusion of the Ritual. Cf. CCXX, III, 75.
3. These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to quantity and quality. One should not become anxious about one's phyiscal or mental health on à priori grounds, but pay attention only to indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber Samekh,#KEYS
20:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#KEYS
21:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Mythology is the womb of man's initiation to life and death. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 2:When we have an inner initiation into pure love, we are in contact with our true nature. ~ michael-beckwith, @wisdomtrove 3:I was initiated as a Buddhist monk at the age of 19, but I think that initiation is simply a starting point. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 4:A bit of advice given to a young Native American at the time of his initiation: ‘As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It’s not as wide as you think.’ ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 5:When we have an inner initiation into pure love, we are in contact with our true nature. Judgment of ourselves and others disappears. Compassionate, discerning wisdom then enters the equation in all of our relationships. ~ michael-beckwith, @wisdomtrove 6:Every positive change - every jump to a higher level of energy and awareness - involves a rite of passage. Each time to ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of personal evolution, we must go through a period of discomfort, of initiation. I have never found an exception. ~ dan-millman, @wisdomtrove 7:It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 8:As artists and traders in medieval cities began to form organizations, they instituted tough initiation ceremonies. Journeymen in Bergen, Norway, were shoved down a chimney, thrown three times into the sea, and soundly whipped. Such rites made belonging to the guild or corporation more precious to those who were accepted, and survived. ~ isaac-asimov, @wisdomtrove 9:The longing for initiation is universal and for modern youth, it is a desperate need. When nothing is offered in the way of spiritual initiation to prove one's entry into the world of men and women, initiation happens instead in the road or the street, in cars at high speed, with drugs, with dangerous sex, with weapons. However troubling, this behavior is rooted in a fundamental truth; a need to grow. ~ jack-kornfield, @wisdomtrove 10:The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life's joy. One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of life. Life in its becoming is always shedding death, and on the point of death. The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure - fearlessness and achievement. ~ joseph-campbell, @wisdomtrove 11:He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story - the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended. ~ fyodor-dostoevsky, @wisdomtrove 12:Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine. A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god. ~ plato, @wisdomtrove 13:The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. If some "pacifist" society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it. ~ ayn-rand, @wisdomtrove 14:Can the purpose of a relationship be to trigger our wounds? In a way, yes, because that is how healing happens; darkness must be exposed before it can be transformed. The purpose of an intimate relationship is not that it be a place where we can hide from our weaknesses, but rather where we can safely let them go. It takes strength of character to truly delve into the mystery of an intimate relationship, because it takes the strength to endure a kind of psychic surgery, an emotional and psychological and even spiritual initiation into the higher Self. Only then can we know an enchantment that lasts. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:A true initiation never ends. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
2:Making art is a rite of initiation. People change their souls. ~ Julia Cameron, #NFDB
3:Mythology is the womb of mankind's initiation to life and death. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
4:Birthing is the most profound initiation to spirituality a woman can have. ~ Robin Lim, #NFDB
5:My first few weeks in New York were an initiation into the kingdom of guts. ~ Shirley MacLaine, #NFDB
6:Shiism is already and of itself the spiritual way, the ṭarīqah —that is to say, initiation. ~ Henry Corbin, #NFDB
7:When we have an inner initiation into pure love, we are in contact with our true nature. ~ Michael Beckwith, #NFDB
8:Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
9:Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
10:Mouna is the best and the most potent diksha. Silent initiation changes the hearts of all. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
11:This change . . . requires a period of transition . . . expressed in forms of initiation. P. 119 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
12:the origin of consciousness is the initiation of the sign-user into the world of signs by a sign-giver. ~ Walker Percy, #NFDB
13:Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state. ~ Ira Gershwin, #NFDB
14:It is no surprise that the first and always unwelcome message of male initiation rites is LIFE – IS – HARD. ~ Richard Rohr, #NFDB
15:It is one of the strictest conditions of initiation that occult knowledge may never be sold or used for gain. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
16:I was initiated as a Buddhist monk at the age of 19, but I think that initiation is simply a starting point. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
17:transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation and desire into undertaking. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
18:...what is art to the dilettante but the initiation of the sacred few to the exclusion of the profane crowd?... ~ John Geddes, #NFDB
19:I didn't realize until that moment that Dauntless initiation had taught me an important lesson: how to keep going. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
20:the desert, more than anything else, opens the human mind to observation, meditation, and initiation into meaning. ~ Tariq Ramadan, #NFDB
21:First, baptism is a rite of initiation into a people that at the same time effects the constitution of “a people. ~ James K A Smith, #NFDB
22:The clue to one's next step toward the door of initiation may be revealed at the Full Moon during the sign of Taurus. ~ Alice Bailey, #NFDB
23:Male initiation does not move toward machoism; on the contrary, it moves toward achieving a cultivated heart before we die. ~ Robert Bly, #NFDB
24:We take spiritual initiation when we become conscious of the Divine within us, and thereby contact the Divine without us. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
25:All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
26:It was a scene from before civilisation, or after it, beyond the apocalypse. A ceremony of victory, or initiation, or sacrifice. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
27:Initiation means the Journey Inwards: nothing is changed or can be changed; but all is trulier understood with every step. ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
28:The spirituality of the earth is an invitation to initiation, to the death of what we have been and the birth of something new ~ David Spangler, #NFDB
29:She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallway. She knows about the initiation process. My mother was Dauntless. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
30:There has already been the karmic work: that what life has transformed in me, this initiation brought on, of necessity, by trials. ~ Isabelle Adjani, #NFDB
31:War is an initiation into the power of life and death. Women touch that power on the moment of birth, men at the edge of death. ~ William Broyles Jr, #NFDB
32:When government does more than guard against the initiation of force, inevitably it becomes a means of theft and bamboozlement. ~ Donald J Boudreaux, #NFDB
33:Bereavement is the deepest initiation into the mysteries of human life, an initiation more searching and profound than even happy love. ~ William Ralph Inge, #NFDB
34:I've been cordially invited to join the visceral realists. I accepted, of course. There was no initiation ceremony. It was better that way. ~ Roberto Bola o, #NFDB
35:The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure-- fearlessness and achievement. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
36:To be the altar boy at the first Mass of the day was a sacred initiation rite. It was like being hazed at a fraternity, only more Catholic. ~ Ian Morgan Cron, #NFDB
37:A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
38:No. Not you. But if you're bothered, remind me when I get back - we can talk about your initiation. I like the idea of you kneeling at my feet. ~ Ellen Connor, #NFDB
39:Being a person is not nearly as overrated as having played a part in the initiation of the process that has led to the being of a person. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana, #NFDB
40:The disorientation and reorientation which comes with the initiation into any mystery is the most wonderful experience which is possible to have. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
41:The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence. ~ Ron Paul, #NFDB
42:The purpose of initiation is to try to realize God through sincere spiritual effort. Have faith in the grace of your Guru and Ishta. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
43:Every test successfully met is rewarded by some growth in intuitive knowledge, strengthening of character, or initiation into a higher consciousness. ~ Paul Brunton, #NFDB
44:This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade 'Know Thyself!' and taught Initiation. ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
45:Although our culture no longer provides rites of initiation, there persists in all of us, regardless of gender, an archetypal need to be initiated. ~ Anthony Stevens, Jung, #NFDB
46:The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine. ~ James Hansen, #NFDB
47:He who has followed the path of love's initiation in the proper order will on arriving at the end suddenly perceive a marvelous beauty, the source of all our efforts ~ Plato, #NFDB
48:In every literate society, learning to read is something of an initiation, a ritualized passage out of a state of dependency and rudimentary communication. ~ Alberto Manguel, #NFDB
49:The book of Job is an initiation ritual, one of the finest expositions of the Mysteries to be found in the literature of the world. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
50:In the first part of life . . . this may be experienced as that moment of initiation at which one must learn to take the decisive steps into life alone. P. 150 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
51:The ‘wounded men’ may, I argue, represent a form of shamanistic suffering, ‘death’ and initiation that was closely associated with somatic hallucinati ~ James David Lewis Williams, #NFDB
52:My idea of the modern Stoic sage is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
53:At these critical periods . . . initiation is strongly activated to provide a meaningful transition that offers something more spiritually satisfying . . . p. 123 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
54:What is the meaning of Initiation? It is the Path to the realisation of your Self as the sole, the supreme, the absolute of all Truth, Beauty, Purity, Perfection! ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
55:Maybe I could rewrite the fairy tale of my life, transforming every blow to the head, and every cut to the cunt, and every crucified doll into some kind of an initiation. ~ Ariel Gore, #NFDB
56:No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a Luciferian Initiation ~ David Spangler, #NFDB
57:True initiation is a response to an inner calling; it requires that you face personal challenges heroically and experience a genuine rebirth into a new way of being. ~ Alberto Villoldo, #NFDB
58:In the words of Libet, “The initiation of the freely voluntary act appears to begin in the brain unconsciously, well before the person consciously knows he wants to act! ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
59:It's just a little initiation we have here at Spence - we like to torture each other. Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
60:A bit of advice Given to a young Native American At the time of his initiation: As you go the way of life, You will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
61:Every initiation reaches a point of crisis, by design. If it was easy to let go of the old way, there would be no need for initiation. We’d seat easily into new wisdom. ~ S Kelley Harrell M Div, #NFDB
62:All London was one grey temple of an awful rite, ring within ring of wizard stones circled about some central place, every circle was an initiation, every initiation eternal loss. ~ Arthur Machen, #NFDB
63:Initiation is the creative, artful container that helps each young person hear the call of spirit. In order to hear the call, a small death must come between parents and their child. ~ Michael Meade, #NFDB
64:Marion’s view allowed her experience with cancer to be full of meaning, to be replete with possibility, and it enabled Death to bring her more deeply into Life. She got the initiation. ~ Stephen Cope, #NFDB
65:It was the circle of perfect motion. Of the light-bringer and dark-giver, the world-starter and shadow-ender. Of initiation and completion. It was the symbol of the Cahr Awen. Cahr Awen. ~ Susan Dennard, #NFDB
66:The knowledge of the divine nature is the sole truth and this truth cannot he discovered, nor even its shadow, in this world full of lies, of changing appearances. and of errors. ~ Hermes: On Initiation, #NFDB
67:Part of the purpose of initiation is to tell the whole story and help you see your place in it,” Lord Rake said, motioning for the young rabbits to sit in the center of the room on two stools. ~ S D Smith, #NFDB
68:A bit of advice
Given to a young Native American
At the time of his initiation:
As you go the way of life,
You will see a great chasm. Jump.
It is not as wide as you think. ~ Joseph Campbell,#NFDB
69:...education has always meant the initiation of the young into the social and spiritual inheritance of the community: in other words, education has meant the transmission of culture. ~ Christopher Henry Dawson, #NFDB
70:Tinitiations ritual or astral voyage that is imbedded in the occult traditions of every culture."65 Thus, "the structure of abduction stories is identical to that of occult initiation rituals. ~ Jacques Vallee, #NFDB
71:Basically, Beautiful Creatures was the first lead that I had since Tetro, and it was a lesson in seeing what it's like to film a movie that's of a much bigger scale. It was a good initiation. ~ Alden Ehrenreich, #NFDB
72:If we fail to provide boys with pro-social models of the transition to adulthood, they may construct their own. In some cases, gang initiation rituals, street racing, and random violence may be the result. ~ Leonard Sax, #NFDB
73:Initiation, or the process of undergoing an expansion of consciousness, is part of the normal process of evolutionary development, viewed on a large scale, and not from the standpoint of the individual. ~ Alice A Bailey, #NFDB
74:The term initiation in the most general sense denotes a body of rites and oral teachings whose purpose is to produce a decisive alteration in the religious and social status of the person to be initiated. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
75:Our whole journey into authentic masculinity centers around those cool-of-the-day talks with God. Simple questions change hassles to adventures; the events of our lives become opportunities for initiation. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
76:All this was part of the initiation rites common to all armies. So was learning to drink. Beer, almost exclusively, at the post PX, there being no nearby towns. Lots of beer. They sang soldiers’ songs. Toward ~ Stephen E Ambrose, #NFDB
77:Attainment of a new stage of life seems to demand that symbols of initiation must be experienced. If society fails to provide them, then the Self compensates for this deficiency by producing them in dreams. ~ Anthony Stevens, Jung, #NFDB
78:The average man may be capable of benefiting by initiation, or he may not; it also depends upon his capacity; but each individual should have the opportunity of advancing to the highest development of which he is capable. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
79:This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of the need to blow some steam off? ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
80:Sometimes the elements of our life present us with a challenge that is an initiation in disguise, a fire walk that burns your lower nature right out of you so that you are able to adapt to a higher level of consciousness. ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
81:When we have an inner initiation into pure love, we are in contact with our true nature. Judgment of ourselves and others disappears. Compassionate, discerning wisdom then enters the equation in all of our relationships. ~ Michael Beckwith, #NFDB
82:I am becoming increasingly aware that initiation into Feri, and practicing any serious form of witchcraft or ceremonial magic, requires a lot of work. You can’t simply wake up one day, have a revelation, and be baptized into this. ~ Alex Mar, #NFDB
83:The life of the artist should be distinguished from that of all other people, even in external habits. They are Brahmins, a higher caste, not ennobled by birth, however, but through deliberate self-initiation. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, #NFDB
84:We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
85:The Great Work or Magnum Opus on planet Earth is to become Enlightened to our True Self by way of our True Will (the True Will is the True Self in action) and to help All accomplish this Great Work of initiation and illumination. ~ David Cherubim, #NFDB
86:A cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had been drawn up by a passionate sadist. ~ Tahir Shah, #NFDB
87:. . . it is the initiation rite that most effectively solves this problem . . . forcing a symbolic death . . . then ceremonially rescued by the rite of a new birth . . . true consolidation of the ego with the larger group. P. 123 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
88:Ronnie “Redrum” Malvo was a tatted-up cracker with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a criminal organization that made money off meth production and the sale of illegal guns—a gang whose only initiation rite was to kill a nigger. ~ Attica Locke, #NFDB
89:[The wilderness] had caressed him, and—lo!—he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
90:Initiation Day. The day she had always known would come was here at last. In less than two hours, she would be standing in the town square, among the young men and women of Charlestown, many of whom she had known since childhood. ~ Andreas Christensen, #NFDB
91:Education was not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. It was an initiation into the life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue. ~ Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, #NFDB
92:Aleister Crowley's reception of The Book of the Law was a direct manifestation and result of his initiation in the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn was, in fact, the basis of the proclamation of the New Aeon of Horus and the Law of Thelema. ~ David Cherubim, #NFDB
93:The launch of the report coincides with the initiation by WHO of the global strategy for the prevention and control of osteoporosis, and I think a good partnership could be established in our common efforts to prevent osteoporosis ~ Gro Harlem Brundtland, #NFDB
94:(In one of the most harrowing initiation ordeals, new disciples of La Familia Michoacana, a bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartel, are reportedly forced to read the works of John Eldredge, an American author of Christian self-help books.) And, ~ Tom Wainwright, #NFDB
95:Masculinity means initiation. To be masculine is to take initiative. To provide direction, security, stability, and order. To lead. To head. To husband. Masculinity means initiation. (Nowhere does it mean “bossy,” but more on that later.) ~ Stuart K Weber, #NFDB
96:The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic was Israel Regardie's last book, the final token of his True Will. Through this book he bequeathed to us the means to carry on the Great Work of the Golden Dawn which, in a nutshell, is Initiation. ~ David Cherubim, #NFDB
97:The word crisis- is from the Greek, meaning a moment to decide.- The recurrent moments of crisis and decision when understood, are growth junctures, points of initiation which mark a release from one state of being and a growth into the next. ~ Jill Purce, #NFDB
98:Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state. Suffering can be likened to a baptism - the passing over the threshold of pain and grief and anguish to claim a new state of being. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
99:Why would the factionless have a high Divergent population?" It sounds like she's smirking. "Obviously those who can't confine themselves to a particular way of thinking would be most likely to leave a faction or fail its initiation, right? ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
100:I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work here. We do dangerous things and people die. People die, and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving initiation. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
101:to enter into a journey of initiation with God requires a new set of questions: What are you trying to teach me here? What issues in my heart are you trying to raise through this? What is it you want me to see? What are you asking me to let go of? ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
102:Les organisations ésotériques islamiques se transmettent un signe de reconnaissance qui, suivant la tradition, fut communiqué au Prophète par l’archange Gabriel lui-même. On ne saurait indiquer plus nettement l’origine « non-humaine » de l’initiation. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
103:Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiation - creation - there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
104:Lucifer comes to give to us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it then he is free and we are free. This is the Luciferic initiation. It is one that many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an initiation in the New Age. ~ David Spangler, #NFDB
105:Metaphor means to carry beyond and rites of initiation cause people to descend below and leap beyond what they know of themselves. People arrive at a place where they must sink or else swim with inner capacities and resources they didn't know they had. ~ Michael Meade, #NFDB
106:Other cultures make a clear delineation between childhood and adulthood; there are rites of passages and initiation ceremonies to mark these transitions. People expect and are willing to expose young people to hardship and pain, because it helps them grow. ~ Jeff Goins, #NFDB
107:A real Guru's initiation is beyond the divisions of sects and creeds: it is the awakening to our own inner reality which, once glimpsed, determines our further course of development and our actions in life without the enforcement of outer rules. ~ Lama Anagarika Govinda, #NFDB
108:. . . we again meet the Trickster theme . . . he no longer appears as a lawless would-be hero. He has become the shaman . . . the medicine man . . . whose magical practices and flights of intuition stamp him as a primitive master of initiation. P. 147 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
109:All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals. ~ Ron Paul, #NFDB
110:In each life we have a personal complex which is a king ruling for a day. After death the complex is broken up, and the seven souls return to the seven planets, unless initiation has bound them together in a spiritual personality. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
111:It was at school in Hamhung that I received my initiation into ‘life purification time’, or self-criticism sessions. These have been a basic feature of life in North Korea since they were introduced by Kim Jong-il in 1974, and are the occasions almost everyone ~ Hyeonseo Lee, #NFDB
112:As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the Neolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. ~ Gary Snyder, #NFDB
113:For himself he tarried only to witness the initiation of a Mistress-Templar according to the Palladian rite, which took place in a Presbyterian Chapel, the Presbyterian persuasion, as he tells us, being one of the broad roads leading to avowed Satanism. The ~ Arthur Edward Waite, #NFDB
114:I needed to go into that bare, with nothing from my own life on my body, the way woodcutters' children in fairy tales have to leave their protections behind to enter the enchanted castle; the way votaries in old religions used to go naked to their initiation rites. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
115:The process of initiation in the esoteric and mystical traditions in the West involves exploring different modes of consciousness and rediscovering the experience of unity with nature and the cosmos that is inevitably lost through goal-directeddevelopment. ~ Sylvia Brinton Perera, #NFDB
116:Initiation is the process by which we turn from our natural inclination to remain unconscious and decide that, whatever it takes—suffering, striving, enduring—we will pursue conscious union with the deeper mind, the wild Self ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves, #NFDB
117:Initiation is the process by which we turn from our natural inclination to remain unconscious and decide that, whatever it takes—suffering, striving, enduring—we will pursue conscious union with the deeper mind, the wild Self. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves, #NFDB
118:Jungian psychology can never be reduced to a technique or an academic science, because it blends objectivity and art, knowledge and initiation. Our objectivity is and must be contaminated by soul. Without the mediation of the psyche, the world is unknowable to us. ~ Roberto Gambini, #NFDB
119:There is no study in the world which brings into more harmonious action all the faculties of the mind than [mathematics], ... or, like this, seems to raise them, by successive steps of initiation, to higher and higher states of conscious intellectual being. ~ James Joseph Sylvester, #NFDB
120:We are, in large part, a culture that expects its boys to initiate themselves into manhood. But holistic or even minimal initiation into manhood through relatively unguided self-experimentation is rare. Boys cannot become whole men without men and women making them into men. ~ Michael Gurian, #NFDB
121:There is one God. The Bible has one Creator. It is one book. It has one plan of grace, recorded from initiation, through execution, to consummation. From predestination to glorification, the Bible is the story of God redeeming His chosen people for the praise of His glory. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
122:Gangs have always existed - they are primarily a community a young men trying to find intensity, meaning, a path to the outer world (outside of home) that most tribal groupings addressed with rituals, rites of passage, initiation ceremonies. We’ve lost this knowledge as a culture. ~ Luis J Rodriguez, #NFDB
123:When you join the Parachute Regiment they send you on training and initiation exercises. One of the tasks is to accept and care for a pet white rabbit. The young squaddie has to feed, brush, stroke and comfort his rabbit for a week, and become attached to it. Then he has to shoot it. ~ Matthew Parris, #NFDB
124:This stuff is a swirling mess that will challenge any thinking person’s rigid perceptions. It’s a boiling soup of contradictory ingredients like UFO abduction, synchronicity, archetypes, shamanic initiation, totem animals, altered reality, psychic visions, powerful mind control—and owls. ~ Mike Clelland, #NFDB
125:Let me make my point about Vietnam. When the Nixon initiation came into office, there were 550,000 Americans in combat. And ending the war was not a question of turning off a television channel. And so, debating on how we got there and what judgments were made was not going to help us. ~ Henry A Kissinger, #NFDB
126:The initiation of the fermentation process does not require so complicated an apparatus as is represented by the living cell. The agent responsible for the fermenting action of the press juice is rather to be regarded as a dissolved substance, doubtless a protein; this will be denoted zymase. ~ Eduard Buchner, #NFDB
127:. . . it is quite certain that the fundamental goal of initiation lies in taming the original Trickster-like wildness of the juvenile nature. It therefore has a civilizing or spiritualizing purpose, in spite of the violence of the rites that are required to set this process in motion. P. 146 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
128:Ouspensky clearly indicates that all real initiation is self-initiation: “Systems and schools can indicate methods and ways, but no system or school whatever can do for a man the work he must do himself. Inner growth—a change of being—depends entirely upon the work a man must do on himself.”117 ~ Stephen E Flowers, #NFDB
129:well-known."
"You're saying Raynen is behind this?"
"Lad, he cannot help but see you as a threat. And they say he's been distraught of late-unbalanced." He shook his head. "I cannot believe all the problems this Initiation has had. I'm beginning to think it will take a miracle to pull it off. In ~ Karen Hancock,#NFDB
130:I would have given absolutely anything to sleep with a girl. Any girl actually. Whether it happened with someone I loved, like Hanne, or with a prostitute, made no difference, if it happened as part of a satanic initiation ceremony with goat’s blood and hoods I would have said, yes, I’m up for that. But ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd, #NFDB
131:The Freemen have 987 levels of membership, the first three of which are achieved merely by filling out an application. The 8th level is granted upon full acceptance into the local lodge, the 13th following Initiation, the 21st at the end of the Initiate's second week, and the 89th the first time he brings snacks. ~ Adam Rex, #NFDB
132:To attain the satisfactions of the mystic state without having to endure its rigours; to be the ecstatic follower of no god, the mystic or epopt* with no initiation; to pass the days meditating on a paradise you don’t believe in – all of this tastes good to the soul that knows what it means to know nothing. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
133:Without initiation into the scientific spirit one is not in possession of the best tools which humanity has so far devised for effectively directed reflection. One in that case not merely conducts inquiry and learning without the use of the best instruments, but fails to understand the full meaning of knowledge. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
134:Through his devotion to the holy Imāms, the Shiite is predisposed to receive this initiation from them, and such initiation provides him with a direct and personal link with the spiritual world in its 'vertical dimension' without his having to enter formally into an organized ṭarīqah, as is the case in Sunnism. ~ Henry Corbin, #NFDB
135:Who decides the parameters of this real world, where the initiation seems like self-sacrifice? Give up your personal vision of happiness in exchange for a collective vision: work hard, get married, buy a house, have a kid or two, diversify your portfolio, retire comfortably without burdening your children, die. ~ Rachel Friedman, #NFDB
136:It always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. It checks their confidence and simplicity, two of the best qualities that heaven gives them, and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
137:To regard human beings as tools - as instruments - for the use of other human beings is not only unscientific but it is repugnant, stupid and short sighted. Tools are made by man but have not the autonomy of their maker - they have not man's time-binding capacity for initiation, for self-direction, and self-improvement. ~ Alfred Korzybski, #NFDB
138:That seduction or initiation into evil can be understood by recognizing that most actors are not solitary figures improvising on the empty stage of life. Rather, they are often an ensemble of different players, on a stage with various props and changing costumes, scripts, and stage directions from producers and directors. ~ Philip G Zimbardo, #NFDB
139:Can social progress be made without government?
It's like saying 'can happiness be achieved without the initiation of violence? Can romance be achieved without rape? Can profitability be achieved without theft? Can economic growth be achieved without the mass indebted enslavement and counterfeiting of the federal reserve?'. ~ Stefan Molyneux,#NFDB
140:If we can figure out at the age of five which kids are going to be addicts and which ones aren’t, that tells us something fundamental about drug addiction. “Their relative maladjustment,” the study found, “precedes the initiation of drug use.” Indeed, “Problem drug use is a symptom, not a cause, of personal and social maladjustment. ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
141:There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination—you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
142:As artists and traders in medieval cities began to form organizations, they instituted tough initiation ceremonies. Journeymen in Bergen, Norway, were shoved down a chimney, thrown three times into the sea, and soundly whipped. Such rites made belonging to the guild or corporation more precious to those who were accepted, and survived. ~ Isaac Asimov, #NFDB
143:Initiation is, essentially, a process that begins with a rite of submission, followed by a period of containment, and then by a further rite of liberation. In this way every individual can reconcile the conflicting elements of his personality: He can strike a balance that makes him truly human, and truly the master of himself. P. 156 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
144:religions merit our attention for their sheer conceptual ambition; for changing the world in a way that few secular institutions ever have. They have managed to combine theories about ethics and metaphysics with a practical involvement in education, fashion, politics, travel, hostelry, initiation ceremonies, publishing, art and architecture ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
145:. . . distinction . . . between initiation and the hero . . . act of climbing a mountain . . . trial of strength . . . the will to achieve . . . a scene by the altar . . . task is rather to submit to a power greater than himself. He must see himself as if he were dead . . . only by such an act of submission can . . . experience rebirth. P. 125 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
146:Like lets hear some big freaking initiation details! How'd it go?" Z asks. "Are you feeling more womanly? Or more witchy?"
"Well, Sascha would probably say I'm feeling more bitchy than usual, but..." Margo pauses, as all of our eyes go wide.
I think we're amazed Margo is a little more self-aware than we might give her credit for. ~ Amanda Marrone,#NFDB
147:A couple of hours after Sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me that I would have to learn the steps of an exceedingly antique dance, because before my initiation could be perfected I had to join three times in a magical dance, for rhythm was the wheel of Eternity, on which alone the transient and accidental could be broken, and the spirit set free. ~ W B Yeats, #NFDB
148:Until the end of the Middle Ages, and in many cases afterwards too, in order to obtain initiation in a trade of any sort whatever--whether that of courtier, soldier, administrator, merchant or workman--a boy did not amass the knowledge necessary to ply that trade before entering it, but threw himself into it; he then acquired the necessary knowledge. ~ Philippe Aries, #NFDB
149:Textures, places, and personalities are important on the soul path, which feels more like an initiation into the multiplicity of life than a single-minded assault upon enlightenment. As the soul makes its unsteady way, delayed by obstacles and distracted by all kinds of charms, aimlessness is not overcome. The wish for progress may have to be set aside. ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
150:they were children and that's how children are - neither she nor the boy had been in the wrong, and that gave her a sense of relief, made her feel better; she hadn't betrayed the first opportunity that life had presented her with. We all do the same thing: it's part of the initiation of every human being in search of his or her other half; these things happen ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
151:...a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
152:The libertarian approach is a very symmetrical one: the non-aggression principle does not rule out force, but only the initiation of force. In other words, you are permitted to use force only in response to some else's use of force. If they do not use force you may not use force yourself. There is a symmetry here: force for force, but no force if no force was used. ~ Stephan Kinsella, #NFDB
153:And now the initiation was begun. She was to read, to study, to depict by a gesture, a look, the passions she was to delineate on the boards; lessons dangerous, in truth, to some, but not to the pure enthusiasm that comes from art; for the mind that rightly conceives art is but a mirror which gives back what is cast on its surface faithfully only—while unsullied. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton, #NFDB
154:The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite. ~ Theodor Adorno, #NFDB
155:The initiation with its various tortures lasted about a week, and I cheerfully accepted penances which, if they were imposed in a monastery, for a supernatural motive, and for some real reason, instead of for no reason at all, would cause such an uproar that all religious houses would be closed and the Catholic Church would probably have a hard time staying in the country. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
156:Man's knowledge (logos) encounters women's relatedness (Eros) and their union is represented as that symbolic ritual of a sacred marriage . . . the heart of initiation since its origins in the mystery-religions of antiquity. But this is exceedingly difficult for modern people to grasp, and it frequently takes a special crisis in their lives to make them understand it. P. 126 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
157:The symbolic display seen by the abductees is identical to the type of initiation ritual or astral voyage that is imbedded in the [occult] traditions of every culture...the structure of abduction stories is identical to that of occult initiation rituals...the UFO beings of today belong to the same class of manifestation as the [occult] entities that were described in centuries past. ~ Jacques Vallee, #NFDB
158:The child wants to have, the adult wants to be. The wish to be is behind all my manifestations. To learn to see is the first initiation into self-knowledge. We struggle not against something, we struggle for something. I believe I need to pay attention when, in fact, I need to see and know my inattention. When I begin to see, I begin to love what I see. Where our attention is, God is. ~ Jeanne De Salzmann, #NFDB
159:My upbringing was very un-Hollywood. I was born in New York and grew up on a ranch. I was never really smitten by the business in those days, never a fan type - just a basic kid watching TV. It wasn't like I was an insider. I was never really brought into the show business side of my father's life. I guess that's been a blessing and a downfall. But it's made my own work the initiation. ~ Stephanie Zimbalist, #NFDB
160:The Devil' is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes... This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade 'Know Thyself!' and taught Initiation. He is 'The Devil' of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection... He is therefore Life, and Love. ~ Aleister Crowley, #NFDB
161:As one becomes proficient in the work of the Order and one's insight and understanding develops, it will become apparent that all of these methods may be tied together and unified to become a magical engine by means of which the Mountain of Initiation may be scaled and the Kingdom of Heaven reached, so that man aspires to God and God aspires to man. ~ Israel Regardie, The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic, #NFDB
162:Cet auteur était d’ailleurs un ancien occultiste, bien qu’il l’ait nié en des termes qui nous autorisent à suspecter fortement sa sincérité (L’Occultisme contemporain, p. 70) ; maintenant qu’il est mort, il n’y a sans doute aucun inconvénient pour personne à faire connaître qu’il collabora longtemps à l’Initiation sous le pseudonyme de Saturninus ; dans l’Écho du Merveilleux, il signait Thimothée. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
163:The whole subject of the various mystery systems—their origins, interrelationships, and especially the exact nature of what they taught and how they taught it—remains, as one might expect, mysterious.4 The initiatory function of the concept “mystery” (Gk. mysterion) is powerful and pervasive in many systems of religion, magic, and initiation, but its full significance is yet to be discovered. ~ Stephen E Flowers, #NFDB
164:In the ancient system of initiation, the truth seeker must pass through a second birth, and those who attained this exalted state were known thereafter as 'the twice born.' Only one who has been born again can understand the mysteries of heaven. This new birth, however, is not attained by merely joining a sect. It must be personally earned through a complete regeneration of character and conduct.
~ Manly P Hall,#NFDB
165:As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times. ~ Gary Snyder, #NFDB
166:The longing for initiation is universal and for modern youth, it is a desperate need. When nothing is offered in the way of spiritual initiation to prove one's entry into the world of men and women, initiation happens instead in the road or the street, in cars at high speed, with drugs, with dangerous sex, with weapons. However troubling, this behavior is rooted in a fundamental truth; a need to grow. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
167:We have then, a basic social coin. With awe on one side and shame on the other. The audience senses secret mysteries and powers behind the performance, and the performer senses that his chief secrets are petty ones. As countless folktales and initiation rites show, often the real secret behind the mystery is that there really is no mystery; the real problem is to prevent the audience from learning this too. ~ Erving Goffman, #NFDB
168:If it is written and read with serious attention, a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
169:Parking the car, God offers me a raised brow, and I grin over at him. “You scared?” I repeat his words back at him. “Ask me again once we’re inside. And FYI, I’m not fucking the Pride dude. He looks like a giver.” “Ha!” I bark out, holding my gut. “I don’t think we have to fuck each other, but good to know you’re on board with the lengths we’ll have to go to get full initiation,” I jest with a soft punch to his arm. ~ Ker Dukey, #NFDB
170:felt like mysteries were being unveiled and yet it all felt familiar and more like I was being reminded of things I had already known. I had a sense of initiation into dimensions of existence most people never know exist, including the distinct sense that death was illusory, in the sense that it is a door we walk through into another plane of existence, that we’re sprung from an eternity to which we will return. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
171:During the dark night there is no choice but to surrender control, give in to unknowing, and stop and listen to whatever signals of wisdom might come along. It’s a time of enforced retreat and perhaps unwilling withdrawal. The dark night is more than a learning experience; it’s a profound initiation into a realm that nothing in the culture, so preoccupied with external concerns and material success, prepares you for. ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
172:It was around this time that Deirdre Shaw was welcomed into the family. Deirdre was not forced to go through Manson’s abusive initiation process for the simple reason that she had money. Deirdre was the daughter of an actress, Angela Lansbury, and let the Manson Family use her mother’s credit card. Once Lansbury canceled the credit card, Manson also canceled Deirdre’s invitations to hang out with the Manson Family. ~ Hourly History, #NFDB
173:During the dark night there is no choice but to surrender control, give in to unknowing, and stop and listen to whatever signals of wisdom might come along. It's a time of enforced retreat and perhaps unwilling withdrawal. The dark night is more than a learning experience; it's a profound initiation into a realm that nothing in the culture, so preoccupied with external concerns and material success, prepares you for. ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
174:The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life's joy. One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life, but as an aspect of life. Life in its becoming is always shedding death, and on the point of death. The conquest of fear yields the courage of life. That is the cardinal initiation of every heroic adventure - fearlessness and achievement. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
175:EFFACEMENT
Dieu m'a donné l'être pour que je le lui rende. C'est comme une de ces épreuves qui ressemblent à des pièges et qu'on voit dans les contes et les histoires d'initiation. Si j'accepte ce don, il est mauvais et fatal ; sa vertu apparaît par le refus. Dieu me permet d'exister en dehors de lui. A moi de refuser cette autorisation.
L'humilité, c'est le refus d'exister en dehors de Dieu. Reine des vertus. ~ Simone Weil,#NFDB
176:In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
177:The majority of initiatory ordeals more or less clearly imply a ritual death followed by resurrection or a new birth. The central moment of every initiation is represented by the ceremony symbolizing the death of the novice and his return to the fellowship of the living. But he returns to life a new man, assuming another mode of being. Initiatory death signifies the end at once of childhood, ignorance, and the profane condition. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
178:In many traditions a key part of a woman’s initiation is to be left alone in nature, often immersed in total darkness — whether sleeping out by herself under the stars, finding her way through a wood or descending into the depths of a cave. This gives her a lived experience of confronting of her learned and instinctive fears, teaching her how to dig deep into her own resources and discover both her vulnerability and deep strength. ~ Lucy H Pearce, #NFDB
179:One example of an uniquely Sethian approach towards initiation is for the initiate to regard his or her own life with the same urgency and need experienced as in a war zone in which every move and action must be weighed yet determined swiftly, as necessity dictates. During battle, situations such as missed opportunity, lingering sentimentality, second or third chances, or excessive contemplation would be fatal; and so it is on the sinister path. ~ Zeena Schreck, #NFDB
180:To seek Truth is automatically a calling for the innate dissident and the subversive; how
many are willing to give up safety and security for the perilous life of the spiritual revolutionary? How
many are willing to truly learn that their own cherished concepts are wrong? Striking provocative or
mysterious poses in the safety of Internet [social media] is far easier than taking the risks involved in
the hard work of genuine initiation. ~ Zeena Schreck,#NFDB
181:A DNA sequence for the genome of bacteriophage ΦX174 of approximately 5,375 nucleotides has been determined using the rapid and simple 'plus and minus' method. The sequence identifies many of the features responsible for the production of the proteins of the nine known genes of the organism, including initiation and termination sites for the proteins and RNAs. Two pairs of genes are coded by the same region of DNA using different reading frames. ~ Frederick Sanger, #NFDB
182:I don't think it's possible for the Fed to end its easy-money policies in a trouble-free manner. Recent episodes in which Fed officials hinted at a shift toward higher interest rates have unleashed significant volatility in markets, so there is no reason to suspect that the actual process of boosting rates would be any different. I think that real pressure is going to occur not by the initiation by the Federal Reserve, but by the markets themselves. ~ Alan Greenspan, #NFDB
183:For the soul, depression is an initiation, a rite of passage. If we think that depression, so empty and dull, is void of imagination, we may overlook its initiatory aspects. We may be imagining imagination itself from a point of view foreign to Saturn; emptiness can be rife with feeling-tone, images of catharsis, and emotions of regret and loss. As a shade of mood, gray can be as interesting and as variegated as it is in black-and-white photography. If ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
184:He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky, #NFDB
185:Whatever is going on, whether there is pain or joy, light or darkness, separation or wholeness, accept it! The Sun and the Moon oppose each other on a Full Moon.
Just accept it! No need to take the side of the Moon or the side of the Sun. Hold them both, while also being aware of where you are, of your advantage point of observation. Acceptance is the deepest secret of all initiation processes, the most difficult to grasp and the easiest to practice. ~ Franco Santoro,#NFDB
186:I prefer the gradual path My feeling is that mythic forms reveal themselves gradually in the course of your life if you know what they are and how to pay attention to their emergence. My own initiation into the mythic depths of the unconscious has been through the mind, through the books that surround me in this library. I have recognized in my quest all the stages of the hero's journey. I had my calls to adventure, my guides, demons, and illuminations. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
187:He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering.
But that is the beginning of a new story -- the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,#NFDB
188:Joseph Campbell reflects in The Power of Myth that in mythic terms, the first part of any journey of initiation must deal with the death of the old self and the resurrection of the new. Campbell says that the hero, or heroic figure, 'moves not into outer space but into inward space, to the place from which all being comes, into the consciousness that is the source of all things, the kingdom of heaven within. The images are outward, but their reflection is inward. ~ Syd Field, #NFDB
189:To make it more simple for general comprehension: after initiation, the mystic is merged in the occultist, for he has become a student of occult law; he has to work with matter, with its manipulation and uses, and he has to master and control all lower forms of manifestation, and learn the rules... yet he will still have to find the God within his own being, before he can safely venture on the path of occult law. ~ Alice Bailey, in Letters on Occult Meditation, p. 147, (1922), #NFDB
190:Initiation is the bottom line of masculinity. It means taking the lead. The lead in providing, protecting, mentoring, and befriending. It means caring for and developing our mates, our children, and ourselves. It means taking the lead in apologizing. The lead in seeking forgiveness. The lead in vulnerability. Masculinity means initiation. C. S. Lewis, as you might expect, said it brilliantly: “God is so masculine, that all of creation is feminine by comparison. ~ Stuart K Weber, #NFDB
191:There is no question, therefore, that the work to be done in familiarising the general public with the nature of the Mysteries is of paramount importance at this time. These Mysteries will be restored to outer expression through the medium of the Church and the Masonic Fraternity ... When the Great One comes with His disciples and initiates we shall have ... the restoration of the Mysteries and their exoteric presentation as a consequence of the first initiation. ~ Alice Bailey, #NFDB
192:She walks away, and I am too stunned to follow her. At the end of the hallways she turns and says, "Have a piece of cake for me, all right? The chocolate. It's delicious." She smiles a strange, twisted smile, and adds," I love you, you know." And then she's gone. I stand alone in the blue light coming from the lamp above me, and I understand: She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallways. She knows about the initiation process. My mother was a dauntless. ~ Veronica Roth, #NFDB
193:Jung called this process I'm describing individualism, becoming an individual, a real person not continually swept away by his passions of influenced by his culture. Each person has a unique opus, a soul work, because each has a particular makeup and history. For Jung the opus was a process of getting to know yourself deeply, not only a psychological process of painful advance in self-knowledge; but a religious initiation involving spiritual ideals and the search for meaning. ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
194:[Chemist Michael] Polanyi found one other necessary requirement for full initiation into science: Belief. If science has become the orthodoxy of the West, individuals are nevertheless still free to take it or leave it, in whole or in part; believers in astrology, Marxism and virgin birth abound. But "no one can become a scientist unless he presumes that the scientific doctrine and method are fundamentally sound and that their ultimate premises can be unquestionably accepted. ~ Richard Rhodes, #NFDB
195:Religion exalts mystery as an unknowable secret that must be sealed in glass like the corpse of an enchanted princess and fearfully worshipped from afar. Initiation, on the other hand, requires direct participation and demands each of us to smash the casket and press mad lips to mystery, wooing her as a lover who will offer up her treasurers in a succession of sweet surrenders. This she will do, but only in exact ratio to our evolving ability and worthiness to receive them. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette, #NFDB
196:Love can be a huge mountain, a gentle garden, a raging storm, a cool breeze, or a perfect bath. But there is always fire somewhere nearby. There is always the red-hot stuff of the soul's initiation. If there isn't fire, then it isn't love ... If it doesn't insist that you move to your next level, if it doesn't take your heart and make it explode in a million pieces, only to fall back together again in some Moment of enlightened understanding, then you haven't really loved. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
197:Principle 5: It is useful to think of this principle in another way: a chronic disease like cancer takes years to develop. Those chemicals that initiate cancer are often the ones that make headlines. What does not make headlines,
however, is the fact that the disease process continues long after initiation, and can be accelerated or repressed during its promotion stage by nutrition. In other words, nutrition primarily determines whether the disease will ever do its damage. ~ T Colin Campbell,#NFDB
198:The only initiation which I advocate and which I look for with all the ardor of my Soul, is that by which we are able to enter into the Heart of God within us, and there make an Indissoluble Marriage, which makes us the Friend and Spouse of the Repairer … there is no other way to arrive at this Holy Initiation than for us to delve more and more into the depth of our Soul and to not let go of the prize until we have succeeded in liberating its lively and vivifying origin. ~ Louis Claude de Saint Martin, #NFDB
199:1] The absence of the personal story: in order for magical rites to pass from generation to generation, the sorcerer (shaman) must forget all he learned before his initiation into magic. According to tradition, a man or women who are tied to his past, will in the end allow himself to be governed by his parents’ way of thinking, or that of the society in which he lives. This is why all those who are initiated choose a new name and seek to free themselves from their memories, both good and bad. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
200:There is one striking difference between the hero myth and the initiation rite. The . . . hero . . . exhausts efforts in achieving the goal . . . the novice for initiation is called upon to give up willful ambition and all desire and to submit to the ordeal. He must be willing to experience this trial without hope of success. In fact, he must be prepared to die . . . the purpose remains always the same: to create the symbolic mood of death from which may spring the symbolic mood of re-birth. P. 124 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
201:Each breaking open, each initiation into the underworld through grief, illness, depression, anxiety or loss — is a potential initiation, a portal of possibility where we get the chance to see and feel the very root of our own fire in the deepest dark. In this place we get to see our inner spark more clearly, as we are detached from our daily busyness and sense of belonging. We get to move further inwards, to let go of the shells of ourselves, and break open our self-concept to include our fuller selves. ~ Lucy H Pearce, #NFDB
202:In other words, you can’t study the mind while ignoring culture, as psychologists usually do, because minds function only once they’ve been filled out by a particular culture. And you can’t study culture while ignoring psychology, as anthropologists usually do, because social practices and institutions (such as initiation rites, witchcraft, and religion) are to some extent shaped by concepts and desires rooted deep within the human mind, which explains why they often take similar forms on different continents. I ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
203:Initiation into the secrets of the Watchers was both a sacred privilege and a dangerous responsibility. These gods, who had come from heaven to earth, had revealed many secrets to mankind, secrets of sorcery, apothecary, charms and enchantments, witchcraft, as well as astrological worship and the making of idols and their ritual incantations. They had also revealed the art of metal making for both ornament and war. The thought of admission into this cabal of mystery made Ham’s entire being well up with exhilaration. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
204:So I had to face the fact that I was blessed with abilities that were considered symptoms of emotional abnormality or mental derangement by psychology, often thought of as demonic by religion, and whose very existence was denied altogether by science. So in my darker moments I used to think that my psychic initiation and subsequent experiences were a mixed bag, to say the least. But the fact is that I was very sensitive to criticism for the very good reason that often I shared many of the beliefs that stimulated it. ~ Jane Roberts, #NFDB
205:In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
206:The Masonic movement... is the custodian of the law; it is the home of the Mysteries and the seat of initiation. It holds in its symbolism the ritual of Deity, and the way of salvation is pictorially preserved in its work. It is a far more occult organization than can be realised, and is intended to be the training school for the coming advanced occultists. In its ceremonials lie hid the wielding of the forces connected with the growth and life of the kingdoms of nature and the unfoldment of the divine aspects in man. ~ Alice Bailey, #NFDB
207:The Nomatsi girl was there, dressed in black and sunk low in her stance. She held a cutlass, arced up in a stream of silver steel, while her black Threadwitch gown swept in the same direction … And beside her, standing tall, was the white-gowned Safiya with a pitchfork swooping in a blur of dark iron, her white, shorn skirts swinging downward. It was the circle of perfect motion. Of the light-bringer and dark-giver, the world-starter and shadow-ender. Of initiation and completion. It was the symbol of the Cahr Awen. Cahr ~ Susan Dennard, #NFDB
208:In Magick, on the contrary, one passes through the veil of the exterior world (which, as in Yoga, but in another sense, becomes "unreal" by comparison as one passes beyond) one creates a subtle body (instrument is a better term) called the Body of Light; this one develops and controls; it gains new powers as one progresses, usually by means of what is called 'initiation': finally, one carries on almost one's whole life in this Body of Light, and achieves in its own way the mastery of the Universe. ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears, #NFDB
209:Government is control. Government is exploitation. Government is a protection racket. Government is disorder, violence, and conflict! Government is an idea “so good” that it has to be forced on us. Government is a group of people claiming a monopoly on the initiation of force in a specific territory. Government is the institutionalization of our worst desires to control, dominate, and take advantage of others by force. Governments reflect our tolerance for oppression, and all we need to do to defeat them is demand self-government. ~ Adam Kokesh, #NFDB
210:problematic within post-Reformation dogmatics. Is faith something I `do' to earn God's favour, and, if not, what role does it play? Once we release Paul's justification-language from the burden of having to describe `how someone becomes a Christian', however, this is simply no longer a problem. There is no danger of imagining that Christian faith is after all a surrogate `work', let alone a substitute form of moral righteousness. Faith is the badge of covenant membership, not something someone `performs' as a kind of initiation test. ~ N T Wright, #NFDB
211:The Manson Family numbered around two dozen at this time. It seems there was no shortage of young men and women arriving in Topanga Canyon desperate to join the community. New male recruits were immediately welcomed, but Manson forced female recruits to endure an initiation process. During the initiation—or interrogation—he would take the aspiring Manson girl into a room alone and stay with her for days, breaking down her emotional and physical barriers by forcing her to confront painful memories and continually have sex with him. ~ Hourly History, #NFDB
212:L’activité de l’initié, — c’est-à-dire de l’homme qui possède, outre l’initiation, une doctrine métaphysique et une méthode correspondante, — cette activité ne saurait signifier que l’individu surveille et contrôle l’action divine, car l’individu, qui précisément doit être dépassé, ne saurait juger ce qui le dépasse. Ce qui juge, c’est l'intelligence impersonnelle, illuminée par l’intellect, non la pensée flottante et intéressée; et ce qui est jugé, c’est l’ensemble des répercussions humaines de la grâce, et non la grâce elle-même. ~ Frithjof Schuon, #NFDB
213:Il m'arrive de relire mes romans préférés en partant de la fin. Je commence par le dernier chapitre, et je relis à rebours jusqu'au premier.
Quand on lit de cette manière, les personnages vont de l'espoir vers le désespoir, de la connaissance de soi vers le doute. Dans les histoires d'amour, les couples sont d'abord amants avant de devenir des étrangers. Les récits d'initiation se transforment en récit d'égarement. Des personnages reviennent même à la vie.
Si ma vie était un roman qu'on lisait à l'envers, rien ne changerait. ~ Nicola Yoon,#NFDB
214:A certain amount of native skill and training can allow many individuals to be fairly successful magicians, achieving a surprisingly high ratio of positive results through sorcery.(...) These outer changes, no matter how dramatic, will not necessarily have a deep impact on the deepest levels of your psyche, which is where the process of initiation most meaningfully manifests.'
--Zeena Schreck for “Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background
and role within new Western religiosity,” University of Stockholm, Malin Fitger 2004 ~ Zeena Schreck,#NFDB
215:For Christopher, the Cosy Corner was now no longer the mysterious temple of initiation in which he had met Bubi; Berlin was no longer the fantasy city in which their affair had taken place. Their affair had been essentially a private performance which could only continue as long as Wystan was present to be its audience. Now the performance was over. Berlin had become a real city and the Cosy Corner a real bar. He didn’t for one moment regret this. For now his adventures here were real, too; less magical but far more interesting. The ~ Christopher Isherwood, #NFDB
216:Of all the joint ventures in which we might engage, the most productive, in my view, is educational exchange. I have always had great difficulty-since the initiation of the Fulbright scholarships in 1946-in trying to find the words that would persuasively explain that educational exchange is not merely one of those nice but marginal activities in which we engage in international affairs, but rather, from the standpoint of future world peace and order, probably the most important and potentially rewarding of our foreign-policy activities. ~ J William Fulbright, #NFDB
217:Community life, not a dreamy ideal, said Bonhoeffer, but an often difficult initiation into the “divine reality” that is the church. That is, the church exists as a brotherhood established by Christ, even if it doesn’t feel like it in a given moment. The martyred Lutheran pastor taught that struggles within the community are a gift of God’s grace, because they force its members to reckon with the reality of their kinship, despite their brokenness. A community that cannot face its faults and love each other through to healing is not truly Christian. ~ Rod Dreher, #NFDB
218:The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential fact of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex worldwide States that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
219:Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property - rights that people possess naturally, before governments are created. In the libertarian view, all human relationships should voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have themselves used force - actions like murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud. ~ David Boaz, #NFDB
220:Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each person's right to life, liberty, and property - rights that people possess naturally, before governments are created. In the libertarian view, all human relationships should voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have themselves used force - actions like murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud. ~ David Boaz, #NFDB
221:Quiconque se présente comme instructeur spirituel sans se rattacher à une forme traditionnelle déterminée ou sans se conformer aux règles établies par celle-ci ne peut avoir véritablement la qualité qu'il s'attribue ; ce peut être, suivant les cas, un vulgaire imposteur ou un " illusionné ", ignorant les conditions réelles de l'Initiation ; et dans ce dernier cas plus encore que dans l'autre, il est fort à craindre qu'il ne soit trop souvent, en définitive, rien de plus qu'un instrument au service de quelque chose qu'il ne soupçonne peut-être pas lui-même. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
222:Jnana is given neither from outside nor from another person. It can be realised by each and everyone in his own Heart. The jnana Guru of everyone is only the Supreme Self that is always revealing its own truth in every Heart through the being-conciousness 'I am, I am.' The granting of true knowledge by him is initiation into jnana. The grace of the Guru is only that Self-awareness that is one's own true nature. It is the inner conciousness by which he is unceasingly revealing his existence. This divine upadesa is always going on naturally in everyone. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
223:As a federal district court in Texas recently ruled, federal law “mandates the initiation of immigration removal proceedings whenever an immigration officer encounters an illegal alien who is not ‘clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted.’” Moreover, the court explained, the Department of Homeland Security does not have “prosecutorial discretion” to ignore this requirement; Congress, not the president, has the plenary power to make immigration law; and the executive branch may not “implement measures that are incompatible with Congressional intent. ~ Andrew McCarthy, #NFDB
224:The Original Cell of Social Life “The family is the original cell of social life. It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love and in the gift of life. Authority, stability, and a life of relationships within the family constitute the foundations for freedom, security, and fraternity within society. The family is the community in which, from childhood, one can learn moral values, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom. Family life is an initiation into life in society.” — Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2207 ~ Brandon Vogt, #NFDB
225:The coldness surprised him. It entered his vein, and the initiation proceeded. Veils were falling from large and solemn tableaux that Culafroy's eyes could not make out. Alberto took another snake and placed it on Culafroy's bare arm, about which it coiled just as the first had done. “You see, she's harmless.” (Alberto always referred to snakes in the feminine.) Just as he felt his penis swelling between his fingers, so the sensitive Alberto felt in the child the mounting emotion that stiffened him and made him shudder. And the insidious friendship for snakes was born. ~ Jean Genet, #NFDB
226:Race to the Top was only marginally different from No Child Left Behind. In fact, it was worse, because it gave full-throated Democratic endorsement to the long-standing Republican agenda of testing, accountability, and choice. Race to the Top abandoned equity as the driving principle of federal aid. From the initiation of federal aid to local school districts in 1965, Democratic administrations had insisted on formula grants, which distributed federal money to schools and districts based on the proportion of students who were poor, not on a competition among states. ~ Diane Ravitch, #NFDB
227:In each of these three cases, the power of Truth makes the body whole. One who sleeps, he who is dead, and he who is buried, all are brought back to life - life here representing a condition of spiritual awareness. We are not concerned with literal resurrection of the flesh, but with a mystery, the mystery of internal resurrection through initiation into the Mysteries. In these Mysteries, Jesus stands as the hierophant, and into his mouth are placed the words of the high priest. He is made a personification of the Truth which he represents. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
228:In undeveloped social groups, we find very little formal teaching and training. Savage groups mainly rely for instilling needed dispositions into the young upon the same sort of association which keeps adults loyal to their group. They have no special devices, material, or institutions for teaching save in connection with initiation ceremonies by which the youth are inducted into full social membership. For the most part, they depend upon children learning the customs of the adults, acquiring their emotional set and stock of ideas, by sharing in what the elders are doing. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
229:We see, surrounding the narrow raft illuminated by the flickering light of human comradeship, the dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief hour; all the loneliness of humanity amid hostile forces is concentrated on the individual soul, which must struggle alone, with what of courage it can command, against the whole weight of a universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears. Victory, in this struggle with the powers of darkness, is the true baptism into the glorious company of heroes, the true initiation into the overmastering beauty of human existence. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
230:You know the difference between right and wrong,' he repeated finally. 'Man, why did you need Initiation—by the Golden Dawn, or by anybody else? You are a genius, a sage, a giant among men. You have solved the problem which philosophers have been debating since antiquity—the mystery about which no two nations or tribes have ever agreed, and no two men or women have ever agreed, and no intelligent person has ever agreed totally with himself from one day to the next. You know the difference between right and wrong. I am overawed. I swoon. I figuratively kiss your feet. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
231:The necessary consequence of man's right to life is his right to self-defense. In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. If some "pacifist" society renounced the retaliatory use of force, it would be left helplessly at the mercy of the first thug who decided to be immoral. Such a society would achieve the opposite of its intention: instead of abolishing evil, it would encourage and reward it. ~ Ayn Rand, #NFDB
232:Myths and legends tell us of a third eye possessed by giants. The eye of Polyphemus, of Buddha. With this eye one can contemplate the other world and its 'astral' beings, the aura of those beings. Its counterpart in the physical body is the pineal gland, astrally calcified for lack of use and by the exclusive development of the rational mind. Initiation can reopen the third eye, transforming the hero into a giant, into Vîra, into Divya, to use words of tantric esotericism. Into superman, into Sonnenmensch. To cut the lunar current, to be solar again. (With the Black Sun.) To recapture Vril. ~ Miguel Serrano, #NFDB
233:significant feature of Lahiri Mahasaya’s life was his gift of Kriya initiation to those of every faith. Not Hindus only, but Moslems and Christians were among his foremost disciples. Monists and dualists, those of various faiths or of no established faith, were impartially received and instructed by the universal guru. One of his highly advanced chelas was Abdul Gufoor Khan, a Moslem. Lahiri Mahasaya, belonging himself to the highest or Brahmin caste, made courageous efforts to dissolve the rigid caste bigotry of his time. Those from every walk of life found shelter under the master’s ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
234: Goal Selection: They can choose goals based on priority, relevance, experience, and knowledge of current realities while also anticipating consequences and outcomes. Key Words: Choose Goals and Anticipate Outcomes. Planning and Organization: They can generate steps and a sequence of linear behaviors that will get them there, knowing what will be needed along the way, including resources, and create a strategy to pull it off. Key Words: Generate Behaviors and Strategy. Initiation and Persistence: they can begin and maintain goal-directed behavior despite intrusions, ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
235:Can the purpose of a relationship be to trigger our wounds? In a way, yes, because that is how healing happens; darkness must be exposed before it can be transformed. The purpose of an intimate relationship is not that it be a place where we can hide from our weaknesses, but rather where we can safely let them go. It takes strength of character to truly delve into the mystery of an intimate relationship, because it takes the strength to endure a kind of psychic surgery, an emotional and psychological and even spiritual initiation into the higher Self. Only then can we know an enchantment that lasts. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
236:No one is born with the Warrior Ethos, though many of its tenets appear naturally in young men and women of all cultures. The Warrior Ethos is taught. On the football field in Topeka, in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, on the lion-infested plains of Kenya and Tanzania. Courage is modeled for the youth by fathers and older brothers, by mentors and elders. It is inculcated, in almost all cultures, by a regimen of training and discipline. This discipline frequently culminates in an ordeal of initiation. The Spartan youth receives his shield, the paratrooper is awarded his wings, the Afghan boy is handed his AK-47. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
237:Traditional Rationality is phrased in terms of social rules, with violations interpretable as cheating—as defections from cooperative norms. If you want me to accept a belief from you, you are obligated to provide me with a certain amount of evidence. If you try to get out of it, we all know you’re cheating on your obligation. A theory is obligated to make bold predictions for itself, not just steal predictions that other theories have labored to make. A theory is obligated to expose itself to falsification—if it tries to duck out, that’s like trying to duck out of a fearsome initiation ritual; you must pay your dues. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
238:Those of us with powers are sought out by the Checquy through a variety of means, and the group was long ago granted the authority to claim any citizens it wanted. Parents are coerced or duped into releasing their children, sometimes with massive payoffs. Adults are lured in with promises of power, wealth, and the opportunity to serve their nation. The initiation is a mixture of ancient oaths and modern contracts under both the official and unofficial secrecy acts of the government. By the time an individual has become a full member, he is bound by a million different ties. Do you realize now what your leaving would have meant? ~ Daniel O Malley, #NFDB
239:I am tempted to think that when the focus of everyday living displaces ritual in a given society, social decay begins to work from the inside out. The fading and disappearance of ritual in modern culture is, from the viewpoint of the Dagara, expressed in several ways: the weakening of links with the spirit world, and general alienation of people from themselves and others. In a context like this there are no elders to help anyone remember through initiation of his or her important place in the community. Those who seek to remember have an attraction toward violence. They live their life constantly upset or angry, and those responsible for them are at a loss as to what to do. For ~ Malidoma Patrice Som, #NFDB
240:religions merit our attention for their sheer conceptual ambition; for changing the world in a way that few secular institutions ever have. They have managed to combine theories about ethics and metaphysics with a practical involvement in education, fashion, politics, travel, hostelry, initiation ceremonies, publishing, art and architecture – a range of interests which puts to shame the scope of the achievements of even the greatest and most influential secular movements and individuals in history. For those interested in the spread and impact of ideas, it is hard not to be mesmerized by examples of the most successful educational and intellectual movements the planet has ever witnessed. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
241:Mind-altering drugs have from the beginning been an important feature of this new post-Christian way of life. They are at the heart of the new belief in undeferred gratification. They were the shared pleasure, the unholy communion and the initiation rite, of the post-1968 cultural and moral revolutionaries. Those who accept the way of life can seldom see any reason why drug taking might be wrong or even unwise. It is part of the power of drugs that they make it easier to enjoy cultural mediocrity and to endure decline of all kinds - moral, educational, cultural, political and material. A generation began by thinking itself revolutionary has adopted drugs which spread passivity and contentment. ~ Peter Hitchens, #NFDB
242:Mystical Alchemy is a personal science, a sublime and effective system of Self-Initiation. Only you, as a single individual, can calculate and follow your way up the Great Mountain of Hermetic Attainment. It is entirely a matter of your own practical application and devotion. All essential guidance is within you, in the inmost center of your heart where your own Holy Guardian Angel, or Inner Self, resides. To depend upon any other thing than your own Holy Guardian Angel to accomplish the Great Work is to insult your Angel who is with you to instruct and guide you. All essential wisdom by which to achieve the Great Work is to be ascertained only within you; nowhere else will you find the Truth. ~ David Cherubim, #NFDB
243:It is therefore sufficient to start by one of them and find the point at which it meets the other at first parallel lines of advance and melts into them by its own widenings. At the same time a more difficult, complex, wholly powerful process would be to start, as it were, on three lines together, on a triple wheel of soul-poweR But the consideration of this possibility must be postponed till we have seen what are the conditions and means of the Yoga of self-perfection. For we shall see that this also need not be postponed entirely, but a certain preparation of it is part of and a certain initiation into it proceeds by the growth of the divine works, love and knowledge.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga,#NFDB
244:Atavistic resurgence, a primal urge towards union with the Divine by returning to the common source of all, is indicated by the backward symbolism peculiar to all Sabbath ceremonies, as also of many ideas connected with witchcraft, sorcery and magic. Whether it be the symbol of the moon presiding over nocturnal ecstasies; the words of power chanted backwards; the back-to-back dance performed in opposition to the sun's course; the devil's tail - are all instances of reversal and symbolic of Will and Desire turning within and down to subconscious regions, to the remote past, there to surprise the required atavistic energy for purposes of transformation, healing, initiation, construction or destruction. ~ Kenneth Grant, #NFDB
245:In the afternoon dark clouds suddenly color the sky a mysterious shade and it starts raining hard, pounding the roof and windows of the cabin. I strip naked and run outside, washing my face with soap and scrubbing myself all over. It feels wonderful. In my joy I shut my eyes and shout out meaningless words as the large raindrops strike me on the cheeks, the eyelids, chest, side, penis, legs, and butt - the stinging pain like a religious initiation or something. Along with the pain there's a feeling of closeness, like for once in my life the world's treating me fairly. I feel elated, as if all of a sudden I've been set free. I face the sky, hands held wide apart, open my mouth wide, and gulp down the falling rain. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
246:God is fiercely committed to you, to the restoration and release of your masculine heart. But a wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal. A wound you’ve embraced is a wound that cannot heal. A wound you think you deserved is a wound that cannot heal. That is why Brennan Manning says, “The spiritual life begins with the acceptance of our wounded self.” Really? How can that be? The reason is simple: “Whatever is denied cannot be healed.” But that’s the problem, you see. Most men deny their wound—deny that it happened, deny that it hurt, certainly deny that it’s shaping the way they live today. And so God’s initiation of a man must take a very cunning course; a course that feels very odd, even cruel. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
247:The new mathematics is a sort of supplement to language, affording a means of thought about form and quantity and a means of expression,more exact,compact, and ready than ordinary language. The great body of physical science, a great deal of the essential facts of financial science, and endless social and political problems are only accessible and thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when it will be understood that for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex world wide states that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
248:In the traditional world the person who violates the secret of a ritual becomes an outcast. The outcast is a person who has spoken the unspeakable or who shows the unshowable. What the outcast is doing is saying, “I no longer want to exist among you.” When this happens, there is no cure for him, hence the final departure. I say there is no cure, but actually it is because the cure would require the rest of the group to suspend its current relationship with the spirit world and descend to the lower region where the outcast resides in order to rise up slowly with him. No one wants to do that, and so the outcast never gets reinstated, even when he wishes to. The concept of “all for one” does not work in initiation societies. The ~ Malidoma Patrice Som, #NFDB
249:Or think of a decent young citizen in a toga--perhaps too much dice, you know--coming out here in the train of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even, to mend his fortunes. Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
250:. . . a man, ready to change his attitude to life . . . he had been self-centered, seeking the illusory safety of personal independence but inwardly dominated by the fears caused by childhood . . . needed a challenge to his manhood in order to see that unless he sacrificed his childish state of mind he would be left isolated and ashamed . . . pass through the symbolic rite by which a young man gives up his exclusive autonomy and accepts . . . shared life . . . in a related form . . . appropriate fulfillment in his relationship with his wife . . .essentially a woman's initiation rite, in which a man is bound to feel like anything but a conquering hero. But the theme of marriage is an image of such universality that it also has a deeper meaning. P. 128 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
251:At one stage in the initiation procedure, Christian tells us...the postulant climbs down an iron ladder, with seventy-eight rungs, and enters a hall on either side of which are twelve statues, and, between each pair of statues, a painting. These twenty-two paintings, he is told, are Arcana or symbolic hieroglyphs; the Science of Will, the principle of all wisdom and source of all power, is contained in them. Each corresponds to a "letter of the sacred language" and to a number, and each expresses a reality of the divine world, a reality of the intellectual world and a reality of the physical world. The secret meanings of these twenty-two Arcana are then expounded to him. ~ Ronald Decker and Thierry Depaulis and Michael Dummett, A Wicked Pack of Cards - The Origins of the Occult Tarot, #NFDB
252:In constructing their temples of initiation, the early priests frequently demonstrated their superior knowledge of the principles underlying the phenomena known as vibration. A considerable part of the Mystery rituals consisted of invocations and intonements, for which purpose special sound chambers were constructed. A word whispered in one of these apartments was so intensified that the reverberations made the entire building sway and be filled with a deafening roar. The very wood and stone used in the erection of these sacred buildings eventually became so thoroughly permeated with the sound vibrations of the religious ceremonies that when struck they would reproduce the same tones thus repeatedly impressed into their substances by the rituals. ~ Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, #NFDB
253:A woman's hand, your hand in its starry paleness only to help you walk downstairs, refracts its beam into my own. Its slightest touch branches out inside me and in a moment will trace above us those delicate canopies where the inverted sky stirs its blue leaves with misty aspen or willow. As for me, to what do I actually owe this remission of a pain that so many others suffer because of less guilt than I feel today? Before I met you I'd known misfortune, despair. Before I met you, come on, those words mean nothing. You know very well that when I first laid eyes on you I recognized you without the slightest hesitation. And from what borders did you come, so fearfully protected against everyone, what initiation to which no one or almost no one was admitted has consecrated what you are. ~ Andr Breton, #NFDB
254:Oh yes, and compulsory ferret-legging down the pub on Tuesday evenings, for the tourist trade tha’ knows.” “Ferret-legging?” Rachel looked at him incredulously. “Yup. You tie your kilt up around your knees with duct tape—as you probably know, no Yorkshireman would be seen dead wearing anything under his sporran—and take a ferret by the scruff of his neck. A ferret, that’s like, uh, a bit like a mink. Only less friendly. It’s a young man’s initiation rite; you stick the ferret where the sun doesn’t shine and dance the furry dance to the tune of a balalaika. Last man standing and all that, kind of like the ancient Boer aardvark-kissing competition.” Martin shuddered dramatically. “I hate ferrets. The bloody things bite like a cask-strength single malt without the nice after-effects. ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
255:When I lifted the first veil and entered the outer court of the temple of initiation, I saw in half darkness the figure of a woman sitting on a high throne between two pillars of the the temple, one white and one black. Mystery emanated from her and was about her. Sacred symbols shone on her, and on her head a golden tiara surmounted by a two-horned Moon. To enter the Temple one must lift the second veil and pass between the two pillars. And to pass one must obtain the keys, read the book, and understand the symbols. Are you able to do this? She whispered to me “ learn to discern the real from the false. Listen only to the voice that is soundless. Look only on that which is invisible and remember that in thee thyself is the Temple and the gate to it, and the mystery, and the initiation. ~ P D Ouspensky, #NFDB
256:Images juxtaposées des comportements virils à travers le monde : défilés militaires devant le Kremlin à Moscou, réunions de la Camorra à Naples, discours de réception à l'Académie française avec épées et uniformes verts, congrégation de motards en Californie, rites d'initiation des Indiens bororos du Brésil, proxénètes de Tel-Aviv, traders de Tokyo, supporters de foot de Manchester, sénateurs, francs-maçons, prisonniers - oh, les postures ! les attitudes ! les mécaniques ! oh, les mecs ! Aussi angoissés qu'arrogants, leur arrogance n'étant que l'envers de leur angoisse, car ils sont tellement plus mortels que nous ! Oh, l'attendrissant besoin de ces primates supérieurs sans utérus de se durcir et de se décorer, de parader et de pétarader pour se donner de l'allure, du poids et du sérieux ! ~ Nancy Huston, #NFDB
257:Melchissedek corresponds, in Islamic esoterism, to the function of the Qutb, a I have otherwise explained in King of the World; to the contrary, El-Khider is the Master of the Afrad, which are found outside the jurisdiction of the Qutb and is said that they are not even known by it; in this regard, the Koranic story of the meeting between El-Khidr and Moses (Surat El-Kalif) is otherwise very significant. The way of the Afrad is something absolutely exceptional, and no one can choose it on his own initiative; it is about an initiation received beyond the ordinary means and belongs in reality to another chain (perhaps you can find an article of Abdul-Hadi in which he deals with these two chains, even if his definitions are not perhaps very clear).
To Evola, 2 August 1949
Cairo, Egypt ~ Ren Gu non,#NFDB
258:The American university has become the final stage of the most all encompassing initiation rite the world has ever known. No society in history has been able to survive without ritual or myth, but ours is the first which has needed such a dull, protracted, destructive, and expensive initiation into its myth. The contemporary world civilization is also the first one which has found it necessary to rationalize its fundamental initiation ritual in the name of education. We cannot begin a reform of education unless we first understand that neither individual learning nor social equality can be enhanced by the ritual of schooling. We cannot go beyond the consumer society unless we first understand that obligatory public schools inevitably reproduce such a society, no matter what is taught in them. ~ Ivan Illich, #NFDB
259:The Fall, so often considered a terrible thing, is a fall into experience; like falling of the epileptic to earth, it may also have its other face, for then we fall into the embrace of our dreams and fears and know them for what they are, face to face.
[...]the fearful face of the Black Goddess is really the veiled Sophia. The rebirth of the mystery initiation brings us into contact with our own power, which we have failed to take in our own time. Part of the reason for this is that we live in the shadow of the Judeo-Christian Fall for which Woman bears the blame. The experience of Psyche and Kore shows the vulnerable face of Sophia, who is not afraid to fall, to learn by seeming mistakes. They show that the descent into death is the only possible pathway to ascent or spiritual rebirth. ~ Caitl n Matthews,#NFDB
260:This was when he first suspected that the kindly child-loving God extolled by his headmistress might not exist. As it turned out, most major world events suggested the same. But for Theo’s sincerely godless generation, the question hasn’t come up. No one in his bright, plate-glass, forward-looking school ever asked him to pray, or sing an impenetrable cheery hymn. There’s no entity for him to doubt. His initiation, in front of the TV, before the dissolving towers, was intense but he adapted quickly. These days he scans the papers for fresh developments the way he might a listings magazine. As long as there’s nothing new, his mind is free. International terror, security cordons, preparations for war — these represent the steady state, the weather. Emerging into adult consciousness, this is the world he finds. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
261:Pay attention to when the cart is getting before the horse. Notice when a painful initiation leads to irrational devotion, or when unsatisfying jobs start to seem worthwhile. Remind yourself pledges and promises have power, as do uniforms and parades. Remember in the absence of extrinsic rewards you will seek out or create intrinsic ones. Take into account [that] the higher the price you pay for your decisions the more you value them. See that ambivalence becomes certainty with time. Realize that lukewarm feelings become stronger once you commit to a group, club, or product. Be wary of the roles you play and the acts you put on, because you tend to fulfill the labels you accept. Above all, remember the more harm you cause, the more hate you feel. The more kindness you express, the more you come to love those you help. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
262:Think about it in terms of cognitive dissonance. If I have put up with a lot to become a member of a group, if I have voluntarily subjected myself to acute embarrassment, I would have to be pretty stupid if the group turned out to be anything less than wonderful. To protect my self-esteem I will want to convince myself that the group is pretty damn good. Hence the necessity to talk it up, to reframe my perceptions in a positive direction. None of this applies, of course, if the initiation is simple. If the group turns out to be a waste of time, one can say to oneself honestly, and without any threat to one’s self-esteem, “This place is not worth bothering with.” It is only when we have staked our ego that our mistakes of judgment become threatening. That is when we build defensive walls and deploy cognitive filters. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
263:These thirty years, and more, that I've spent among exotic, barbaric, indomitable gods and goddesses, nourished on myths, obsessed by symbols, nursed and bewitched by so many images which have come down to me from those submerged worlds, today seem to me to be the stages of a long initiation. Each one of these divine figures, each of these myths or symbols, is connected to a danger that was confronted and overcome. How many times I was almost lost, gone astray in this labyrinth where I risked being killed... These were not only bits of knowledge acquired slowly and leisurely in books, but so many encounters, confrontations, and temptations. I realize perfectly well now all the dangers I skirted during this long quest, and, in the first place, the risk of forgetting that I had a goal... that I wanted to reach a 'center'. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
264:But at keast we know that the Brotherhood was both a scientific academy and a monastic order; that its members led an ascetic communal life where all property was shared, thus anticipating the Essenes and the primitive Christian communities. We know that much of their time was spent in contemplation, and that initiation into the higher mysteries of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine depended upon the purification of spirit and body, which the aspirant had to achieve by abstinences and examinations of conscience. Pythagoras himself, like St. Francis, is said to have preached to animals; the whole surviving tradition indicates that his disciples, while engaged in number-lore and astronomical calculations, firmly believed that a true scientist must be a saint, and that the wish to become one was the motivation of his labours. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
265:I’d love to be William Wallace, leading the charge with a big sword in my hand,” sighed a friend. “But I feel like I’m the guy back there in the fourth row, with a hoe.” That’s a lie of the Enemy—that your place is really insignificant, that you aren’t really armed for it anyway. In your life you are William Wallace—who else could be? There is no other man who can replace you in your life, in the arena you’ve been called to. If you leave your place in the line, it will remain empty. No one else can be who you are meant to be. You are the hero in your story. Not a bit player, not an extra, but the main man. This is the next leg in the initiation journey, when God calls a man forward to the front lines. He wants to develop and release in us the qualities every warrior needs—including a keen awareness of the enemies we will face. ~ John Eldredge, #NFDB
266:The people of that time had what they called “mystery religions.” These religions offered special secrets only to those who passed through a closely guarded process of initiation. Unless you had been initiated, you could not learn their secrets. When Paul describes marriage as a “mystery,” therefore, he implies that we can understand its true nature only if we have passed through the appropriate process of initiation. This process takes place when, by the marriage ceremony, a man and woman enter into covenant with God and with each other. Only when they are willing to make this covenant commitment can they begin to discover the true nature of marriage. Couples not willing to fulfill this condition can experience the legal and physical aspects of marriage, but its true nature remains closed to them. It is still a mystery—a secret. ~ Derek Prince, #NFDB
267:The only thing that can be slain, however, is an ego organization that has merged unconsciously with the great dragon. The great dragon cannot be killed. It must be related to in a conscious way (see Edinger 1999). No matter how old you are, you are not an adult until you have slain that unconscious identification with the grandiose presence within. That is what human initiation is all about. Initiation is death. There must be a ritual slaying of this particular monster. We love to tell everyone else to slay their monsters. Whatever my race is, I love to urge you to slay your race's monsters. Whatever my religion is, I love to tell you to slay your religion's monsters, but I don't necessarily want to slay mine. Whatever my gender is, I want the other gender to slay its monsters, even though I resist facing the monsters in mine. That is how it works. ~ Robert L Moore, #NFDB
268:A Nazi initiation into the upper reaches of the SS was to gouge out the eye of a pet cat after feeding the cat and cuddling it for a month. This exercise was designed to eliminate all traces of pity-poison and mold a full Übermensch. There is a very sound magical postulate involved: the practitioner achieves superhuman status by performing some atrocious, revolting, subhuman act. In Morocco, magic men gain power by eating their own excrement.
But dig out Ruski’s eyes? Stack bribes to the radioactive sky. What does it profit a man? I could not occupy a body that could dig out Ruski’s eyes. So WHO gained the whole world? I didn’t. Any bargain involving exchange of qualitative values like animal love for quantitative advantage is not only dishonorable, as wrong as a man can get, it is also foolish. Because YOU get nothing. You have sold your YOU. ~ William S Burroughs,#NFDB
269:Initiation leads to the cave within whose circumscribing walls the pairs of opposites are known, and the secret of good and evil is revealed. It leads to the Cross and to that utter sacrifice which must transpire before perfect liberation is attained, and the initiate stands free of all earth's fetters, held by naught in the three worlds. It leads through the Hall of Wisdom, and puts into a man's hands the key to all information, systemic and cosmic, in graduated sequence. It reveals the hidden mystery that lies at the heart of the solar system. It leads from one state of consciousness to another. As each state is entered the horizon enlarges, the vista extends, and the comprehension includes more and more, until the expansion reaches a point where the self embraces all selves, including all that is "moving and unmoving," as phrased by an ancient Scripture. ~ Alice A Bailey, #NFDB
270:Combat and rape, the public and private forms of organized social violence, are primarily experiences of adolescent and early adult life. The United States Army enlists young men at seventeen; the average age of the Vietnam combat soldier was nineteen. In many other countries boys are conscripted for military service while barely in their teens. Similarly, the period of highest risk for rape is in late adolescence. Half of all victims are aged twenty or younger at the time they are raped; three-quarters are between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six. The period of greatest psychological vulnerability is also in reality the period of greatest traumatic exposure, for both young men and young women. Rape and combat might thus be considered complementary social rites of initiation into the coercive violence at the foundation of adult society. They are the paradigmatic forms of trauma for women and men. ~ Judith Lewis Herman, #NFDB
271:A BILL OF ASSERTIVE RIGHTS
I: You have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself.
II: You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behavior.
III: You have the right to judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems.
IV: You have the right to change your mind.
V: You have the right to make mistakes—and be responsible for them.
VI: You have the right to say, “I don’t know.”
VII: You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them.
VIII: You have the right to be illogical in making decisions.
IX: You have the right to say, “I don’t understand.”
X: You have the right to say, “I don’t care.”
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY NO, WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY ~ Manuel J Smith,#NFDB
272:Woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending. She lures, she guides, she bids him burst his fetters. If he can match her import, the two, the knower and the known, will be released from every limitation. Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. By deficient eyes she is reduced to inferior states; by evil eyes of ignorance, she is reduced to banality and ugliness. But she is redeemed by the eyes of understanding. The hero who can taker her as she is, without undue commotion but with the kindness and assurance she requires, is potentially the king, the incarnate god, of her created world. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
273:Generally, when we speak of freedom or liberation or spiritual understanding, we think that to attain these things we need do nothing at all, that someone else will take care of us. “You are all right, don’t worry, don’t cry, you’re going to be all right. I’ll take care of you.” We tend to think that all we have to do is make a commitment to the organization, pay our initiation fee, sign the register, and then follow the instructions given us. “I am firmly convinced that your organization is valid, it answers all my questions. You may program me in any way. If you want to put me into difficult situations, do so. I leave everything to you.” This attitude supplies the comfort of having to do nothing but follow orders. Everything is left to the other person, to instruct you and relieve you of your shortcomings. But to our surprise things do not work that way. The idea that we do not have to do anything on our own is extremely wishful thinking. ~ Ch gyam Trungpa, #NFDB
274:People's imaginations have continued to work, right up to our own day; hence the incredible crop of fanciful allegations attributing to the Templars every kind of esoteric rite and belief, from the most ancient to the most vulgar, every variety of alchemical or magical knowledge, all kinds of initiation and affiliation rituals, those already in existence at the time and those yet to be conceived—in a word, all the "secrets" devised the slake the thirst for mystery inherent in human nature. This thirst, by a kind of instinctual reaction, seems never to be stronger than in those eras when people appear to reject all mysteries: let us recall that it was in Descartes' own day that trials for witchcraft were most numerous; that it was at the beginning of the rationalistic eighteenth century that Freemasonry was born; that our own scientific twentieth century is equally the century in which sects have proliferated, occultism has undergone a renaissance, and so on. ~ R gine Pernoud, #NFDB
275:Our elders have failed us, they have not provided leadership, they have not provided counsel, they have been silent and compliant in the face of power. They have said nothing on fracking, climate collapse, the extinction crisis and done even less. The old have, for the most part, betrayed the young. This is as true of witchcraft as it is of our wider culture. It is therefore down to us as individuals to take our lead from the only source of initiation, living spirit, and through it embody the new witchcraft. We must become a witchcraft with a renewed sense of meaning and purpose, of responsibility to the land which is in crisis, or we are nothing more than consumers of the earth which will all too soon eat of us. Those who do not feel the imperative to act on this information demonstrate that they are not orientated, that is, they have no connection to the land and its denizens. Their magic is little more than a cerebral construct, and without being embodied is meaningless. ~ Peter Grey, #NFDB
276:Part 2 - Initiation
6. The Road of Trials:Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favorite phase of the myth-adventure. It has produced a world literature of miraculous tests and ordeals. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage. The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and really perilous path of initiatory conquests and moments of illumination. Dragons have now to be slain and surprising barriers passed-again, again, and again. Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unsustainable ecstasies and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land. ~ Joseph Campbell,#NFDB
277:The symbolic and ritual tools of magical practice can be used to set off the same set of reactions that allow a child, or for that matter a baby baboon, to stock its social self with the nonverbal and emotionally charged patterns of its social group. In a capable initiation ritual, this is done in a careful and controlled way, with patterns that further the process of magical training, and the candidate – the person going through the initiation – is taught nonverbal signals that allow him or her to activate the new patterns when it’s time to use them, and deactivate them when it’s time to deal with the nonmagical world. In the short term, this makes it possible to practice magic without too much psychological strain; in the long term, the experience of shifting from one set of arbitrary social patterns and emotional charges to another teaches the reasoning mind to get some distance from the social self, and think its own thoughts rather than those it has been spoonfed by its society. ~ John Michael Greer, #NFDB
278:There are two Paths to the Innermost: the Way of the Mystic, which is the way of devotion and meditation, a solitary and subjective path; and the way of the occultist, which is the way of the intellect, of concentration, and of trained will; upon this path the co-operation of fellow workers is required, firstly for the exchange of knowledge, and secondly because ritual magic plays an important part in this work, and for this the assistance of several is needed in most of the greater operations. The mystic derives his knowledge through the direct communion of his higher self with the Higher Powers; to him the wisdom of the occultist is foolishness, for his mind does not work in that way; but, on the other hand, to a more intellectual and extrovert type, the method of the mystic is impossible until long training has enabled him to transcend the planes of form. We must therefore recognize these two distinct types among those who seek the Way of Initiation, and remember that there is a path for each. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
279:In ancient times the disciple had to undergo severe tests to prove his ability for initiation. Here we do not follow that method. Apparently there is no test and no trial. But if you see the truth, you will find that here it is much more difficult. There the disciple knew that he was undergoing a period of trial and after he had passed through some outward tests, he was taken in. But here you have to face life and you are watched at every moment. It is not only your outer actions that count. Each and every thought and inner movement is seen, every reaction is noticed. It is not what you do in the solitude of the forest, but what you do in the thick of the battle of life that is important.
Are you ready to submit yourself for such tests? Are you ready to change yourself completely? You will have to throw off your ideas, ideals, values, interests and opinions. Everything will have to be learnt anew. If you are ready for all this, then take a plunge; otherwise don't try to step in. ~ The Mother, Words Of The Mother II,#NFDB
280:L’initiation véritable étant une prise de possession consciente des états supérieurs, il est facile de comprendre qu’elle soit décrite symboliquement comme une ascension ou un « voyage céleste » ; mais on pourrait se demander pourquoi cette ascension doit être précédée d’une descente aux Enfers. Il y a à cela plusieurs raisons, que nous ne pourrions exposer complètement sans entrer dans de trop longs développements, qui nous entraîneraient bien loin du sujet spécial de notre présente étude ; nous dirons seulement ceci : d’une part, cette descente est comme une récapitulation des états qui précèdent logiquement l’état humain, qui en ont déterminé les conditions particulières, et qui doivent aussi participer à la « transformation » qui va s’accomplir ; d’autre part, elle permet la manifestation, suivant certaines modalités, des possibilités d’ordre inférieur que l’être porte encore en lui à l’état non développé, et qui doivent être épuisées par lui avant qu’il lui soit possible de parvenir à la réalisation de ses états supérieurs. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
281:What was going on? The only way to make sense of this exchange is through the prism of cognitive dissonance. Many prosecutors see their work as more than a job; it is more like a vocation. They have spent years training to reach high standards of performance. It is a tough initiation. Their self-esteem is bound up with their competence. They are highly motivated to believe in the probity of the system they have joined. In the course of their investigations, they get to know the bereaved families well and quite naturally come to empathize with their trauma. And they want to believe that in all those long hours spent away from their own families pursuing justice, they have helped to make the world a safer place. Imagine what it must be like to be confronted with evidence that they have assisted in putting the wrong person in jail; that they have ruined the life of an innocent person; that the wounds of the victim’s family are going to be reopened. It must be stomach churning. In terms of cognitive dissonance, it is difficult to think of anything more threatening. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
282:There are two Paths to the Innermost: the Way of the Mystic, which is the way of devotion and meditation, a solitary and subjective path; and the way of the occultist, which is the way of the intellect, of concentration, and of trained will; upon this path the co-operation of fellow workers is required, firstly for the exchange of knowledge, and secondly because ritual magic plays an important part in this work, and for this the assistance of several is needed in most of the greater operations. The mystic derives his knowledge through the direct communion of his higher self with the Higher Powers; to him the wisdom of the occultist is foolishness, for his mind does not work in that way; but, on the other hand, to a more intellectual and extrovert type, the method of the mystic is impossible until long training has enabled him to transcend the planes of form. We must therefore recognize these two distinct types among those who seek the Way of Initiation, and remember that there is a path for each. ~ Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and Their Work and The Training and Work of the Initiate, #NFDB
283:Every primitive society possesses a consistent body of mythical traditions, a 'conception of the world'; and it is this conception that is gradually revealed to the novice in the course of his initiation. What is involved is not simply instruction in the modern sense of the word. In order to become worthy of the sacred teaching, the novice must first be prepared spiritually. For what he learns concerning the world and human life does not constitute knowledge in the modern sense of the term, objective and compartmentalized information, subject to indefinite correction and addition. The world is sacred the work of Supernatural Beings — a divine work and hence in its very structure. Man lives in a universe that is not only supernatural in origin, but is no less sacred in its form, sometimes even in its substance. The world has a 'history': first, its creation by Supernatural Beings; then, everything that took place after that — the coming of the civilizing Hero or the mythical Ancestor, their cultural activities, their demiurgic adventures, and at last their disappearance. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
284:As arrogant as I may be in general, I am not sufficiently doltish or vainglorious to imagine that I can meaningfully address the deep philosophical questions embedded within this general inquiry of our intellectual ages—that is, fruitful modes of analysis for the history of human thought. I shall therefore take refuge in an escape route that has traditionally been granted to scientists: the liberty to act as a practical philistine. Instead of suggesting a principled and general solution, I shall ask whether I can specify an operational way to define “Darwinism” (and other intellectual entities) in a manner specific enough to win shared agreement and understanding among readers, but broad enough to avoid the doctrinal quarrels about membership and allegiance that always seem to arise when we define intellectual commitments as pledges of fealty to lists of dogmata (not to mention initiation rites, secret handshakes and membership cards—in short, the intellectual paraphernalia that led Karl Marx to make his famous comment to a French journalist: “je ne suis pas marxiste”). ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
285:Zanoni was published in 1842 and is often considered to be the first modern British novel of occult fantasy. The book was hugely influential on theosophists and other similar groups during the nineteenth century. Bulwer-Lytton confessed that in his younger years he took a great interest in the secret philosophical society Rosicrucianism, wishing to truly understand its theory and doctrine. The sect was founded during the medieval period in Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz and was centred on the idea of discovering ancient truths and understanding nature and the spiritual realm that are beyond the reach of the average man. The central characters of the novel are the eponymous Zanoni, his spiritual master Mejnour, and the young aspiring opera singer Viola. Bulwer-Lytton sets the novel in two worlds; the physical and material one, and the transcendent realm, which can only be accessed by those of the brotherhood. When the novel opens, Zanoni has already undergone the initiation into the sect and trained enough to reach the highest level of the order and become immortal. ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton, #NFDB
286:The contrast to his life of subjection at Donnaz; the precocious initiation into motives that tainted the very fount of filial piety; the taste of this mingled draught of adulation and disillusionment, might have perverted a nature more self-centred than his. From this perversion, and from many subsequent perils he was saved by a kind of imaginative sympathy, a wondering joy in the mere spectacle of life, that tinged his most personal impressions with a streak of the philosophic temper. If this trait did not save him from sorrow, it at least lifted him above pettiness; if it could not solve the difficulties of life it could arm him to endure them. It was the best gift of the past from which he sprang; but it was blent with another quality, a deep moral curiosity that ennobled his sensuous enjoyment of the outward show of life; and these elements were already tending in him, as in countless youths of his generation, to the formation of a new spirit, the spirit that was to destroy one world without surviving to create another. Of all this none could have been less conscious than the lad ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
287:In a rational state it would be more appropriate to ensure that a cobbler passed an examination than an executive civil servant; because shoe-making is a craft in the absence of which it is still possible to be a good citizen and a man in society. But the necessary 'knowledge of the state' is a precondition in the absence of which one lives outside the state, cut off from the air one breathes and from oneself. Thus the 'examination' is nothing but a Masonic initiation, the legal recognition of the knowledge of citizenship, the acknowledgement of a privilege.
This 'link' between the 'individual' and his 'office', this objective bond between the knowledge of civil society and the knowledge of the state, namely the examination, is nothing but the bureaucratic baptism of knowledge, the official recognition of the transubstantiation of profane knowledge into sacred knowledge (it is plain that in every examination the examiner is omniscient).
It is not recorded that Greek and Roman statesmen ever took examinations. But then what is a Roman statesman compared to a Prussian civil servant! ~ Karl Marx,#NFDB
288:The initiation undergone by St. John of the Cross was a very high one, and one which Crowley fancied himself to have taken. He makes much of ‘The Wastelands’ and ‘Babe of the Abyss’ and one of his groups was called the Order of the Silver Star after the title of the Tarot Trump of this Path.
But initiation is not merely a question of knowing the externals of symbolism, it is a state of being, and anyone can judge for themselves the extent of Crowley’s real condition by comparing his writings with those of St. John of the Cross, who achieved without any advanced knowledge of symbols, secret or otherwise, but purely by faith and spiritual will. An even more revealing and damning analysis would be to compare their lives. It seems necessary to emphasise this, not so much for the doubtful pleasure of kicking a man who is already down, but in order to act as a warning to the many who tend to injure themselves by trying to follow the Crowley system without sufficient knowledge of its pitfalls — some of which, sad to say, seem deliberately placed, either through malice or a misplaced sense of humour. ~ Gareth Knight,#NFDB
289:Le hasard, on le sait, n’existe pas en Islam, car tout est écrit (maktüb) et se fait selon la science et la volonté de Dieu. Ibn El Hâjj dans son Madkhal cite le Shaykh Abd er Rahmân Es-Saqqali qui aurait dit : « Chaque individu participe de son nom [lahu Naslb fi ismihî]. »
Tous les grands théologiens musulmans sont d’accord sur la base du Hadith ou d’une autorité comme l’Imâm Mâlik, pour dire que le nom influence le nommé. Ils se fondent pour cela sur le fait que le Prophète de l’Islam changeait quelquefois le nom de musulmans en des noms plus heureux. Ici nous sommes cependant plus près de l’aspect extérieur de l’Islâm (Sharï ah) que de l’initiation spirituelle elle-même. Le plan extérieur, comme nous le verrons (chapitre VI), admet une dynamique du changement qui est d’ailleurs d’une manière générale inhérente au monde sensible ('Alamu El Hiss).
Sur le plan initiatique, le nom représente effective ment l’essence d’un être. Mais ce nom, seul le processus de l’initiation lui-même peut le révéler. Or ce processus implique le passage par plusieurs degrés ontologiques liant l’individu à son archétype divin. (p. 35) ~ Faouzi Skali,#NFDB
290:They have not come to that sense. They have taken it very easily: “Let Lord Jesus Christ suffer, and we’ll do all nonsense.” Is it not? Bob: It is so. Śrīla Prabhupāda: They should have been ashamed: “Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us, but we are continuing the sinful activities.” He told everyone, “Thou shalt not kill,” but they are indulging in killing, thinking, “Lord Jesus Christ will excuse us and take all the sinful reactions.” This is going on. We should be very cautious: “For my sinful actions my spiritual master will suffer, so I’ll not commit even a pinch of sinful activities.” That is the duty of the disciple. After initiation, all sinful reaction is finished. Now if he again commits sinful activities, his spiritual master has to suffer. A disciple should be sympathetic and consider that for his sinful activities his spiritual master will suffer. If the spiritual master is attacked by some disease, it is due to the sinful activities of others. Therefore the injunction is “Don’t make many disciples.” But we do it because we are preaching. Never mind, let us suffer; still we shall accept these disciples. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhup da, #NFDB
291:The descent beckons
as the ascent beckoned
Memory is a kind
of accomplishment
a sort of renewal
even
an initiation, since the spaces it opens are new places
inhabited by hordes
heretofore unrealized
of new kinds—
since their movements
are toward new objectives
(even though formerly they were abandoned)
No defeat is made up entirely of defeat—since
the world it opens is always a place
formerly
unsuspected. A
world lost
a world unsuspected
beckons to new places
and no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory
of whiteness
With evening, love wakens
though its shadows
which are alive by reason
of the sun shining—
grow sleepy now and drop away
from desire
Love without shadows stirs now
beginning to awaken
as night
advances
The descent
made up of despairs
and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening:
which is a reversal
of despair
For what we cannot accomplish, what
is denied to love
what we have lost in the anticipation—
a descent follows
endless and indestructible ~ William Carlos Williams,#NFDB
292:The Initiation
UNDER the flaming wings of cherubim
I moved toward that high altar. O, the hour!
And the light waxed intenser, and the dim
Low edges of the hills and the grey sea
Were caught and captur’d by the present Power,
My sureties and my witnesses to be.
Then the light drew me in. Ah, perfect pain!
Ah, infinite moment of accomplishment!
Thou terror of pure joy, with neither wane
Nor waxing, but long silence and sharp air
As womb-forsaking babes breathe. Hush! the event
Let him who wrought Love’s marvellous things declare.
Shall I who fear’d not joy, fear grief at all?
I on whose mouth Life laid his sudden lips
Tremble at Death’s weak kiss, and not recall
That sundering from the flesh, the flight from time,
The judgements stern, the clear apocalypse,
The lightnings, and the Presences sublime.
How came I back to earth? I know not how,
Nor what hands led me, nor what words were said.
Now all things are made mine,—joy, sorrow; now
I know my purpose deep, and can refrain;
I walk among the living, not the dead;
My sight is purged; I love and pity men.
~ Edward Dowden,#NFDB
293:bien que les circonstances difficiles ou pénibles soient assurément, comme nous le disions tout à l’heure, communes à la vie de tous les hommes, il arrive assez fréquemment que ceux qui suivent une voie initiatique les voient se multiplier d’une façon inaccoutumée. Ce fait est dû tout simplement à une sorte d’hostilité inconsciente du milieu, à laquelle nous avons déjà eu l’occasion de faire allusion précédemment : il semble que ce monde, nous voulons dire l’ensemble des êtres et des choses mêmes qui constituent le domaine de l’existence individuelle, s’efforce par tous les moyens de retenir celui qui est près de lui échapper ; de telles réactions n’ont en somme rien que de parfaitement normal et compréhensible, et, si déplaisantes qu’elles puissent être, il n’y a certainement pas lieu de s’en étonner. Il s’agit donc là proprement d’obstacles suscités par des forces adverses, et non point, comme on semble parfois se l’imaginer à tort, d’« épreuves » voulues et imposées par les puissances qui président à l’initiation ; il est nécessaire d’en finir une fois pour toutes avec ces fables, assurément beaucoup plus proches des rêveries occultistes que des réalités initiatiques. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
294:Les représentants de la « contre-initiation » ont l’illusion de s’opposer à l’autorité spirituelle suprême, à laquelle rien ne peut s’opposer en réalité, car il est bien évident qu’alors elle ne serait pas suprême : la suprématie n’admet aucune dualité, et une telle supposition est contradictoire en elle-même ; mais leur illusion vient de ce qu’ils ne peuvent en connaître la véritable nature.
Nous pouvons aller plus loin : malgré eux et à leur insu, ils sont en réalité subordonnés à cette autorité, de la même façon que, comme nous le disions précédemment, tout est, fût-ce inconsciemment et involontairement, soumis à la Volonté divine, à laquelle rien ne saurait se soustraire.
Ils sont donc utilisés, quoique contre leur gré, à la réalisation du plan divin dans le monde humain ; ils y jouent, comme tous les autres êtres, le rôle qui convient à leur propre nature, mais, au lieu d’être conscients de ce rôle comme le sont les véritables initiés, ils en sont dupes eux-mêmes, et d’une façon qui est pire pour eux que la simple ignorance des profanes, puisque, au lieu de les laisser en quelque sorte au même point, elle a pour résultat de les rejeter plus loin du centre principiel. ~ Ren Gu non,#NFDB
295:The key one and threefold, even as universal science. The division of the work is sevenfold, and through these sections are distributed the seven degrees of initiation into is transcendental philosophy.
The text is a mystical commentary on the oracles of Solomon, ^ and the work ends with a series of synoptic schedules which are the synthesis of Magic and the occult Kabalah so far as concerns that which can be made public in writing. The rest, being the esoteric and inexpressible part of the science, is formulated in magnificent pantacles carefully designed and engraved. These are nine in number, as follows
(1) The dogma of Hermes;
(2) Magical realisation;
(3) The path of wisdom and the initial procedure in the work
(4) The Gate of the Sanctuary enlightened by seven mystic rays;
(5) A Rose of Light, in the centre of which a human figure is extending its arms in the form of a cross;
(6) The magical laboratory of Khunrath, demonstrating the necessary union of prayer and work
(7) The absolute synthesis of science;
(8) Universal equilibrium ;
(9) A summary of Khunrath's personal embodying an energetic protest against all his detractors. ~ Eliphas Levi, The History Of Magic,#NFDB
296:He pointed to another number, changing as rapidly as the first, but on a lower trajectory; it rose to a high of 8.79 rem per hour. Several lifetimes of dentists’ X-rays, to be sure; but the radiation outside the storm shelter would have been a lethal dose, so they were getting off lightly. Still, the amount flying through the rest of the ship! Billions of particles were penetrating the ship and colliding with the atoms of water and metal they were huddled behind; hundreds of millions were flying between these atoms and then through the atoms of their bodies, touching nothing, as if they were no more than ghosts. Still, thousands were striking atoms of flesh and bone. Most of those collisions were harmless; but in all those thousands, there were in all probability one or two (or three?) in which a chromosome strand was taking a hit, and kinking in the wrong way: and there it was. Tumor initiation, begun with just that typo in the book of the self. And years later, unless the victim's DNA luckily repaired itself, the tumor promotion that was a more or less unavoidable part of living would have its effect, and there would appear a bloom of Something Else inside: cancer. Leukemia, most likely; and, most likely, death. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
297:Central to shamanism is the perception of an otherworld or series of otherworlds. This type of astral or aetheric dimension containing various powers entities and forces allows real effects to be created in this world. The shaman's soul journeys through this dimension while in ecstatic or drug-induced state of trance. The journey may be undertaken for divinatory knowledge, to cure sickness, to deliver a blow to enemies, or to find game animals. Prospective shamans are usually selected from those with a nervous disposition. They may either be assigned to shamanic instruction or are driven to it by a power present in the shamanic culture. Initiation invokes a journey into the otherworld, a meeting with spirits and a death-rebirth experience. In the deathrebirth experience, the candidate has a vision of his body being dismembered, often by fantastic beings or animal spirits, and then reassembled from the wreckage. The new body invariably contains an extra part often described as an additional bone or an inclusion of magical quartz stones or sometimes an animal spirit. This experience graphically symbolizes the location of the aetheric force field within the body or the addition of various extra powers to it.
~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,#NFDB
298:So understood, esotericism is what goes beyond the exterior form and the masses, the physical, and puts an elite in contact with invisible superior forces. In my case, the condition that paralysed me in the midst of dreaming and left me without means to influence the phenomena. The visible is symbol of invisible forces (Archetypes, Gods). By means of an esoteric knowledge, of an initiation in this knowledge, a hierarchic minority can make contact with these invisible forces, being able to act on the Symbol, dynamizing and controlling the physical phenomena that incarnate them. In my case: to come to control the involuntary process which, without knowing how, was controlling me, to be able to guide it, to check or avoid it. Jung referred to this when he said 'if someone wisely faces the Archetype, in whatever place in the world, he acquires universal validity because the Archetype is one and indivisible'.
And the means to reach this spiritual world, 'on the other side of the mirror,' is Magic, Rite, Ritual, Ceremony. All religions have possessed them, even the Christian, as we have said. And the Rite is not something invented by humans but inspired by 'those from beyond,' Jung would say by the Collective Unconscious. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
299:Professor Jaenisch and his colleagues created mice carrying a genetically engineered version of the X Inactivation Centre (an X Inactivation Centre transgene). This was 450kb in size, and included the Xist gene plus other sequences on either side. They inserted this into an autosome (non-sex chromosome), created male mice carrying this transgene, and studied ES cells from these mice. The male mice only contained one normal X chromosome, because they have the XY karyotype. However, they had two X Inactivation Centres. One was on the normal X chromosome, and one was on the transgene on the autosome. When the researchers differentiated the ES cells from these mice, they found that Xist could be expressed from either of the X Inactivation Centres. When Xist was expressed, it inactivated the chromosome from which it was expressed, even if this was the autosome carrying the transgene16. These experiments showed that even cells that are normally male (XY) can count their X chromosomes. Actually, to be more specific, it showed they could count their X Inactivation Centres. The data also demonstrated that the critical features for counting, choosing and initiation were all present in the 450kb of the X Inactivation Centre around the Xist gene. ~ Nessa Carey, #NFDB
300:The purity of the initiate has nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian sense of sin, the hatred and resentment of slaves. The existing earth must be transmuted, nature transfigured, the Twilight of the Gods make way for the Resurrection of the Gods. And this is another thing. It is an alchemical transmutation, sublimation, a spiritualization of matter. More, it is not for all, only for the initiated, for the Aryan, in the center of a hierarchy of castes. In Aryan India the initiate, the tantric yogi of the 'Right Hand,' must guard chastity. As well as the Platonic troubadour in the Initiation of A-Mor, which we shall explain in the fourth part of this work. For my Maestro chastity acquires fundamental importance in the path of our Warrior Initiation. I only saw him angry once. It was when I told him I was going to marry. He exclaimed: 'You are throwing chains on your feet…!' And added: 'Advice counts for nothing, each one must learn by themselves'.
I said that before I married I lived surrounded by presences ('of ghosts, of ghosts, in order to think,' as the Chilean poet Omar Caceres would say), rumours of another world. I was in close contact with the astral. That 'body,' or expectant embryo, kept developing its own 'senses'. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
301:After their time in the monastery, most young men and women will return to their villages, having completed their training with the elders. They are now accepted as “ripe,” as initiated men and women, respected in their community. Outwardly they will have learned the religious forms and sacred rituals of the Buddhist community. Inwardly, these ancient forms are intended to awaken an unshakable virtue and inner respect, fearlessness in the face of death, self-reliance, wisdom, and profound compassion. These qualities give one who leaves the monastery the hallmark of a mature man or woman. Perhaps as you read about this ordination process, its beauty will strike a chord in you that intuitively knows about the need for initiations. This does not mean that you have to enter a monastery to seek this remarkable and wonderful training. By reading about this tradition, you may simply awaken that place in yourself, which exists in each of us, that longs for wholeness and integrity, because the awakening that comes through initiation is a universal story. In our time we need to reclaim rites of passage, we need to honor elders, we need to find ways to remind our young people and the whole of our communities of the sacredness of life, of who we really are. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
302:As the fight wore on, it became obvious that Streak was beating the other wolf. He wasn't as heavily built, but he was faster and sharper, and for every swipe to the head he took, he delivered two or three of his own.
All of a sudden, the dark wolf stopped, lay down, and rolled over, baring his throat and belly. Streak opened his mouth and clamped his teeth around the dark wolf's throat, then let go without breaking the skin and stood back. The dark wolf got to his feet and slunk away, tail between his legs.
I thought the wolf might have to leave the pack, but he didn't. Although he slept by himself that night, none of the wolves tried to chase him away, and he took his regular place in the hunting pack the next time they set out.
I thought about that a lot over the next day or two, comparing the way wolves handled their losers to how vampires handled theirs. In the world of vampires, defeat was a disgrace and more often than not ended with the death of the defeated. Wolves were more understanding. Honor mattered to them, but they wouldn't kill or shun a member of their pack just because it had lost face. Young wolf cubs had to endure tests of maturity, just as I'd endured the Trials of Initiation, but they weren't killed if they failed. ~ Darren Shan,#NFDB
303:The mythological figure of the Universal Mother imputes to the cosmos the feminine attributes of the first, nourishing and protecting presence. The fantasy is primarily spontaneous; for there exists a close and obvious correspondence between the attitude of the young child toward its mother and that of the adult toward the surrounding material world. But there has been also, in numerous religious traditions, a consciously controlled pedagogical utilization of this architypal image for the purpose of the purguing balacning, and initiation of the mind into the nature of the visible world.....
The Universal Mother is also the death of everything that dies. The whole round of existence is accomplished within her sway, from birth, through adolescence, maturity, and senescence, to the grave. She is the womb and the tomb. Thus she unites the good and bad, exhibiting the two modes of the remembered mother, not as personal only, but as universal. the devotee is expected to contemplate the two with equal equanimity. through this exercise, his spirit is purged of its infantile, inappropriate sentimentalities, and his mind opened to the inscrutable presence which exists, not as good and bad primarily with respect to his childlike human convenience, but as the law and image of the nature of being. ~ Joseph Campbell,#NFDB
304:It seems that in death the chakras are externalised, so to speak, becoming visible for the dead man., expressing themselves in concrete form like the astrological heavens, with their houses of the Zodiac. . . .
The moment of death, one has the presentiment of a great light, the Midnight Sun of the ancients. Then follows the diminution of this light and the indecision of the choice of paths, the dejection particular to a change of state, when the dead person is swallowed up by the Whale of Death. Of coarse, whoever has followed a discipline of initiation in this life will be in a position to overcome this great crisis of dejection and arrest the slow process of decomposition.
'The 'ego' is really a reflection of an Eternal Form, of the 'Name written in the Book of the Stars'. When consciousness disappears, the 'ego' dissolves in the waters of death, in a prolonged dream. In death, only the one who has become alive, who has managed to wake up, takes this eternal form, his real name, and gives it a face: the face of his soul, which is the face of his Beloved. . . .
To die is like passing to the other side of the mirror, 'into an upside-down sky', like 'falling out of one's skin into the soul'. Whoever has experienced mystic death during his life is already the Lord of the Two Worlds. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
305:The Terms In Which I Think Of Reality
Reality is a question
of realizing how real
the world is already.
Time is Eternity,
ultimate and immovable;
everyone's an angel.
It's Heaven's mystery
of changing perfection :
absolute Eternity
changes! Cars are always
going down the street,
lamps go off and on.
It's a great flat plain;
we can see everything
on top of a table.
Clams open on the table,
lambs are eaten by worms
on the plain. The motion
of change is beautiful,
as well as form called
in and out of being.
Next : to distinguish process
in its particularity with
an eye to the initiation
of gratifying new changes
desired in the real world.
Here we're overwhelmed
with such unpleasant detail
we dream again of Heaven.
84
For the world is a mountain
of shit : if it's going to
be moved at all, it's got
to be taken by handfuls.
Man lives like the unhappy
whore on River Street who
in her Eternity gets only
a couple of bucks and a lot
of snide remarks in return
for seeking physical love
the best way she knows how,
never really heard of a glad
job or joyous marriage or
a difference in the heart :
or thinks it isn't for her,
which is her worst misery.
~ Allen Ginsberg,#NFDB
306:You mean you to tell me you don't eat fish?" Rayna barks. "I told you, Galen! How many times did I tell you?"
"Rayna, be quiet," he says without looking at her.
"We're wasting our time here!" She slams her fork down.
"Rayna, I said-"
"Oh, I heard what you said. And it's about time you listened to someone else for a change."
Now would be a good time to blackout. Or ten minutes ago, before they unveiled the seafood surprise. But I don't even feel remotely dizzy. Or tired. In fact, Rayna's ranting seems to be igniting a weird charge in the room, sparking some sort of hidden energy all around us. So when Galen stands so fast his chair falls over, I'm not surprised. I stand, too.
"Leave, Rayna. Right now," he grinds out.
When Rayna stands, Toraf does, too. He keeps his expression neutral. I get the feeling he's used to outbursts like these. "You're just using her as a distraction from your real responsibilities, Galen," she spits. "And now you've risked us all. For her."
“You were aware of the risks before you came, Rayna. If you feel exposed, leave,” Galen says coolly.
Responsibilities? Exposed? I’m waiting for someone to admit they’re part of some violet-eye cult, and I didn’t make initiation. “I guess I don’t understand,” I say.
“Oh, well, that’s a real shocker, isn’t it?” Rayna says. ~ Anna Banks,#NFDB
307:Annalena
It happened that sometimes I kissed in mirrors the reflection of my face, since
the hands, face and tears of Annalena had caressed it, it seemed to me divinely
beautiful as if suffused with heavenly sweetness. I liked her velvet wetness, long
voyages in the delta her legs. A striving upstream toward her beating heart
through more and more savage currents saturated with the light of hops and
bindweed. And our vehemence and triumphant laughter and our hasty dressing
in the middle of the night to walk on the stone stairs of the upper city. Our
breath held in amazement and silence, porosity of worn-out stones and the great
door of the cathedral. Over the gate of the rectory fragments of brick among
weeds, in darkness the touch of a rough buttressed wall. And later our looking
from the bridge down to the orchard, when under the moon every tree is
separate on its kneeler, and from the secret interior of dimmed poplars the echo
carries the sound of a water turbine. To whom do we tell what happened on this
earth, for whom do we place everywhere huge mirrors in the hope that they will
be filled up and will stay so? Always in doubt whether it was we who were there,
she and I,, or just anonymous lovers on the enameled tablets of a fairy-land....
.......LAmoureuse initiation
~ Czeslaw Milosz,#NFDB
308:Quant à la religion proprement dite, ou plus généralement à la partie extérieure de toute tradition, elle doit assurément être telle que chacun puisse en comprendre quelque chose, suivant la mesure de ses capacités, et c’est en ce sens qu’elle s’adresse à tous ; mais ce n’est pas à dire pour cela qu’elle doive se réduire à ce minimum que le plus ignorant (nous ne l’entendons pas sous le rapport de l’instruction profane, qui n’importe aucunement ici) ou le moins intelligent peut en saisir ; bien au contraire, il doit y avoir en elle quelque chose qui soit pour ainsi dire au niveau des possibilités de tous les individus, si élevées qu’elles soient, et ce n’est d’ailleurs que par là qu’elle peut fournir un « support » approprié à l’aspect intérieur qui, dans toute tradition non mutilée, en est le complément nécessaire, et qui relève de l’ordre proprement initiatique. Mais les « modernistes », rejetant précisément l’ésotérisme et l’initiation, nient par là même que les doctrines religieuses portent en elles-mêmes aucune signification profonde ; et ainsi, tout en prétendant « spiritualiser » la religion, ils tombent au contraire dans le « littéralisme » le plus étroit et le plus grossier, dans celui dont l’esprit est le plus complètement absent, montrant ainsi, par un exemple frappant, qu’il n’est souvent que trop vrai que, comme le disait Pascal, « qui veut faire l’ange fait la bête » ! ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
309:Bien plus, la subversion la plus habile et la plus dangereuse est certainement celle qui ne se trahit pas par des singularités trop manifestes et que n’importe qui peut facilement apercevoir, mais qui déforme le sens des symboles ou renverse leur valeur sans rien changer à leurs apparences extérieures. Mais la ruse la plus diabolique de toutes est peut-être celle qui consiste à faire attribuer au symbolisme orthodoxe lui-même, tel qu’il existe dans les organisations véritablement traditionnelles, et plus particulièrement dans les organisations initiatiques, qui sont surtout visées en pareil cas, l’interprétation à rebours qui est proprement le fait de la « contre-initiation » ; et celle-ci ne se prive pas d’user de ce moyen pour provoquer les confusions et les équivoques dont elle a quelque profit à tirer. C’est là, au fond, tout le secret de certaines campagnes, encore bien significatives quant au caractère de l’époque contemporaine, menées, soit contre l’ésotérisme en général, soit contre telle ou telle forme initiatique en particulier, avec l’aide inconsciente de gens dont la plupart seraient fort étonnés, et même épouvantés, s’ils pouvaient se rendre compte de ce pour quoi on les utilise ; il arrive malheureusement parfois que ceux qui croient combattre le diable, quelque idée qu’ils s’en fassent d’ailleurs, se trouvent ainsi tout simplement, sans s’en douter le moins du monde, transformés en ses meilleurs serviteurs ! ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
310:Once we have broken free of the prejudices of our own provincially limited ecclesiastical, tribal, or national rendition of the world archetypes, it becomes possible to understand that the supreme initiation is not that of the local motherly fathers, who then project aggression onto the neighbors for their own defense. The good news, which the World Redeemer brings and which so many have been glad to hear, zealous to preach, but reluctant, apparently, to demonstrate, is that God is love, the He can be, and is to be, loved, and that all without exception are his children. Such comparatively trivial matters as the remaining details of the credo, the techniques of worship, and devices of episcopal organization (which have so absorbed the interest of Occidental theologians that they are today seriously discussed as the principal questions of religion), are merely pedantic snares, unless kept ancillary to the major teaching. Indeed, where not so kept, they have the regressive effect: they reduce the father image back again to the dimensions of the totem. And this, of course, is what has happened throughout the Christian world. One would think that we had been called upon to decide or to know whom, of all of us, the Father prefers. Whereas, the teaching is much less flattering: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." The World Savior's cross, in spite of the behavior of its professed priests, is a vastly more democratic symbol than the local flag. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
311:Good nutrition and regular exercise combine to offer more health per person than the sum of each part alone.
We also know that physical activity has an effect on emotional and mental well-being. Much has been said about the effect physical activity has on various chemicals in our bodies, which in tum affect our moods
and our concentration. And experiencing the rewards of feeling better emotionally and being more mentally alert provides the confidence and motivation to treat ourselves to optimal nutrition, which reinforces the
entire cycle. Those who feel good about themselves are more likely to
respect their health by practicing good nutrition. John Robbins has done more than any other person to bring this issue to the front of American consciousness, and I strongly
recommend reading his most recent book, The Food Revolution. Our food choices have an incredible impact not only on our metabolism,
but also on the initiation, promotion and even reversal of disease, on our energy; on our physical activity, on our emotional and mental
well-being and on our world environment. All of these seemingly separate spheres are intimately interconnected. I have mentioned the wisdom of nature at various points in this
book, and I have come to see the power of the workings of the natural
world. It is a wondrous web of health, from molecules, to people, to other animals, to forests, to oceans, to the air we breathe. This is nature at work, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. ~ T Colin Campbell,#NFDB
312:9. Atonement with the Father/Abyss:Atonement consists in no more than the abandonment of that self-generated double monster-the dragon thought to be God (superego) and the dragon thought to be Sin (repressed id). But this requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself, and that is what is difficult. One must have a faith that the father is merciful, and then a reliance on that mercy. Therewith, the center of belief is transferred outside of the bedeviling god's tight scaly ring, and the dreadful ogres dissolve. It is in this ordeal that the hero may derive hope and assurance from the helpful female figure, by whose magic (pollen charms or power of intercession) he is protected through all the frightening experiences of the father's ego-shattering initiation. For if it is impossible to trust the terrifying father-face, then one's faith must be centered elsewhere (Spider Woman, Blessed Mother); and with that reliance for support, one endures the crisis-only to find, in the end, that the father and mother reflect each other, and are in essence the same. The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands-and the two are atoned. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
313:The Living Word has various dimensions in relation to power and will to power. The spoken word stands at the very bottom of the involuted scale, being the faint echo of the inaudible Word. All beings, from the Gods to mankind, possess a sound, an essential name, a key note. By discovering what it is, one acquires the power to decompose and recreate it. It is also a mantra of voluntary death and resurrection. In the current parlance: the individual, chromosomic, genetic code has been deciphered. The secret has been penetrated. The name to which we refer corresponds to the supratemporal being and has nothing to do with the intimate, family name, although sometimes a delicate synchronicity is produced within a turn of the wheel, a mysterious lucky occurrence filled with meaning, and this name may also be symbolic.
'You must discover your Beloved's real name if you are to bring her back to life. And yours, too. They are the names of the God and Goddess to whom they will give a face. 'Of the God within you', as the Hindu greeting says: Namaste. 'I greet the God within you'.
'The essential name cannot be chosen, it isn't arbitrary. It is filled with meaning of the root note. It is mantra, an eternal designation. It is inscribed in the Book of the Stars, on the Tree of Life, awaiting its actualisation. The initiate of our order is given his real name when he has successfully undergone the most difficult tests. Then it is inscribed in the genealogical tree of the family, in the immortal circle of the Hyperborean initiation. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
314:Des erreurs plus subtiles, et par suite plus redoutables, se produisent parfois lorsqu’on parle, à propos de l’initiation, d’une « communication » avec des états supérieurs ou des « mondes spirituels » ; et, avant tout, il y a là trop souvent l’illusion qui consiste à prendre pour « supérieur » ce qui ne l’est pas véritablement, simplement parce qu’il apparaît comme plus ou moins extraordinaire ou « anormal ». Il nous faudrait en somme répéter ici tout ce que nous avons déjà dit ailleurs de la confusion du psychique et du spirituel (1), car c’est celle-là qui est le plus fréquemment commise à cet égard ; les états psychiques n’ont, en fait, rien de « supérieur » ni de « transcendant », puisqu’ils font uniquement partie de l’état individuel humain (2) ; et, quand nous parlons d’états supérieurs de l’être, sans aucun abus de langage, nous entendons par là exclusivement les états supra-individuels. Certains vont même encore plus loin dans la confusion et font « spirituel » à peu près synonyme d’« invisible », c’est-à-dire qu’ils prennent pour tel, indistinctement, tout ce qui ne tombe pas sous les sens ordinaires et « normaux » ; nous avons vu qualifier ainsi jusqu’au monde « éthérique », c’est-à-dire, tout simplement, la partie la moins grossière du monde corporel ! Dans ces conditions, il est fort à craindre que la « communication » dont il s’agit ne se réduise en définitive à la « clairvoyance », à la « clairaudience », ou à l’exercice de quelque autre faculté psychique du même genre et non moins insignifiante, même quand elle est réelle. ~ Ren Gu non, #NFDB
315:What is this mysterious masculine force which spurs you onwards, whence comes this will, this heroic initiative which seems to precede the start of the great journey? This is what prevents you turning back on the path. If you were to do so, if you failed to travel the path to its end, you would be guilty, because the practices of your initiation have mobilised enormous forces which destroy men and drive them insane if they are not aimed in the right direction. The signs will help you open a way for yourself in the virgin forest where no roads exist.
'Even the Gods are your enemies; because their impersonal lives are at risk in this war. You will have to overcome the Archetypes, dethrone them, reincorporating their tremendous numinous energies within yourself. Do you remember the Greek legend? Man was a circular androgynous. He began to roll up Mount Olympus. The Gods were frightened, fearing defeat, and so they resorted to artifice: they divided the man-sphere in half. The result was that he was so busy trying to find his other half that he had no time to make war with them. But, luckily, the Gods made a mistake. Because one day we will bring them back to life as well, giving them a face.
'When the water runs downhill, it gives rise to Samsara and human generations, to the circular movement of the involuted earth; when it runs uphill, the opposite direction, it provokes the mutation of the Gods themselves, the divinisation of the hero; it creates a free, eternal race, without Gods, without a king. This is the Road of the Warrior. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
316:Saviors unnumbered have died for the sins of man and by the hands of man, and through their deaths have interceded in heaven for the souls of their executioners. The martyrdom of the God-Man and the redemption of the world through His blood has been an essential tenet of many great religions. Nearly all these stories can be traced to sun worship, for the glorious orb of day is the Savior who dies annually for every creature within his universe, but year after year rises again victorious from the tomb of winter. Without doubt the doctrine of the crucifixion is based upon the secret traditions of the Ancient Wisdom; it is a constant reminder that the divine nature of man is perpetually crucified upon the animal organism. Certain of the pagan Mysteries included in the ceremony of initiation the crucifixion of the candidate upon a cross, or the laying of his body upon a cruciform altar. It has been claimed that Apollonius of Tyana (the Antichrist) was initiated into the Arcanum of Egypt in the Great Pyramid, where he hung upon a cross until unconscious and was then laid in the tomb (the coffer) for three days. While his body was unconscious, his soul was thought to pass into the realms of the immortals (the place of death) After it had vanquished death (by recognizing that life is eternal) it returned again to the body, which then rose from the coffer, after which he was hailed as a brother by the priests, who believed that he had returned from the land of the dead. This concept was, in substance, the teaching of the Mysteries. ~ Manly P Hall, Secret Teachings of all Ages, #NFDB
317:Although Zolla no longer associated with Julius Evola, he nevertheless arranged for me to meet Italy’s most famous crypto-traditionalist writer who was a very controversial figure because of his espousal of the cause of Mussolini during the Second World War. I had already read some of Evola’s works, many of which are now being translated into English and are attracting some attention in philosophical circles. But based on the image I had of him as an expositor of traditional doctrines including Yoga, I was surprised to see him, now crippled as a result of a bomb explosion in 1945, living in the center of Rome in a large old apartment which was severe and fairly dark and without works of traditional art which I had expected to see around him. He had piercing eyes and gazed directly at me as we spoke about knightly initiation, myths and symbols of ancient Persia, traditional alchemy and Hermeticism and similar subjects. While he extolled the ancient Romans and their virtues, he spoke pejoratively about his contemporary Italians. When I asked him what happened to those Roman virtues, he said they traveled north to Germany and we were left with Italian waiters singing o sole mio! He also seemed to have little knowledge or interest in esoteric Christianity and refuse to acknowledge the presence of a sapiental current in Christianity. It was surprising for me to see an Italian sitting a few minutes from the Vatican, with his immense knowledge of various esoteric philosophies from the Greek to the Indian, being so impervious to the inner realities of the tradition so close to his home. ~ Seyyed Hossein Nasr, #NFDB
318:I remember reading about these primitive initiation rituals in school. They had one where they take the kid way out into the wilderness and drop him off and he has to get back by himself without any weapons or tools. He’s just out there with his bare hands, digging up roots to eat, making fires with rocks and sticks or whatever. I mean, he could starve or a mountain lion could eat him or something, but that’s all part of the test. When he gets back, he’s a man. And not only that, he finds his Spirit Guide. Talk about embracing the weird.
But nowadays they don’t do anything but leave you at home by yourself with a kitchen full of potato chips and soft drinks. Then, in your bedroom, you’ve got your TV, video games, and the Internet. What do they expect you to get from that? A big fat case of I don’t give a shit?
These days, a kid has to go looking for his own initiation or make his own personal war to fight since the wars the atomic vampires throw are so hard to believe in. It’s like Ricky says—every time they trump one up, it gets worse.
If I was in charge, it’d be different. You wouldn’t have to go to military school or get dropped off in the wilderness or fight in a war. Instead, you’d head off for what I’d call the Teen Corps. It’d be like the Peace Corps, only for teenagers. You’d have to go around and, like, pile up sandbags for people when hurricanes blow in and replant trees in deforested areas and help get medical attention to hillbillies and so forth. You’d do it for a whole year, and then, when you got back, you’d get the right to vote and buy alcohol and everything else. You’d be grown. ~ Tim Tharp,#NFDB
319:This may be at once the curse and the blessing of the modern age, that the ready availability of printed books—and now, electronic versions easily downloadable from virtually anywhere on earth—has enabled teachings to be preserved and passed down, passed around, and disseminated to anyone with even a glimmer of interest. It's a curse, because this ready availability cheapens the teaching by making it that much easier to obtain without all the psychological preparation of periods of intense study, fasting, purification, and other conditioning techniques. The effect of this is noticeable on social media and websites in which serious studies of various forms of esoteric tradition are airily dismissed by casual readers who have difficulty understanding their specialized terminology due to a lack of years of preparatory instruction or even a basic classical education, but still feel competent enough to pass judgment. Yet books are what we have in lieu of the secret society, the midnight initiations, the training by an experienced guru. Books also have preserved essential information from being lost due to persecution by enemies or opponents, or to execution or death by natural causes of lineage holders in sacred traditions (the Chinese invasion of Tibet comes to mind, and the decimation of various sects in Iraq and Afghanistan by the Taliban, the Islamic State, and others beginning with the oppression of the Kurds under Saddam Hussein). A deeper question than we can address adequately in this place is what happens to a tradition if its human teachers are all dead, unable to pass on the oral instruction or the psycho-spiritual techniques of initiation? ~ Peter Levenda, #NFDB
320:Les Tantras, dans cette optique, estiment que le lien du secret, qui s’imposait autrefois pour les doctrines et les pratiques de la « Voie de la Main Gauche » à cause de leur caractère périlleux et de la possibilité d’abus, d’aberrations et de déformations, est périmé.
Le principe fondamental de l’enseignement secret, commun tant aux Tantras hindouistes qu’aux Tantras bouddhiques (ceux-ci définissant essentiellement le Vajrayâna), c’est la nature transformable du poison en remède ou « nectar » ; c’est l’emploi, à des fins de libération, des forces mêmes qui ont conduit ou qui peuvent conduire à la chute et à la perdition. Il est précisément affirmé qu’il faut adopter « le poison comme antidote du poison ». Un autre principe tantrique, c’est que « fruition » et « libération » (ou détachement, renoncement) ne s’excluent pas nécessairement, contrairement à ce que pensent les écoles unilatéralement ascétiques. On se propose comme but de réaliser les deux choses à la fois, donc de pouvoir alimenter la passion et le désir tout en restant libre. Un texte avait précisé qu’il s’agit d’une voie « aussi difficile que le fait de marcher sur le fil de l’épée ou de tenir en bride un tigre ».
(…)
De toute façon, à ceux qui penseraient que le tantrisme offre un commode alibi spirituel pour s’abandonner à ses instincts et à ses sens, il faudrait rappeler que tous ces courants supposent une consécration et une initiation préliminaires, le rattachement à une communauté ou chaîne (kula) d’où tirer une force protectrice, dans tous les cas une ascèse sui generis, une disciple énergique de maîtrise de soi chez celui qui entend se livre aux pratiques dont nous allons parler."
"Métaphysique du sexe", pp. 303-304 ~ Julius Evola,#NFDB
321:Response To A Logician :::
I bow at the feet of my teacher Marpa.
And sing this song in response to you.
Listen, pay heed to what I say,
forget your critique for a while.
The best seeing is the way of "nonseeing"
the radiance of the mind itself.
The best prize is what cannot be looked for
the priceless treasure of the mind itself.
The most nourishing food is "noneating"
the transcendent food of samadhi.
The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking"
the nectar of heartfelt compassion.
Oh, this self-realizing awareness
is beyond words and description!
The mind is not the world of children,
nor is it that of logicians.
Attaining the truth of "nonattainment,"
you receive the highest initiation.
Perceiving the void of high and low,
you reach the sublime stage.
Approaching the truth of "nonmovement,"
you follow the supreme path.
Knowing the end of birth and death,
the ultimate purpose is fulfilled.
Seeing the emptiness of reason,
supreme logic is perfected.
When you know that great and small are groundless,
you have entered the highest gateway.
Comprehending beyond good and evil
opens the way to perfect skill.
Experiencing the dissolution of duality,
you embrace the highest view.
Observing the truth of "nonobservation"
opens the way to meditating.
Comprehending beyond "ought" and "oughtn't"
opens the way to perfect action.
When you realize the truth of "noneffort,"
you are approaching the highest fruition.
Ignorant are those who lack this truth:
arrogant teachers inflated by learning,
scholars bewitched by mere words,
and yogis seduced by prejudice.
For though they yearn for freedom,
they find only enslavement. ~ Jetsun Milarepa,#NFDB
322:English version by Thupten Jinpa & Jas Elsner
I bow at the feet of my teacher Marpa.
And sing this song in response to you.
Listen, pay heed to what I say,
forget your critique for a while.
The best seeing is the way of "nonseeing" --
the radiance of the mind itself.
The best prize is what cannot be looked for --
the priceless treasure of the mind itself.
The most nourishing food is "noneating" --
the transcendent food of samadhi.
The most thirst-quenching drink is "nondrinking" --
the nectar of heartfelt compassion.
Oh, this self-realizing awareness
is beyond words and description!
The mind is not the world of children,
nor is it that of logicians.
Attaining the truth of "nonattainment,"
you receive the highest initiation.
Perceiving the void of high and low,
you reach the sublime stage.
Approaching the truth of "nonmovement,"
you follow the supreme path.
Knowing the end of birth and death,
the ultimate purpose is fulfilled.
Seeing the emptiness of reason,
supreme logic is perfected.
When you know that great and small are groundless,
you have entered the highest gateway.
Comprehending beyond good and evil
opens the way to perfect skill.
Experiencing the dissolution of duality,
you embrace the highest view.
Observing the truth of "nonobservation"
opens the way to meditating.
Comprehending beyond "ought" and "oughtn't"
opens the way to perfect action.
When you realize the truth of "noneffort,"
you are approaching the highest fruition.
Ignorant are those who lack this truth:
arrogant teachers inflated by learning,
scholars bewitched by mere words,
and yogis seduced by prejudice.
For though they yearn for freedom,
they find only enslavement.
~ Jetsun Milarepa, Response to a Logician
,#NFDB
323:Pour votre question concernant la vie du Prophète, la conception la plus orthodoxe est que l’impeccabilité appartient réellement à tous les prophètes, de sorte que, si même il se trouve dans leurs actions quelque chose qui peut sembler choquant, cela même doit s’expliquer par des raisons qui dépassent le point de vue de l’humanité ordinaire (à un degré moindre, cela s’applique aussi aux actions de tous ceux qui ont atteint un certain degré d’initiation). D’un autre côté, la mission d’un rasûl, par là même qu’elle s’adresse à tous les hommes indistinctement, implique une façon d’agir où n’apparaissent pas les réalisations d’ordre ésotérique (ce qui constitue d’ailleurs une sorte de sacrifice pour celui qui est revêtu de cette mission). C’est pourquoi certains disent aussi que ce qui serait le plus intéressant au point de vue initiatique, s’il était possible de le connaître exactement, c’est la période de la vie de Mohammed antérieure à la risâlah (et ceci s’applique également à la « vie cachée » du Christ par rapport à sa « vie publique » : ces deux expressions, en elles-mêmes, s’accordent du reste tout à fait avec ce que je viens de dire et l’indiquent presque explicitement). II est d’ailleurs bien entendu que les considérations historiques n’ont pas d’intérêt en elles-mêmes, mais seulement par ce qu’elles traduisent de certaines vérités doctrinales. Enfin, on ne peut pas négliger, dans une tradition qui forme nécessairement un tout, ce qui ne concerne pas directement la réalisation métaphysique (et il y a de tels éléments dans la tradition hindoue comme dans les autres, puisqu’elle implique aussi, par exemple, une législation) ; il faut plutôt s’efforcer de le comprendre par rapport à cette réalisation, ce qui revient en somme à en rechercher le « sens intérieur ».
Lettre de Rene Guenon à Louis Caudron d’Amiens, Le Caire, 22 mars 1936. ~ Ren Gu non,#NFDB
324:Many a tale of inguldgent parenthood illustrates the antique idea that when the roles of life are assumed by the improperly initiated, chaos supervenes. When the child outgrows the popular idyle of the mother breast and turns to face the world of specialized adult action, it passes, spiritually, into the sphere of the father-who becomes for his son, the sign of the future task, and for his daughter, the future husband. Whether he knows it or not, and no matter what his position in society, the father is the initiating priest through whom the young being passes on into the larger world. And just as, formerly, the mother represented the good and evil, so does now the father, but with this complication - that there is a new element of rivalry in the picture: the son against the father for the mastery of the universe, and the daughter against the mother to be the mastered world.
The traditional idea of initiation combines an introduction of the candidate into the techniques, duties, and prerogatives of his vocation with a radical readjustment of his emotional relationship to the parental images. The mystagogue is to entrust the symbols of office only to a son who has been effectually purged of all inappropriate infantile cathexes-for whom the just, impersonal exercise of the powers will not be rendered impossible by unconscious motives of self-aggrandizement, personal preference, or resentment. Ideally, the invested one has been divested of his mere humanity and is representative of an impersonal cosmic force. He is the twice-born: he has become himself the father. And he is competent consequently now to enact himself the role of the initiator, the guide, the sun door, through whom one may pass from infantile illusions of good and evil to an experience of the majesty of cosmic law, purged of hope and fear, and at peace in understanding the revelation of being. ~ Joseph Campbell,#NFDB
325:The journey up to battle camp started badly.
“If you can’t even load a bloody truck with all your kit properly, then you’ve got no bloody chance of passing what’s ahead of you, I can assure you of that!” Taff, our squadron DS, barked at us in the barracks before leaving.
I, for one, was more on edge than I had ever felt so far on Selection.
I was carsick on the journey north, and I hadn’t felt that since I’d been a kid heading back to school. It was nerves.
We also quizzed Taff for advice on what to expect and how to survive the “capture-initiation” phase.
His advice to Trucker and me was simple: “You two toffs just keep your mouths shut--23 DS tend to hate recruits who’ve been to private school.”
The 23 SAS were running the battle camp (it generally alternated between 21 and 23 SAS), and 23 were always regarded as tough, straight-talking, hard-drinking, fit-as-hell soldiers. We had last been with them at Test Week all those months earlier, and rumor was that “the 23 DS are going to make sure that any 21 recruits get it the worst.”
Trucker and I hoped simply to try and stay “gray men” and not be noticed. To put our heads down and get on and quietly do the work.
This didn’t exactly go according to plan.
“Where are the lads who speak like Prince Charles?” The 23 DS shouted on the first parade when we arrived.
“Would you both like newspapers with your morning tea, gents?” the DS sarcastically enquired.
Part of me was tempted to answer how nice that would be, but I resisted.
The DS continued: “I’ve got my eye on you two. Do I want to have to put my life one day in your posh, soft hands? Like fuck I do. If you are going to pass this course you are going to have to earn it and prove yourself the hard way. You both better be damned good.”
Oh, great, I thought.
I could tell the next fortnight was going to be a ball-buster. ~ Bear Grylls,#NFDB
326:She could almost feel each woman's intention through the paper. Ellie Penhaligan, who was so in tune with the earth and the elements that she could disappear into them. Stella Darling, whose suitability was a real no-brainer, especially now that she had opened her own natural healing practice. Stella was the only other person in Avening with formal magic training, and once time had mellowed her, she would be a true mistress of the elements. Nina Bruno, one of the most powerful candidates on her list, a real Charm Sister whose hypnotic personal energy would turn anyone her way. Eve Pruitt, who had no particular powers to speak of, but whose loving and giving energy radiated from her, putting everyone at ease- people magic. Maggie Moreau, who passed so effortlessly between worlds, and she hadn't even hit puberty yet. Her mother Mave- who would have thought Mave would have been interested? But she'd applied all on her own, and sure enough, Autumn had been forced to recognize her great untapped potential. Ana Beckwith, whom Autumn loved like a daughter born of her own womb, and who, whether she realized it or not, had already begun to tap into her ability to move through time. Ginny Emmerling, the lonely warrior who wanted to fight for a new piece of herself. Dottie Davis, the only applicant to understand the Book as a vehicle of spirituality. Charlie Solomon, that budding psychic reporter whom Autumn had all but coerced into settling down in Avening. Sylvie Shigeru, who was only just eighteen and had already made peace with her magic, and done so much to harness it. And last, her sister, Siobhan, who would be a prophet the likes of whom Autumn hadn't seen in many generations. Age wasn't a concern; Maggie and Siobhan wouldn't initiate for another ten years at least, and as for the older women, Dottie and Eve, initiation would change them the way it had changed Autumn so many centuries ago. ~ Amy S Foster, #NFDB
327:Since I did Selection all those years ago, not much has really changed.
The MOD (Ministry of Defence) website still states that 21 SAS soldiers need the following character traits: “Physically and mentally robust. Self-confident. Self-disciplined. Able to work alone. Able to assimilate information and new skills.”
It makes me smile now to read those words. As Selection had progressed, those traits had been stamped into my being, and then during the three years I served with my squadron they became molded into my psyche.
They are the same qualities I still value today.
The details of the jobs I did once I passed Selection aren’t for sharing publicly, but they included some of the most extraordinary training that any man can be lucky enough to receive.
I went on to be trained in demolitions, air and maritime insertions, foreign weapons, jungle survival, trauma medicine, Arabic, signals, high-speed and evasive driving, winter warfare, as well as “escape and evasion” survival for behind enemy lines.
I went through an even more in-depth capture initiation program as part of becoming a combat-survival instructor, which was much longer and more intense than the hell we endured on Selection.
We became proficient in covert night parachuting and unarmed combat, among many other skills--and along the way we had a whole host of misadventures.
But what do I remember and value most?
For me, it is the camaraderie, and the friendships--and of course Trucker, who is still one of my best friends on the planet.
Some bonds are unbreakable.
I will never forget the long yomps, the specialist training, and of course a particular mountain in the Brecon Beacons.
But above all, I feel a quiet pride that for the rest of my days I can look myself in the mirror and know that once upon a time I was good enough.
Good enough to call myself a member of the SAS.
Some things don’t have a price tag. ~ Bear Grylls,#NFDB
328:Le rapport d’analogie entre les intellections et les formes matérielles explique comment l’ésotérisme a pu se greffer sur l’exercice des métiers, et notamment sur l’art architectural ; les cathédrales que les initiés chrétiens ont laissées derrière eux apportent le témoignage le plus explicite et aussi le plus éclatant de l’élévation spirituelle du moyen âge (2). Nous touchons ici à un aspect fort important de la question qui nous préoccupe : l’action de l’ésotérisme sur l’exotérisme moyennant les formes sensibles dont la production est précisément l’apanage de l’initiation artisanale; par ces formes, véritables véhicules de la doctrine traditionnelle intégrale, et qui grâce à leur symbolisme transmettent cette doctrine en un langage immédiat et universel, l’ésotérisme infuse à la portion proprement religieuse de la tradition une qualité intellectuelle et par là un équilibre dont l’absence entraînerait finalement la dissolution de toute la civilisation, comme cela s’est produit dans le monde chrétien. L’abandon de l’art sacré enleva à l’ésotérisme son moyen d’action le plus direct ; la tradition extérieure insista de plus en plus sur ce qu’elle a de particulier, donc de limitatif ; enfin, l’absence du courant d’universalité qui, lui, avait vivifié et stabilisé la civilisation religieuse par le langage des formes, occasionna des réactions en sens inverse ; c’est-à-dire que les limitations formelles, au lieu d’être compensées, et par là stabilisées, par les interférences supra-formelles de l’ésotérisme, suscitèrent, par leur « opacité » ou « massivité » même, des négations pour ainsi dire infra-formelles, puisque venant de l’arbitraire individuel, et celui-ci, loin d’être une forme de la vérité, n’est qu’un chaos informe d’opinions et de fantaisies.
(2) Devant une cathédrale, on se sent réellement situé au centre du monde; devant une église en style Renaissance, baroque ou rococo, on ne se sent qu’en Europe ~ Frithjof Schuon,#NFDB
329:I see a direct connection between the Fuenta Magna Bowl and Ogma, I believe the former is an authentic yet misplaced artifact that has its origins in the Middle East as the Irish/Celtic mythology as well. Ogma -being the god/originator of speech and language- carries the syllable of 'Og' in his name (according to a renowned authority on Irish Mythology, James Swagger) which signals some process of initiation through which other members could join into this culture. His family connections were confused (according to, The Dictionary Of Mythology) but it is said that he was the brother of Dagda and Lugh; and Dagda owned a magical cauldron known as Undry, which was always full and used to satisfy his enormous appetite. The [Tales depict Dagda as a figure of immense power, armed with a magic club to kill nine men with one blow]. This symbolism shows another remarkable link, however, to ancient Egypt with the Nine Bows representing its enemies. With Richard Cassaro's work, we now know the significance of the Godself icon which we see on the Fuenta Magna Bowl; and yet my observation and surprise here lies in the fact that the Godself icon could simply refer to Dagda being a figure of immense power, but what is more astounding is when I found that the Latin word caldaria (whence 'cauldron' was taken) means a 'cooking pot'. This is indeed amazing, but that's not all! This Latin word has its etymological roots in the Semitic languages, where the Old Babylonian word 'kid' meaning 'to cut/soften/dissolve' got preserved into Arabic with the same meaning as well and even a new word got derived therefrom: 'kidr'; which literally means a 'cooking pot'. It also happens to refer to one of God's names (in Islam) with the meaning of: Almighty. Moreover, the word 'Undry' could be looked at as if it were composed of two syllables: Un and Dry, with 'Un' signaling a continuous action in present and 'Dry' meaning 'to generate' and 'pour out' in the Semitic language. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
330:c) Taking a view as to whether there is any need to keep the delinquent employee under suspension (d) Taking a view on the preliminary investigation report and deciding about the future course of action thereon, such as warning, training, counseling, initiation of major or minor penalty proceeding, prosecution, discharge simpliciter, etc.(e) Consultation with the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) where necessary (f) Deciding whether there is any need to issue of charge sheet or penalty may be imposed dispensing with inquiry under the appropriate provision (g) Issue of charge sheet where necessary - Rule 14(3) (h) In the case of minor penalty proceedings, deciding, either suo motu or based on the request of the delinquent employee, as to whether it is necessary to conduct a detailed oral hearing.(i) In the case of minor penalty proceedings, forming tentative opinion about the quantum of penalty based on the representation of the delinquent employee, if any, and ordering for a detailed oral hearing where necessary.(j) After issue of charge sheet, deciding as to whether there is any need to conduct inquiry, or the matter may be closed, or the penalty can be imposed, based on the unambiguous, unconditional and unqualified admission by the delinquent employee.(k) Passing final order imposing penalty or closing the case, based on the response of the delinquent employee (l) Appointment of Inquiry Authority and Presenting Officer, where necessary (m)Taking a view on the request, if any, of the delinquent employee for engagement of a Legal Practioner as Defence Assistant (n) Making originals of all the listed documents available to the Presenting Officer so that the same could be presented during the inspection of documents.(o) Examination of the inquiry report to decide as to whether the same needs to be remitted back to the inquiry authority - Rule 15(1) (p) Deciding as to whether the conclusion arrived at by the Inquiring Authority is acceptable and to record reasons for disagreement if any – Rule 15(2) 6 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
331:The ordinary reader today knows about the Grail thanks only to Richard Wagner's Parsifal, which, in its Romantic approach, really deforms and twists the whole myth. Equally misleading is the attempt to interpret the mystery of the Grail in Christian terms: for Christian elements only play an accessory, secondary and concealing role in the saga. In order to grasp the true significance of the myth, it is necessary instead to consider the more immediate points of reference represented by the themes and echoes pertaining to the cycle of King Arthur, which survives in the Celtic and Nordic traditions. The Grail essentially embodies the source of a transcendent and immortalizing power of primordial origin that has been preserved after the 'Fall', degeneration and decadence of humanity. Significantly, all sources agree that the guardians of the Grail are not priests, but are knights and warriors - besides, the very place where the Grail is kept is described not as a temple or church, but as a royal palace or castle.
In the book, I argued that the Grail can be seen to possess an initiatory (rather than vaguely mystical) character: that it embodies the mystery of warrior initiation. Most commonly, the sagas emphasize one additional element: the duties deriving from such initiation. The predestined Knight - he who has received the calling and has enjoyed a vision of the Grail, or received its boons – or he who has 'fought his way' to the Grail (as described in certain texts) must accomplish his duty of restoring legitimate power, lest he forever be damned. The Knight must either allow a prostrate, deceased, wounded or only apparently living King to regain his strength, or personally assume the regal role, thus restoring a fallen kingdom. The sagas usually attribute this function to the power of the Grail. A significant means to assess the dignity or intentions of the Knight is to 'ask the question': the question concerning the purpose of the Grail. In many cases, the posing of this crucial question coincides with the miracle of awakening, of healing or of restoration. ~ Julius Evola,#NFDB
332:So then let the Adept set this sigil upon all the Words he hath writ in the book of the Works of his Will. And let him then end all, saying: Such are the Words!2 For by this he maketh proclamation before all them that be about his Circle that these Words are true and puissant, binding what he would bind, and loosing what he would loose. Let the Adept perform this ritual right, perfect in every part thereof, once daily for one moon, then twice, at dawn and dusk, for two moons; next thrice, noon added, for three moons; afterwards, midnight making up his course, for four moons four times every day. Then let the Eleventh Moon be consecrated wholly to this Work; let him be instant in constant ardour, dismissing all but his sheer needs to eat and sleep.3 For know that the true Formula4 whose virtue sufficed the Beast in this Attainment, was thus:
INVOKE OFTEN
So may all men come at last to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: thus sayeth The Beast, and prayeth his own Angel that this Book be as a burning Lamp, and as a living Spring, for Light and Life to them that read therein.
1. There is an alternative spelling, TzBA-F, where the Root, "an Host," has the value of 93. The Practicus should revise this Ritual throughout in the Light of his personal researches in the Qabalah, and make it his own peculiar property. The spelling here suggested implies that he who utters the Word affirms his allegiance to the symbols 93 and 6; that he is a warrior in the army of Will, and of the Sun. 93 is also the number of AIWAZ and 6 of The Beast.
2. The consonants of LOGOS, "Word," add (Hebrew values) to 93 [reading the Sigma as Samekh = 60; reading it as Shin = 300 gives 333], and ΕΠΗ, "Words" (whence "Epic") has also that value; ΕΙ∆Ε ΤΑ ΕΠΗ might be the phrase here intended; its number is 418. This would then assert the accomplishment of the Great Work; this is the natural conclusion of the Ritual. Cf. CCXX, III, 75.
3. These needs are modified during the process of Initiation both as to quantity and quality. One should not become anxious about one's phyiscal or mental health on à priori grounds, but pay attention only to indubitable symptoms of distress should such arise. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber Samekh,#NFDB
333:The hoodlum-occultist is “sociopathic” enough to, see through the conventional charade, the social mythology of his species. “They’re all sheep,” he thinks. “Marks. Suckers. Waiting to be fleeced.” He has enough contact with some more-or-less genuine occult tradition to know a few of the gimmicks by which “social consciousness,” normally conditioned consciousness, can be suspended. He is thus able to utilize mental brutality in place of the simple physical brutality of the ordinary hooligan.
He is quite powerless against those who realize that he is actually a stupid liar.
He is stupid because spending your life terrorizing and exploiting your inferiors is a dumb and boring existence for anyone with more than five billion brain cells. Can you imagine Beethoven ignoring the heavenly choirs his right lobe could hear just to pound on the wall and annoy the neighbors? Gödel pushing aside his sublime mathematics to go out and cheat at cards? Van Gogh deserting his easel to scrawl nasty caricatures in the men’s toilet? Mental evil is always the stupidest evil because the mind itself is not a weapon but a potential paradise.
Every kind of malice is a stupidity, but occult malice is stupidest of all. To the extent that the mindwarper is not 100 percent charlatan through-and-through (and most of them are), to the extent that he has picked up some real occult lore somewhere, his use of it for malicious purposes is like using Shakespeare’s sonnets for toilet tissue or picking up a Picasso miniature to drive nails. Everybody who has advanced beyond the barbarian stage of evolution can see how pre-human such acts are, except the person doing them.
Genuine occult initiation confers “the philosopher’s stone,” “the gold of the wise” and “the elixir of life,” all of which are metaphors for the capacity to greet life with the bravery and love and gusto that it deserves. By throwing this away to indulge in spite, malice and the small pleasure of bullying the credulous, the mindwarper proves himself a fool and a dolt.
And the psychic terrorist, besides being a jerk, is always a liar and a fraud. Healing is easier (and more fun) than cursing, to begin with, and cursing usually backfires or misfires. The mindwarper doesn’t want you to know that. He wants you to think he’s omnipotent. ~ Robert Anton Wilson,#NFDB
334:The general characteristics and attributions of these Grades are indicated by their correspondences on the Tree of Life, as may be studied in detail in the Book 777.
Student. -- His business is to acquire a general intellectual knowledge of all systems of attainment, as declared in the prescribed books. (See curriculum in Appendix I.) {231}
Probationer. -- His principal business is to begin such practices as he my prefer, and to write a careful record of the same for one year.
Neophyte. -- Has to acquire perfect control of the Astral Plane.
Zelator. -- His main work is to achieve complete success in Asana and Pranayama. He also begins to study the formula of the Rosy Cross.
Practicus. -- Is expected to complete his intellectual training, and in particular to study the Qabalah.
Philosophus. -- Is expected to complete his moral training. He is tested in Devotion to the Order.
Dominus Liminis. -- Is expected to show mastery of Pratyahara and Dharana.
Adeptus (without). -- is expected to perform the Great Work and to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
Adeptus (within). -- Is admitted to the practice of the formula of the Rosy Cross on entering the College of the Holy Ghost.
Adeptus (Major). -- Obtains a general mastery of practical Magick, though without comprehension.
Adeptus (Exemptus). -- Completes in perfection all these matters. He then either ("a") becomes a Brother of the Left Hand Path or, ("b") is stripped of all his attainments and of himself as well, even of his Holy Guardian Angel, and becomes a babe of the Abyss, who, having transcended the Reason, does nothing but grow in the womb of its mother. It then finds itself a
Magister Templi. -- (Master of the Temple): whose functions are fully described in Liber 418, as is this whole initiation from Adeptus Exemptus. See also "Aha!". His principal business is to tend his "garden" of disciples, and to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. He is a Master of Samadhi. {232}
Magus. -- Attains to wisdom, declares his law (See Liber I, vel Magi) and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense.
Ipsissimus. -- Is beyond all this and beyond all comprehension of those of lower degrees. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,#NFDB
335:t is discovered an extraordinary similarity between Nietzsche and the Hindu-Aryan Rishi, visionary poets of the Vedas.
They also thought the ideas from outside to inside: they 'appeared' to them. Rishi means 'he who sees'. See an Idea, express it, or try to express it. The job of the Rishis has been fulfilled for millennia and the vision of the Vedas was revised, elaborated, in subsequent visions, in scholastics, in doctrinal buildings and sophisticated verifications, through centuries.
In any case, he, who preached not to subtract anything that life offers as Will of Power, as possession, increasing its power, lived chaste, like a yogi, always looking for the highest tensions of the soul, climbing always, more and more lonely, to be able to open up to that style of thinking, where the ideas could possess him as the most authentic expression of life, as his 'pulse', hitting him in the center of the personal being, or of the existence there accumulated, and that he called, long before Jung and any other psychologist, the Self, to differentiate it from the conscious and limited self, from the rational self.
Let's clarify, then. What Nietzsche called thinking is something else, Nietzsche did not think with his head (because 'synchronistically' it hurt) but with the Self, with all of life and, especially, 'with the feet'. 'I think with my feet,' he said, 'because I think walking, climbing.'
That is, when the effort and exhaustion caused the conscious mind to enter a kind of drowsiness or semi-sleep, there it took possession of the work of thinking that 'other thing', the Self, opening up to the dazzling penetration of the Idea, or that expression of the Original Power of Life, of Being, of the Will of Power, which crosses man from part to part, as in a yoga samadhi, or in a kaivalya, from an ancient rishi, or Tantric Siddha.
Also like those rays that pierced the Etruscan 'fulgurators', to change them, and that they were able to resist thanks to a purified technique of concentration and initiation preparation.
That this is a deep Aryan, Hyperborean, that is, Nordic-polar, Germanic style of origins ('let's face ourselves, we are Hyperborean'), and that he knew it, is proved in the name he gave his more beautiful, bigger work: 'Thus spoke Zarathustra'. Zarathustra is the Aryan Magician-reformer of ancient Persia. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
336:After their time in the monastery, most young men and women will return to their villages, having completed their training with the elders. They are now accepted as “ripe,” as initiated men and women, respected in their community. Outwardly they will have learned the religious forms and sacred rituals of the Buddhist community. Inwardly, these ancient forms are intended to awaken an unshakable virtue and inner respect, fearlessness in the face of death, self-reliance, wisdom, and profound compassion. These qualities give one who leaves the monastery the hallmark of a mature man or woman. Perhaps as you read about this ordination process, its beauty will strike a chord in you that intuitively knows about the need for initiations. This does not mean that you have to enter a monastery to seek this remarkable and wonderful training. By reading about this tradition, you may simply awaken that place in yourself, which exists in each of us, that longs for wholeness and integrity, because the awakening that comes through initiation is a universal story. In our time we need to reclaim rites of passage, we need to honor elders, we need to find ways to remind our young people and the whole of our communities of the sacredness of life, of who we really are. Remember, too, that initiation comes in many forms. I have a friend who has three children under the age of five. This is a retreat as intensive as any other, including sitting up all night in the charnel grounds. Marriage and family are a kind of initiation. As Gary Snyder says, All of us are apprentices to the same teacher that all masters have worked with—reality. Reality says: Master the twenty-four hours. Do it well without self-pity. It is as hard to get children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha Hall on a cold morning. One is not better than the other. Each can be quite boring. They both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms: changing the car filters, wiping noses, going to meetings, sitting in meditation, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick. Don’t let yourself think that one or more of these distracts you from the serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties to escape so that we may do our practice that will put us on the path. It IS our path. ~ Jack Kornfield, #NFDB
337:Before I knew it, the first animal had entered the chute. Various cowboys were at different positions around the animal and began carrying out their respective duties. Tim looked at me and yelled, “Stick it in!” With utter trepidation, I slid the wand deep into the steer’s rectum. This wasn’t natural. This wasn’t normal. At least it wasn’t for me. This was definitely against God’s plan.
I was supposed to check the monitor and announce if the temperature was above ninety-degrees. The first one was fine. But before I had a chance to remove the probe, Tim set the hot branding iron against the steer’s left hip. The animal let out a guttural Mooooooooooooo!, and as he did, the contents of its large intestine emptied all over my hand and forearm.
Tim said, “Okay, Ree, you can take it out now.” I did. I didn’t know what to do. My arm was covered in runny, stinky cow crap. Was this supposed to happen? Should I say anything? I glanced at my sister, who was looking at me, completely horrified.
The second animal entered the chute. The routine began again. I stuck it in. Tim branded. The steer bellowed. The crap squirted out. I was amazed at how consistent and predictable the whole nasty process was, and how nonchalant everyone--excluding my sister--was acting. But then slowly…surely…I began to notice something.
On about the twentieth animal, I began inserting the thermometer. Tim removed his branding iron from the fire and brought it toward the steer’s hip. At the last second, however, I fumbled with my device and had to stop for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that when I paused, Tim did, too. It appeared he was actually waiting until I had the thermometer fully inserted before he branded the animal, ensuring that I’d be right in the line of fire when everything came pouring out. He had planned this all along, the dirty dog.
Seventy-eight steers later, we were finished. I was a sight. Layer upon layer of manure covered my arm. I’m sure I was pale and in shock. The cowboys grinned politely. Tim directed me to an outdoor faucet where I could clean my arm. Marlboro Man watched as he gathered up the tools and the gear…and he chuckled.
As my sister and I pulled away in the car later that day, she could only say, “Oh. My. God.” She made me promise never to return to that awful place.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d found out later that this, from Tim’s perspective, was my initiation. It was his sick, twisted way of measuring my worth. ~ Ree Drummond,#NFDB
338:Un certain groupe de métiers — se caractérisant par l’usage qu’ils font du feu pour transformer ou ennoblir des matières comme le métal ou les minéraux dont on fait du verre et des émaux — sert de base à une tradition spirituelle qui se rattache à Hermès Trismégiste dont le nom égyptien est Thot et que beaucoup de musulmans comptent au nombre des anciens prophètes. L’art hermétiste par excellence, c’est l’alchimie ; le plus souvent mal comprise, parce que la transmutation qui est son but et qu’elle traduit en termes artisanaux, se situe en réalité au niveau de l’âme. Que l’alchimie ait été pratiquée par beaucoup d’artisans du feu, ne fait aucun doute ; son emblème, le couple de dragons entrelacés — forme médiévale du caducée — orne de nombreux récipients en céramique ou en métal.
Nombre d’artisans ou d’artistes, qu’ils aient reçu ou non une initiation correspondant à leur entrée dans une corporation professionnelle, adhéraient ou adhèrent encore à un Ordre soufi (...) on peut également dire que le soufisme se situe là où l’amour et la connaissance convergent. Or, l’objet ultime et commun de l’amour comme de la connaissance n’est autre que la Beauté divine. On comprendra dès lors comment l’art, dans une civilisation théocentrique comme celle de l’Islam, se rattache à l’ésotérisme, dimension la plus intérieure de la tradition.
Art et contemplation : l’art a pour objet la beauté formelle, alors que l’objet de la contemplation est la beauté au-delà de la forme qui révèle qualitativement l’ordre formel, tout en le dépassant infiniment. Dans la mesure où l’art s’apparente à la contemplation, il est connaissance, la beauté étant un aspect de la Réalité, au sens absolu du terme.
Cela nous ramène au phénomène de scission entre art et artisanat, d’une part, et art et science, d’autre part, phénomène qui a profondément marqué la civilisation européenne moderne : si l’art n’est plus considéré comme une science, c’est-à-dire comme une connaissance, c’est que la beauté, objet de contemplation à divers degrés, n’est plus reconnue comme un aspect du réel. En fait, l’ordre normal des choses a été renversé à un point tel qu’on identifie volontiers la laideur à la réalité, la beauté n’étant plus que l'objet d’un esthétisme aux contours parfaitement subjectifs et changeants.
Les conséquences de cette dichotomie de l’expérience du réel sont des plus graves : car c’est finalement la beauté — subtilement rattachée à l’origine même des choses — qui jugera de la valeur ou de la futilité d’un monde.
Ainsi que le Prophète l’a dit :
« Dieu est beau et II aime la beauté. » p. 296-298 ~ Titus Burckhardt,#NFDB
339:Most disconcerting of all were those experiences in which the patient's consciousness appeared to expand beyond the usual boundaries of the ego and explore what it was like to be other living things and even other objects. For example, Grof had one female patient who suddenly became convinced she had assumed the identity of a female prehistoric reptile. She not only gave a richly detailed description of what it felt like to be encapsuled in such a form, but noted that the portion of the male of the species' anatomy she found most sexually arousing was a patch of colored scales on the side of its head. Although the woman had no prior knowledge of such things, a conversation Grof had with a zoologist later confirmed that in certain species of reptiles, colored areas on the head do indeed play an important role as triggers of sexual arousal. Patients were also able to tap into the consciousness of their relatives and ancestors. One woman experienced what it was like to be her mother at the age of three and accurately described a frightening event that had befallen her mother at the time. The woman also gave a precise description of the house her mother had lived in as well as the white pinafore she had been wearing—all details her mother later confirmed and admitted she had never talked about before. Other patients gave equally accurate descriptions of events that had befallen ancestors who had lived decades and even centuries before. Other experiences included the accessing of racial and collective memories. Individuals of Slavic origin experienced what it was like to participate in the conquests of Genghis Khan's Mongolian hordes, to dance in trance with the Kalahari bushmen, to undergo the initiation rites of the Australian aborigines, and to die as sacrificial victims of the Aztecs. And again the descriptions frequently contained obscure historical facts and a degree of knowledge that was often completely at odds with the patient's education, race, and previous exposure to the subject. For instance, one uneducated patient gave a richly detailed account of the techniques involved in the Egyptian practice of embalming and mummification, including the form and meaning of various amulets and sepulchral boxes, a list of the materials used in the fixing of the mummy cloth, the size and shape of the mummy bandages, and other esoteric facets of Egyptian funeral services. Other individuals tuned into the cultures of the Far East and not only gave impressive descriptions of what it was like to have a Japanese, Chinese, or Tibetan psyche, but also related various Taoist or Buddhist teachings. ~ Michael Talbot, #NFDB
340:L’homme est le seul être, dans le monde terrestre, à pouvoir se purifier consciemment des taches de son existence, et c’est pour cela qu’il est dit que « l’homme est le seul animal qui sacrifie » (Shatapatha-Brâhmana, VII, 5) ; en d’autres termes, la vie étant un don du Créateur, les êtres conscients et responsables doivent, afin de réaliser spirituellement le sens de ce don en se référant à sa qualité symbolique, et afin de rendre ce don, par là même, plus prospère et plus durable, sacrifier au Créateur une partie de ce qu’il a donné. Ce sacrifice peut avoir des formes soit sanglantes, soit non sanglantes : ainsi, pour ne citer que ces exemples parmi une multitude d’autres, les Hindous, comme beaucoup de peuples, ne mangent qu’après avoir offert une part aux divinités, de sorte qu’ils ne se nourrissent au fond que de restes sacrificiels ; de même encore, les Musulmans et les Juifs versent tout le sang de la viande destinée à la consommation. Dans un sens analogue, les guerriers de certaines tribus de l’Amérique du Nord sacrifiaient, au moment de leur initiation guerrière, un doigt au « Grand- Esprit » ; il est à retenir que les doigts sont sous un certain rapport ce qu’il y a de plus précieux pour le guerrier, homme d’action, et d’autre part, le fait que l’on possède dix doigts et que l’on en sacrifie un, c’est-à-dire un dixième de ce qui représente notre activité, est fort significatif, d’abord parce que le nombre dix est celui du cycle accompli ou entièrement réalisé, et ensuite à cause de l’analogie qui existe entre le sacrifice dont nous venons de parler et la dîme (décima, dixième).
Celle-ci est du reste l’équivalent exact de la zakkât musulmane, l’aumône ordonnée par la Loi qoranique : afin de conserver et d’augmenter les biens, on empêche le cycle de prospérité de se fermer et cela en sacrifiant le dixième, c’est-à-dire la partie qui constituerait précisément l’achèvement et la fin du cycle. Le mot zakkât a le double sens de « purification » et de « croissance », termes dont le rapport étroit apparaît très nettement dans l’exemple de la taille des plantes ; ce mot zakkât vient étymologiquement du verbe zakâ qui veut dire « prospérer » ou « purifier », ou encore, dans une autre acception, « lever » ou « payer » la contribution sacrée, ou encore « augmenter ». Rappelons aussi, dans cet ordre d’idées, l’expression arabe dîn, qui signifie non seulement « tradition », selon l’acception la plus courante, mais aussi « jugement », et, avec une voyellisation un peu différente qui fait que le mot se prononce alors dayn, « dette » ; ici encore, les sens respectifs du mot se tiennent, la tradition étant considérée comme la dette de l’homme vis-à-vis de Dieu ; et le « Jour du Jugement » (Yawm ed-Dîn) — « Jour » dont Allâh est appelé le « Roi » (Mâlik) — n’est autre que le jour du « paiement de la dette » de l’individu envers Celui à qui il doit tout et qui est son ultime raison suffisante. ~ Frithjof Schuon,#NFDB
341:[...] Pourtant, s’il n’existe pas de moyen infaillible pour permettre au futur disciple d’identifier un Maître authentique par une procédure mentale uniquement, il existe néanmoins cette maxime ésotérique universelle (127) que tout aspirant trouvera un guide authentique s’il le mérite. De même que cette autre maxime qu’en réalité, et en dépit des apparences, ce n’est pas celui qui cherche qui choisit la voie, mais la voie qui le choisit. En d’autres termes, puisque le Maître incarne la voie, il a, mystérieusement et providentiellement, une fonction active à l’égard de celui qui cherche, avant même que l’initiation établisse la relation maître-disciple. Ce qui permet de comprendre l’anecdote suivante, racontée par le Shaykh marocain al-’Arabî ad-Darqâwî (mort en 1823), l’un des plus grands Maîtres soufis de ces derniers siècles. Au moment en question, il était un jeune homme, mais qui représentait déjà son propre Shaykh, ’Alî al-Jamal, à qui il se plaignit un jour de devoir aller dans tel endroit où il craignait de ne trouver aucune compagnie spirituelle. Son Shaykh lui coupa la parole : « Engendre celui qu’il te faut! » Et un peu plus tard, il lui réitéra le même ordre, au pluriel : « Engendre-les! »(128) Nous avons vu que le premier pas dans la voie spirituelle est de « renaître »; et toutes ces considérations laissent entendre que nul ne « mérite » un Maître sans avoir éprouvé une certaine conscience d’« inexistence » ou de vide, avant-goût de la pauvreté spirituelle (faqr) d’où le faqîr tire son nom. La porte ouverte est une image de cet état, et le Shaykh ad-Darqâwî déclare que l’un des moyens les plus puissants pour obtenir la solution à un problème spirituel est de tenir ouverte « la porte de la nécessité »(129) et de prendre garde qu’elle ne se referme. On peut ainsi en déduire que ce « mérite » se mesurera au degré d’acuité du sens de la nécessité chez celui qui cherche un Maître, ou au degré de vacuité de son âme, qui doit être en effet suffisamment vide pour précipiter l’avènement de ce qui lui est nécessaire. Et soulignons pour terminer que cette « passivité » n’est pas incompatible avec l’attitude plus active prescrite par le Christ : « Cherchez et vous trouverez; frappez et l’on vous ouvrira », puisque la manière la plus efficace de « frapper » est de prier, et que supplier est la preuve d’un vide et l’aveu d’un dénuement, d’une « nécessité » justement. En un mot, le futur disciple a, aussi bien que le Maître, des qualifications à actualiser.
127. Voir, dans le Treasury of Traditional Wisdom de Whitall Perry, à la section réservée au Maître spirituel, pp. 288-95, les citations sur ce point particulier, de même que sur d’autres en rapport avec cet appendice.
128. Lettres d'un Maître soufi, pp. 27-28.
129. Ibid., p. 20. - Le texte dit : « porte de la droiture », erreur de traduction corrigée par l’auteur, le terme arabe ayant bien le sens de « nécessité », et même de « besoin urgent ». (NdT) ~ Martin Lings,#NFDB
342:The contemporary Christian Church, precisely, has understood them in this' 'wrong way, to the letter, 'like the Jews,' exoterically, not esoterically. Nevertheless to say 'like the Jews' is an error. One would have to say 'as the Jews want.' Because they also possess an exotericism, for their masses, represented by the Torah and Talmud, and an esotericism, in the Cabala (which means: 'Received Tradition'), in the Zohar ('brightness'), the Merkaba or Chariot being the most secret part of the Cabala which only initiated rabbis know and use as the powerful tool of their magic. We have already said that the Cabala reached them from elsewhere, like everything else, in the Middle Ages, even though they tell us otherwise, using and transforming it in concordance with their Archetype. The Hasidim, from Poland, represent an exclusively esoteric sect of Judaism.
Islam also has its esoteric magic, represented by Sufism and the sect of the Assassins, Hassanists, oflran. They interpret the Koran symbolically. And it was because of contact with this sect of the 'Old Man of the Mountain' that the Templars felt compelled to secede more and more from the direction of Rome, centering themselves in their Esoteric Kristianity and Mystery of the Gral. This was also why Rome destroyed them, like the esoteric Cathars (katharos = pure in Greek), the Bogomils, the Manichees and the gnostics.
In the Church of Rome, called Catholic, there only remains a soulless ritual of the Mass, as a liturgical shell that no longer reaches the Symbol, which no longer touches it, no longer puts it into action. The Nordic contribution has been lost, destroyed by prejudice and the ethnological persecution of Nordicism, Germanism and the complete surrender to Judaism.
Zen Buddhism preserves the esotericism of Buddha. In Japan Shinto and Zen are practiced by a racially superior warrior caste, the Samurai. The most esoteric side of Hinduism is found in Tantrism, especially in the Kaula or Kula Order.
So understood, esotericism is what goes beyond the exterior form and the masses, the physical, and puts an elite in contact with invisible superior forces. In my case, the condition that paralysed me in the midst of dreaming and left me without means to influence the phenomena. The visible is symbol of invisible forces (Archetypes, Gods). By means of an esoteric knowledge, of an initiation in this knowledge, a hierarchic minority can make contact with these invisible forces, being able to act on the Symbol, dynamizing and controlling the physical phenomena that incarnate them. In my case: to come to control the involuntary process which, without knowing how, was controlling me, to be able to guide it, to check or avoid it. Jung referred to this when he said 'if someone wisely faces the Archetype, in whatever place in the world, he acquires universal validity because the Archetype is one and indivisible'.
And the means to reach this spiritual world, 'on the other side of the mirror,' is Magic, Rite, Ritual, Ceremony. All religions have possessed them, even the Christian, as we have said. And the Rite is not something invented by humans but inspired by 'those from beyond,' Jung would say by the Collective Unconscious. ~ Miguel Serrano,#NFDB
343:My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it—you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about—and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get too excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non-black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that YOU are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
344:Every ritual repetition of the cosmogony is preceded by a symbolic retrogression to Chaos. In order to be created anew, the old world must first be annihilated. The various rites performed in connection with the New Year can be put in two chief categories: (I) those that signify the return to Chaos (e.g., extinguishing fires, expelling 'evil' and sins, reversal of habitual behavior, orgies, return of the dead); (2) those that symbolize the cosmogony (e.g., lighting new fires, departure of the dead, repetition of the acts by which the Gods created the world, solemn prediction of the weather for the ensuing year). In the scenario of initiatory rites, 'death' corresponds to the temporary return to Chaos; hence it is the paradigmatic expression of the end of a mode of being the mode of ignorance and of the child's irresponsibility. Initiatory death provides the clean slate on which will be written the successive revelations whose end is the formation of a new man. We shall later describe the different modalities of birth to a new, spiritual life. But now we must note that this new life is conceived as the true human existence, for it is open to the values of spirit. What is understood by the generic term 'culture,' comprising all the values of spirit, is accessible only to those who have been initiated. Hence participation in spiritual life is made possible by virtue of the religious experiences released during initiation.
All the rites of rebirth or resurrection, and the symbols that they imply, indicate that the novice has attained to another mode of existence, inaccessible to those who have not undergone the initiatory ordeals, who have not tasted death. We must note this characteristic of the archaic mentality: the belief that a state cannot be changed without first being annihilated-in the present instance, without the child's dying to childhood. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this obsession with beginnings, which, in sum, is the obsession with the absolute beginning, the cosmogony. For a thing to be well done, it must be done as it was done the first time. But the first time, the thing-this class of objects, this animal, this particular behavior-did not exist: when, in the beginning, this object, this animal, this institution, came into existence, it was as if, through the power of the Gods, being arose from nonbeing.
Initiatory death is indispensable for the beginning of spiritual life. Its function must be understood in relation to what it prepares: birth to a higher mode of being. As we shall see farther on, initiatory death is often symbolized, for example, by darkness, by cosmic night, by the telluric womb, the hut, the belly of a monster. All these images express regression to a preformal state, to a latent mode of being (complementary to the precosmogonic Chaos), rather than total annihilation (in the sense in which, for example, a member of the modern societies conceives death). These images and symbols of ritual death are inextricably connected with germination, with embryology; they already indicate a new life in course of preparation. Obviously, as we shall show later, there are other valuations of initiatory death-for example, joining the company of the dead and the Ancestors. But here again we can discern the same symbolism of the beginning: the beginning of spiritual life, made possible in this case by a meeting with spirits.
For archaic thought, then, man is made-he does not make himself all by himself. It is the old initiates, the spiritual masters, who make him. But these masters apply what was revealed to them at the beginning of Time by the Supernatural Beings. They are only the representatives of those Beings; indeed, in many cases they incarnate them. This is as much as to say that in order to become a man, it is necessary to resemble a mythical model. ~ Mircea Eliade,#NFDB
345:SECTION 1. Books for Serious Study
Liber CCXX. (Liber AL vel Legis.) The Book of the Law. This book is the foundation of the New Æon, and thus of the whole of our work.
The Equinox. The standard Work of Reference in all occult matters. The Encyclopaedia of Initiation.
Liber ABA (Book 4). A general account in elementary terms of magical and mystical powers. In four parts: (1) Mysticism (2) Magical (Elementary Theory) (3) Magick in Theory and Practice (this book) (4) The Law.
Liber II. The Message of the Master Therion. Explains the essence of the new Law in a very simple manner.
Liber DCCCXXXVIII. The Law of Liberty. A further explanation of The Book of the Law in reference to certain ethical problems.
Collected Works of A. Crowley. These works contain many mystical and magical secrets, both stated clearly in prose, and woven into the Robe of sublimest poesy.
The Yi King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XVI], Oxford University Press.) The "Classic of Changes"; give the initiated Chinese system of Magick.
The Tao Teh King. (S. B. E. Series [vol. XXXIX].) Gives the initiated Chinese system of Mysticism.
Tannhäuser, by A. Crowley. An allegorical drama concerning the Progress of the Soul; the Tannhäuser story slightly remodelled.
The Upanishads. (S. B. E. Series [vols. I & XV.) The Classical Basis of Vedantism, the best-known form of Hindu Mysticism.
The Bhagavad-gita. A dialogue in which Krishna, the Hindu "Christ", expounds a system of Attainment.
The Voice of the Silence, by H.P. Blavatsky, with an elaborate commentary by Frater O.M. Frater O.M., 7°=48, is the most learned of all the Brethren of the Order; he has given eighteen years to the study of this masterpiece.
Raja-Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda. An excellent elementary study of Hindu mysticism. His Bhakti-Yoga is also good.
The Shiva Samhita. An account of various physical means of assisting the discipline of initiation. A famous Hindu treatise on certain physical practices.
The Hathayoga Pradipika. Similar to the Shiva Samhita.
The Aphorisms of Patanjali. A valuable collection of precepts pertaining to mystical attainment.
The Sword of Song. A study of Christian theology and ethics, with a statement and solution of the deepest philosophical problems. Also contains the best account extant of Buddhism, compared with modern science.
The Book of the Dead. A collection of Egyptian magical rituals.
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. The best general textbook of magical theory and practice for beginners. Written in an easy popular style.
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. The best exoteric account of the Great Work, with careful instructions in procedure. This Book influenced and helped the Master Therion more than any other.
The Goetia. The most intelligible of all the mediæval rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion.
Erdmann's History of Philosophy. A compendious account of philosophy from the earliest times. Most valuable as a general education of the mind.
The Spiritual Guide of [Miguel de] Molinos. A simple manual of Christian Mysticism.
The Star in the West. (Captain Fuller). An introduction to the study of the Works of Aleister Crowley.
The Dhammapada. (S. B. E. Series [vol. X], Oxford University Press). The best of the Buddhist classics.
The Questions of King Milinda. (S. B. E. Series [vols. XXXV & XXXVI].) Technical points of Buddhist dogma, illustrated bydialogues.
Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicam Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ. A complete Dictionary of the Correspondences of all magical elements, reprinted with extensive additions, making it the only standard comprehensive book of reference ever published. It is to the language of Occultism what Webster or Murray is to the English language.
Varieties of Religious Experience (William James). Valuable as showing the uniformity of mystical attainment.
Kabbala Denudata, von Rosenroth: also The Kabbalah Unveiled, by S.L. Mathers. The text of the Qabalah, with commentary. A good elementary introduction to the subject.
Konx Om Pax [by Aleister Crowley]. Four invaluable treatises and a preface on Mysticism and Magick.
The Pistis Sophia [translated by G.R.S. Mead or Violet McDermot]. An admirable introduction to the study of Gnosticism.
The Oracles of Zoroaster [Chaldæan Oracles]. An invaluable collection of precepts mystical and magical.
The Dream of Scipio, by Cicero. Excellent for its Vision and its Philosophy.
The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, by Fabre d'Olivet. An interesting study of the exoteric doctrines of this Master.
The Divine Pymander, by Hermes Trismegistus. Invaluable as bearing on the Gnostic Philosophy.
The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, reprint of Franz Hartmann. An invaluable compendium.
Scrutinium Chymicum [Atalanta Fugiens]¸ by Michael Maier. One of the best treatises on alchemy.
Science and the Infinite, by Sidney Klein. One of the best essays written in recent years.
Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus [A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus &c. &c. &c.], by Richard Payne Knight [and Thomas Wright]. Invaluable to all students.
The Golden Bough, by J.G. Frazer. The textbook of Folk Lore. Invaluable to all students.
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine. Excellent, though elementary, as a corrective to superstition.
Rivers of Life, by General Forlong. An invaluable textbook of old systems of initiation.
Three Dialogues, by Bishop Berkeley. The Classic of Subjective Idealism.
Essays of David Hume. The Classic of Academic Scepticism.
First Principles by Herbert Spencer. The Classic of Agnosticism.
Prolegomena [to any future Metaphysics], by Immanuel Kant. The best introduction to Metaphysics.
The Canon [by William Stirling]. The best textbook of Applied Qabalah.
The Fourth Dimension, by [Charles] H. Hinton. The best essay on the subject.
The Essays of Thomas Henry Huxley. Masterpieces of philosophy, as of prose.
~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Appendix I: Literature Recommended to Aspirants #reading list,#NFDB
346:The Victories Of Love. Book Ii
From Jane To Her Mother
Thank Heaven, the burthens on the heart
Are not half known till they depart!
Although I long'd, for many a year,
To love with love that casts out fear,
My Frederick's kindness frighten'd me,
And heaven seem'd less far off than he;
And in my fancy I would trace
A lady with an angel's face,
That made devotion simply debt,
Till sick with envy and regret,
And wicked grief that God should e'er
Make women, and not make them fair.
That he might love me more because
Another in his memory was,
And that my indigence might be
To him what Baby's was to me,
The chief of charms, who could have thought?
But God's wise way is to give nought
Till we with asking it are tired;
And when, indeed, the change desired
Comes, lest we give ourselves the praise,
It comes by Providence, not Grace;
And mostly our thanks for granted pray'rs
Are groans at unexpected cares.
First Baby went to heaven, you know,
And, five weeks after, Grace went, too.
Then he became more talkative,
And, stooping to my heart, would give
Signs of his love, which pleased me more
Than all the proofs he gave before;
And, in that time of our great grief,
We talk'd religion for relief;
For, though we very seldom name
Religion, we now think the same!
Oh, what a bar is thus removed
To loving and to being loved!
292
For no agreement really is
In anything when none's in this.
Why, Mother, once, if Frederick press'd
His wife against his hearty breast,
The interior difference seem'd to tear
My own, until I could not bear
The trouble. 'Twas a dreadful strife,
And show'd, indeed, that faith is life.
He never felt this. If he did,
I'm sure it could not have been hid;
For wives, I need not say to you,
Can feel just what their husbands do,
Without a word or look; but then
It is not so, you know, with men.
From that time many a Scripture text
Help'd me, which had, before, perplex'd.
Oh, what a wond'rous word seem'd this:
He is my head, as Christ is his!
None ever could have dared to see
In marriage such a dignity
For man, and for his wife, still less,
Such happy, happy lowliness,
Had God Himself not made it plain!
This revelation lays the rein—
If I may speak so—on the neck
Of a wife's love, takes thence the check
Of conscience, and forbids to doubt
Its measure is to be without
All measure, and a fond excess
Is here her rule of godliness.
I took him not for love but fright;
He did but ask a dreadful right.
In this was love, that he loved me
The first, who was mere poverty.
All that I know of love he taught;
And love is all I know of aught.
My merit is so small by his,
That my demerit is my bliss.
My life is hid with him in Christ,
293
Never thencefrom to be enticed;
And in his strength have I such rest
As when the baby on my breast
Finds what it knows not how to seek,
And, very happy, very weak,
Lies, only knowing all is well,
Pillow'd on kindness palpable.
II
From Lady Clitheroe To Mary Churchill
Dear Saint, I'm still at High-Hurst Park.
The house is fill'd with folks of mark.
Honoria suits a good estate
Much better than I hoped. How fate
Loads her with happiness and pride!
And such a loving lord, beside!
But between us, Sweet, everything
Has limits, and to build a wing
To this old house, when Courtholm stands
Empty upon his Berkshire lands,
And all that Honor might be near
Papa, was buying love too dear.
With twenty others, there are two
Guests here, whose names will startle you:
Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Graham!
I thought he stay'd away for shame.
He and his wife were ask'd, you know,
And would not come, four years ago.
You recollect Miss Smythe found out
Who she had been, and all about
Her people at the Powder-mill;
And how the fine Aunt tried to instil
Haut ton, and how, at last poor Jane
Had got so shy and gauche that, when
The Dockyard gentry came to sup,
She always had to be lock'd up;
And some one wrote to us and said
Her mother was a kitchen-maid.
Dear Mary, you'll be charm'd to know
294
It must be all a fib. But, oh,
She is the oddest little Pet
On which my eyes were ever set!
She's so outrée and natural
That, when she first arrived, we all
Wonder'd, as when a robin comes
In through the window to eat crumbs
At breakfast with us. She has sense,
Humility, and confidence;
And, save in dressing just a thought
Gayer in colours than she ought,
(To-day she looks a cross between
Gipsy and Fairy, red and green,)
She always happens to do well.
And yet one never quite can tell
What she might do or utter next.
Lord Clitheroe is much perplex'd.
Her husband, every now and then,
Looks nervous; all the other men
Are charm'd. Yet she has neither grace,
Nor one good feature in her face.
Her eyes, indeed, flame in her head,
Like very altar-fires to Fred,
Whose steps she follows everywhere
Like a tame duck, to the despair
Of Colonel Holmes, who does his part
To break her funny little heart.
Honor's enchanted. 'Tis her view
That people, if they're good and true,
And treated well, and let alone,
Will kindly take to what's their own,
And always be original,
Like children. Honor's just like all
The rest of us! But, thinking so,
'Tis well she miss'd Lord Clitheroe,
Who hates originality,
Though he puts up with it in me.
Poor Mrs. Graham has never been
To the Opera! You should have seen
The innocent way she told the Earl
She thought Plays sinful when a girl,
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And now she never had a chance!
Frederick's complacent smile and glance
Towards her, show'd me, past a doubt,
Honoria had been quite cut out.
'Tis very strange; for Mrs. Graham,
Though Frederick's fancy none can blame,
Seems the last woman you'd have thought
Her lover would have ever sought.
She never reads, I find, nor goes
Anywhere; so that I suppose
She got at all she ever knew
By growing up, as kittens do.
Talking of kittens, by-the-bye,
You have more influence than I
With dear Honoria. Get her, Dear,
To be a little more severe
With those sweet Children. They've the run
Of all the place. When school was done,
Maud burst in, while the Earl was there,
With ‘Oh, Mama, do be a bear!’
Do you know, Dear, this odd wife of Fred
Adores his old Love in his stead!
She is so nice, yet, I should say,
Not quite the thing for every day.
Wonders are wearying! Felix goes
Next Sunday with her to the Close,
And you will judge.
Honoria asks
All Wiltshire Belles here; Felix basks
Like Puss in fire-shine, when the room
Is thus aflame with female bloom.
But then she smiles when most would pout;
And so his lawless loves go out
With the last brocade. 'Tis not the same,
I fear, with Mrs. Frederick Graham.
Honoria should not have her here,—
And this you might just hint, my Dear,—
For Felix says he never saw
Such proof of what he holds for law,
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That ‘beauty is love which can be seen.’
Whatever he by this may mean,
Were it not dreadful if he fell
In love with her on principle!
III
From Jane To Mrs. Graham
Mother, I told you how, at first,
I fear'd this visit to the Hurst.
Fred must, I felt, be so distress'd
By aught in me unlike the rest
Who come here. But I find the place
Delightful; there's such ease, and grace,
And kindness, and all seem to be
On such a high equality.
They have not got to think, you know,
How far to make the money go.
But Frederick says it's less the expense
Of money, than of sound good-sense,
Quickness to care what others feel,
And thoughts with nothing to conceal;
Which I'll teach Johnny. Mrs. Vaughan
Was waiting for us on the Lawn,
And kiss'd and call'd me ‘Cousin.’ Fred
Neglected his old friends, she said.
He laugh'd, and colour'd up at this.
She was, you know, a flame of his;
But I'm not jealous! Luncheon done,
I left him, who had just begun
To talk about the Russian War
With an old Lady, Lady Carr,—
A Countess, but I'm more afraid,
A great deal, of the Lady's Maid,—
And went with Mrs. Vaughan to see
The pictures, which appear'd to be
Of sorts of horses, clowns, and cows
Call'd Wouvermans and Cuyps and Dows.
And then she took me up, to show
Her bedroom, where, long years ago,
A Queen slept. 'Tis all tapestries
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Of Cupids, Gods, and Goddesses,
And black, carved oak. A curtain'd door
Leads thence into her soft Boudoir,
Where even her husband may but come
By favour. He, too, has his room,
Kept sacred to his solitude.
Did I not think the plan was good?
She ask'd me; but I said how small
Our house was, and that, after all,
Though Frederick would not say his prayers
At night till I was safe upstairs,
I thought it wrong to be so shy
Of being good when I was by.
‘Oh, you should humour him!’ she said,
With her sweet voice and smile; and led
The way to where the children ate
Their dinner, and Miss Williams sate.
She's only Nursery-Governess,
Yet they consider her no less
Than Lord or Lady Carr, or me.
Just think how happy she must be!
The Ball-Room, with its painted sky
Where heavy angels seem to fly,
Is a dull place; its size and gloom
Make them prefer, for drawing-room,
The Library, all done up new
And comfortable, with a view
Of Salisbury Spire between the boughs.
When she had shown me through the house,
(I wish I could have let her know
That she herself was half the show;
She is so handsome, and so kind!)
She fetch'd the children, who had dined;
And, taking one in either hand,
Show'd me how all the grounds were plann'd.
The lovely garden gently slopes
To where a curious bridge of ropes
Crosses the Avon to the Park.
We rested by the stream, to mark
The brown backs of the hovering trout.
Frank tickled one, and took it out
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From under a stone. We saw his owls,
And awkward Cochin-China fowls,
And shaggy pony in the croft;
And then he dragg'd us to a loft,
Where pigeons, as he push'd the door,
Fann'd clear a breadth of dusty floor,
And set us coughing. I confess
I trembled for my nice silk dress.
I cannot think how Mrs. Vaughan
Ventured with that which she had on,—
A mere white wrapper, with a few
Plain trimmings of a quiet blue,
But, oh, so pretty! Then the bell
For dinner rang. I look'd quite well
(‘Quite charming,’ were the words Fred said,)
With the new gown that I've had made.
I am so proud of Frederick.
He's so high-bred and lordly-like
With Mrs. Vaughan! He's not quite so
At home with me; but that, you know,
I can't expect, or wish. 'Twould hurt,
And seem to mock at my desert.
Not but that I'm a duteous wife
To Fred; but, in another life,
Where all are fair that have been true
I hope I shall be graceful too,
Like Mrs. Vaughan. And, now, good-bye!
That happy thought has made me cry,
And feel half sorry that my cough,
In this fine air, is leaving off.
IV
From Frederick To Mrs. Graham
Honoria, trebly fair and mild
With added loves of lord and child,
Is else unalter'd. Years, which wrong
The rest, touch not her beauty, young
With youth which rather seems her clime,
Than aught that's relative to time.
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How beyond hope was heard the prayer
I offer'd in my love's despair!
Could any, whilst there's any woe,
Be wholly blest, then she were so.
She is, and is aware of it,
Her husband's endless benefit;
But, though their daily ways reveal
The depth of private joy they feel,
'Tis not their bearing each to each
That does abroad their secret preach,
But such a lovely good-intent
To all within their government
And friendship as, 'tis well discern'd,
Each of the other must have learn'd;
For no mere dues of neighbourhood
Ever begot so blest a mood.
And fair, indeed, should be the few
God dowers with nothing else to do,
And liberal of their light, and free
To show themselves, that all may see!
For alms let poor men poorly give
The meat whereby men's bodies live;
But they of wealth are stewards wise
Whose graces are their charities.
The sunny charm about this home
Makes all to shine who thither come.
My own dear Jane has caught its grace,
And, honour'd, honours too the place.
Across the lawn I lately walk'd
Alone, and watch'd where mov'd and talk'd,
Gentle and goddess-like of air,
Honoria and some Stranger fair.
I chose a path unblest by these;
When one of the two Goddesses,
With my Wife's voice, but softer, said,
‘Will you not walk with us, dear Fred?’
She moves, indeed, the modest peer
Of all the proudest ladies here.
Unawed she talks with men who stand
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Among the leaders of the land,
And women beautiful and wise,
With England's greatness in their eyes.
To high, traditional good-sense,
And knowledge ripe without pretence,
And human truth exactly hit
By quiet and conclusive wit,
Listens my little, homely Dove,
Mistakes the points and laughs for love;
And, after, stands and combs her hair,
And calls me much the wittiest there!
With reckless loyalty, dear Wife,
She lays herself about my life!
The joy I might have had of yore
I have not; for 'tis now no more,
With me, the lyric time of youth,
And sweet sensation of the truth.
Yet, past my hope or purpose bless'd,
In my chance choice let be confess'd
The tenderer Providence that rules
The fates of children and of fools!
I kiss'd the kind, warm neck that slept,
And from her side this morning stepp'd,
To bathe my brain from drowsy night
In the sharp air and golden light.
The dew, like frost, was on the pane.
The year begins, though fair, to wane.
There is a fragrance in its breath
Which is not of the flowers, but death;
And green above the ground appear
The lilies of another year.
I wander'd forth, and took my path
Among the bloomless aftermath;
And heard the steadfast robin sing
As if his own warm heart were Spring,
And watch'd him feed where, on the yew,
Hung honey'd drops of crimson dew;
And then return'd, by walls of peach,
And pear-trees bending to my reach,
And rose-beds with the roses gone,
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To bright-laid breakfast. Mrs. Vaughan
Was there, none with her. I confess
I love her than of yore no less!
But she alone was loved of old;
Now love is twain, nay, manifold;
For, somehow, he whose daily life
Adjusts itself to one true wife,
Grows to a nuptial, near degree
With all that's fair and womanly.
Therefore, as more than friends, we met,
Without constraint, without regret;
The wedded yoke that each had donn'd
Seeming a sanction, not a bond.
From Mrs. Graham
Your love lacks joy, your letter says.
Yes; love requires the focal space
Of recollection or of hope,
Ere it can measure its own scope.
Too soon, too soon comes Death to show
We love more deeply than we know!
The rain, that fell upon the height
Too gently to be call'd delight,
Within the dark vale reappears
As a wild cataract of tears;
And love in life should strive to see
Sometimes what love in death would be!
Easier to love, we so should find,
It is than to be just and kind.
She's gone: shut close the coffin-lid:
What distance for another did
That death has done for her! The good,
Once gazed upon with heedless mood,
Now fills with tears the famish'd eye,
And turns all else to vanity.
'Tis sad to see, with death between,
The good we have pass'd and have not seen!
How strange appear the words of all!
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The looks of those that live appal.
They are the ghosts, and check the breath:
There's no reality but death,
And hunger for some signal given
That we shall have our own in heaven.
But this the God of love lets be
A horrible uncertainty.
How great her smallest virtue seems,
How small her greatest fault! Ill dreams
Were those that foil'd with loftier grace
The homely kindness of her face.
'Twas here she sat and work'd, and there
She comb'd and kiss'd the children's hair;
Or, with one baby at her breast,
Another taught, or hush'd to rest.
Praise does the heart no more refuse
To the chief loveliness of use.
Her humblest good is hence most high
In the heavens of fond memory;
And Love says Amen to the word,
A prudent wife is from the Lord.
Her worst gown's kept, ('tis now the best,
As that in which she oftenest dress'd,)
For memory's sake more precious grown
Than she herself was for her own.
Poor child! foolish it seem'd to fly
To sobs instead of dignity,
When she was hurt. Now, more than all,
Heart-rending and angelical
That ignorance of what to do,
Bewilder'd still by wrong from you:
For what man ever yet had grace
Ne'er to abuse his power and place?
No magic of her voice or smile
Suddenly raised a fairy isle,
But fondness for her underwent
An unregarded increment,
Like that which lifts, through centuries,
The coral-reef within the seas,
Till, lo! the land where was the wave,
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Alas! 'tis everywhere her grave.
VI
From Jane To Mrs. Graham
Dear Mother, I can surely tell,
Now, that I never shall get well.
Besides the warning in my mind,
All suddenly are grown so kind.
Fred stopp'd the Doctor, yesterday,
Downstairs, and, when he went away,
Came smiling back, and sat with me,
Pale, and conversing cheerfully
About the Spring, and how my cough,
In finer weather, would leave off.
I saw it all, and told him plain
I felt no hope of Spring again.
Then he, after a word of jest,
Burst into tears upon my breast,
And own'd, when he could speak, he knew
There was a little danger, too.
This made me very weak and ill,
And while, last night, I lay quite still,
And, as he fancied, in the deep,
Exhausted rest of my short sleep,
I heard, or dream'd I heard him pray:
‘Oh, Father, take her not away!
‘Let not life's dear assurance lapse
‘Into death's agonised 'Perhaps,'
‘A hope without Thy promise, where
‘Less than assurance is despair!
‘Give me some sign, if go she must,
‘That death's not worse than dust to dust,
‘Not heaven, on whose oblivious shore
‘Joy I may have, but her no more!
‘The bitterest cross, it seems to me,
‘Of all is infidelity;
‘And so, if I may choose, I'll miss
‘The kind of heaven which comes to this.
‘If doom'd, indeed, this fever ceased,
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‘To die out wholly, like a beast,
‘Forgetting all life's ill success
‘In dark and peaceful nothingness,
‘I could but say, Thy will be done;
‘For, dying thus, I were but one
‘Of seed innumerable which ne'er
‘In all the worlds shall bloom or bear.
‘I've put life past to so poor use
‘Well may'st Thou life to come refuse;
‘And justice, which the spirit contents,
‘Shall still in me all vain laments;
‘Nay, pleased, I will, while yet I live,
‘Think Thou my forfeit joy may'st give
‘To some fresh life, else unelect,
‘And heaven not feel my poor defect!
‘Only let not Thy method be
‘To make that life, and call it me;
‘Still less to sever mine in twain,
‘And tell each half to live again,
‘And count itself the whole! To die,
‘Is it love's disintegrity?
‘Answer me, 'No,' and I, with grace,
‘Will life's brief desolation face,
‘My ways, as native to the clime,
‘Adjusting to the wintry time,
‘Ev'n with a patient cheer thereof—’
He started up, hearing me cough.
Oh, Mother, now my last doubt's gone!
He likes me more than Mrs. Vaughan;
And death, which takes me from his side,
Shows me, in very deed, his bride!
VII
From Jane To Frederick
I leave this, Dear, for you to read,
For strength and hope, when I am dead.
When Grace died, I was so perplex'd,
I could not find one helpful text;
And when, a little while before,
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I saw her sobbing on the floor,
Because I told her that in heaven
She would be as the angels even,
And would not want her doll, 'tis true
A horrible fear within me grew,
That, since the preciousness of love
Went thus for nothing, mine might prove
To be no more, and heaven's bliss
Some dreadful good which is not this.
But being about to die makes clear
Many dark things. I have no fear,
Now, that my love, my grief, my joy
Is but a passion for a toy.
I cannot speak at all, I find,
The shining something in my mind,
That shows so much that, if I took
My thoughts all down, 'twould make a book.
God's Word, which lately seem'd above
The simpleness of human love,
To my death-sharpen'd hearing tells
Of little or of nothing else;
And many things I hoped were true,
When first they came, like songs, from you,
Now rise with witness past the reach
Of doubt, and I to you can teach,
As if with felt authority
And as things seen, what you taught me.
Yet how? I have no words but those
Which every one already knows:
As, ‘No man hath at any time
‘Seen God, but 'tis the love of Him
‘Made perfect, and He dwells in us,
‘If we each other love.’ Or thus,
‘My goodness misseth in extent
‘Of Thee, Lord! In the excellent
‘I know Thee; and the Saints on Earth
‘Make all my love and holy mirth.’
And further, ‘Inasmuch as ye
‘Did it to one of these, to Me
‘Ye did it, though ye nothing thought
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‘Nor knew of Me, in that ye wrought.’
What shall I dread? Will God undo
Our bond, which is all others too?
And when I meet you will you say
To my reclaiming looks, ‘Away!
‘A dearer love my bosom warms
‘With higher rights and holier charms.
‘The children, whom thou here may'st see,
‘Neighbours that mingle thee and me,
‘And gaily on impartial lyres
‘Renounce the foolish filial fires
‘They felt, with 'Praise to God on high,
‘'Goodwill to all else equally;'
‘The trials, duties, service, tears;
‘The many fond, confiding years
‘Of nearness sweet with thee apart;
‘The joy of body, mind, and heart;
‘The love that grew a reckless growth,
‘Unmindful that the marriage-oath
‘To love in an eternal style
‘Meant—only for a little while:
‘Sever'd are now those bonds earth-wrought:
‘All love, not new, stands here for nought!’
Why, it seems almost wicked, Dear,
Even to utter such a fear!
Are we not ‘heirs,’ as man and wife,
‘Together of eternal life?’
Was Paradise e'er meant to fade,
To make which marriage first was made?
Neither beneath him nor above
Could man in Eden find his Love;
Yet with him in the garden walk'd
His God, and with Him mildly talk'd!
Shall the humble preference offend
In heaven, which God did there commend?
Are ‘honourable and undefiled’
The names of aught from heaven exiled?
And are we not forbid to grieve
As without hope? Does God deceive,
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And call that hope which is despair,
Namely, the heaven we should not share?
Image and glory of the man,
As he of God, is woman. Can
This holy, sweet proportion die
Into a dull equality?
Are we not one flesh, yea, so far
More than the babe and mother are,
That sons are bid mothers to leave
And to their wives alone to cleave,
‘For they two are one flesh?’ But 'tis
In the flesh we rise. Our union is,
You know 'tis said, ‘great mystery.’
Great mockery, it appears to me;
Poor image of the spousal bond
Of Christ and Church, if loosed beyond
This life!—'Gainst which, and much more yet,
There's not a single word to set.
The speech to the scoffing Sadducee
Is not in point to you and me;
For how could Christ have taught such clods
That Cæsar's things are also God's?
The sort of Wife the Law could make
Might well be ‘hated’ for Love's sake,
And left, like money, land, or house;
For out of Christ is no true spouse.
I used to think it strange of Him
To make love's after-life so dim,
Or only clear by inference:
But God trusts much to common sense,
And only tells us what, without
His Word, we could not have found out.
On fleshly tables of the heart
He penn'd truth's feeling counterpart
In hopes that come to all: so, Dear,
Trust these, and be of happy cheer,
Nor think that he who has loved well
Is of all men most miserable.
There's much more yet I want to say,
But cannot now. You know my way
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Of feeling strong from Twelve till Two
After my wine. I'll write to you
Daily some words, which you shall have
To break the silence of the grave.
VIII
From Jane To Frederick
You think, perhaps, ‘Ah, could she know
How much I loved her!’ Dear, I do!
And you may say, ‘Of this new awe
‘Of heart which makes her fancies law,
‘These watchful duties of despair,
‘She does not dream, she cannot care!’
Frederick, you see how false that is,
Or how could I have written this?
And, should it ever cross your mind
That, now and then, you were unkind,
You never, never were at all!
Remember that! It's natural
For one like Mr. Vaughan to come,
From a morning's useful pastime, home,
And greet, with such a courteous zest,
His handsome wife, still newly dress'd,
As if the Bird of Paradise
Should daily change her plumage thrice.
He's always well, she's always gay.
Of course! But he who toils all day,
And comes home hungry, tired, or cold,
And feels 'twould do him good to scold
His wife a little, let him trust
Her love, and say the things he must,
Till sooth'd in mind by meat and rest.
If, after that, she's well caress'd,
And told how good she is, to bear
His humour, fortune makes it fair.
Women like men to be like men;
That is, at least, just now and then.
Thus, I have nothing to forgive,
But those first years, (how could I live!)
When, though I really did behave
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So stupidly, you never gave
One unkind word or look at all:
As if I was some animal
You pitied! Now, in later life,
You used me like a proper Wife.
You feel, Dear, in your present mood,
Your Jane, since she was kind and good,
A child of God, a living soul,
Was not so different, on the whole,
From Her who had a little more
Of God's best gifts: but, oh, be sure,
My dear, dear Love, to take no blame
Because you could not feel the same
Towards me, living, as when dead.
A hungry man must needs think bread
So sweet! and, only at their rise
And setting, blessings, to the eyes,
Like the sun's course, grow visible.
If you are sad, remember well,
Against delusions of despair,
That memory sees things as they were,
And not as they were misenjoy'd,
And would be still, if ought destroy'd
The glory of their hopelessness:
So that, in truth, you had me less
In days when necessary zeal
For my perfection made you feel
My faults the most, than now your love
Forgets but where it can approve.
You gain by loss, if that seem'd small
Possess'd, which, being gone, turns all
Surviving good to vanity.
Oh, Fred, this makes it sweet to die!
Say to yourself: ‘'Tis comfort yet
‘I made her that which I regret;
‘And parting might have come to pass
‘In a worse season; as it was,
‘Love an eternal temper took,
‘Dipp'd, glowing, in Death's icy brook!’
Or say, ‘On her poor feeble head
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‘This might have fallen: 'tis mine instead!
‘And so great evil sets me free
‘Henceforward from calamity.
‘And, in her little children, too,
‘How much for her I yet can do!’
And grieve not for these orphans even;
For central to the love of Heaven
Is each child as each star to space.
This truth my dying love has grace
To trust with a so sure content,
I fear I seem indifferent.
You must not think a child's small heart
Cold, because it and grief soon part.
Fanny will keep them all away,
Lest you should hear them laugh and play,
Before the funeral's over. Then
I hope you'll be yourself again,
And glad, with all your soul, to find
How God thus to the sharpest wind
Suits the shorn lambs. Instruct them, Dear,
For my sake, in His love and fear.
And show how, till their journey's done,
Not to be weary they must run.
Strive not to dissipate your grief
By any lightness. True relief
Of sorrow is by sorrow brought.
And yet for sorrow's sake, you ought
To grieve with measure. Do not spend
So good a power to no good end!
Would you, indeed, have memory stay
In the heart, lock up and put away
Relics and likenesses and all
Musings, which waste what they recall.
True comfort, and the only thing
To soothe without diminishing
A prized regret, is to match here,
By a strict life, God's love severe.
Yet, after all, by nature's course,
Feeling must lose its edge and force.
Again you'll reach the desert tracts
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Where only sin or duty acts.
But, if love always lit our path,
Where were the trial of our faith?
Oh, should the mournful honeymoon
Of death be over strangely soon,
And life-long resolutions, made
In grievous haste, as quickly fade,
Seeming the truth of grief to mock,
Think, Dearest, 'tis not by the clock
That sorrow goes! A month of tears
Is more than many, many years
Of common time. Shun, if you can,
However, any passionate plan.
Grieve with the heart; let not the head
Grieve on, when grief of heart is dead;
For all the powers of life defy
A superstitious constancy.
The only bond I hold you to
Is that which nothing can undo.
A man is not a young man twice;
And if, of his young years, he lies
A faithful score in one wife's breast,
She need not mind who has the rest.
In this do what you will, dear Love,
And feel quite sure that I approve.
And, should it chance as it may be,
Give her my wedding-ring from me;
And never dream that you can err
T'wards me by being good to her;
Nor let remorseful thoughts destroy
In you the kindly flowering joy
And pleasure of the natural life.
But don't forget your fond, dead Wife.
And, Frederick, should you ever be
Tempted to think your love of me
All fancy, since it drew its breath
So much more sweetly after death,
Remember that I never did
A single thing you once forbid;
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All poor folk liked me; and, at the end,
Your Cousin call'd me ‘Dearest Friend!’
And, now, 'twill calm your grief to know,—
You, who once loved Honoria so,—
There's kindness, that's look'd kindly on,
Between her Emily and John.
Thus, in your children, you will wed!
And John seems so much comforted,
(Like Isaac when his mother died
And fair Rebekah was his bride),
By his new hope, for losing me!
So all is happiness, you see.
And that reminds me how, last night,
I dreamt of heaven, with great delight.
A strange, kind Lady watch'd my face,
Kiss'd me, and cried, ‘His hope found grace!’
She bade me then, in the crystal floor,
Look at myself, myself no more;
And bright within the mirror shone
Honoria's smile, and yet my own!
‘And, when you talk, I hear,’ she sigh'd,
‘How much he loved her! Many a bride
‘In heaven such countersemblance wears
‘Through what Love deem'd rejected prayers.’
She would have spoken still; but, lo,
One of a glorious troop, aglow
From some great work, towards her came,
And she so laugh'd, 'twas such a flame,
Aaron's twelve jewels seem'd to mix
With the lights of the Seven Candlesticks.
IX
From Lady Clitheroe To Mrs. Graham
My dearest Aunt, the Wedding-day,
But for Jane's loss, and you away,
Was all a Bride from heaven could beg!
Skies bluer than the sparrow's egg,
And clearer than the cuckoo's call;
And such a sun! the flowers all
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With double ardour seem'd to blow!
The very daisies were a show,
Expanded with uncommon pride,
Like little pictures of the Bride.
Your Great-Niece and your Grandson were
Perfection of a pretty pair.
How well Honoria's girls turn out,
Although they never go about!
Dear me, what trouble and expense
It took to teach mine confidence!
Hers greet mankind as I've heard say
That wild things do, where beasts of prey
Were never known, nor any men
Have met their fearless eyes till then.
Their grave, inquiring trust to find
All creatures of their simple kind
Quite disconcerts bold coxcombry,
And makes less perfect candour shy.
Ah, Mrs. Graham! people may scoff,
But how your home-kept girls go off!
How Hymen hastens to unband
The waist that ne'er felt waltzer's hand!
At last I see my Sister's right,
And I've told Maud this very night,
(But, oh, my daughters have such wills!)
To knit, and only dance quadrilles.
You say Fred never writes to you
Frankly, as once he used to do,
About himself; and you complain
He shared with none his grief for Jane.
It all comes of the foolish fright
Men feel at the word, hypocrite.
Although, when first in love, sometimes
They rave in letters, talk, and rhymes,
When once they find, as find they must.
How hard 'tis to be hourly just
To those they love, they are dumb for shame,
Where we, you see, talk on the same.
Honoria, to whose heart alone
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He seems to open all his own,
At times has tears in her kind eyes,
After their private colloquies.
He's her most favour'd guest, and moves
My spleen by his impartial loves.
His pleasure has some inner spring
Depending not on anything.
Petting our Polly, none e'er smiled
More fondly on his favourite child;
Yet, playing with his own, it is
Somehow as if it were not his.
He means to go again to sea,
Now that the wedding's over. He
Will leave to Emily and John
The little ones to practise on;
And Major-domo, Mrs. Rouse,
A deal old soul from Wilton House,
Will scold the housemaids and the cook,
Till Emily has learn'd to look
A little braver than a lamb
Surprised by dogs without its dam!
Do, dear Aunt, use your influence,
And try to teach some plain good sense
To Mary. 'Tis not yet too late
To make her change her chosen state
Of single silliness. In truth,
I fancy that, with fading youth,
Her will now wavers. Yesterday,
Though, till the Bride was gone away,
Joy shone from Mary's loving heart,
I found her afterwards apart,
Hysterically sobbing. I
Knew much too well to ask her why.
This marrying of Nieces daunts
The bravest souls of maiden Aunts.
Though Sisters' children often blend
Sweetly the bonds of child and friend,
They are but reeds to rest upon.
When Emily comes back with John,
Her right to go downstairs before
Aunt Mary will but be the more
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Observed if kindly waived, and how
Shall these be as they were, when now
Niece has her John, and Aunt the sense
Of her superior innocence?
Somehow, all loves, however fond,
Prove lieges of the nuptial bond;
And she who dares at this to scoff,
Finds all the rest in time drop off;
While marriage, like a mushroom-ring,
Spreads its sure circle every Spring.
She twice refused George Vane, you know;
Yet, when he died three years ago
In the Indian war, she put on gray,
And wears no colours to this day.
And she it is who charges me,
Dear Aunt, with ‘inconsistency!’
From Frederick To Honoria
Cousin, my thoughts no longer try
To cast the fashion of the sky.
Imagination can extend
Scarcely in part to comprehend
The sweetness of our common food
Ambrosial, which ingratitude
And impious inadvertence waste,
Studious to eat but not to taste.
And who can tell what's yet in store
There, but that earthly things have more
Of all that makes their inmost bliss,
And life's an image still of this,
But haply such a glorious one
As is the rainbow of the sun?
Sweet are your words, but, after all
Their mere reversal may befall
The partners of His glories who
Daily is crucified anew:
Splendid privations, martyrdoms
To which no weak remission comes,
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Perpetual passion for the good
Of them that feel no gratitude,
Far circlings, as of planets' fires,
Round never-to-be-reach'd desires,
Whatever rapturously sighs
That life is love, love sacrifice.
All I am sure of heaven is this:
Howe'er the mode, I shall not miss
One true delight which I have known.
Not on the changeful earth alone
Shall loyalty remain unmoved
T'wards everything I ever loved.
So Heaven's voice calls, like Rachel's voice
To Jacob in the field, ‘Rejoice!
‘Serve on some seven more sordid years,
‘Too short for weariness or tears;
‘Serve on; then, oh, Beloved, well-tried,
‘Take me for ever as thy Bride!’
XI
From Mary Churchill To The Dean
Charles does me honour, but 'twere vain
To reconsider now again,
And so to doubt the clear-shown truth
I sought for, and received, when youth,
Being fair, and woo'd by one whose love
Was lovely, fail'd my mind to move.
God bids them by their own will go,
Who ask again the things they know!
I grieve for my infirmity,
And ignorance of how to be
Faithful, at once, to the heavenly life,
And the fond duties of a wife.
Narrow am I and want the art
To love two things with all my heart.
Occupied singly in His search,
Who, in the Mysteries of the Church,
Returns, and calls them Clouds of Heaven,
I tread a road, straight, hard, and even;
But fear to wander all confused,
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By two-fold fealty abused.
Either should I the one forget,
Or scantly pay the other's debt.
You bid me, Father, count the cost.
I have; and all that must be lost
I feel as only woman can.
To make the heart's wealth of some man,
And through the untender world to move,
Wrapt safe in his superior love,
How sweet! How sweet the household round
Of duties, and their narrow bound,
So plain, that to transgress were hard,
Yet full of manifest reward!
The charities not marr'd, like mine,
With chance of thwarting laws divine;
The world's regards and just delight
In one that's clearly, kindly right,
How sweet! Dear Father, I endure,
Not without sharp regret, be sure,
To give up such glad certainty,
For what, perhaps, may never be.
For nothing of my state I know,
But that t'ward heaven I seem to go,
As one who fondly landward hies
Along a deck that seaward flies.
With every year, meantime, some grace
Of earthly happiness gives place
To humbling ills, the very charms
Of youth being counted, henceforth, harms:
To blush already seems absurd;
Nor know I whether I should herd
With girls or wives, or sadlier balk
Maids' merriment or matrons' talk.
But strait's the gate of life! O'er late,
Besides, 'twere now to change my fate:
For flowers and fruit of love to form,
It must be Spring as well as warm.
The world's delight my soul dejects,
Revenging all my disrespects
Of old, with incapacity
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To chime with even its harmless glee,
Which sounds, from fields beyond my range,
Like fairies' music, thin and strange.
With something like remorse, I grant
The world has beauty which I want;
And if, instead of judging it,
I at its Council chance to sit,
Or at its gay and order'd Feast,
My place seems lower than the least.
The conscience of the life to be
Smites me with inefficiency,
And makes me all unfit to bless
With comfortable earthliness
The rest-desiring brain of man.
Finally, then, I fix my plan
To dwell with Him that dwells apart
In the highest heaven and lowliest heart;
Nor will I, to my utter loss,
Look to pluck roses from the Cross.
As for the good of human love,
'Twere countercheck almost enough
To think that one must die before
The other; and perhaps 'tis more
In love's last interest to do
Nought the least contrary thereto,
Than to be blest, and be unjust,
Or suffer injustice; as they must,
Without a miracle, whose pact
Compels to mutual life and act,
Whether love shines, or darkness sleeps
Cold on the spirit's changeful deeps.
Enough if, to my earthly share,
Fall gleams that keep me from despair.
Happy the things we here discern;
More happy those for which we yearn;
But measurelessly happy above
All else are those we guess not of!
XII
From Felix To Honoria
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Dearest, my Love and Wife, 'tis long
Ago I closed the unfinish'd song
Which never could be finish'd; nor
Will ever Poet utter more
Of love than I did, watching well
To lure to speech the unspeakable!
‘Why, having won her, do I woo?’
That final strain to the last height flew
Of written joy, which wants the smile
And voice that are, indeed, the while
They last, the very things you speak,
Honoria, who mak'st music weak
With ways that say, ‘Shall I not be
‘As kind to all as Heaven to me?’
And yet, ah, twenty-fold my Bride!
Rising, this twentieth festal-tide,
You still soft sleeping, on this day
Of days, some words I long to say,
Some words superfluously sweet
Of fresh assurance, thus to greet
Your waking eyes, which never grow
Weary of telling what I know
So well, yet only well enough
To wish for further news thereof.
Here, in this early autumn dawn,
By windows opening on the lawn,
Where sunshine seems asleep, though bright,
And shadows yet are sharp with night,
And, further on, the wealthy wheat
Bends in a golden drowse, how sweet
To sit and cast my careless looks
Around my walls of well-read books,
Wherein is all that stands redeem'd
From time's huge wreck, all men have dream'd
Of truth, and all by poets known
Of feeling, and in weak sort shown,
And, turning to my heart again,
To find I have what makes them vain,
The thanksgiving mind, which wisdom sums,
And you, whereby it freshly comes
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As on that morning, (can there be
Twenty-two years 'twixt it and me?)
When, thrill'd with hopeful love I rose
And came in haste to Sarum Close,
Past many a homestead slumbering white
In lonely and pathetic light,
Merely to fancy which drawn blind
Of thirteen had my Love behind,
And in her sacred neighbourhood
To feel that sweet scorn of all good
But her, which let the wise forfend
When wisdom learns to comprehend!
Dearest, as each returning May
I see the season new and gay
With new joy and astonishment,
And Nature's infinite ostent
Of lovely flowers in wood and mead,
That weet not whether any heed,
So see I, daily wondering, you,
And worship with a passion new
The Heaven that visibly allows
Its grace to go about my house,
The partial Heaven, that, though I err
And mortal am, gave all to her
Who gave herself to me. Yet I
Boldly thank Heaven, (and so defy
The beggarly soul'd humbleness
Which fears God's bounty to confess,)
That I was fashion'd with a mind
Seeming for this great gift design'd,
So naturally it moved above
All sordid contraries of love,
Strengthen'd in youth with discipline
Of light, to follow the divine
Vision, (which ever to the dark
Is such a plague as was the ark
In Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron,) still
Discerning with the docile will
Which comes of full persuaded thought,
That intimacy in love is nought
Without pure reverence, whereas this,
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In tearfullest banishment, is bliss.
And so, dearest Honoria, I
Have never learn'd the weary sigh
Of those that to their love-feasts went,
Fed, and forgot the Sacrament;
And not a trifle now occurs
But sweet initiation stirs
Of new-discover'd joy, and lends
To feeling change that never ends;
And duties, which the many irk,
Are made all wages and no work.
How sing of such things save to her,
Love's self, so love's interpreter?
How the supreme rewards confess
Which crown the austere voluptuousness
Of heart, that earns, in midst of wealth,
The appetite of want and health,
Relinquishes the pomp of life
And beauty to the pleasant Wife
At home, and does all joy despise
As out of place but in her eyes?
How praise the years and gravity
That make each favour seem to be
A lovelier weakness for her lord?
And, ah, how find the tender word
To tell aright of love that glows
The fairer for the fading rose?
Of frailty which can weight the arm
To lean with thrice its girlish charm?
Of grace which, like this autumn day,
Is not the sad one of decay,
Yet one whose pale brow pondereth
The far-off majesty of death?
How tell the crowd, whom passion rends,
That love grows mild as it ascends?
That joy's most high and distant mood
Is lost, not found in dancing blood;
Albeit kind acts and smiling eyes,
And all those fond realities
Which are love's words, in us mean more
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Delight than twenty years before?
How, Dearest, finish, without wrong
To the speechless heart, the unfinish'd song,
Its high, eventful passages
Consisting, say, of things like these:—
One morning, contrary to law,
Which, for the most, we held in awe,
Commanding either not to intrude
On the other's place of solitude
Or solitary mind, for fear
Of coming there when God was near,
And finding so what should be known
To Him who is merciful alone,
And views the working ferment base
Of waking flesh and sleeping grace,
Not as we view, our kindness check'd
By likeness of our own defect,
I, venturing to her room, because
(Mark the excuse!) my Birthday 'twas,
Saw, here across a careless chair,
A ball-dress flung, as light as air,
And, here, beside a silken couch,
Pillows which did the pressure vouch
Of pious knees, (sweet piety!
Of goodness made and charity,
If gay looks told the heart's glad sense,
Much rather than of penitence,)
And, on the couch, an open book,
And written list—I did not look,
Yet just in her clear writing caught:—
‘Habitual faults of life and thought
‘Which most I need deliverance from.’
I turn'd aside, and saw her come
Adown the filbert-shaded way,
Beautified with her usual gay
Hypocrisy of perfectness,
Which made her heart, and mine no less,
So happy! And she cried to me,
‘You lose by breaking rules, you see!
‘Your Birthday treat is now half-gone
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‘Of seeing my new ball-dress on.’
And, meeting so my lovely Wife,
A passing pang, to think that life
Was mortal, when I saw her laugh,
Shaped in my mind this epitaph:
‘Faults had she, child of Adam's stem,
‘But only Heaven knew of them.’
Or thus:
For many a dreadful day,
In sea-side lodgings sick she lay,
Noteless of love, nor seem'd to hear
The sea, on one side, thundering near,
Nor, on the other, the loud Ball
Held nightly in the public hall;
Nor vex'd they my short slumbers, though
I woke up if she breathed too low.
Thus, for three months, with terrors rife,
The pending of her precious life
I watch'd o'er; and the danger, at last,
The kind Physician said, was past.
Howbeit, for seven harsh weeks the East
Breathed witheringly, and Spring's growth ceased,
And so she only did not die;
Until the bright and blighting sky
Changed into cloud, and the sick flowers
Remember'd their perfumes, and showers
Of warm, small rain refreshing flew
Before the South, and the Park grew,
In three nights, thick with green. Then she
Revived, no less than flower and tree,
In the mild air, and, the fourth day,
Look'd supernaturally gay
With large, thanksgiving eyes, that shone,
The while I tied her bonnet on,
So that I led her to the glass,
And bade her see how fair she was,
And how love visibly could shine.
Profuse of hers, desiring mine,
And mindful I had loved her most
When beauty seem'd a vanish'd boast,
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She laugh'd. I press'd her then to me,
Nothing but soft humility;
Nor e'er enhanced she with such charms
Her acquiescence in my arms.
And, by her sweet love-weakness made
Courageous, powerful, and glad,
In a clear illustration high
Of heavenly affection, I
Perceived that utter love is all
The same as to be rational,
And that the mind and heart of love,
Which think they cannot do enough,
Are truly the everlasting doors
Wherethrough, all unpetition'd, pours
The eternal pleasance. Wherefore we
Had innermost tranquillity,
And breathed one life with such a sense
Of friendship and of confidence,
That, recollecting the sure word:
‘If two of you are in accord,
‘On earth, as touching any boon
‘Which ye shall ask, it shall be done
‘In heaven,’ we ask'd that heaven's bliss
Might ne'er be any less than this;
And, for that hour, we seem'd to have
The secret of the joy we gave.
How sing of such things, save to her,
Love's self, so love's interpreter?
How read from such a homely page
In the ear of this unhomely age?
'Tis now as when the Prophet cried:
‘The nation hast Thou multiplied,
‘But Thou hast not increased the joy!’
And yet, ere wrath or rot destroy
Of England's state the ruin fair,
Oh, might I so its charm declare,
That, in new Lands, in far-off years,
Delighted he should cry that hears:
‘Great is the Land that somewhat best
‘Works, to the wonder of the rest!
‘We, in our day, have better done
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‘This thing or that than any one;
‘And who but, still admiring, sees
‘How excellent for images
‘Was Greece, for laws how wise was Rome;
‘But read this Poet, and say if home
‘And private love did e'er so smile
‘As in that ancient English isle!’
XIII
From Lady Clitheroe To Emily Graham
My dearest Niece, I'm charm'd to hear
The scenery's fine at Windermere,
And glad a six-weeks' wife defers
In the least to wisdom not yet hers.
But, Child, I've no advice to give!
Rules only make it hard to live.
And where's the good of having been
Well taught from seven to seventeen,
If, married, you may not leave off,
And say, at last, ‘I'm good enough!’
Weeding out folly, still leave some.
It gives both lightness and aplomb.
We know, however wise by rule,
Woman is still by nature fool;
And men have sense to like her all
The more when she is natural.
'Tis true that, if we choose, we can
Mock to a miracle the man;
But iron in the fire red hot,
Though 'tis the heat, the fire 'tis not:
And who, for such a feint, would pledge
The babe's and woman's privilege,
No duties and a thousand rights?
Besides, defect love's flow incites,
As water in a well will run
Only the while 'tis drawn upon.
‘Point de culte sans mystère,’ you say,
‘And what if that should die away?’
Child, never fear that either could
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Pull from Saint Cupid's face the hood.
The follies natural to each
Surpass the other's moral reach.
Just think how men, with sword and gun,
Will really fight, and never run;
And all in sport: they would have died,
For sixpence more, on the other side!
A woman's heart must ever warm
At such odd ways: and so we charm
By strangeness which, the more they mark,
The more men get into the dark.
The marvel, by familiar life,
Grows, and attaches to the wife
By whom it grows. Thus, silly Girl,
To John you'll always be the pearl
In the oyster of the universe;
And, though in time he'll treat you worse,
He'll love you more, you need not doubt,
And never, never find you out!
My Dear, I know that dreadful thought
That you've been kinder than you ought.
It almost makes you hate him! Yet
'Tis wonderful how men forget,
And how a merciful Providence
Deprives our husbands of all sense
Of kindness past, and makes them deem
We always were what now we seem.
For their own good we must, you know,
However plain the way we go,
Still make it strange with stratagem;
And instinct tells us that, to them,
'Tis always right to bate their price.
Yet I must say they're rather nice,
And, oh, so easily taken in
To cheat them almost seems a sin!
And, Dearest, 'twould be most unfair
To John your feelings to compare
With his, or any man's; for she
Who loves at all loves always; he,
Who loves far more, loves yet by fits,
And when the wayward wind remits
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To blow, his feelings faint and drop
Like forge-flames when the bellows stop.
Such things don't trouble you at all
When once you know they're natural.
My love to John; and, pray, my Dear,
Don't let me see you for a year;
Unless, indeed, ere then you've learn'd
That Beauties wed are blossoms turn'd
To unripe codlings, meant to dwell
In modest shadow hidden well,
Till this green stage again permute
To glow of flowers with good of fruit.
I will not have my patience tried
By your absurd new-married pride,
That scorns the world's slow-gather'd sense,
Ties up the hands of Providence,
Rules babes, before there's hope of one,
Better than mothers e'er have done,
And, for your poor particular,
Neglects delights and graces far
Beyond your crude and thin conceit.
Age has romance almost as sweet
And much more generous than this
Of yours and John's. With all the bliss
Of the evenings when you coo'd with him,
And upset home for your sole whim,
You might have envied, were you wise,
The tears within your Mother's eyes,
Which, I dare say, you did not see.
But let that pass! Yours yet will be,
I hope, as happy, kind, and true
As lives which now seem void to you.
Have you not seen shop-painters paste
Their gold in sheets, then rub to waste
Full half, and, lo, you read the name?
Well, Time, my Dear, does much the same
With this unmeaning glare of love.
But, though you yet may much improve,
In marriage, be it still confess'd,
There's little merit at the best.
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Some half-a-dozen lives, indeed,
Which else would not have had the need,
Get food and nurture, as the price
Of antedated Paradise;
But what's that to the varied want
Succour'd by Mary, your dear Aunt,
Who put the bridal crown thrice by,
For that of which virginity,
So used, has hope? She sends her love,
As usual with a proof thereof—
Papa's discourse, which you, no doubt,
Heard none of, neatly copied out
Whilst we were dancing. All are well,
Adieu, for there's the Luncheon Bell.
The Wedding Sermon
The truths of Love are like the sea
For clearness and for mystery.
Of that sweet love which, startling, wakes
Maiden and Youth, and mostly breaks
The word of promise to the ear,
But keeps it, after many a year,
To the full spirit, how shall I speak?
My memory with age is weak,
And I for hopes do oft suspect
The things I seem to recollect.
Yet who but must remember well
'Twas this made heaven intelligible
As motive, though 'twas small the power
The heart might have, for even an hour,
To hold possession of the height
Of nameless pathos and delight!
II
In Godhead rise, thither flow back
All loves, which, as they keep or lack,
In their return, the course assign'd,
Are virtue or sin. Love's every kind,
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Lofty or low, of spirit or sense,
Desire is, or benevolence.
He who is fairer, better, higher
Than all His works, claims all desire,
And in His Poor, His Proxies, asks
Our whole benevolence: He tasks,
Howbeit, His People by their powers;
And if, my Children, you, for hours,
Daily, untortur'd in the heart,
Can worship, and time's other part
Give, without rough recoils of sense,
To the claims ingrate of indigence,
Happy are you, and fit to be
Wrought to rare heights of sanctity,
For the humble to grow humbler at.
But if the flying spirit falls flat,
After the modest spell of prayer
That saves the day from sin and care,
And the upward eye a void descries,
And praises are hypocrisies,
And, in the soul, o'erstrain'd for grace,
A godless anguish grows apace;
Or, if impartial charity
Seems, in the act, a sordid lie,
Do not infer you cannot please
God, or that He His promises
Postpones, but be content to love
No more than He accounts enough.
Account them poor enough who want
Any good thing which you can grant;
And fathom well the depths of life
In loves of Husband and of Wife,
Child, Mother, Father; simple keys
To what cold faith calls mysteries.
III
The love of marriage claims, above
All other kinds, the name of love,
As perfectest, though not so high
As love which Heaven with single eye
Considers. Equal and entire,
Therein benevolence, desire,
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Elsewhere ill-join'd or found apart,
Become the pulses of one heart,
Which now contracts, and now dilates,
And, both to the height exalting, mates
Self-seeking to self-sacrifice.
Nay, in its subtle paradise
(When purest) this one love unites
All modes of these two opposites,
All balanced in accord so rich
Who may determine which is which?
Chiefly God's Love does in it live,
And nowhere else so sensitive;
For each is all that the other's eye,
In the vague vast of Deity,
Can comprehend and so contain
As still to touch and ne'er to strain
The fragile nerves of joy. And then
'Tis such a wise goodwill to men
And politic economy
As in a prosperous State we see,
Where every plot of common land
Is yielded to some private hand
To fence about and cultivate.
Does narrowness its praise abate?
Nay, the infinite of man is found
But in the beating of its bound,
And, if a brook its banks o'erpass,
'Tis not a sea, but a morass.
IV
No giddiest hope, no wildest guess
Of Love's most innocent loftiness
Had dared to dream of its own worth,
Till Heaven's bold sun-gleam lit the earth.
Christ's marriage with the Church is more,
My Children, than a metaphor.
The heaven of heavens is symbol'd where
The torch of Psyche flash'd despair.
But here I speak of heights, and heights
Are hardly scaled. The best delights
Of even this homeliest passion, are
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In the most perfect souls so rare,
That they who feel them are as men
Sailing the Southern ocean, when,
At midnight, they look up, and eye
The starry Cross, and a strange sky
Of brighter stars; and sad thoughts come
To each how far he is from home.
Love's inmost nuptial sweetness see
In the doctrine of virginity!
Could lovers, at their dear wish, blend,
'Twould kill the bliss which they intend;
For joy is love's obedience
Against the law of natural sense;
And those perpetual yearnings sweet
Of lives which dream that they can meet
Are given that lovers never may
Be without sacrifice to lay
On the high altar of true love,
With tears of vestal joy. To move
Frantic, like comets to our bliss,
Forgetting that we always miss,
And so to seek and fly the sun,
By turns, around which love should run,
Perverts the ineffable delight
Of service guerdon'd with full sight
And pathos of a hopeless want,
To an unreal victory's vaunt,
And plaint of an unreal defeat.
Yet no less dangerous misconceit
May also be of the virgin will,
Whose goal is nuptial blessing still,
And whose true being doth subsist,
There where the outward forms are miss'd,
In those who learn and keep the sense
Divine of ‘due benevolence,’
Seeking for aye, without alloy
Of selfish thought, another's joy,
And finding in degrees unknown
That which in act they shunn'd, their own.
For all delights of earthly love
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Are shadows of the heavens, and move
As other shadows do; they flee
From him that follows them; and he
Who flies, for ever finds his feet
Embraced by their pursuings sweet.
VI
Then, even in love humane, do I
Not counsel aspirations high,
So much as sweet and regular
Use of the good in which we are.
As when a man along the ways
Walks, and a sudden music plays,
His step unchanged, he steps in time,
So let your Grace with Nature chime.
Her primal forces burst, like straws,
The bonds of uncongenial laws.
Right life is glad as well as just,
And, rooted strong in ‘This I must,’
It bears aloft the blossom gay
And zephyr-toss'd, of ‘This I may;’
Whereby the complex heavens rejoice
In fruits of uncommanded choice.
Be this your rule: seeking delight,
Esteem success the test of right;
For 'gainst God's will much may be done,
But nought enjoy'd, and pleasures none
Exist, but, like to springs of steel,
Active no longer than they feel
The checks that make them serve the soul,
They take their vigour from control.
A man need only keep but well
The Church's indispensable
First precepts, and she then allows,
Nay, more, she bids him, for his spouse,
Leave even his heavenly Father's awe,
At times, and His immaculate law,
Construed in its extremer sense.
Jehovah's mild magnipotence
Smiles to behold His children play
In their own free and childish way,
And can His fullest praise descry
333
In the exuberant liberty
Of those who, having understood
The glory of the Central Good,
And how souls ne'er may match or merge,
But as they thitherward converge,
Take in love's innocent gladness part
With infantine, untroubled heart,
And faith that, straight t'wards heaven's far Spring,
Sleeps, like the swallow, on the wing.
VII
Lovers, once married, deem their bond
Then perfect, scanning nought beyond
For love to do but to sustain
The spousal hour's delighted gain.
But time and a right life alone
Fulfil the promise then foreshown.
The Bridegroom and the Bride withal
Are but unwrought material
Of marriage; nay, so far is love,
Thus crown'd, from being thereto enough,
Without the long, compulsive awe
Of duty, that the bond of law
Does oftener marriage-love evoke,
Than love, which does not wear the yoke
Of legal vows, submits to be
Self-rein'd from ruinous liberty.
Lovely is love; but age well knows
'Twas law which kept the lover's vows
Inviolate through the year or years
Of worship pieced with panic fears,
When she who lay within his breast
Seem'd of all women perhaps the best,
But not the whole, of womankind,
Or love, in his yet wayward mind,
Had ghastly doubts its precious life
Was pledged for aye to the wrong wife.
Could it be else? A youth pursues
A maid, whom chance, not he, did choose,
Till to his strange arms hurries she
In a despair of modesty.
334
Then, simply and without pretence
Of insight or experience,
They plight their vows. The parents say
‘We cannot speak them yea or nay;
‘The thing proceedeth from the Lord!’
And wisdom still approves their word;
For God created so these two
They match as well as others do
That take more pains, and trust Him less
Who never fails, if ask'd, to bless
His children's helpless ignorance
And blind election of life's chance.
Verily, choice not matters much,
If but the woman's truly such,
And the young man has led the life
Without which how shall e'er the wife
Be the one woman in the world?
Love's sensitive tendrils sicken, curl'd
Round folly's former stay; for 'tis
The doom of all unsanction'd bliss
To mock some good that, gain'd, keeps still
The taint of the rejected ill.
VIII
Howbeit, though both were perfect, she
Of whom the maid was prophecy
As yet lives not, and Love rebels
Against the law of any else;
And, as a steed takes blind alarm,
Disowns the rein, and hunts his harm,
So, misdespairing word and act
May now perturb the happiest pact.
The more, indeed, is love, the more
Peril to love is now in store.
Against it nothing can be done
But only this: leave ill alone!
Who tries to mend his wife succeeds
As he who knows not what he needs.
He much affronts a worth as high
As his, and that equality
Of spirits in which abide the grace
335
And joy of her subjected place;
And does the still growth check and blurr
Of contraries, confusing her
Who better knows what he desires
Than he, and to that mark aspires
With perfect zeal, and a deep wit
Which nothing helps but trusting it.
So, loyally o'erlooking all
In which love's promise short may fall
Of full performance, honour that
As won, which aye love worketh at!
It is but as the pedigree
Of perfectness which is to be
That our best good can honour claim;
Yet honour to deny were shame
And robbery; for it is the mould
Wherein to beauty runs the gold
Of good intention, and the prop
That lifts to the sun the earth-drawn crop
Of human sensibilities.
Such honour, with a conduct wise
In common things, as, not to steep
The lofty mind of love in sleep
Of over much familiarness;
Not to degrade its kind caress,
As those do that can feel no more,
So give themselves to pleasures o'er;
Not to let morning-sloth destroy
The evening-flower, domestic joy;
Not by uxoriousness to chill
The warm devotion of her will
Who can but half her love confer
On him that cares for nought but her;—
These, and like obvious prudences
Observed, he's safest that relies,
For the hope she will not always seem,
Caught, but a laurel or a stream,
On time; on her unsearchable
Love-wisdom; on their work done well,
336
Discreet with mutual aid; on might
Of shared affliction and delight;
On pleasures that so childish be
They're 'shamed to let the children see,
By which life keeps the valleys low
Where love does naturally grow;
On much whereof hearts have account,
Though heads forget; on babes, chief fount
Of union, and for which babes are
No less than this for them, nay far
More, for the bond of man and wife
To the very verge of future life
Strengthens, and yearns for brighter day,
While others, with their use, decay;
And, though true marriage purpose keeps
Of offspring, as the centre sleeps
Within the wheel, transmitting thence
Fury to the circumference,
Love's self the noblest offspring is,
And sanction of the nuptial kiss;
Lastly, on either's primal curse,
Which help and sympathy reverse
To blessings.
IX
God, who may be well
Jealous of His chief miracle,
Bids sleep the meddling soul of man,
Through the long process of this plan,
Whereby, from his unweeting side,
The Wife's created, and the Bride,
That chance one of her strange, sweet sex
He to his glad life did annex,
Grows more and more, by day and night,
The one in the whole world opposite
Of him, and in her nature all
So suited and reciprocal
To his especial form of sense,
Affection, and intelligence,
That, whereas love at first had strange
Relapses into lust of change,
It now finds (wondrous this, but true!)
337
The long-accustom'd only new,
And the untried common; and, whereas
An equal seeming danger was
Of likeness lacking joy and force,
Or difference reaching to divorce,
Now can the finish'd lover see
Marvel of me most far from me,
Whom without pride he may admire,
Without Narcissus' doom desire,
Serve without selfishness, and love
‘Even as himself,’ in sense above
Niggard ‘as much,’ yea, as she is
The only part of him that's his.
I do not say love's youth returns;
That joy which so divinely yearns!
But just esteem of present good
Shows all regret such gratitude
As if the sparrow in her nest,
Her woolly young beneath her breast,
Should these despise, and sorrow for
Her five blue eggs that are no more.
Nor say I the fruit has quite the scope
Of the flower's spiritual hope.
Love's best is service, and of this,
Howe'er devout, use dulls the bliss.
Though love is all of earth that's dear,
Its home, my Children, is not here:
The pathos of eternity
Does in its fullest pleasure sigh.
Be grateful and most glad thereof.
Parting, as 'tis, is pain enough.
If love, by joy, has learn'd to give
Praise with the nature sensitive,
At last, to God, we then possess
The end of mortal happiness,
And henceforth very well may wait
The unbarring of the golden gate,
Wherethrough, already, faith can see
That apter to each wish than we
338
Is God, and curious to bless
Better than we devise or guess;
Not without condescending craft
To disappoint with bliss, and waft
Our vessels frail, when worst He mocks
The heart with breakers and with rocks,
To happiest havens. You have heard
Your bond death-sentenced by His Word.
What, if, in heaven, the name be o'er,
Because the thing is so much more?
All are, 'tis writ, as angels there,
Nor male nor female. Each a stair
In the hierarchical ascent
Of active and recipient
Affections, what if all are both
By turn, as they themselves betroth
To adoring what is next above,
Or serving what's below their love?
Of this we are certified, that we
Are shaped here for eternity,
So that a careless word will make
Its dint upon the form we take
For ever. If, then, years have wrought
Two strangers to become, in thought,
Will, and affection, but one man
For likeness, as none others can,
Without like process, shall this tree
The king of all the forest, be,
Alas, the only one of all
That shall not lie where it doth fall?
Shall this unflagging flame, here nurs'd
By everything, yea, when reversed,
Blazing, in fury, brighter, wink,
Flicker, and into darkness shrink,
When all else glows, baleful or brave,
In the keen air beyond the grave?
Beware; for fiends in triumph laugh
O'er him who learns the truth by half!
Beware; for God will not endure
For men to make their hope more pure
339
Than His good promise, or require
Another than the five-string'd lyre
Which He has vow'd again to the hands
Devout of him who understands
To tune it justly here! Beware
The Powers of Darkness and the Air,
Which lure to empty heights man's hope,
Bepraising heaven's ethereal cope,
But covering with their cloudy cant
Its ground of solid adamant,
That strengthens ether for the flight
Of angels, makes and measures height,
And in materiality
Exceeds our Earth's in such degree
As all else Earth exceeds! Do I
Here utter aught too dark or high?
Have you not seen a bird's beak slay
Proud Psyche, on a summer's day?
Down fluttering drop the frail wings four,
Missing the weight which made them soar.
Spirit is heavy nature's wing,
And is not rightly anything
Without its burthen, whereas this,
Wingless, at least a maggot is,
And, wing'd, is honour and delight
Increasing endlessly with height.
XI
If unto any here that chance
Fell not, which makes a month's romance,
Remember, few wed whom they would.
And this, like all God's laws, is good;
For nought's so sad, the whole world o'er,
As much love which has once been more.
Glorious for light is the earliest love;
But worldly things, in the rays thereof,
Extend their shadows, every one
False as the image which the sun
At noon or eve dwarfs or protracts.
A perilous lamp to light men's acts!
By Heaven's kind, impartial plan,
Well-wived is he that's truly man
340
If but the woman's womanly,
As such a man's is sure to be.
Joy of all eyes and pride of life
Perhaps she is not; the likelier wife!
If it be thus; if you have known,
(As who has not?) some heavenly one,
Whom the dull background of despair
Help'd to show forth supremely fair;
If memory, still remorseful, shapes
Young Passion bringing Eshcol grapes
To travellers in the Wilderness,
This truth will make regret the less:
Mighty in love as graces are,
God's ordinance is mightier far;
And he who is but just and kind
And patient, shall for guerdon find,
Before long, that the body's bond
Is all else utterly beyond
In power of love to actualise
The soul's bond which it signifies,
And even to deck a wife with grace
External in the form and face.
A five years' wife, and not yet fair?
Blame let the man, not Nature, bear!
For, as the sun, warming a bank
Where last year's grass droops gray and dank,
Evokes the violet, bids disclose
In yellow crowds the fresh primrose,
And foxglove hang her flushing head,
So vernal love, where all seems dead,
Makes beauty abound.
Then was that nought,
That trance of joy beyond all thought,
The vision, in one, of womanhood?
Nay, for all women holding good,
Should marriage such a prologue want,
'Twere sordid and most ignorant
Profanity; but, having this,
'Tis honour now, and future bliss;
For where is he that, knowing the height
And depth of ascertain'd delight,
341
Inhumanly henceforward lies
Content with mediocrities!
~ Coventry Patmore,#NFDB
98 Integral Yoga
71 Occultism
14 Psychology
11 Yoga
7 Theosophy
7 Christianity
6 Philosophy
3 Mythology
2 Poetry
1 Thelema
1 Science
1 Integral Theory
1 Hinduism
1 Fiction
1 Buddhism
1 Alchemy
85 Sri Aurobindo
42 Aleister Crowley
36 The Mother
33 Nolini Kanta Gupta
23 Satprem
11 Franz Bardon
9 Carl Jung
7 Sri Ramakrishna
7 Alice Bailey
4 Swami Krishnananda
4 Rudolf Steiner
4 Jordan Peterson
3 Plotinus
3 Plato
3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
3 Joseph Campbell
3 James George Frazer
2 Thubten Chodron
2 Nirodbaran
2 George Van Vrekhem
2 A B Purani
28 The Synthesis Of Yoga
23 Magick Without Tears
17 Liber ABA
13 Agenda Vol 01
11 The Life Divine
11 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
7 Record of Yoga
7 Initiation Into Hermetics
7 Essays On The Gita
7 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
6 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
6 Questions And Answers 1956
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
5 The Secret Doctrine
5 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
4 The Study and Practice of Yoga
4 The Practice of Magical Evocation
4 Questions And Answers 1950-1951
4 Maps of Meaning
4 Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
3 The Human Cycle
3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
3 The Golden Bough
3 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
3 Talks
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
2 The Practice of Psycho therapy
2 Symposium
2 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
2 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
2 Questions And Answers 1954
2 Preparing for the Miraculous
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
2 On the Way to Supermanhood
2 Mysterium Coniunctionis
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
2 How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator
2 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
2 Aion
2 Agenda Vol 10
2 Agenda Vol 02
2 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Ramkumar wanted Sri Ramakrishna to learn the intricate rituals of the worship of Kali. To become a priest of Kali one must undergo a special form of initiation from a qualified guru, and for Sri Ramakrishna a suitable brahmin was found. But no sooner did the brahmin speak the holy word in his ear than Sri Ramakrishna, overwhelmed with emotion, uttered a loud cry and plunged into deep concentration.
Mathur begged Sri Ramakrishna to take charge of the worship in the Kali temple. The young priest pleaded his incompetence and his ignorance of the scriptures. Mathur insisted that devotion and sincerity would more than compensate for any lack of formal knowledge and make the Divine Mother manifest Herself through the image. In the end, Sri Ramakrishna had to yield to Mathur's request. He became the priest of Kali.
--
Totapuri, discovering at once that Sri Ramakrishna was prepared to be a student of Vedanta, asked to initiate him into its mysteries. With the permission of the Divine Mother, Sri Ramakrishna agreed to the proposal. But Totapuri explained that only a sannyasi could receive the teaching of Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna agreed to renounce the world, but with the stipulation that the ceremony of his initiation into the monastic order be performed in secret, to spare the feelings of his old mother, who had been living with him at Dakshineswar.
On the appointed day, in the small hours of the morning, a fire was lighted in the Panchavati. Totapuri and Sri Ramakrishna sat before it. The flame played on their faces. "Ramakrishna was a small brown man with a short beard and beautiful eyes, long dark eyes, full of light, obliquely set and slightly veiled, never very wide open, but seeing half-closed a great distance both outwardly and inwardly. His mouth was open over his white teeth in a bewitching smile, at once affectionate and mischievous. Of medium height, he was thin to emaciation and extremely delicate. His temperament was high-strung, for he was supersensitive to all the winds of joy and sorrow, both moral and physical. He was indeed a living reflection of all that happened before the mirror of his eyes, a two-sided mirror, turned both out and in." (Romain Rolland, Prophets of the New India, pp. 38-9.) Facing him, the other rose like a rock. He was very tall and robust, a sturdy and tough oak. His constitution and mind were of iron. He was the strong leader of men.
--
Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
initiation. Given these I do not hesitate to claim that
in none other of my writings have I given so pro-
--
initiation; one might even say, the Holy Guardian Angel.
[95]
--
Death rides the Camel of initiation.(36)
Thou humped and stiff-necked one that groanest in
--
Paragraph 1 may imply a dogma of death as the highest form of initiation.
initiation is not a simple phenomenon. Any given initiation must take place
on several planes, and is not always conferred on all of these simultaneously.
--
Paragraph 4 identifies the reward of initiation with death; it is a cessation
of all that we call life, in a way in which what we call death is not. 3, silv
--
Paragraph 6 whispers the ultimate and dread secret of initiation into his
ear, identifying the vastness of the Most Holy with the obscene worm that
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
***
0 1958-08-29, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(Note written by Mother after an experience She had during a playground meditation when Swami J.J. was present. It was this swami with whom Satprem journeyed in the Himalayas to receive tantric initiation.)
[Satprem would later part company with this Swami and follow a thorough tantric discipline with another guru who will henceforth be called X in the Agenda.]
--
At the Thursday evening meditation, he appeared as the Guru of Tantric initiation, magnified and seated upon a symbolic representation of the forces and riches of material Nature (in the middle of the playground, to my left), and he put into my hand something sufficiently material for me to feel the vibrations physically, and it had a great realizing power. It was a kind of luminous and very vibrant globe which I held in my hands during the whole meditation.
S, who was sitting in front of me, spontaneously asked me afterwards what I had been holding in my hands during the meditation, and she described it thus: It was round, very soft and luminous like the moon.
0 1958-10-10, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In all religious and especially occult initiations, the ritual of the different ceremonies is prescribed in every detail; all the words pronounced, all the gestures made have their importance, and the least infraction of the rule, the least fault committed can have fatal consequences. It is the same in material lifeif one had the initiation into the true way of living, one could transform physical existence.
If we consider the body as the tabernacle of the Lord, then medical science, for example, becomes the initiatory ritual of the service of the temple, and doctors of all kinds are the officiating priests in the different rituals of worship. Thus, medicine is really a priesthood and should be treated as such.
--
If we could truly, perfectly know all the details of the ceremony of life, the worship of the Lord in physical life, it would be wonderfulto know, and no longer to err, never again to err. To perform the ceremony as perfectly as an initiation.
To know life utterly Oh, there is a very interesting thing in this regard! And its strange, but this particular knowledge reminds me of one of my Sutras1 (which I read out, but no one understood or understood only vaguely, like that):
--
To this has been added a growing initiation into the supramental realization which is (I understand it well now) the perfect union of what comes from above and what comes from below, or in other words, the eternal position and the evolutionary realization.
Then and this becomes rather amusing like lifes play Depending upon each ones nature and position and bias, and because human beings are very limited, very partial and incapable of a global vision, there are those who believe, who have faith, or to whom the eternal Mother is revealed through Grace, who have this kind of relationship with the eternal Mother and there are those who themselves are plunged in sadhana, who have the consciousness of a developed sadhak, and thereby have the same relationship with me as one has with what they generally call a realized soul. Such persons consider me the prototype of the Guru teaching a new way, but the others dont have this relationship of sadhak to Guru (I am taking the two extremes, but of course there are all the possibilities in between), they are only in contact with the eternal Mother and, in the simplicity of their hearts, they expect Her to do everything for them. If they were perfect in this attitude, the eternal Mother would do everything for themas a matter of fact, She does do everything, but as they arent perfect, they cannot receive it totally. But the two paths are very different, the two kinds of relationships are very different; and as we all live according to the law of external things, in a material body, there is a kind of annoyance, an almost irritated misunderstanding, between those who follow this path (not consciously and intentionally, but spontaneously), who have this relationship of the child to the Mother, and those who have this other relationship of the sadhak to the Guru. So it creates a whole play, with an infinite diversity of shades.
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
He said he had received initiation in India (he knew a little Sanskrit and the Rig-Veda thoroughly), and then he formulated a tradition which he called the cosmic tradition and which he claimed to have received I dont know howfrom a tradition anterior to that of the Cabala and the Vedas. But there were many things (Madame Theon was the clairvoyant one, and she received visions; oh, she was wonderful!), many things that I myself had seen and known before knowing them which were then substantiated.
So personally, I am convinced that there was indeed a tradition anterior to both these traditions containing a knowledge very close to an integral knowledge. Certainly, there is a similarity in the experiences. When I came here and told Sri Aurobindo certain things I knew from the occult standpoint, he always said that it conformed to the Vedic tradition. And as for certain occult practices, he told me that they were entirely tantric and I knew nothing at that time, absolutely nothing, neither the Vedas nor the Tantras.
0 1958-11-20, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In any event, one point is clear: it is something that happened in India, and the origin of the karma and the remedy of the karma go together. And it has to do with this initiation you received in Rameswaram.2
So the difficulty and the victory go together. Its very interesting.
0 1958-11-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The other thing was the tantric initiation. But I wanted the conditions of this initiation to be at least as favorable as those in Rameswaram, by which I mean conducted by someone very capable and as far as possible free from the whole formalistic and external side. A TRUE initiationsomeone who would be capable of pulling down the Power and putting you in conditions rigorous enough for you to be able to hold this Power, to receive it and hold it.
As soon as you had left, and since I was following you, I saw that nothing of the kind was going to happen, but rather something very superficial which would not be of much use. And when I received your letters and saw that you were in difficulty, I did something. There are places that are favorable for occult experiences. Benares is one of these places, the atmosphere there is filled with vibrations of occult forces, and if one has the slightest capacity, it spontaneously develops there, in the same way that a spiritual aspiration develops very strongly and spontaneously as soon as one lands in India. These are Graces. Graces, because it is the destiny of the country, it has been so throughout its history, and because India has always been turned much more towards the heights and the inner depths than towards the outer world. Now, it is in the process of losing all that and wallowing in the mud, but thats another story it was like that and it is still like that. And in fact, when you returned from Rameswaram with your robes, I saw with much satisfaction that there was still a GREAT dignity and a GREAT sincerity in this endeavor of the Sannyasis towards the higher life and in the self-giving of a certain number of people to realize this higher life. When you returned, it had become a very concrete and a very real thing that immediately commanded respect. Before, I had seen only a copy, an imitation, an hypocrisy, a pretentionnothing that was really lived. But then, I saw that it was true, that it was lived, that it was real and that it was still Indias great heritage. I dont believe it is very prevalent now, but in any case, it is still there, and as I told you, it commands respect. And then, as I felt you in difficulty and as the outer conditions were not only veiling but spoiling the inner, well, on that day I wrote you a short note I no longer recall when it was exactly, but I wrote you just a word or two, which I put in an envelope and sent you I concentrated very strongly upon those few words and sent you something. I didnt note the date, I dont remember when it was, but its likely that it happened as I wished when you were in Benares; and then you had this experience.
0 1958-11-27 - Intermediaries and Immediacy, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
What interested me is that in their case (those who follow tantric or other initiations), what is doubtful is whether or not they can succeed in receiving the response of the true Power, the divine power, the supreme power; they do everything they can, but this question still remains. Whereas for me, it is the opposite situation: the Power is there, I have it, but how can I make it act here in matter? The process for making it act immediately was missingthough not totally; I know from the psychological standpoint, but there is something other than the psychological power, there is the whole play of conscious, individualized forces that are everywhere in Nature and that have the right to exist. Since it was created this way, it must express something of the supreme Will, otherwise He wouldnt have made use of intermediaries but in His plan, it is obvious that the intermediary has a legitimate place.
It is like the story X told me of his guru2 who could comm and the coming of Kali (something which seems quite natural to me when one is sufficiently developed); well, not only could he commend the coming of Kali, but Kali with I dont know how many crores of her warriors! For me, Kali was Kali, after all, and she did her work; but in the universal organization, her action, the innumerable multiplicity of her action, is expressed by an innumerable multitude of conscious entities at work. It is this individualization, as it were, that gives to these forces a consciousness and a certain play of freedom, and this is what makes all the difference in action. It is in this respect that the occult system is an absolutely indispensable complement to spiritual action.
0 1958-12-24, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Swami told me that the mantra to Durga is intended to pierce through into the subconscient. To complement this work, he does his pujas to Kali, and finally one of his friends, X, the High Priest of the temple in Rameswaram (who presided over my initiation and has great occult powers), has undertaken to say a very powerful mantra over me daily, for a period of eight days, to extirpate the dark forces from my subconscious. The operation already began four days ago. While reciting his mantra, he holds a glass of water in his hand, then he makes me drink it. It seems that on the eighth day, if the enemy has been trapped, this water turns yellow then the operation is over and the poisoned water is thrown out. (I tell you all this because I prefer that you know.) In any event, I like X very much, he is a very luminous, very good man. If I am not delivered after all this!
In truth, I believe only in the Grace. My mantra and all the rest seem to me only little tricks to try to win over your Grace.
0 1958-12-28, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
X is at the summit of tantric initiation, and his power is not the fruit of a simple knowledge. He holds it directly from the Divine, and these things have been in his family traditionally from ten generations. No black magic can resist his power. His action is not brutal, he does not mechanically apply formulas, he holds this Science and knows how to apply it like an expert chemist, always in Light, Love and sweetness. If you agree that he come to see you, he will immediately know the source of these attacks upon you and will even be able to make the attacking force speak. He has this power. Of course, neither X nor Swami will divulge this to anyone, and everything will be kept secret. You have only to send word, or a telegram: No objection.
The work can be done from here also, but naturally it will not be quite as effective. In that case, you would have to set a specific time to synchronize the action in Rameswaram and Pondicherry. Swami can also do something in his pujas. It is for you to decide, but I hope you will not want to prolong this battle unnecessarily.
0 1959-01-14, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
In this regard, perhaps you know that X is the tenth in the line of Bhaskaraya (my spelling of this name is perhaps not correct), the great Tantric of whom you had a vision, who could comm and the coming of Kali along with all her warriors. It is from X that Swami received his initiation.
Your last letter gave us great pleasure, knowing that you have finally recovered physically. But we deeply hope that you will not again take up the countless activities that formerly consumed all your timeso many people come to you egoistically, for prestige, to be able to say that they are on familiar terms with you. You know this, of course
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As for the true tantric initiation, this is what X told me: I will give you initiation. You are fit. You belong to that line. It will come soon, some months or some years. Shortly you shall reach the junction. When the time has come, you yourself will come and open a door in me and I shall give you initiation.1 And he made me understand that an important divine work was reserved for me in the future, a work for the Mother. The important practical point is that I have rapidly to develop my knowledge of Sanskrit. The mantra given to me seems to grow in power as I repeat it.
Sweet Mother, by what Grace have you guided and protected me through all these years? There are moments when I have the vision of this Grace, bringing me to the verge of tears. I see so clearly that you are doing everything, that you are all that is good in me, my aspiration and my strength. Me is all that is bad, all that resists, me is horribly false and falsifying. If your Grace withdraws for one second, I collapse, I am helpless.2 You alone are my strength, the source of my life, the joy and fulfillment to which I aspire.
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This morning, I received your letter I am very happy about all that X is telling you and that he has found you fit to receive the tantric initiation. It was my feeling, I could say my conviction, to which he gives an enlightened confirmation. So all is well.
As for my health and the Ashram, I infinitely appreciate what he has done and what he would like to continue to do. His visit will make me very happy, and if he comes in about one month, a few days before the darshan, there will be no need to find any excuse for his visit, for it will appear quite natural.
0 1959-01-21, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Here is what X told me: I have received a message from my guru.1 In my vision, the Mother was there, next to my guru, and she was smiling. My guru told me that your present difficulties are a period of testing, but I could already give you the first stage of tantric initiation and that for you, the three stages of initiation could be done in an accelerated way.
I will therefore give you initiation this Friday or Saturday, on the day of the full moon or the day before. This first stage will last three months during which you will have to repeat 1 lakh2 times the mantra that I will give you. At the end of three months, I will come to see you in Pondicherryor you will come here for a fortnight, and as soon as I have received the message from my guru, I will give you the second stage that will last three months as well. At the end of these three months, you will receive the full initiation. X warned me that the first stage I am to receive provokes attacks and tests but that all this disappears with the second stage. Forewarned is forearmed. For what reason I do not know, but X told me that the particular nature of my initiation should remain secret and that he will say nothing about it to Swami, and he added (in speaking of the speed of the process), But you will not be less than the Swami. (!!) There, I wanted you to knowbesides, you were present in Xs vision. All this happened at a time when I was in the most desperate crisis I have ever known. Sweet Mother, there is no end to expressing my gratitude to you, and yet with the least trial, I am reduced to nothing. Why have you so much grace for me?
I would like very much to return to Pondicherry for the February Darshan and once again begin working for you. Today I am sending a second lot to Pavitra and tomorrow I will start on the Aphorisms, for I do not want to make you wait any longer. I will send a third and final lot to Pavitra by the end of the month, in time for printing. I am very touched, sweet Mother, by your attention and the money you are sending me.
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About the tantric initiation.
***
0 1959-01-27, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
By a special grace, X gave me both stages of the tantric initiation at the same time, although they are normally separated by several years; then if all goes well, he will give me the full initiation in 6 months. I have thus received a mantra, along with the power of realizing it. X told me that a realization should come at the beginning of the fifth month if I repeat the mantra strictly according to his instructions, but he again told me that the hostile forces would do all they could to prevent me from saying my mantra: mental suggestions and even illness. X has understood that I have work at the Ashram, and he has exempted me from the outer forms (pujas and other rituals), but nevertheless I must repeat my mantra very accurately every day (3,333 times, that is, a little more than 3 hours uninterrupted in the mornings, and more than 2 hours in the evening). I must therefore organize myself in such a way as to get up very early in the morning in Pondicherry, for in no case will your work suffer.
Apart from this, he has not yet entirely finished the work of purging that he has been doing on me for over a month, but I believe that everything will be completed in a short time from now.
0 1960-10-22, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
They were stories, narratives, an entire initiation in the form of stories. There was a lot in it, really a lot. She knew many things. But it was presented in such a way that it was unreadable.
I also wrote one or two things, experiences I had noted down; they were rather interesting, which is why Id like to get them back. I had described some of my visions to Madame Theon, and then she explained their meaning to me. So I would narrate the vision and give its explanation. That was readable and interesting, because there was some symbolism.
0 1960-10-30, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
But I found this interesting, so I began looking, and I LIVED the scene, all kinds of scenes of initiation, worship, etc., for quite some time. When that lifted, a light much stronger than the last time (during the last meditation) came down, in a wonderful silence. (I might add that the first thing I did, at the beginning, was to try to establish a silence around you, to insulate you from other things so as to keep your mind quiet; it kept jumping a little, but once this light came down ) And it came down with a very hieratic quality and (how can I put this?) Egyptian in charactervery occult, very occult, very, very distinct, very specific, like this (gesture indicating a block of silence descending).
And then there came a long moment of absolutely motionless contemplation with something that now escapes meit may come back.
0 1961-01-Undated, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the ego and the ancient religious initiations which taught: 'You are That' or 'You are the All.')
A moment comes when self-observation is no longer possible.
0 1961-02-25, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
You can easily make a speech using flowers and I have noticed that this can effectively replace the old Vedic images, for instance, which no longer hold meaning for us, or the ambiguous phraseology of the ancient initiations. Flower language is much better because it contains the Force and is extremely plasticsince its not formulated in words, each one is free to arrange and receive it according to his own capacity. You can make long speeches using flowers!
I have nothing more to say now, except that the same situation prevails.
0 1965-02-27, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Regarding the Playground Talk of March 10, 1951: In the physical form there is the spirit of the form, and that spirit of the form persists for a time, even when outwardly the person is said to be dead. And as long as the spirit of the form persists, the body isnt destroyed. In ancient Egypt they had that knowledge; they knew that if they prepared the body in a certain way, the spirit of the form wouldnt go away and the body wouldnt be dissolved. In certain cases, they succeeded wonderfully. And if you go and violate the sleep of those beings who for thousands of years have remained like that, I can understand that they arent too pleased, especially when their sleep is violated out of an unhealthy curiosity legitimized by scientific ideas. At the Guimet Museum in Paris, there are two mummies. Nothing remains in one; but in the other, the spirit of the form has remained very conscious, conscious to such a point that you can have a contact of consciousness with it. Its obvious that when a bunch of idiots come and stare at you with round eyes devoid of any understanding, saying, Oh, he is like this, he is like that, its not likely to please you. You know, in the first place they do something odious: those mummies are enclosed in a box with a special shape to fit the person, with everything needed to preserve them; so they open the box with more or less violence, they remove some wrapping here and there to see better. And as ordinary people were never mummified, they were beings who had achieved a considerable inner power, or else members of the royal family, people of some initiation.)
Those things about mummies, I knew them when I was nine or ten, they are memories from that time. I would find again some objects I had used in the past (thats how I was later able to rediscover the track). I had at leastat leastthree incarnations in Egypt (three that have been found).
0 1968-01-12, #Agenda Vol 09, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yes! Thats what this Italian said to me, and he added, That Canadian and his so-called girl, what does it all mean? When I was in the Pacific I was proposed the same sort of initiation: they leave you in a hut with a girl for three days. Is it the same thing in the Ashram?
The girl is beginning to feel disgusted.
0 1969-07-12, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Did you give me the photos of your initiation?
Yes.
0 1969-12-24, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Hes seventy-eight, and his mission is to keep wandering about India, giving initiation to whoever wants it. His method is very simple, he says one just has to repeat the divine Name: Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Krishna Its enough to purify.
Hare Krishna? He does look like a good man!
02.02 - Lines of the Descent of Consciousness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus naturally there appear gradations of the human personality; as the consciousness in the human being rises higher and higher, the psychic centre organises a higher and higher a richer, wider, deeper personality. The first great conversion, the first turning of the human personality to a new mode of life and living, that is to say, living even externally according to the inner truth and reality, the first attempt at a conscious harmonisation of the psychic consciousness with its surface agents and vehicles is what is known as spiritual initiation. This may happen and it does happen even when man lives in his normal mental consciousness. But there is the possibility of growth and evolution and transformation of personality in higher and a higher spiritual degree through the upper reaches of the higher Mind, the varying degrees of the Overmind and finally the Supermind. These are the spheres, the fields, even the continents of the personality, but the stuff, the substance of the personality, the inner nucleus of consciousness-force is formed, first, by the flaming aspiration, the upward drive within the developing and increasing psychic being itself, and secondly, by the descent, to a greater and greater degree, of the original Being from which it emanated. The final coalescence of the fully and integrally developed psychic being with the supreme splendour of its very source, the Jivatman, occurs in the Supermind. When this happens the supramental personality becomes incarnate in the physical body: Matter in the material plane is transformed into a radiant substance made of pure consciousness, the human personality becomes a living form of the Divine. Thus the wheel comes full circle: creation returns to the point from which it started but with an added significance, a new fulfilment.
The mystery of rebirth in the evolution of the human personality is nothing but the mystery of the developing psyche. At first this psyche or soul is truly a being: no bigger than the thumb it is the hardly audible still small voice. The experiences of lifesweet or bitter, happy or unhappy, good or bad, howsoever they may appear to the outward eye and perceptionall the dialectics of a terrestrial existence contri bute to the growth and development of the psychic consciousness. Each span of life means a special degree or mode of growth necessitated by the inner demand and drive of the divine Individual seated within the heart. The whole end in view of this secret soul is to move always towards and be united again with its Oversoul, its original and high archetype in the Divine Consciousness: the entire course of its earthly evolution is chalked out and patterned by the exact need of its growth. Whatever happens in each particular life, all the currents of all the lives converge and coalesce, and serve the psychic consciousness to swell in volume and intensity and be one with the Divine Consciousness. Or, in a different imagery, one can say that the multifarious experiences of various lives are as fuel to the Inner Firethis Psychic Agni which is just a spark or a thin tongue at the outset of the human evolutionary course; but with the addition of fuel from life to life this Fire flames up, indeed, becomes ultimately a conflagration that bums and purifies the entire outer vehicle and transforms it into radiant mattera fit receptacle, incarnation of the supernal Light. The mounting Fire (the consciousness-energy secreted in the earth-bound heart of Matter) finally flares up, discloses itself in its full amplitude and calls and attracts into it the incandescent supramental Solar Sphere which is the type and pattern it has to embody and express. This is the marriage of Heaven and Earth, of which the mystics all over the earth in all ages spoke and sangto which the Vedic Rishi refers when he declares:
02.02 - The Message of the Atomic Bomb, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In one sense certainly there has been a progress. This march of machinery, this evolution of tools means man's increasing mastery over Nature, even though physical nature. The primitive man like the animal is a slave, a puppet driven helplessly by Nature's forces. Both lead more or less a life of reflex action: there is here no free, original initiation of action or movement. The slow discovery of Nature's secrets, the gradual application and utilisation of these secrets in actual life meant, first, a liberation of man's conscious being originally imbedded in Nature's inertial movements, and then, a growing power to react upon Nature and mould and change it according to the will of the conscious being. The result at the outset was a release and organisation on the mental level, in the domain of reason and intelligence. Of course, man found at once that this increasing self-consciousness and self-power meant immense possibilities for good, but, unfortunately, for evil also. And so to guard against the latter contingency, rules and regulations were framed to control and canalise the new-found capacities. The Dharma of the Kshatriya, the honour of the Samurai, the code of Chivalry, all meant that. The power to kill was sought to be checked and restrained by such injunctions as, for example, not to hit below the belt, not to fight a disarmed or less armed opponent and so on. The same principle of morals and manners was maintained and continued through the centuries with necessary changes and modifications in application and finds enshrined today in International Covenants and Conventions.
But a new situation has arisen for some time past. The last Great War (World War No. I) was crucial in many ways in the life of humanity. It opened a new direction of man's growth, opened and then closed also apparently. I am referring to the tragedy of the League of Nations. That was an attempt on the part of man (and Nature) to lift the inner life and consciousness to the level of the outer achievements. The attempt failed. Man could not rise to the height demanded of him. Now the second World War became logically more devastating and shattering; it has given the go-by to all ethical standards and codes of honour. The poison gas was not used not because of any moral restraint or disinclination, but because of practical and utilitarian considerations. The Atom Bomb, however, has spoken the word.
That word is a warning that unless man changes, becomes master of himself, he cannot be truly master of the world. He cannot comm and the forces he has unleashed unless he has comm and over his own nature. The external immensity, the bloated mass that his physical attainments are, unless armoured and animated by an inner growth, will crash by its own weight. The mammoth, the mastodon, the huge pachyderms, in spite of, rather because of their inordinately one-sided growth could not stand the demand of life and perished. Likewise man will not possess the world but the world will engulf and devour him in its aboriginal hunger of unconsciousness, if he does not take a right-about turn and declare his conversion. The Frankenstein that man has raised can no longer be met by merely human devicesreason and morals but by a higher discovery and initiation.
The Bomb has shaken the physical atmosphere of the earth as no other engine has done. It has shaken the moral atmosphere too not in a lesser degree. Reason and moral sense could not move man, so Fear has been sent by the Divine Grace. Dante said that God created Hell in his mood of infinite love and justice that seems to be the inevitable gate through which one has to pass to arrive at the Divine. We are indeed in hell today upon earth, a worse can hardly be tolerated.
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Lines of the Descent of Consciousness The New Year initiation
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part TwoAn Aspect of Emergent Evolution
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Lines of the Descent of Consciousness The New Year initiation
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We have said individual or personal worth should be the chief concern of the social governance, to bring it to birth, to maintain and foster it is its principal function. This means naturally freedom, but not the freedom that is demanded by the individualist as against the socialist or the collectivist. For there freedom means freedom for competition and rivalry, freedom for the egos, for selfish interests to fight and battle and survive who can. That is the motto of the competitive society in which we have been living for some time past. That system has become intolerable and hence all the seismic troubles in society today. What is needed is real freedom. For it is easy to see that under the competitive system the apparent freedom is only apparent, a make-believe. It is not freedom, that is to say, free choice and initiation that can work here, it is the pressure from rivals, the impact of adverse circumstances that determine one's will and choice. In the second place, it is not the deeper urges or capacities that are touched and awakened in this way, it is the superficial impulses and preoccupations that find a vent. Man is here only a link in a chain of reactions over which he has hardly any real control: one's decision is limited by conditions beyond one's reach, one's hands are forced, as the common phrase goes.
The problem then is this: how to arrive at the inner freedom, how to contact the inner man, the true person and personality? For we are aiming at nothing less than the Soul, the Self, the Divine in man, God's purpose in the Individual, the Individual as God's instrument. That is the beau idal, so to say, in the human personality which all schemes of social reconstruction must have constantly in view.
03.01 - The New Year Initiation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:03.01 - The New Year initiation
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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An Aspect of Emergent Evolution Yogic initiation and Aptitude
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part ThreeThe New Year initiation
The New Year initiation
1944
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An Aspect of Emergent Evolution Yogic initiation and Aptitude
03.02 - Yogic Initiation and Aptitude, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:03.02 - Yogic initiation and Aptitude
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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The New Year initiation Arjuna or the Ideal Disciple
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part ThreeYogic initiation and Aptitude
Yogic initiation and Aptitude
In the practice of Yoga a condition precedent is usually laid down: it is called adhikra, aptitude, fitness or capacity. Everybody does not possess this aptitude, it is urged, and; cannot take to a life of Yoga at one's sweet will. There must be a preparation, certain rules and regulations must be observed, some discipline must be followed and one must acquire certain qualities or qualifications, must reach a particular stage and degree, rise to a particular level of life and consciousness before one can successfully face the spiritual problem. It is not everyone that has a laisser-passer, a free pass to enter the city or citadel of the spirit.
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Shankara, at the very outset of his commentary on the Sutras, in explaining the very first words, speaks of a fourfold sadhana to acquire fitnessfitness, we may take it, for understanding the Sutras and the commentary and naturally for attaining the Brahman. It seems therefore to be an absolute condition that one must first acquire fitness, develop the right and adequate capacity before one should think of spiritual initiation.
The question, however, can be raised the moderns do raise it and naturally in the present age of science and universal educationwhy should not all men equally have the right to spiritual sadhana? If spirituality is the highest truth for man, his greatest good, his supreme ideal, then to deny it to anyone on the ground, for example, of his not being of the right caste, class, creed, or sex, to keep anyone at a distance on such or similar grounds is unreasonable, unjust, reprehensible. These notions, however, are born of a sentimental or idealistic or charitable disposition, but unfortunately they do not stand the impact of the realities of life. If you simply claim a thing or even if you possess a lawful right to a worthy object, you do not acquire thereby the capacity to enjoy it. Were it so, there would be no such thing as mal-assimilation. In the domain of spiritual sadhana there are any number of cases of defective metabolism. Those that have fallen, strayed from the Path, become deranged or even have had to leave the body, make up a casualty list that is not small. They were misfits, they came by their fate, because they encroached upon a thing they were not actually entitled to, they were dragged into a secret, a mystery to which their being was insensible.
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In the practice of Yoga the fitness or capacity that the inner being thus lends is the only real capacity that a sadhaka possesses; and the natural, spontaneous, self-sufficing initiation deriving from the inner being is the only initiation that is valid and fruitful. initiation does not mean necessarily an external rite or ceremony, a mantra, an auspicious day or moment: all these things are useless and irrelevant once we take our stand on the au thentic self-competence of the soul. The moment the inner being has taken the decision that this time, in this life, in this very body, it will manifest itself, take possession of the body and life and mind and wait no more, at that moment itself all mantra has been uttered and all initiation taken. The disciple has made the final and definitive offering of his heart to his Guru the psychic Guruand sought refuge in him and the Guru too has definitely accepted him.
Mantra or initiation, in its essence, is nothing else than contacting the inner being. In our Path, at least, there is no other rite or rule, injunction or ceremony. The only thing needed is to awake to the consciousness of the psychic being, to hear its callto live and move and act every moment of our life under the eye of this indwelling Guide, in accordance with its direction and impulsion. Our initiation is not therefore a one-time affair only; but at every moment, at each step, it has to be taken again and again, it must be renewed, revitalised, furthered and streng thened constantly and unceasingly; for it means that at each step and at every moment we have to maintain the contact of our external consciousness with the inner being; at each step and every moment we have to undergo the test of our sincerity and loyalty the test whether we are tending to our inner being, moving in its stream or, on the contrary, walking the way of our external animal nature, whether the movements in the mind and life and body are controlled by their habitual inferior nature or are open to and unified with their hidden divine source. This recurrent and continuous initiation is at the secret basis of all spiritual disciplinein the Integral Yoga this is the one and all-important principle.
Mundaka, Ill. 2. 4
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The New Year initiation Arjuna or the Ideal Disciple
03.03 - Arjuna or the Ideal Disciple, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yogic initiation and Aptitude The Body Human
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part ThreeArjuna or the Ideal Disciple
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What makes a true disciple? For it is not everyone that can claim or be worthy of or meet the demands of the title. Disciplehood, like all great qualities, that is to say, qualities taken at their source and origin, is a function of the soul. Indeed, it is the soul itself coming up and asking for it'! native divine status; it is the call of the immortal in the mortal, the voice of the inmost being rising above the clamours and lures of the world, above the hungers and ties of one's own nature. When that rings out clear and unmistakable, the Divine reveals Himself as the Guru, the Path is shown and the initiation given. Even such a cry was Arjuna's when he said: iyaste ham sdhi mm twam prapannamit is a most poignant utterance in which the whole being bursts forth as it were, and delivers itself of all that it needs and of all that it gives. It needs the Illumination: it can no longer bear the darkness and confusion of Ignorance in which it is entangled; and it gives itself whole and entire, absolutely and without reserve, throws itself simply at the mercy of the Divine. Arjuna fulfils, as very few can so completely, the fundamental conditions the sine qua nonof discipleship.
A certain modern critic, however, demurs. He asks why Arjuna was chosen in preference to Yudhisthira and doubts the wisdom and justice of the choice (made by Sri Krishna or the author of the Gita). Is not the eldest of the Pandavas also the best? He possesses in every way a superior dhra. He has knowledge and wisdom; he is free from passions, calm and self-controlled; he always acts according to the dictates of what is right and true. He is not swayed by the impulses of the moment or by considerations relating to his personal self; serene and unruffled he seeks to fashion his conduct by the highest possible standard available to him. That is why he is called dharmarja. If such a one is not to be considered as an ideal disciple, who else can be?
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Yogic initiation and Aptitude The Body Human
03.07 - Brahmacharya, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
We do not speak of Brahmacharya in relation to a child. The discipline can be taken up only when the body and the consciousness have attained a certain degree of growth and development. A child grows in the full free play of its life movements: the care or attention of others should weigh upon it as lightly as possible, maintaining only an atmosphere of happy influence and protection. The transition from the stage of free play to conscious control is marked in Indian society by the ceremony of upanayana, the first approach or initiation: it is the beginning of the life of Brahmacharya.
It must be understood that this discipline is not merely for those who wish to follow a religious or spiritual life, but for all without exception. Brahmacharya is the first ashrama, order or stage of life with which one begins one's organisation of life; one has to pass through it to others leading to greater and higher degrees of fulfilment. It forms the foundation, prepares the necessary ground upon which the life structure can safely be raised and maintained. It is the secret fund of strength, the source of pure energies that vitalises life, enhances its values, makes it worth living.
03.08 - The Spiritual Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The spiritual consciousness dawns precisely with the rejection of this monomania, this obsession of one-track mentality. It means, in other words, nothing les than coming out of the shell of one's egoism. To be able thus to come out of oneself, enter into others' consciousness, see things as others see them, that is the great initiation, the true beginning of the life of the spirit. For the Spirit is the truth of all things: all things, even what appears evil and reprehensible, exist and have their play because of a core of truth and force of truth in each. Mind and mind's external consciousness and practical drive compel one to take to a single line of perception and action and that which is more or less superficial and immediately necessary. But it is only when one withdraws from the drive' of Maya and gets behind, gets behind all opposing views and standpoints and tries to see what is the underlying truth that seeks to manifest in each that one enters the gateway of the spiritual consciousness.
The spiritual consciousness is global, not in the sense that it is eclectic, that is to say, the sum-total of all the superficial views, but in the sense that it experiences the one dynamic truth that underlies all and which manifests its varying powers and potentials in various objects and forces, expressing itself in multiple standpoints and modes and angles of vision.
03.10 - Hamlet: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Hamlet thus seems to fall upon the teaching of samatequanimitywith which the Gitabegins Arjuna's initiation into the secret of Deliverance. He has had a glimpse of the divine portals from a distance; but he did not know how to proceed in the straight and narrow path; he is diverted into an Asuric handling of the forces of lower nature and is himself broken in the process.
A poignant vision or experience of evil in God's world which otherwise appears so work living in, the perception of the canker in the rose, has been the turning-point of many a destiny. It has been the occasion of the birth of saints and sages, souls that have traversed beyond and found the solution of the enigma. It has also hurled back into confusion and ruin souls that faced the Sphinx but could not answer her riddlesuch, for example, as were Hamlet and Faust.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Turning to India we find a fuller and completerif not a globalpicture of the whole movement. India, we may say, is the spiritual world itself: and she epitomised the curve of human progress in a clearer and more significant manner. Indian history, not its political but its cultural and spiritual history, divides itself naturally into great movements with corresponding epochs each dwelling upon and dealing with one domain in the hierarchy of man's consciousness. The stages and epochs are well known: they are(l) Vedic, (2) Upanishadic, (3) Darshanasroughly from Buddha to Shankara, (4) Puranic, (5) Bhagavataor the Age of Bhakti, and finally (6) the Tantric. The last does not mean that it is the latest revelation, the nearest to us in time, but that it represents a kind of complementary movement, it was there all along, for long at least, and in which the others find their fruition and consummation. We shall explain presently. The force of consciousness that came and moved and moulded the first and the earliest epoch was Revelation. It was a power of direct vision and occult will and cosmic perception. Its physical seat is somewhere behind and or just beyond the crown of the head: the peak of man's manifest being that received the first touch of Surya Savitri (the supreme Creative Consciousness) to whom it bowed down uttering the invocation mantra of Gayatri. The Ray then entered the head at the crown and illumined it: the force of consciousness that ruled there is Intuition, the immediate perception of truth and reality, the cosmic consciousness gathered and concentrated at that peak. That is Upanishadic knowledge. If the source and foundation of the Vedic initiation was occult vision, the Upanishad meant a pure and direct Ideation. The next stage in the coming down or propagation of the Light was when it reached further down into the brain and the philosophical outlook grew with rational understanding and discursive argumentation as the channel for expression, the power to be cultivated and the limb to be developed. The Age of the Darshanas or Systems of Philosophy started with the Buddha and continued till it reached its peak in Shankaracharya. The age sought to give a bright and strong mental, even an intellectual body to the spiritual light, the consciousness of the highest truth and reality. In the Puranic Age the vital being was touched by the light of the spirit and principally on the highest, the mental level of that domain. It meant the advent of the element of feeling and emotiveness and imagination into the play of the Light, the beginning of their reclamation. This was rendered more concrete and more vibrant and intense in the next stage of the movement. The whole emotional being was taken up into the travailing crucible of consciousness. We may name it also as the age of the Bhagavatas, god-lovers, Bhaktas. It reached its climax in Chaitanya whose physical passion for God denoted that the lower ranges of the vital being (its physical foundations) were now stirred in man to awake and to receive the Light. Finally remains the physical, the most material to be worked upon and made conscious and illumined. That was the task of the Tantras. Viewed in that light one can easily understand why especial stress was laid in that system upon the esoteric discipline of the five m's (pancha makra),all preoccupied with the handling and harnessing of the grossest physical instincts and the most material instruments. The Tantric discipline bases itself upon Nature Power coiled up in Matter: the release of that all-conquering force through a purification and opening into the consciousness of the Divine Mother, the transcendent creatrix of the universe. The dynamic materialising aspect of consciousness was what inspired the Tantras: the others forming the Vedantic line, on the whole, were based on the primacy of the static being, the Purusha, aloof and withdrawing.
The Indian consciousness, we say, presented the movement as an intensive and inner, a spiritual process: it dealt with the substance itself, man's very nature and sought to know it from within and shape it consciously. In Europe where the frontal consciousness is more stressed and valued, the more characteristic feature of its history is the unfoldment and metamorphosis of the forms and expressions, the residuary powers, as it were, of man's evolving personality, individual and social.
05.26 - The Soul in Anguish, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It seems that the School of Anguish is on the borderl and between the second and the third stage, that is to say, the vital rising into the mental or the mental still carrying an impress of the vital consciousness. It is the emergence of the Purusha consciousness, the individual being in its heart of hearts, in its pure status: for it is that that truly evolves, progresses from level to level, deploying and marshalling according to its stress and scheme the play of its outward nature. Now the Purusha consciousness, as separate from the outward nature, has certain marked characteristics which have been fairly observed and comprehended by the exponents of the school we are dealing with. Sartre, for example, characterises this beingtre en soi, as distinguished from tre pour soi which is something like dynamic purusha or purusha identified or associated with prakrtias composed of the sense of absolute freedom, of full responsibility, of unhindered choice and initiation. Indeed, Purusha is freedom, for in its own status it means liberation from all obligations to Prakriti. But such freedom brings in its train, not necessarily always but under certain conditions, a terrible sense of being all alone, of infinite loneliness. One is oneself, naked and face to face with one's singleness and unbreakable, unsharable individual unity. The others come as a product or corollary to this original sui generisentity. Along with the sense of freedom and choice or responsibility and loneness, there is added and gets ingrained into it the sense of fear and anxiety the anguish (Angst). The burden that freedom and loneliness brings seems to be too great. The Purusha that has risen completely into the mental zone becomes wholly a witness, as the Sankhyans discovered, and all the movements of his nature appear outside, as if foreign: an absolute calm and unperturbed tranquillity or indifference is his character. But it is not so with regard to the being that has still one foot imbedded in the lower region of the vital consciousness; for that indeed is the proper region of anguish, of fear and apprehension, and it is there that the soul becoming conscious of itself and separate from others feels lone, lonely, companionless, without support, as it were. The mentalised vital Purusha suffers from this peculiar night of the soul. Sartre's outlook is shot through with very many experiences of this intermediary zone of consciousness.
The being immersed in Prakriti, as normally it is, in relation and communion with others, may entertain as a pleasure and luxury, the illusion of its separateness and freedom: it can do so at ease, because it feels it has the secret support of its environment, it is courageous because it feels itself in good company. But once it rises out of the environmental level and stands truly apart and outside itit is the mental being which can do so more or less successfully the first feeling is that of freedom, no doubt, but along with it there is also the uncanny sense of isolation, of heavy responsibility, also a certain impotence, a loss of bearings. The normal Cartesian Co-ordinates, as it were, are gone and the being does not know where to look for the higher multi-dimensional co-ordinates. That is the real meaning of the Anguish which suddenly invades a being at a certain stage of his ascending consciousness.
09.02 - Meditation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Collective meditation, of which the most external form is collective prayer, has been practised since ancient times for different reasons, in different ways, and with different purposes. Groups of persons, whether belonging to the same Church or not, come together to express a common feeling; in certain cases, it is to sing together in praise of God, to chant a hymn of gratitude, expressing love, adoration, thankfulness. In other cases,there are many historical examples of thispeople gather together for a common invocation, to ask something from the Divine in the hope that a prayer done collectively will have more effect than an individual prayer. Thus, in Europe prophets announced that in the year one thousand of grace there would be the end of the world; everywhere crowds assembled to implore the divine protection and to pray that the catastrophe might be averted. More recently in modern times, when the king of England, George VI, had an attack of pneumonia and was almost on the point of death, the British people gathered not only in churches but even in the streets in front of the royal palace, to pray in common and to ask God to save their king. This is of course a most external form, I could say, a most worldly meditation in community. Besides, in all groups of initiation, in all spiritual schools of ancient times and naturally in modern times also, meditation in community has always been practised; here the purpose is evidently very different. People gather together to make a collective progress, to open themselves to a force, a light and an influence; it is somewhat like that which we all try to do here. There are two ways to proceed, and both are excellent. For individual meditation, first of all, one must prepare to meditate, that is to say, after sitting down in a posture, at the same time comfortable enough not to be too cramped, and not too comfortable either lest you should fall asleep, one establishes the calm and the silence, not only externally but internally and then one gathers as far as possible one's consciousness which is generally dispersed in all kinds of thoughts and preoccupations. One brings back the consciousness as completely as one can, and concentrates it in the region of the heart, towards the solar plexus, so that all the active energies which are in the head, all which make the brain active are turned and concentrated on this point. This may be done in a few seconds, or in a few minutes. It depends upon each one; when you have prepared yourself in this way, you have the choice between two attitudes: active and passive.
What I call an active attitude is to concentrate on the person who guides the meditation with the will to open yourself to receive what is being given to you or to the force with which you are put in contact. It is active, because here there is a will which acts and an active concentration to open yourself to someone or something.
1.00a - DIVISION A - THE INTERNAL FIRES OF THE SHEATHS., #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The subject of the blending of these two fires, which is complete in a normal and healthy person, should engross the attention of the modern physician. He will then concern himself with the removal of nerve congestion or material congestion, so as to leave a free channel for the inner warmth. This blending, which is now a natural and usual growth in every human being, was one of the signs of attainment or of initiation in an earlier solar system. Just as initiation and liberation are marked in this solar system by the blending of the fires of the body, of the mind and of the Spirit, so in an earlier cycle attainment was marked by the blending of the latent fires of matter with the radiatory or active fires, and then their union with the fires of mind. In the earlier period the effects in manifestation of the divine Flame were so remote and deeply hidden as to be scarcely recognisable, though dimly there. Its correspondence can be seen in the animal kingdom, in which instinct holds the intuition in latency, [58] and the Spirit dimly overshadows. Yet all is part of a divine whole.
The subject of the radiatory heat of the macrocosmic and microcosmic systems will be dealt with in detail in a later subdivision. Here we will only deal with the latent interior fire of the
1.00a - Introduction, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
IV. In initiation from the grade of Neophyte to that of Zelator, one passes by this way. The main work is to obtain admission to, and control of, the astral plane.
Your expressions about "purifying the feelings" and so on are rather vague to enter into a scientific system like ours. The result which you doubtless refer to is attained automatically in the course of your experiments. Your very soon discover the sort of state of mind which is favourable or unfavourable to the work, and you also discover what is helpful and harmful to these states in your way of life. For instance, the practice like the non-receiving of gifts is all right for a Hindu whose mind is branded for ten thousand incarnations by the shock of accepting a cigarette or a cup of tea. Incidentally, most of the Eastern cults fall down when they come West, simply because they make no allowance for our different temperaments. Also they set tasks which are completely unsuitable to Europeans an immense amount of disappointment has been caused by failure to recognize these facts.
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"Osiris in Amennti" see the Book of the Dead. I meant you might try to trace a parallelism between his journeyings and the Path of initiation.
Astral travel development of the Astral Body is essential to research; and, above all, to the attainment of "the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel."
1.00b - DIVISION B - THE PERSONALITY RAY AND FIRE BY FRICTION, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The effect which they have is threefold, but is not simultaneous; they work ever, as do all things in Nature, in ordered cycles. The stimulation, for instance, that is the result of the action of the monadic Ray upon the mental unit is only felt when the aspirant treads the Path, or after he has taken the first initiation. The action of the egoic Ray upon the astral permanent atom is felt as soon as the Ego can make good connection with the physical brain; when this is so the egoic ray is beginning to affect the atom powerfully and continuously; this occurs when a man is highly evolved and is nearing the Path. This threefold force is felt in the following way:
First. It plays upon the wall of the atom as an external force and affects its rotary and vibratory action.
1.00b - Introduction, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In reality, magic is a sacred science, it is, in the very true sense the sum of all knowledge because it teaches how to know and utilize the sovereign rules. There is no difference between magic and mystic or any other conception of the name. Wherever au thentic initiatio n is at stake, one has to proceed on the same basis, according to the same rules, irrespective of the name given by this or that creed. Considering the universal polarity rules of good and evil, active and passive, light and shadow, each science can serve good as well as bad purposes. Let us take the example of a knife, an object that virtually ought to be used for cutting bread only, which, however, can become a dangerous weapon in the hands of a murderer. All depends on the character of the individual. This principle goes just as well for all the spheres of the occult sciences. In my book I have chosen the term of magician for all of my disciples, it being a symbol of the deepest initiation and the highest wisdom.
Many of the readers will know, of course, that the word tarot does not mean a game of cards, serving mantical purposes, but a symbolic book of initiation which contains the greatest secrets in a symbolic form. The first tablet of this book introduces the magician representing him as the master of the elements and offering the key to the first Arcanum, the secret of the ineffable name of Tetragrammaton*, the quabbalistic
Yod-He-Vau-He. Here we will, therefore, find the gate to the magicians initiation.
The reader will easily realize, how significant and how manifold the application of this tablet is. Not one of the books published up to date does describe the true sense of the first Tarot card so distinctly as I have done in my book. It is let it be noted born from the own practice and destined for the practical use of a lot of other people, and all my disciples have found it to be the best and most serviceable system.
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But I would never dare to say that my book describes or deals with all the magic or mystic problems. If anyone should like to write all about this sublime wisdom, he ought to fill folio volumes. It can, however, be affirmed positively that this work is indeed the gate to the true initiation, the first key to using the universal rules. I am not going to deny the fact of fragments being able to be found in many an authors publications, but not in a single book will the reader find so exact a description of the first Tarot card.
I have taken pains to be as plain as possible in the course of the lectures to make the sublime Truth accessible to everybody, although it has been a hard task sometimes to find such simple words as are necessary for the understanding of all the readers. I must leave it to the judgment of all of you, whether or not my efforts have been successful. At certain points I have been forced to repeat myself deliberately to emphasize some important sentences and to spare the reader any going back to a particular page.
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
There is a close connection between the spleen and the top of the head in connection with the etheric body. The organ of the spleen has an interesting correspondence to the umbilical cord which attaches an infant to the mother for purposes of nourishment, and which is separated at birth. When a man starts to live his own life of conscious desire, when a man is born into a new world of a subtler form of life, that interlaced cord of etheric matter (which had united him to his physical body) is broken; the "silver cord is loosed" and the man severs his connection with the dense physical body and passes out through the highest center of the body instead of the lowest to life in a higher world and of another dimension. So it will be found in all the bodies and sheaths of the microcosm, for the analogy will persist on all planes during manifestation. When more scientific knowledge has been gained it will be found that the same procedure on a larger scale, takes place in planetary manifestation. A planet is but the body of a planetary Logos, that body being etheric, and the Logos expressing Himself through it and building upon the etheric scaffolding a vehicle of manifestation. The MOON once was the body of expression for one of the Logoi; the Earth now is, and the cycles change continuously. The centre of escape for the etheric body is found likewise in a physical planet, and the planetary silver cord is loosed at the time appointed; but the times and cycles, their commencement and termination are hid in the mysteries of initiation, and do not concern us.
Again in the solar system itself similar action will eventuate at the close of a Mahamanvantara. The Logos will withdraw within Himself, abstracting His three major principles. [xxxvii]37 His body of manifestation the Sun [87] and the seven sacred Planets, all existing in etheric matterwill withdraw from objectivity and become obscured. From the usual physical standpoint, the light of the system will go out. This will be succeeded by a gradual inbreathing until He shall have gathered all unto Himself; the etheric will cease to exist, and the web will be no more. Full consciousness will be achieved, and in the moment of achievement existence or entified manifestation will cease. All will be reabsorbed within the Absolute; pralaya, [xxxviii]38 or the cosmic heaven of rest will then ensue, and the Voice of the Silence will be heard no more. The reverberations of the WORD will die away, and the "Silence of the High Places" will reign supreme.
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We might here note a fact of interest, though of a mystery insoluble as yet to most of us, and that is, that these destructions by fire are part of the tests by fire of an initiation of that one of the Heavenly Men Whose karma is bound up with our earth.
Each destruction of a portion of the web results in a greater facility of exit, and is in reality (when seen from the higher planes) a step forward and an expansion. A repetition of this takes place likewise in the system at the stated cycles.
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Second. The four Lipikas of the second group, referred to by H. P. B. as occupied in applying future karma, and wielding the future destiny of the races. The work of the first group of four cosmic Lipika Lords is occult and is only revealed somewhat at the fourth initiation (and even then but slightly) so it will not be touched upon here.
Third. The fourth Creative Hierarchy of human Monads, held by a fourfold karmic law under the guidance of the Lipikas.
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When a man takes the fourth initiation, he functions in the fourth plane vehicle, the buddhic, and has escaped permanently from the personality ring-pass-not, on the fourth subplane of the mental. There is naught to hold him to the three worlds. At the first initiation he escapes from the ring-pass-not in a more temporary sense, but he has yet to escape from the three higher mental levels, which are the mental correspondences to the higher ethers, and to develop full consciousness on these three higher subplanes. We have here a correspondence to the work to be done by the initiate after he has achieved the fourth solar plane, the buddhic. There yet remains the development of full consciousness on the three higher planes of spirit before he can escape from the solar ring-pass-not, which is achieved at the seventh initiation, taken somewhere in the system, or in its cosmic correspondence reached by the cosmic sutratma, or cosmic thread of life [liii]51
This fourth earth chain is in this connection one of the most important, for it is the appointed place for the domination of the etheric body by the human monad, with the aim in view of both human and planetary escape from limitations. This earth chain, though not one of the seven sacred planetary chains, is of vital importance at this time to the planetary Logos, who temporarily employs it as a medium of incarnation, and of expression. This fourth round finds the solution of its strenuous and chaotic life in the very simple fact of the shattering of [115] the etheric web in order to effect liberation, and permit a later and more adequate form to be employed.
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k. It is to be observed that just as in man the dense physical body in its three gradesdense, liquid and gaseousis not recognised as a principle, so in the cosmic sense the physical (dense) astral (liquid) and mental (gaseous) levels are likewise regarded as non-existing, and the solar system has its location on the fourth ether. The seven sacred planets are composed of matter of this fourth ether, and the seven Heavenly Men, whose bodies they are, function normally on the fourth plane of the system, the buddhic or the fourth cosmic ether. When man has attained the consciousness of the buddhic plane, he has raised his consciousness to that of the Heavenly Man in whose body he is a cell. This is achieved at the fourth initiation, the liberating initiation. At the fifth initiation he ascends with the Heavenly Man on to the fifth plane (from the human standpoint), the atmic, and at the sixth he has dominated the second cosmic ether and has monadic consciousness and continuity of function. At the seventh initiation he dominates the entire sphere of matter contained in the lowest cosmic plane, escapes from all etheric contact, and functions on the cosmic astral plane.
The past solar system saw the surmounting of the three lowest cosmic physical planes viewed from the matter standpoint and the co-ordination of the dense threefold physical form in which all life is found, dense matter, liquid matter, gaseous matter. A correspondence may be seen here in the work achieved in the first three rootraces. [lviii]56, [lix]57
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It produces a quickening of the normal vibration of the physical body so that it responds with more readiness to the higher note of the Ego, and causes a steady rising of the blending fires through the threefold channel in the spinal column. In the second stage this vitalising blended fire reaches a centre between the lower part of the shoulder blades, which is the point of conjunction, and of complete merging, of the fire from the base of the [124] spine and the fire circulating along the pranic triangle. It will be remembered how one point of this triangle originates there. When the threefold basic fire and the threefold pranic fire meet and merge, then evolution proceeds with greatly increased velocity. This is effected definitely at the first initiation when the polarisation becomes fixed in one or other of the three higher centres,which centre being dependent upon a man's ray.
The result of this merging leads to a change in the action of the centres. They become "wheels turning upon themselves," and from a purely rotary movement become fourth dimensional in action, and manifest as radiant whirling centres of living fire.
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As time elapses between the first and fourth initiation, the threefold channel in the spine, and the entire etheric body is gradually cleansed and purified by the action of the fire till all "dross" (as the Christian expresses it) is burnt away, and naught remains to impede the progress of this flame.
As the fire of kundalini and prana proceed with their work, and the channel becomes more and more cleared, the centres more active, and the body purer, the flame [125] of spirit, or the fire from the Ego, comes more actively downwards till a flame of real brilliance issues from the top of the head. This flame surges upwards through the bodies towards its source, the causal body.
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The three first initiations see these results perfected, [126] and lead to the fourth, where the intensity of the united fires results in the complete burning away of all barriers, and the liberation of the Spirit by conscious directed effort from out its threefold lower sheath. Man has consciously to bring about his own liberation. These results are self-induced by the man himself, as he is emancipated from the three worlds, and has broken the wheel of rebirth himself instead of being broken upon it.
It will be apparent from this elucidation that the exceeding importance of the etheric vehicle as the separator of the fires has been brought forward, and consequently we have brought to our notice the dangers that must ensue should man tamper injudiciously, ignorantly or wilfully with these fires.
1.00d - DIVISION D - KUNDALINI AND THE SPINE, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The other fire of matter (the dual fire) is attracted upward, and merges with the fire of mind through a junction effected at the alta major centre. This centre is situated at the base of the skull, and there is a slight gap between this centre and the point at which the fires of matter issue from the spinal channel. Part of the work the man who is developing thought power has to do, is to build a temporary channel in etheric matter to bridge the gap. This channel is the reflection in physical matter of the antaskarana [lxv]63 that the Ego has to build in order to bridge the gap between the lower and higher mental, between the causal vehicle on the third subplane of the mental plane, and the manasic permanent atom on the first subplane. This is the work that all advanced thinkers are unconsciously doing now. When the gap is completely [138] bridged, man's body becomes co-ordinated with the mental body and the fires of mind and of matter are blended. It completes the perfecting of the personality life, and as earlier said, this perfecting brings a man to the portal of initiation initiation being the seal set upon accomplished work; it marks the end of one lesser cycle of development, and the beginning of the transference of the whole work to a still higher spiral.
We must always bear in mind that the fires from the base of the spine and the splenic triangle are fires of matter. We must not lose this recollection nor get confused. They have no spiritual effect, and concern themselves solely with the matter in which the centres of force are located. These centres of force are always directed by manas or mind, or by the conscious effort of the indwelling entity; but that entity is held back in the effects he seeks to achieve until the vehicles through which he is seeking expression, and their directing, energising centres, make adequate response. Hence it is only in due course of evolution, and when the matter of these vehicles is energised sufficiently by its own latent fires that he can accomplish his long-held purpose. Hence again the need of the ascension of the fire of matter to its own place, and its resurrection from its long burial and seeming prostitution before it can be united with its Father in Heaven, the third Logos, Who is the Intelligence of matter itself. The correspondence, again, holds good. Even the atom of the physical plane has its goal, its initiations and its ultimate triumph.
Other angles of this subject, such as the centres and their relationship to manas, the fire of Spirit and manas, and the eventual blending of the three fires, will be dealt with in our next two main divisions. In this division we are confining ourselves to the study of matter and fire, and must not digress, or confusion will ensue.
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No more can be imparted concerning this subject. He who directs his efforts to the control of the fires of matter, is (with a dangerous certainty) playing with a fire that may literally destroy him. He should not cast his eyes backwards, but should lift them to the plane where dwells his immortal Spirit, and then by self-discipline, mind-control and a definite refining of his material bodies, whether subtle or physical, fit himself to be a vehicle for the divine birth, and participate in the first initiation. When the Christ-child (as the Christian so beautifully expresses it) has been born in the cave of the heart, then that divine guest can consciously control the lower material bodies by means of consecrated mind. Only when buddhi has assumed an ever-increasing control [140] of the personality, via the mental plane (hence the need of building the antaskarana), will the personality respond to that which is above, and the lower fires mount and blend with the two higher. Only when Spirit, by the power of thought, controls the material vehicles, does the subjective life assume its rightful place, does the God within shine and blaze forth till the form is lost from sight, and "The path of the just shine ever more and more until the day be with us."
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
5. The centres and initiation.
I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS
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This subject of the first Logos, manifesting only in connection with the other two in the system, is a profound mystery, which is not fully understood by even those who have taken the sixth initiation.
The first Logos embodies the "will to live" and it was through His instrumentality that the Manasaputras came into objective existence in relation to the human and deva hierarchies. In this system, the blending of the Divine Ray of Wisdom and the Primordial Ray of intelligent matter forms the great dual evolution; back of both these cosmic Entities stands another Entity Who is the embodiment of Will, and Who is the utiliser of formsthough not the forms of any other than the Greater Building devas and the human hierarchies in time and space. He is the animating principle; the will-to-live aspect of the seven Hierarchies. Nevertheless these seven Hierarchies are (as says H. P. B.) the sevenfold ray of wisdom, the dragon in its seven forms. [lxviii]66, [lxix]67, [lxx]68 This is a [147] deep mystery, and only a clue to it all can be found at this time by man in the contemplation of his own nature in the three worlds of his manifestation. Just as our Logos is seeking objectivity through His solar system in its threefold form of which the present is the second, so man seeks objectivity through his three bodiesphysical, astral and mental. At this time he is polarised in his astral body, or in his second aspect in like manner as the undifferentiated Logos is polarised in His second aspect. In time and space as we now conceive it, the sum total of jivas are governed by feeling, emotion, and desire, and not by the will, yet at the same time the will aspect governs manifestation, for the Ego who is the source of personality shows in manifestation the will to love.
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In doing this he fulfils the law, he puts himself in the right condition for training, fits himself for the ultimate application of the Rod of initiation, and thus minimises the danger that attends the awakening of the fire.
[163]
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5. The centres and initiation.
As can be seen from the above tabulation, the subject is not only vast but abstruse. This is principally owing to the fact that until the race is normally clairvoyant, it is not in a position to verify what is said, and has to accept the statements of those who profess to know. Later when man can see and prove for himself, it will be possible to check up these statements; the time is not yet, except for the few.
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The centres are formed entirely of streams of force, pouring down from the Ego, who transmits it from the Monad. In this we have the secret of the gradual vibratory quickening of the centres as the Ego first comes into control, or activity, and later (after initiation) the Monad, thus bringing about changes and increased vitality within these spheres of fire or of pure life force.
The centres, therefore, when functioning properly, form the "body of fire" which eventually is all that is left, first to man in the three worlds, and later to the Monad. This body of fire is "the body incorruptible" [lxxiv]72 or indestructible, spoken of by St. Paul, and is the product of evolution, of the perfect blending of the three fires, which ultimately destroy the form. When the form is [167] destroyed there is left this intangible spiritual body of fire, one pure flame, distinguished by seven brilliant centres of intenser burning. This electric fire is the result of the bringing together of the two poles and demonstrates at the moment of complete at-one-ment, the occult truth of the words "Our God is a consuming Fire." [lxxv]73
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It would repay the student to contemplate the interesting succession of triangles that are to be found and the way in which they must be linked by the progression of the fire before that fire can perfectly vivify them, and thence pass on to other transmutations. We might enumerate some of these triangles, bearing always in mind that according to the ray so will proceed the geometric rising of the fire, and according to the ray so will the points be touched in ordered sequence. Herein lies one of the secrets of initiation, and herein is found some of the dangers entailed in a too quick publication of information concerning the rays.
1. The pranic triangle.
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5. Spiritual man to the third initiation.
a. The heart.
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6. Spiritual man to the fifth initiation
a. The heart.
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The second period, wherein the egoic ray holds sway, is not so long comparatively; it covers the period wherein the fourth and fifth triangles are being vivified, and marks the lives wherein the man throws his forces on the side of evolution, disciplines his life, steps upon the Probationary Path, and continues up to the third initiation. Under the regime of the Personality Ray, the man proceeds upon the five Rays to work consciously with Mind, the sixth sense, passing first upon the four minor Rays and eventually upon the third. He works [176] upon the third Ray, or that of active Intelligence, and from thence proceeds to one of the subrays of the two other major Rays, if the third is not his egoic Ray.
Enquiry might naturally arise as to whether the egoic ray is necessarily one of the three major rays, and if Initiates and Masters are not to be found upon some of the rays of mind, the minor four.
The answer lies here: The egoic ray can always be one of the seven, but we need to remember that, in this astral-buddhic solar system, wherein love and wisdom are being brought into objectivity, the bulk of the monads are on the love-wisdom ray. The fact, therefore, of its being the synthetic ray has a vast significance. This is the system of the SON, whose name is Love. This is the divine incarnation of Vishnu. The Dragon of Wisdom is in manifestation, and He brings into incarnation those cosmic Entities who are in essence identical with Himself. After the third initiation all human beings find themselves on their monadic ray, on one of the three major rays, and the fact that Masters and Initiates are found on all the rays is due to the following two factors:
First. Each major ray has its subrays, which correspond to all the seven.
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The Cosmos. Our solar system, with the Pleiades and one of the stars of the Great Bear, form a cosmic triangle, or an aggregation of three centres in the Body of HIM OF WHOM NAUGHT MAY BE SAID. The seven stars in the constellation of the Great Bear are the correspondences to the seven head centres in the body of that Being, greater than our Logos. Again, two other systems, when allied with the solar system and the Pleiades, make a lower quaternary which are eventually synthesised into the seven head centres in much the same way as in the human being after the fourth initiation.
[183]
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The sevenfold head centre in its turn finds ultimate expression in the gorgeous twofold centre above the top of the head and surrounding it. Equally so, beyond the above named constellations is still another cosmic centre. The name of this centre is one of the secrets of the final initiation, the seventh. These are the only correspondences that may as yet be imparted. What lies beyond the solar ring-pass-not may be of intellectual interest, [lxxx]78 but, for the purposes of microcosmic evolution it is a matter of no vast import.
3. The Centres and Kundalini.
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d. When kundalini has blended with the pranic fire, the centres become three-dimensional. When it blends with mind or solar fire and the two fires are perfectly united, the centres become fourth-dimensional. When it blends with the electric fire of pure Spirit after the third initiation, they take on two more dimensions.
e. Kundalini, as it is aroused, steadily increases the vibratory action, not only of the centres, but of every atom of matter in all the bodiese theric, astral and mental. This quickening of activity has a dual effect of great interest:
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2. Eventually, after the two fires of matter and the fire of mind have begun to blend (a slow and gradual process), the web itself is destroyed [185] and by the time the third initiation is reached, the man should have continuity of consciousness. This is so unless for certain work and for certain specific ends, the man consciously and willingly foregoes the burning of the web, a thing which can be brought about by the conscious action of the will.
4. The Centres and the Senses, Normal and Supernormal.
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As regards taste and smell, we might call them minor senses, for they are closely allied to the important sense of touch. They are practically subsidiary to that sense. This second sense, and its connection with this second solar system, should be carefully pondered over. It is predominantly the sense most closely connected with the second Logos. This conveys a hint of much value if duly considered. It is of value to study the extensions of physical plane touch on other planes and to see whither we are led. It is the faculty which enables us to arrive [197] at the essence by due recognition of the veiling sheath. It enables the Thinker who fully utilises it to put himself en rapport with the essence of all selves at all stages, and thereby to aid in the due evolution of the sheath and actively to serve. A Lord of Compassion is one who (by means of touch) feels with, fully comprehends, and realises the manner in which to heal and correct the inadequacies of the not-self and thus actively to serve the plan of evolution. We should study likewise in this connection the value of touch as demonstrated by the healers of the race (those on the Bodhisattva line) [lxxxv]83 and the effect of the Law of Attraction and Repulsion as thus manipulated by them. Students of etymology will have noted that the origin of the word touch is somewhat obscure, but probably means to 'draw with quick motion.' Herein lies the whole secret of this objective solar system, and herein will be demonstrated the quickening of vibration by means of touch. Inertia, mobility, rhythm, are the qualities manifested by the not-self. Rhythm, balance, and stable vibration are achieved by means of this very faculty of touch or feeling. Let me illustrate briefly so as to make the problem somewhat clearer. What results in meditation? By dint of strenuous effort and due attention to rules laid down, the aspirant succeeds in touching matter of a quality rarer than is his usual custom. He contacts his causal body, in time he contacts the matter of the buddhic plane. By means of this touch his own vibration is temporarily and briefly quickened. Fundamentally we are brought back to the subject that we deal with in this treatise. The latent fire of matter attracts to itself that fire, latent in other forms. They touch, and recognition and awareness ensues. The fire of manas burns continuously and is fed by that which is attracted and repulsed. When the two [198] blend, the stimulation is greatly increased and the ability to touch intensified. The Law of Attraction persists in its work until another fire is attracted and touched, and the threefold merging is completed. Forget not in this connection the mystery of the Rod of initiation. [lxxxvi]84 Later when we consider the subject of the centres and initiation it must be remembered that we are definitely studying one aspect of this mysterious faculty of touch, the faculty of the second Logos, wielding the law of Attraction.
Let us now finish what may be imparted on the remaining three sensessight, taste, smell and then briefly sum up their relationship to the centres, and their mutual action and interaction. That will then leave two more points to be dealt with in this first division of the Treatise on Cosmic Fire, and a summing up. We shall then be in a position to take up that portion of the treatise that deals with the fire of manas and with the development of the manasaputras, [lxxxvii]85 both in their totality and likewise individually. This topic is of the most imperative importance as it deals entirely with man, the Ego, the thinker, and shows the cosmic blending of the fires of matter and of mind, and their utilisation by the indwelling Flame.
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Second. The awakening on the astral plane, and the gradually increasing activity of the centres, until the first initiation is reached. This is paralleled by the tremendously keen use of the senses for the purposes of discriminating between the Self and the not-self.
[204]
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5. The Centres and initiation
We have dealt briefly with the evolution of the centres, with their function, their organisation and their gradually increasing activity from a point of comparative inertia until they are consummated motion. Then they become living wheels of flame, distinguished by a dual motion of the periphery and the inner revolving wheels, and by a fourth-dimensional effect, due primarily to the alignment of the inner subtler vortices with the comparatively exoteric etheric centres. This alignment is brought about eventually at initiation.
At the time that initiation is taken, the centres are all active and the lower four (which correspond to the Personality) are beginning the process of translating the fire into the three higher. The dual revolution in the lower centres is clearly to be seen and the three higher are commencing to be similarly active. By the application of the Rod of initiation at the time of the initiation ceremony, certain results are achieved in connection with the centres which might be enumerated as follows:
a. The fire at the base of the spine is definitely directed [208] to whichever centre is the object of special attention. This varies according to the Ray, or the specialised work of the initiate.
b. The centre has its activity intensified, its rate of evolution increased, and certain of the central spokes of the wheel brought into more active radiance. These spokes which are also called by some students lotus-petals, have a close connection with the different spirillae in the permanent atoms. Through their stimulation there comes into play one or more of the corresponding spirillae in the permanent atoms on the three lower planes. After the third initiation, a corresponding stimulation takes place in the permanent atoms of the Triad, leading to the co-ordination of the buddhic vehicle, and the transference of the lower polarisation into the higher.
c. By the application of the Rod of initiation the downflow of force from the Ego to the personality is tripled, the direction of that force being dependent upon whether the centres receiving attention are the etheric, or the astral at the first and second initiations, or whether the initiate is standing before the LORD OF THE WORLD. In the latter case, his mental centres or their corresponding force vortices on higher levels, will receive stimulation. When the World Teacher initiates at the first and second initiations, the direction of the Triadal force is turned to the vivification of the heart, and throat centres, and the ability to synthesise the force of the lower centres is greatly increased. When the One Initiator applies the Rod of His Power, the downflow is from the Monad, and though the throat and heart intensify vibration as a response, the main direction of the force is to the seven head centres, and finally (at liberation) to the radiant head centre above, and synthesising the lesser seven head centres.
d. The centres at initiation receive a fresh access of [209] vibratory capacity and of power, and this results, in the exoteric life, as:
First. A sensitiveness and refinement of the vehicles which may result, at first, in much suffering to the initiate, but which produces a capacity to respond to contacts that far outweighs the incidental pain.
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Fourth. A gradual grasp of the Law of Vibration as an aspect of the basic law of building; the initiate learns consciously to build, to manipulate thought matter for the perfecting of the plans of the Logos, to work in mental essence, and to apply the law of mental levels and thereby affect the physical plane. Motion originates cosmically on cosmic mental levels, and in the microcosm the same order will be seen. There is an occult hint here that will reveal much if pondered upon. At initiation, at the moment of the application of the Rod, the initiate consciously realises the meaning of the Law of Attraction in form building, and in the synthesis of the three fires. Upon his ability to retain that realisation and himself to apply the law, will depend his power and progress.
e. By the application of the Rod, the fire of kundalini is aroused, and its upward progress directed. The fire at the base of the spine, and the fire of mind are [210] directed along certain routes, or triangles, by the action of the Rod as it moves in a specified manner. There is a definite occult reason, under the Laws of Electricity, behind the known fact that every initiate, presented to the Initiator, is accompanied by two of the Masters, who stand one on either side of him. The three of them together form a triangle which makes the work possible.
The force of the Rod is twofold, and its power terrific. Apart and alone the initiate could not receive the voltage from the Rod without serious hurt, but in triangular formation transmission comes safely. The two Masters Who thus sponsor the initiate, represent two polarities of the electric All; part of Their work is therefore to stand with all applicants for initiation when they come before the Great Lord.
When the Rods of initiation are held in the hands of the Initiator in His position of power, and at the stated seasons, they act as transmitters of electric force from very high levels,so high indeed that the "Flaming Diamond" at certain of the final initiations (the sixth and seventh) transmits force, via the Logos, from outside the system altogether. We need to remember that this major Rod is the one used on this planet, but that within the system there are several such Rods of Power, and that they are to be found in three grades, if it may be so expressed.
First. The Rod of initiation used for the first two initiations and wielded by the Great Lord, the Christ, the World Teacher. It is magnetised by application of the "Flaming Diamond"the magnetisation being repeated when each new world Teacher takes office. There is a wonderful ceremony performed at the time that a new World Teacher takes up His work. During the ceremony He receives His Rod of Power the same Rod as used since the foundation of our planetary Hierarchy and holds it forth to the Lord of the World, Who touches it [211] with His own mighty Rod, causing a fresh re-charging of its electric capacity. This ceremony takes place at Shamballa. [xci]89, [xcii]90
Second. The Rod of initiation known as the "Flaming Diamond" and used by Sanat Kumara, the One Initiator, called in the Bible, the Ancient of Days. This Rod lies hidden "in the East" and holds the fire latent which irradiates the Wisdom Religion. This Rod was brought by the Lord of the World when He took form and came to our planet eighteen million years ago.
Once in every world period it is subjected to a similar process as that of the lesser Rod, only this time it is recharged by the direct action of the Logos Himself,the Logos of the solar system. The location of this Rod is known only to the Lord of the World, and to the Chohans of the Rays, and (being the talisman of this evolution) the Chohan of the second Ray isunder the Lord of the Worldits main guardian, aided by the deva Lord of the second plane. The Buddhas of activity are responsible for its custody, and under them the Chohan of the Ray. It is produced only at stated times when specific work has to be done. It is used not only at the initiating of men, but at certain planetary functions, of which nothing as yet has been given out. It has its place and function in certain ceremonies connected with the inner round [xciii]91 and the triangle formed by the Earth, Mars [212] and Mercury. But more about this is not at this time permissible.
1.00f - DIVISION F - THE LAW OF ECONOMY, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Then a third Word or phrase is added to the other two, completing the entire Word logoic and producing consummation. It is a Word of nine letters, making therefore the twenty-one sounds (5 + 7 + 9) of this solar system. The final nine sounds produce spiritual synthesis, and the dissociation of the spirit from the form. We have a correspondence in the nine initiations, each initiation marking a more perfect union of the Self with the All-Self, and a further liberation from the trammels of matter.
When the sense of hearing on all planes is perfected (which is brought about by the Law of Economy rightly understood) these three great Words or phrases will be known. The Knower will utter them in his own true key, thus blending his own sound with the entire volume of vibration, and thereby achieving sudden realisation of his essential identity with Those Who utter the words. As the sound of matter or of Brahma peals forth in his ears on all the planes, he will see all forms as illusion and will be freed, knowing himself as omnipresent. As the sound of Vishnu reverberates within himself, he knows himself as perfected wisdom, and distinguishes [219] the note of his being (or that of the Heavenly Man in whose Body he finds place) from the group notes, and knows himself as omniscient. As the note of the first or Mahadeva aspect, follows upon the other two, he realises himself as pure Spirit and on the consummation of the chord is merged in the Self, or the source from which he came. Mind is not, matter is not, and nought is left but the Self merged in the ocean of the Self. At each stage of relative attainment, one of the laws comes into sway,first the law of matter, then the law of groups, to be succeeded by the law of Spirit and of liberation.
1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
When the primordial ray of intelligent activity, the divine ray of intelligent love, and the third cosmic ray of intelligent will meet, blend, merge, and blaze forth, the Logos will take His fifth initiation, thus completing one of His cycles. When the rotary, the forward, and the spiral cyclic movements are working in perfect synthesis then the desired vibration will have been reached. When the three Laws of Economy, of Attraction, and of Synthesis work with perfect adjustment to each other, then nature will perfectly display the needed functioning, and the correct adaptation of the material form to the indwelling spirit, of matter to life, and of consciousness to its vehicle.
II. FIRE IN THE MICROCOSM
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When the latent fire of the personality or lower self blends with the fire of mind, that of the higher self, and finally merges with the Divine Flame, then the man takes the fifth initiation in this solar system, and has completed one of his greater cycles. [xiii]13 When the three blaze forth as one fire, liberation from matter, or from material form is achieved. Matter has been correctly adjusted to spirit, and finally the indwelling life slips forth out of its sheath which forms now only a channel for liberation.
[48]
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Secondly, we might note that the internal fires are the basis of life in the lower three kingdoms of nature, and in the fourth or human kingdom in connection with the two lower vehicles. The Fire of Mind, when blended with the internal fires, is the basis of life in the fourth kingdom, and united they control (partially now and later entirely) the lower threefold man or the personality; this control lasts up to the time of the first initiation.
The fire of Spirit finally, when blended with the two other fires (which blending commences in man at the first initiation), forms a basis of spiritual life or existence. As evolution proceeds in the fifth or spiritual kingdom, these three fires blaze forth simultaneously, producing perfected consciousness. This blaze results in the final [52] purification of matter and its consequent adequacy; at the close of manifestation it brings about eventually the destruction of the form and its dissolution, and the termination of existence as understood on the lower planes. In terms of Buddhistic theology it produces annihilation; this involves, not loss of identity, but the cessation of objectivity and the escape of Spirit, plus mind, to its cosmic centre. It has its analogy in the initiation at which the adept stands free from the limitations of matter in the three worlds.
The internal fires of the system, of the planet, and of man are threefold:
10.10 - A Poem, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Not the initiation of consciousness 7 Very good
Intense love, intense forgiveness, tobacco-free hero
1.01 - About the Elements, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Everything that has been created, the macrocosm as well as the microcosm, consequently the big and the small world have been achieved by the effect of the elements. For this reason, right from the beginning of the initiation, I shall attend to these powers and underline their deep and manifold significance in particular. In the occult literature very little has been said about the powers of the elements up to now so that I made it my business to treat this field of knowledge still unknown and to lift the veil covering these rules. It is absolutely not very easy to enlighten the uninitiated so that they are not only fully informed about the existence and the activity of the elements, but will be able to work with these powers in the future practically.
The whole universe is similar to a clockwork with all its wheels in mesh and interdependent from each other. Even the idea of the Godhead as the highest comprehensible entity may be divided in aspects analogous to the elements. Details about it are found in the chapter concerning the God-idea.
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In the oldest book of wisdom, the Tarot, something has already been written about this great mystery of the elements. The first card of this work represents the magicia n pointing to the knowledge and mastery of the elements. On this first card the symbols are: the sword as the fiery element, the rod as the element of the air, the goblet as that of the water and the coins as the element of the earth. This proves without any doubt that already in the mysteries of yore, the magician was destined for the first Tarot card, mastery of the elements having been chosen as the first act of initiation. In honour of this tradition I shall give my principal attention to the elements for, as you will see, the key to the elements is the panacea, with the help of which all the occurring problems may be solved.
According to the Indian succession of the tattwas, it runs as follows:
1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It has been the tradition in India from the earliest times that the Rishis, the poet-seers of the Veda, were men of this type, men with a great spiritual and occult knowledge not shared by ordinary human beings, men who handed down this knowledge and their powers by a secret initiation to their descendants and chosen disciples. It is a gratuitous assumption to suppose that this tradition was wholly unfounded, a superstition that arose suddenly or slowly formed in a void, with nothing whatever to support it; some foundation there must have been however small or however swelled by legend and the accretions of centuries. But if it is true, then inevitably the poet-seers must have expressed something of their secret knowledge, their mystic lore in their writings and such an element must be present, however well-concealed by an occult language or behind a technique of symbols, and if it is there it must be to some extent discoverable.
It is true that an antique language, obsolete words, - Yaska counts more than four hundred of which he did not know the meaning, - and often a difficult and out-of-date diction helped to obscure their meaning; the loss of the sense of their symbols, the glossary of which they kept to themselves, made them unintelligible to later generations; even in the time of the Upanishads the spiritual seekers of the age had to resort to initiation and meditation to penetrate into their secret knowledge, while the scholars afterwards were at sea and had to resort to conjecture and to concentrate on a mental interpretation or to explain by myths, by the legends of the Brahmanas themselves often symbolic and obscure. But still to make this discovery will be the sole way of getting at the true sense and the true value of the Veda. We must take seriously the hint of Yaska, accept the Rishi's description of the Veda's contents as "seer-wisdoms, secret words", and look for whatever clue we can find to this ancient wisdom. Otherwise the Veda must remain for ever a sealed book; grammarians, etymologists, scholastic conjectures will not open to us the sealed chamber.
For it is a fact that the tradition of a secret meaning and a mystic wisdom couched in the Riks of the ancient Veda was as old as the Veda itself. The Vedic Rishis believed that their Mantras were inspired from higher hidden planes of consciousness and contained this secret knowledge. The words of the Veda could only be known in their true meaning by one who was himself a seer or mystic; from others the verses withheld their hidden knowledge. In one of Vamadeva's hymns in the fourth Mandala (IV.3.16) the Rishi describes himself as one illumined expressing through his thought and speech words of guidance, "secret words" - nin.ya vacamsi - "seer-wisdoms that utter their inner meaning to the seer" - kavyani kavaye nivacana. The Rishi Dirghatamas speaks of the Riks, the Mantras of the Veda, as existing "in a supreme ether, imperishable and immutable in which all the gods are seated", and he adds "one who knows not That what shall he do with the Rik?" (I.164.39) He further alludes to four planes from which the speech issues, three of them hidden in the secrecy while the fourth is human, and from there comes the ordinary word; but the word and thought of the Veda belongs to the higher planes (I.164.45).
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down through initiation to disciples and at a last stage outward
and mental means had to be used for finding the sense such as
1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Chokmah Nistorah, " The Secret Wisdom ", so-called because it has been orally transmitted from Adept to Pupil in the Secret Sanctuaries of initiation. Tradition has it that no one part of this doctrine was accepted as authori- tative until it had been subjected to severe and minute criticism and investigation by methods of practical research to be described later.
To come down to more historic ground, the Qabalah is the Jewish mystical teaching concerning the initiated inter- pretation of the Hebrew scriptures. It is a system of spiritual philosophy or theosophy, using this word in its original implications of 0eo? 2 o$ia, which has not only exercised for centuries an influence on the intellectual development of so shrewd and clear-thinking a people as the Jews, but has attracted the attention of many renowned
1.01 - How is Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds Attained?, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
possessing these higher faculties gave instruction to others who were in search of them. Such a training is called occult (esoteric) training, and the instruction received therefrom is called occult (esoteric) teaching, or spiritual science. This designation naturally awakens misunderstanding. The one who hears it may very easily be misled into the belief that this training is the concern of a special, privileged class, withholding its knowledge arbitrarily from its fellow-creatures. He may even think that nothing of real importance lies behind such knowledge, for if it were a true knowledge-he is tempted to think-there would be no need of making a secret of it; it might be publicly imparted and its advantages made accessible to all. Those who have been initiated into the nature of this higher knowledge are not in the least surprised that the uninitiated should so think, for the secret of initiation can only be understood by those who have to a certain degree experienced this initiation into the higher knowledge of existence. The question may be raised: how, then, under these circumstances, are the uninitiated to develop any human interest in this so-called esoteric knowledge?
p. 3
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knowledge will shun no exertion and fear no obstacle in his search for an initiate who can lead him to the higher knowledge of the world. On the other hand, everyone may be certain that initiation will find him under all circumstances if he gives proof of an earnest and worthy endeavor to attain this knowledge. It is a natural law among all initiates to withhold from no man the knowledge that is due him but there is an equally natural law which lays down that no word of esoteric knowledge shall be imparted to anyone not qualified to receive it. And the more strictly he observes these laws, the more perfect is an initiate. The bond of union embracing all initiates is spiritual and not external, but the two laws here mentioned form, as it were, strong clasps by which the component parts of this bond are held together. You may live in intimate friendship with an initiate, and yet a gap severs you from his essential self, so long as you have not become an initiate yourself. You may enjoy in the fullest sense the heart, the love of an initiate, yet he will only confide his knowledge to you when you are ripe for it. You may flatter him; you may torture him; nothing can induce him to betray anything
p. 5
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revive the memory of experiences beyond the border of life and death. Everyone can attain this knowledge; in each one of us lies the faculty of recognizing and contemplating for ourselves what genuine Mysticism, Spiritual Science, Anthroposophy, and Gnosis teach. Only the right means must be chosen. Only a being with ears and eyes can apprehend sounds and colors; nor can the eye perceive if the light which makes things visible is wanting. Spiritual Science gives the means of developing the spiritual ears and eyes, and of kindling the spiritual light; and this method of spiritual training: (1) Preparation; this develops the spiritual senses. (2) Enlightenment; this kindles the spiritual light. (3) initiation; this establishes intercourse with the higher spiritual beings.
1.01 - The Mental Fortress, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But its use is not as the mind imagines in the arrogance of its knowledge and discoveries, for the mind always mistakes the instrument for the Master. We thought that the mental tool was both end and means, and that that end was an increasing, ever more triumphant and rigorous mastery over the mental field, which it has colonized with marvelous cities and less marvelous suburbs. But that is only a secondary end, a turbulent by-product, and it turns out that the major effect of the Mind in man has not been to make him more intelligent (intelligent with respect to what? The mouse in its hole has the perfect intelligence for its own terrain), but to individualize him within his own species and endow him with the power to change while the other species were invariable and only individualized as a general type and finally to make him capable of casting a look at what exceeds his own condition. With this individualization and power of variation began the errors of man, his sins, his afflicting dualities; yet his capacity for error is also a secret capacity for progress, which is why all our moralities based on right or wrong and all our flawless heavens have failed and will forever fail if we were flawless and irreproachable, we would be a stagnant and infallible species, like the shellfish or the opossum. In other words, the Mind is an instrument of accelerated evolution, an evolver. In fifty years of scientific development, man has progressed more than during all the prescientific milleniums. But progress in what sense? To be sure, not in the sense of the fallacious mastery, nor in the quality of life or the degree of comfort, but in the sense of the mental saturation of the species. One cannot leave a circle unless one has individually and collectively exhausted the circle. One cannot step alone onto the other side; either everybody does it (or is capable of doing it) or nobody does it; the whole species goes together, because there is but one human Body. Instead of a handful of initiates scattered among a semianimal and ignorant human mass, the entire species is now undergoing its initiation or, in evolutionary terms, its supreme variation. We have not passed through the mental circle for the sake of sending rockets to the moon, but in order to be individually, innumerably and voluntarily capable of effecting the passage to the next higher circle. The breaking of the circle is the great organic Fact of our times. All the dualities and opposite poles, the sins of virtue and the virtues of sin, all this dazzling chaos were the instruments of the Work, the tensors, we could say, bending us to the breaking point against a wall of iron which is a wall of illusion. But the illusion falls only when one decides to see it.
That is where we are. The illusion is not dead; it even rages with unprecedented violence, equipped with all the arms we have so obligingly polished up for it. But these are the last convulsions of a colossus with feet of clay which is actually a gnome, an oversized, overoutfitted gnome. The ancient sages of India knew it well. They divided human evolution into four concentric circles: that of the men of knowledge (Brahmins), who lived at the beginning of humanity, in the age of truth; that of the nobles and warriors (Kshatriya), when only three fourths of the truth was left; that of the merchants and middle class (Vaishya), who had only half of the truth; and finally ours, the age of the little men, the Shudra, the servants (of the machine, of the ego, of desire), the great proletariat of regimented liberties the Dark Age, Kali Yuga, when no truth is left at all. But because this circle is the most extreme, because all the truths have been tried and exhausted, and all possible roads explored, we are nearing the right solution, the true solution, the emergence of a new age of truth, the supramental age Sri Aurobindo spoke of, like the buttercup breaking its last envelope to free its golden fruit. If the parallel holds true between the collective body and our human body, we could say that the center governing the age of the sages was located at the level of the forehead, while that of the age of the nobles was at the level of the heart, that of the age of the merchants, at the stomach, and the one governing our age is at the level of sex and matter. The descent is complete. But that descent has a meaning a meaning for matter. Had we stayed forever at the forehead level of the divine truths of the mind, this earth and body would never have been changed, and we would have probably ended up escaping into some spiritual heaven or nirvana. Now, everything must be transformed, even the body and matter, since we are right in it. Ironically, this is the greatest service this dark, materialistic and scientific age may have rendered us: to compel such a plunge of the spirit into matter that it had either to lose itself in it or to be transformed with it. Absolute darkness is but the shadow of a greater Sun, which digs its abysses in order to raise up a more stable beauty, founded on the purified base of our earthly subconscious and seated erect in truth down to the very cells of our bodies.
1.025 - Sadhana - Intensifying a Lighted Flame, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The more we practise sadhana, the stronger we become and the greater is our capacity to understand, to enlarge our perspective of thinking and to contact reality in deeper profundity. Many factors operate in spiritual practice. The good deeds that we did in the past is one factor. The other factors are the associations that we have established in society with wise people in this present birth, the practical experience that we gain by living in this world, the initiation that we receive from the Guru, and the wisdom that we acquire from the Guru. Finally, the most mysterious, of course, is the grace of God Himself, which is perennially operating, perpetually working, and infinitely and most abundantly contri buting to the onward march of the soul towards its goal.
The practice of yoga is nothing but a conscious participation in the universal working of nature itself and, therefore, it is the most natural thing that we can do, and the most natural thing that we can conceive. There can be nothing more natural than to participate consciously in the evolutionary work of the universe, which is the attempt of the cosmos to become Self-conscious in the Absolute. Evolution is nothing but a movement of the whole universe towards Self-awareness this is called God-realisation. Our every activity from the cup of tea that we take, to the breath that we breathe, from even the sneeze that we jet forth, to the least action that we perform, from even a single thought which occurs in the mind everything is a part of this cosmic operation which is the evolution of the universe towards Self-realisation. Therefore, the practice of yoga is the most natural thing that we can think of and the most necessary duty of a human being. Nothing can be more obligatory on our part than this duty. It is from this point of view, perhaps, that Lord Krishna proclaims, towards the end of the Bhagavadgita, sarvadharmnparityajya mmeka araa vraja (B.G. XVIII.66): Renounce every other duty and come to Me for rescue which means to say, take resort in the law of the Absolute. This is the practice of yoga, and every other dharma is subsumed under it and included within it, as every drop and every river is in the ocean. In this supreme duty, every other duty is included. There is no need to think of every individual, discrete and isolated duty, because all duties are included in this one duty, which is the mother of all duties.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
ranging from the rites of primitive initiation47 to the conceptions of sophisticated religious systems.48
Indeed, our very cultures are erected upon the foundation of a single great story: paradise, encounter with
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spatial and temporal dispersion of cosmogonic stories, tales of heroism and deceit, rituals of initiation, and
standard imagistic representations, such as the virgin and child. These stories, tales, rituals and images
1.02 - Meditating on Tara, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
all these practices, we take initiations and do tantric visualizations and meditations. If we understand foundational teachings and sadhana practice, well
see that almost all of the foundational teachings are contained within a sadhanarefuge, the determination to be free, the four immeasurables, the three
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spoken by the Buddha. They just want to receive blessings and initiations
from high lamas. They think some external force or realized being will tap
1.02 - The Concept of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
kind of initiation into mystic experience of the Deity.
7 Our patient was about ten years older than I. In his megalo-
1.02 - The Stages of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
object:1.02 - The Stages of initiation
subject class:Occultism
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THE STAGES OF initiation
THE information given in the following chapters constitutes steps in an esoteric training, the name and character of which will be understood by all who apply this information in the right way. It refers to the three stages through which the training of the spiritual life leads to a certain degree of initiation. But only so much will here be explained as can be publicly imparted. These are merely indications extracted from a still deeper and more intimate doctrine. In esoteric training itself a quite definite course of instruction is followed. Certain exercises enable the soul to attain to a conscious intercourse with the spiritual world. These exercises bear about the same relation to what will be imparted in the following pages, as the instruction given in
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The three stages which the above-mentioned tradition specifies, are as follows: (1) preparation; (2) enlightenment; (3) initiation. It is not altogether necessary that the first of these three stages should be completed before the second can be begun, nor that the second, in turn, be completed before the third be started. In certain respects it is possible to partake of enlightenment, and even of initiation, and in other respects still be in the preparatory stage. Yet it will be necessary to spend a certain time in the stage of preparation before any enlightenment can begin; and, at least in some respects, enlightenment must be completed before it is even possible to enter upon the stage of initiation. But in describing them it
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How enlightenment proceeds if the student rises, in the sense of the foregoing exercises, from the stone, the plant, and the animal, up to man, and how, after enlightenment, under all circumstances the union of the soul with the spiritual world is effected, leading to initiation-with these things the following chapters will deal, in as far as they can and may do so.
In our time the path to spiritual science is sought by many. It is sought in many ways, and many dangerous and even despicable practices are attempted. It is for this reason that they who claim to know something of the truth in these matters place before others the possibility of learning something of esoteric training. Only so much is here imparted as accords with this possibility. It is necessary that something of the truth
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For the present, only these two examples can be given to show how enlightened insight into human nature may be achieved; they will at least serve to point out the way to be taken. By gaining the inner tranquility and repose indispensable for such observation, the student will have undergone a great inner transformation. He will then soon reach the point where this enrichment of his inner self will lend confidence and composure to his outward demeanor. And this transformation of his outward demeanor will again react favorably on his soul. Thus he will be able to help himself further along the road. He will find ways and means of penetrating more and more into the secrets of human nature which are hidden from our external senses, and he will then also become ripe for a deeper insight into the mysterious connections between human nature and all else that exists in the universe. By following this path the student approaches closer and closer to the moment when he can effectively take the first steps of initiation. But before these can be taken, one
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The would-be initiate must bring with him a certain measure of courage and fearlessness. He must positively go out of his way to find opportunities for developing these virtues. His training should provide for their systematic cultivation. In this respect, life itself is a good school-possibly the best school. The student must learn to look danger calmly in the face and try to overcome difficulties unswervingly. For instance, when in the presence of some peril, he must swiftly come to the conviction that fear is of no possible use; I must not feel afraid; I must only think of what is to be done. And he must improve to the extent of feeling, upon occasions which formerly inspired him with fear, that to be frightened, to be disheartened, are things that are out of the question as far as his own inmost self is concerned. By self-discipline in this direction, quite definite qualities are develop which are necessary for initiation into the higher mysteries. Just as man requires nervous force in his physical being in order to use his physical sense, so also he
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It is pre-eminently a question of cultivating this courage and this fearlessness in the inmost depths of thought-life. The student must learn never to despair over failure. He must be equal to the thought: I shall forget that I have failed in this matter, and I shall try once more as though this had not happened. Thus he will struggle through to the firm conviction that the fountain-head of strength from which he may draw is inexhaustible. He struggles ever onward to the spirit which will uplift him and support him, however weak and impotent his earthly self may have proved. He must be capable of pressing on to the future undismayed by any experiences of the past. If the student has acquired these faculties up to a certain point, he is then ripe to hear the real names of things, which are the key to higher knowledge. For initiation consists in this very act of learning to call the things of the world by those names which they bear in the spirit of their divine authors. In these, their names, lies the mystery of things. It is for this reason that the initiates speak a different language from the uninitiated, for the former know the names by
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In as far as initiation itself can be discussed, this will be done in the following chapter.
initiation
initiation is the highest stage in an esoteric training concerning which it is possible to give some indications in a book intended for the genuine public. Whatever lives beyond forms a subject difficult to understand, yet the way to it can be found by all who have passed through preparation, enlightenment, and initiation as far as the lesser mysteries.
The knowledge and proficiency conferred by initiation cannot be obtained in any other manner, except in some far distant future, after many incarnations, by quite different means and in quite a different form. The initiate of today undergoes experiences which would otherwise come to him much later, under quite different circumstances.
The secrets of existence are only accessible to an extent corresponding to man's own degree of maturity. For this reason alone the path to the
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higher stages of knowledge and power is beset with obstacles. A firearm should not be used until sufficient experience has been gained to avoid disaster, caused by its use. A person initiated today without further ado would lack the experience which he will gain during his future incarnations before he can attain to higher knowledge in the normal course of his development. At the portal of initiation, therefore, this experience must be supplied in some other way. Thus the first instructions given to the candidate for initiation serve as a substitute for these future experiences. These are the so-called trials, which he has to undergo, and which constitute a normal course of inner development resulting from due application to such exercises as are described in the preceding chapters.
These trials are often discussed in books, but it is only natural that such discussions should as a rule give quite false impressions of their nature; for without passing through preparation and enlightenment no one can know anything of these tests and appropriately describe them.
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For many people, ordinary life is itself a more or less unconscious process of initiation through the Fire-Trial. Such people have passed through
p. 81
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The candidate may always turn back after the fire-trial. He will then resume his life, streng thened in body and soul, and wait for a future incarnation to continue his initiation. In his present incarnation he will prove himself a more
p. 82
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candidate for initiation is only that the latter acts consciously and with full insight into the entire situation. He acquires by training the gifts bestowed on others by higher powers for the good of humanity. We can sincerely revere these favored of God; but we should not for this reason regard the work of esoteric training as superfluous.
Once the student has learned the sign-language there awaits him yet another trial, to prove whether he can move with freedom and assurance in the higher worlds. In ordinary life he is impelled to action by exterior motives. He works at one occupation or another because one duty or another is imposed on him by outward circumstances. It need hardly be mentioned that the student must in no way neglect any of his duties in ordinary life because he is living and working in higher worlds. There is no duty in a higher world that can force a person to neglect any single one of his duties in the ordinary world. The father will remain just as good a father to his family, the mother just as good a mother, and neither the official nor the soldier, nor anyone else will be diverted from his work by becoming an esoteric
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At this stage of initiation there are duties to be performed for which no outward stimulus is given. The candidate will not be moved to action by external pressure, but only through adherence to the rules of conduct revealed to him in the occult script. He must now show in this second trial that, led by such rules, he can act with the same firmness and precision with which, for instance, an official performs the duties that belong to him. For this purpose, and in the course of his further training, he will find himself faced by a certain definite task. He must perform some action in consequence of observations made on the basis of what he has learned during preparation and enlightenment. The nature of this action can be understood by means of the occult script with
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be guided only by the results of his higher perception and reading of the occult script, in order to produce the changes in question in these higher regions of existence. Should he, in the course of his activity, introduce any of his own opinions and desires, or should he diverge for one moment from the laws which he has recognized to be right, in order to follow his own willful inclination, then the result produced would differ entirely from what was intended. He would lose sight of the goal to which his action tended, and confusion would result. Hence ample opportunity is given him in the course of this trial to develop self-control. This is the object in view. Here again, this trial can be more easily passed by those whose life, before initiation, has led them to acquire self-control. Anyone having acquired the faculty of following high principles and ideals, while putting into the background all personal predilection; anyone capable of always performing his duty, even though inclinations and sympathies would like to seduce him from this duty-such a person is unconsciously an initiate in the midst of ordinary life. He will need but little to succeed in this particular trial. Indeed, a certain
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measure of initiation thus unconsciously acquired in life will, as a rule, be indispensable for success in this second trial. For even as it is difficult for those who have not learned to spell correctly in their childhood to make good this deficiency when fully grown up, so too it is difficult to develop the necessary degree of self-control at the moment of looking into the higher worlds, if this ability has not been acquired to a certain degree in ordinary life. The objects of the physical world do not alter, whatever the nature of our wishes, desires, and inclinations. In the higher worlds, however, our wishes, desires, and inclinations are causes that produce effects. If we wish to produce a particular effect in these worlds, we must strictly follow the right rules and subdue every arbitrary impulse.
One human quality is of very special importance at this stage of initiation, namely, an unquestionably sound judgment. Attention should be paid to the training of this faculty during all the previous stages; for it now remains to be proved whether the candidate is shaping in a way that shows him to be fit for the truth path of knowledge.
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the most dangerous enemies on the way to knowledge of the higher worlds lurk in such fantastical reveries and superstitions. Yet no one need to believe that the student loses all sense of poetry in life, all power of enthusiasm because the words: You must be rid of all prejudice, are written over the portal leading to the second trial of initiation, and because over the portal at the entrance to the first trial he read: Without normal common sense all thine efforts are in vain.
If the candidate is in this way sufficiently advanced, a third trial awaits him. He finds here no definite goal to be reached. All is left in his own hands. He finds himself in a situation where nothing impels him to act. He must find his way all alone and out of himself. Things or people to stimulate him to action are non-existent. Nothing and nobody can give him the strength he needs but he himself alone. Failure to find this inner strength will leave him standing where he was. Few of those, however, who have successfully passed the previous trials will fail to find the necessary strength at this point. Either they will have turned back already or they succeed at this point also. All that the candidate requires is
1.037 - Preventing the Fall in Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There is a series of difficulties that follows this condition of lethargic inactivity and the slowing down of the intensity of meditation. The mind will expect only one chance to enter in, and if we give the least chance for this peculiar trait of the mind to counteract any good thing that we do, it will set up a tempest, a cyclone of counteracting work, which will prevent us from taking further steps in the practice of yoga. It will create doubts in the mind. "Oh, maybe something is seriously wrong either with the initiation that I have received, or I may not be fit for the practice. Otherwise, why have I been suffering like this for years? I have achieved nothing. I have not had the vision of God after ten years or fifteen years of meditation, and the only thing that I have is purging. I have no desire to eat anything, and I cannot sleep.
Then doubts will start rising up in the mind and tell us all sorts of stories about our Guru and our sadhana, our scripture and religion, and everything. We will start doubting everything; and only a single doubt has to arise in order for ten doubts to rise up as the result of that one doubt. Then we will change the Guru. Many people change their Gurus, change the method of meditation, change the mantra and move from place to place, because they have found that there is something wrong. "Otherwise, why is it that I am not achieving anything after so many years of effort?" So, after vyadhi and styana comes samsaya or doubt. This is an obstacle, says Patanjali.
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So we change the technique, and this change of technique, this change of initiation and Guru can be compared to digging a well a foot deep, in one thousand places, for water. We have dug only one foot, and we do not find water anywhere, and so we go on digging for a lifetime. In the same way, one thousand Gurus will bring us nothing. This is what will happen. This has happened to many people, and nobody can be exempted from this possibility, because doubts do not come like extraneous factors. They are internal illnesses that are conditions of the mind itself.
Vydhi styna saaya pramda (I.30) Pramada is the other obstacle in the sutra that is mentioned by Patanjali. Blunder, floundering and gross error are called pramada. What can be a greater blunder than to forget the existence of God and our purpose in life? Most of the students do not go beyond this stage; they end with this. Their life closes with this difficulty. They make a serious blunder in choosing a different line of activity altogether. For example, suddenly there can be an emotion fired up within to save the world from falling into to hell. They will think that, "We have come to a stage now where we have to lift the world from perdition." There will be arguments after arguments, logically deduced, justifying this attitude, because logic also comes from the mind it does not come from outside. The aspiration of the spirit for God-realisation will be dubbed as selfishness of the worst type. Even today we have thousands of people before us who have such suspicions in their minds. These suspicions do not arise merely in idiotic minds, but they also arise in minds of those who are very intelligent, very learned, very honest and sincere in their approach. Such people will have doubts of this type, and come to think that working for the liberation of others is better than working for the liberation of one's own self, because one's own self is a selfish centre. The thinking is: "This is very clear everybody knows that, and it does not require very much argument to prove that a single person's salvation is selfish compared to the salvation of many others."
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
introduction reaches its culmination with initiation, the primary ritual signifying cultural transmission the
event which destroys the unconscious union between child and biological mother.
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universally disseminated rituals of initiation induced spiritual death and subsequent rebirth catalyzes
the development of adult personality; follows the fundamental pattern of the cyclic, circular cosmogonic
myth. The culturally-determined rites and biological processes associated with initiation constitute absolute
destruction of childhood personality, of childhood dependence initial non-self-conscious paradisal
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presented. Ritual initiation, for example a ubiquitous formal feature of pre-experimental culture 365
takes place at or about the onset of puberty, when it is critical for further psychological development and
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mysterious deity of the initiation. Once removed from their mothers, the boys begin their ritual. This
generally involves some mixture of induced regression of personality reduction to the state of
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dramatic or episodic representation of the act or ritual of initiation or, at least, stands mid-way between
the entirely unconscious or procedural forms of initiation and their semantically abstracted symbolic
equivalents. Baptism is spiritual birth (rebirth), as opposed to birth of the flesh. The font of the church,
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new birth. The central moment of every initiation is represented by the ceremony symbolizing the death
of the novice and his return to the fellowship of the living. But he returns to life a new man, assuming
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Interference with adolescent initiation-catalyzed group incarnation is therefore disruption of or failure to
(re)generate the structure providing for respite from unbearable existential anxiety.
1.03 - Concerning the Archetypes, with Special Reference to the Anima Concept, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
his contemporaries. 20 In the visions that marked his initiation
into the state of adoption by God, God appeared in dual form,
1.03 - Fire in the Earth, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
successive initiations, gentle and terrible, which
you caused me- to undergo: through all these I have
1.03 - Some Practical Aspects, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
THE training of thoughts and feelings, pursued in the way described in the chapters on Preparation, Enlightenment, and initiation, introduces into the soul and spirit the same organic symmetry with which nature has constructed the physical body. Before this development, soul and spirit are undifferentiated masses. The clairvoyant perceives them as interlacing, rotating, cloud-like spirals, dully glimmering in reddish, reddish-brown, or reddish-yellow tones. After this training they begin to assume a brilliant yellowish-green, or greenish-blue color, and show a regular structure. This inner regularity leading to higher knowledge, is attained when the student introduces into his thoughts and feelings the same orderly system with which nature
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1.03 - Supernatural Aid, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
the ancient mysteries of initiation, and represented that coming-down of divine
wisdom into the world which is represented also in the incarnations of divine
1.03 - Sympathetic Magic, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
one or more of a boy's front teeth at those ceremonies of initiation
to which every male member had to submit before he could enjoy the
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a ceremony of initiation, and the old men earnestly besought him not
to carry them in a bag in which they knew that he had some quartz
1.03 - The Coming of the Subjective Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Already in the practical dealing with life there are advanced progressive tendencies which take their inspiration from this profounder subjectivism. Nothing indeed has yet been firmly accomplished, all is as yet tentative initiation and the first feeling out towards a material shape for this new spirit. The dominant activities of the world, the great recent events such as the enormous clash of nations in Europe and the stirrings and changes within the nations which preceded and followed it, were rather the result of a confused half struggle half effort at accommodation between the old intellectual and materialistic and the new still superficial subjective and vitalistic impulses in the West. The latter unenlightened by a true inner growth of the soul were necessarily impelled to seize upon the former and utilise them for their unbridled demand upon life; the world was moving towards a monstrously perfect organisation of the Will-to-live and the Will-to-power and it was this that threw itself out in the clash of War and has now found or is finding new forms of life for itself which show better its governing idea and motive. The Asuric or even Rakshasic character of the recent world-collision was due to this formidable combination of a falsely enlightened vitalistic motive-power with a great force of servile intelligence and reasoning contrivance subjected to it as instrument and the genius of an accomplished materialistic Science as its Djinn, its giant worker of huge, gross and soulless miracles. The War was the bursting of the explosive force so created and, even though it strewed the world with ruins, its after results may well have prepared the collapse, as they have certainly produced a disintegrating chaos or at least poignant disorder, of the monstrous combination which produced it, and by that salutary ruin are emptying the field of human life of the principal obstacles to a truer development towards a higher goal.
Behind it all the hope of the race lies in those infant and as yet subordinate tendencies which carry in them the seed of a new subjective and psychic dealing of man with his own being, with his fellow-men and with the ordering of his individual and social life. The characteristic note of these tendencies may be seen in the new ideas about the education and upbringing of the child that became strongly current in the pre-war era. Formerly, education was merely a mechanical forcing of the childs nature into arbitrary grooves of training and knowledge in which his individual subjectivity was the last thing considered, and his family upbringing was a constant repression and compulsory shaping of his habits, his thoughts, his character into the mould fixed for them by the conventional ideas or individual interests and ideals of the teachers and parents. The discovery that education must be a bringing out of the childs own intellectual and moral capacities to their highest possible value and must be based on the psychology of the child-nature was a step forward towards a more healthy because a more subjective system; but it still fell short because it still regarded him as an object to be handled and moulded by the teacher, to be educated. But at least there was a glimmering of the realisation that each human being is a self-developing soul and that the business of both parent and teacher is to enable and to help the child to educate himself, to develop his own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities and to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic material. It is not yet realised what this soul is or that the true secret, whether with child or man, is to help him to find his deeper self, the real psychic entity within. That, if we ever give it a chance to come forward, and still more if we call it into the foreground as the leader of the march set in our front, will itself take up most of the business of education out of our hands and develop the capacity of the psychological being towards a realisation of its potentialities of which our present mechanical view of life and man and external routine methods of dealing with them prevent us from having any experience or forming any conception. These new educational methods are on the straight way to this truer dealing. The closer touch attempted with the psychical entity behind the vital and physical mentality and an increasing reliance on its possibilities must lead to the ultimate discovery that man is inwardly a soul and a conscious power of the Divine and that the evocation of this real man within is the right object of education and indeed of all human life if it would find and live according to the hidden Truth and deepest law of its own being. That was the knowledge which the ancients sought to express through religious and social symbolism, and subjectivism is a road of return to the lost knowledge. First deepening mans inner experience, restoring perhaps on an unprecedented scale insight and self-knowledge to the race, it must end by revolutionising his social and collective self-expression.
1.03 - The Human Disciple, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Arjuna, the disciple who receives his initiation on the battlefield, is a counterpart of this conception; he is the type of the struggling human soul who has not yet received the knowledge, but has grown fit to receive it by action in the world in a close companionship and an increasing nearness to the higher and divine Self in humanity. There is a method of explaining the
Gita in which not only this episode but the whole Mahabharata is turned into an allegory of the inner life and has nothing to do with our outward human life and action, but only with the battles of the soul and the powers that strive within us for possession. That is a view which the general character and the
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
For the average tribal individual, initiation socially imposed signifies the death of childhood, and
reintegration on the level of social maturity. For the future shaman, initiation voluntarily undertaken
signifies the disintegration of socially-determined adult personality, and reintegration at the level of unique
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Those who undergo a second initiation suffer more deeply and profoundly from life than their peers; are, in
Jungs phrase, the most complex and differentiated minds of their age.425 These creative individuals
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personal experience, which adheres to the pattern associated with ritualized social initiation, and which
may also have served, originally, as its source.
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Supernatural Beings and mythical Heroes. Other initiations involve a descent to the realm of the dead;
for example, the future medicine man goes to sleep by the burying ground, or enters a cave, or is
transported underground or to the bottom of a lake. Among some tribes, the initiation also includes the
novices being roasted in or at a fire. Finally, the candidate is resuscitated by the same Supernatural
Beings who had killed him, and he is now a man of Power. During and after his initiation he meets
with spirits, Heroes of the mythical Times, and souls of the dead and in a certain sense they all instruct
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of initiation of the Buriat shamans. The candidate climbs up a post in the middle of the yourt, reaches
the summit and goes out by the smoke-hole. But we know that this opening, made to let out the smoke,
1.04 - The Sacrifice the Triune Path and the Lord of the Sacrifice, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is another basic realisation, the most extreme of all, that yet comes sometimes as the first decisive opening or an early turn of the Yoga. It is the awakening to an ineffable high transcendent Unknowable above myself and above this world in which I seem to move, a timeless and spaceless condition or entity which is at once, in some way compelling and convincing to an essential consciousness in me, the one thing that is to it overwhelmingly real. This experience is usually accompanied by an equally compelling sense either of the dreamlike or shadowy illusoriness of all things here or else of their temporary, derivative and only half-real character. For a time at least all around me may seem to be a moving of cinematographic shadow forms or surface figures and my own action may appear as a fluid formulation from some Source ungrasped as yet and perhaps unseizable above or outside me. To remain in this consciousness, to carry out this initiation or follow out this first suggestion of the character of things would be to proceed towards the goal of dissolution of self and world in the Unknowable,Moksha, Nirvana. But this is not the only line of issue; it is possible, on the contrary, for me to wait till through the silence of this timeless unfilled liberation I begin to enter into relations with that yet ungrasped Source of myself and my actions; then the void begins to fill, there emerges out of it or there rushes into it all the manifold Truth of the Divine, all the aspects and manifestations and many levels of a dynamic Infinite. At first this experience imposes on the mind and then on all our being an absolute, a fathomless, almost an abysmal peace and silence. Overpowered and subjugated, stilled, liberated from itself, the mind accepts the Silence itself as the Supreme. But afterwards the seeker discovers that all is there for him contained or new-made in that silence or through it descends upon him from a greater concealed transcendent Existence. For this Transcendent, this Absolute is not a mere peace of signless emptiness; it has its own infinite contents and riches of which ours are debased and diminished values. If there were not that Source of all things, there could be no universe; all powers, all works and activities would be an illusion, all creation and manifestation would be impossible.
These are the three fundamental realisations, so fundamental that to the Yogin of the way of Knowledge they seem ultimate, sufficient in themselves, destined to overtop and replace all others. And yet for the integral seeker, whether accorded to him at an early stage suddenly and easily by a miraculous grace or achieved with difficulty after a long progress and endeavour, they are neither the sole truth nor the full and only clues to the integral truth of the Eternal, but rather the unfilled beginning, the vast foundation of a greater divine Knowledge. Other realisations there are that are imperatively needed and must be explored to the full limit of their possibilities; and if some of them appear to a first sight to cover only Divine Aspects that are instrumental to the activity of existence but not inherent in its essence, yet, when followed to their end through that activity to its everlasting Source, it is found that they lead to a disclosure of the Divine without which our knowledge of the Truth behind things would be left bare and incomplete. These seeming Instrumentals are the key to a secret without which the Fundamentals themselves would not unveil all their mystery. All the revelatory aspects of the Divine must be caught in the wide net of the integral Yoga.
1.04 - The Silent Mind, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
The Transition We are thus in search of another country; but, we must admit, between the one we leave behind and the one we have not yet reached, there is a rather uncomfortable no-man's-land. It is a period of trial, whose length depends upon our own determination; but, as we know, from time immemorial, from the Eastern, Egyptian, or Orphic initiations to the quest for the Holy Grail, the story of man's ascent has always been attended by trials. In the past they were mainly romantic. What was so earthshaking, after all, about getting oneself sealed in a sarcophagus while the fifes were playing, or celebrating one's own funeral rites around a pyre? Today the sarcophagi have become public, and some human lives are a kind of burial. It is therefore worthwhile to make 33
The Synthesis of Yoga, 20:86
1.04 - What Arjuna Saw - the Dark Side of the Force, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
his initiation on the battlefield.
That the Mahabharata, the great war of the Bharatas, has
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in human history, receives the full initiation. This is the
figure of the supreme and universal Being, writes Sri Au-
1.05 - Problems of Modern Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
well known fact that the widespread and very ancient rites of initiationwith their mystery cults subserved this instinct for differentiation. Even the
Christian sacraments were looked upon as mysteries in the early Church,
--
among primitive peoples, where it has its place in the initiation
ceremonies, chiefly in the form of ascetic continence and the stoical
--
familiar term in the classical rites of initiation. The early cathartic method
consisted in putting the patient, with or without the paraphernalia of
1.05 - Some Results of Initiation, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
object:1.05 - Some Results of initiation
subject class:Occultism
--
SOME RESULTS OF initiation
ONE of the fundamental principles of true spiritual science is that the one who devotes himself to its study should do so with full consciousness; he should attempt nothing and practice nothing without knowledge of the effect produced. A teacher of spiritual science who gives advice or instruction will, at the same time, always explain to those striving for higher knowledge the effects produced on body, soul and spirit, if his advice and instructions be followed.
--
The reader will recognize in the qualities here described the six attributes which the candidate for initiation strives to acquire. The intention has been to show their connection with the spiritual organ known as the twelve-petalled lotus flower. As before, special instructions can be given to bring this lotus flower to fruition, but here again the perfect symmetry of its form depends on the development of the qualities mentioned, the neglect of which results in this organ being formed into a caricature of its proper shape. In this case, should a certain clairvoyance
p. 152
--
At this stage of development the student has reached the point where he can free himself from the illusion resulting from the initiation of his
p. 179
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
after he has passed the tests of initiation in puberty. Such times, and the psychology that goes with them,
are distinguished by the fact that there is no father-son problem, or only the barest suggestion of one.
--
very like an initiation process; something very like Solzhenitsyns spiritual transformation in the Gulag).
The alchemists soon came to realize that movement towards the ideal did not mean an unbroken journey
--
that of the miner, metal-worker and smith (although, indeed, the initiation rites and mysteries of the
Chinese smiths form an integral part of the traditions later inherited by Chinese Taoism and alchemy).
--
Eliade, M. (1965). Rites and symbols of initiation: The mysteries of birth and rebirth (W.R. Trask, Trans.).
New York: Harper and Row.
--
Shamanic and religious rituals, primitive initiation rites, and psychoactive chemicals produce complex physiological
changes within the individual brain, activating affectively-based complexes that could not otherwise reach
1.06 - Five Dreams, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The third dream was a world-union forming the outer basis of a fairer, brighter and nobler life for all mankind. That unification of the human world is under way; there is an imperfect initiation organised but struggling against tremendous difficulties. But the momentum is there and it must inevitably increase and conquer. Here too India has begun to play a prominent part and, if she can develop that larger statesmanship which is not limited by the present facts and immediate possibilities but looks into the future and brings it nearer, her presence may make all the difference between a slow and timid and a bold and swift development. A catastrophe may intervene and interrupt or destroy what is being done, but even then the final result is sure. For unification is a necessity of Nature, an inevitable movement. Its necessity for the nations is also clear, for without it the freedom of the small nations may be at any moment in peril and the life even of the large and powerful nations insecure. The unification is therefore to the interests of all, and only human imbecility and stupid selfishness can prevent it; but these cannot stand for ever against the necessity of Nature and the Divine Will. But an outward basis is not enough; there must grow up an international spirit and outlook, international forms and institutions must appear, perhaps such developments as dual or multilateral citizenship, willed interchange or voluntary fusion of cultures. Nationalism will have fulfilled itself and lost its militancy and would no longer find these things incompatible with self-preservation and the integrality of its outlook. A new spirit of oneness will take hold of the human race.
Another dream, the spiritual gift of India to the world has already begun. India's spirituality is entering Europe and America in an ever increasing measure. That movement will grow; amid the disasters of the time more and more eyes are turning towards her with hope and there is even an increasing resort not only to her teachings, but to her psychic and spiritual practice.
1.06 - The Literal Qabalah, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Egypt where Osiris, the Sun-God was hailed when arising from the primordial deep. The Neophyte, during his initiation, when he was Osirified and plunged into a deep trance enduring for three days, was crowned with glory when the sun's rays would illumine the cross to which he had been secured, and given a head-dress marked by a
Uraeus Naja, an emblem of cosmic significance and spiritual knowledge.
1.06 - The Objective and Subjective Views of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Subjectivism proceeds from within and regards everything from the point of view of a containing and developing self-consciousness. The law here is within ourselves; life is a self-creating process, a growth and development at first subconscious, then half-conscious and at last more and more fully conscious of that which we are potentially and hold within ourselves; the principle of its progress is an increasing self-recognition, self-realisation and a resultant self-shaping. Reason and will are only effective movements of the self, reason a process in self-recognition, will a force for self-affirmation and self-shaping. Moreover, reason and intellectual will are only a part of the means by which we recognise and realise ourselves. Subjectivism tends to take a large and complex view of our nature and being and to recognise many powers of knowledge, many forces of effectuation. Even, we see it in its first movement away from the external and objective method discount and belittle the importance of the work of the reason and assert the supremacy of the life-impulse or the essential Will-to-be in opposition to the claims of the intellect or else affirm some deeper power of knowledge, called nowadays the intuition, which sees things in the whole, in their truth, in their profundities and harmonies while intellectual reason breaks up, falsifies, affirms superficial appearances and harmonises only by a mechanical adjustment. But substantially we can see that what is meant by this intuition is the self-consciousness feeling, perceiving, grasping in its substance and aspects rather than analysing in its mechanism its own truth and nature and powers. The whole impulse of subjectivism is to get at the self, to live in the self, to see by the self, to live out the truth of the self internally and externally, but always from an internal initiation and centre.
But still there is the question of the truth of the self, what it is, where is its real abiding-place; and here subjectivism has to deal with the same factors as the objective view of life and existence. We may concentrate on the individual life and consciousness as the self and regard its power, freedom, increasing light and satisfaction and joy as the object of living and thus arrive at a subjective individualism. We may, on the other hand, lay stress on the group consciousness, the collective self; we may see man only as an expression of this group-self necessarily incomplete in his individual or separate being, complete only by that larger entity, and we may wish to subordinate the life of the individual man to the growing power, efficiency, knowledge, happiness, self-fulfilment of the race or even sacrifice it and consider it as nothing except in so far as it lends itself to the life and growth of the community or the kind. We may claim to exercise a righteous oppression on the individual and teach him intellectually and practically that he has no claim to exist, no right to fulfil himself except in his relations to the collectivity. These alone then are to determine his thought, action and existence and the claim of the individual to have a law of his own being, a law of his own nature which he has a right to fulfil and his demand for freedom of thought involving necessarily the freedom to err and for freedom of action involving necessarily the freedom to stumble and sin may be regarded as an insolence and a chimera. The collective self-consciousness will then have the right to invade at every point the life of the individual, to refuse to it all privacy and apartness, all self-concentration and isolation, all independence and self-guidance and determine everything for it by what it conceives to be the best thought and highest will and rightly dominant feeling, tendency, sense of need, desire for self-satisfaction of the collectivity.
1.07 - A Song of Longing for Tara, the Infallible, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
when he gave the Chittamani Tara initiations and teachings to a group of us
at Kopan Monastery. In Lamas style, this may not be a literal translation, and
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Before highest yoga tantra initiations, the lama passes out kusha grass and
reflections on a song of longing for tara, the infallible
--
was only a dream. What a pity! We observe our dreams the night before initiation because dreams are used as an analogy for the illusory nature of phenomena that are empty by nature. The people who got so excited missed that
point entirely.
--
centers and/or teachers charge for teachings and initiations to cover costs. I
can understand why they do this, but it makes me uncomfortable. First, people dont create positive potential and fail to develop the quality of generosity, both of which are essential to progress on the path. When we make a
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often request highest yoga tantra initiations from Lama Yeshe, Lama, please
give us Yamantaka and Heruka initiations. Lama Yeshe would shoo them
out, saying, Go meditate on Lamrim and thought transformation. Learn to
--
to receive the initiation that we want. Rather, lets cultivate the attitude that
sees vows as essential for our own spiritual progress, an attitude that wants
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when they approach Vajrayana. They want to receive Vajrayana initiations to
get blessings, They seem to think that the less they understand, the more
--
on the fourth day gave a Medicine Buddha initiation. Several thousand more
people came for the Medicine Buddha initiation than for the Heart Sutra
teachings. His Holiness was not happy about that situation. He bluntly said
--
teachings and fewer should take the initiation. Why? Because everyone needs
to practice the three principal aspects of the path the determination to be
--
receive tantric initiation for the deities that they wish to practice.
Verse 14: Relying on Tara
1.07 - Savitri, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
My initiation by him into English poetry rendered the scribe's work congenial as well as convenient. If I missed some words, I would ask again, but sometimes I put down what I thought I heard correct. Later on, after his passing away, experts found the meaning of some words to be dubious, ambiguous, or even wrong. There was faulty punctuation in abundance. Sometimes Sri Aurobindo did not dictate the punctuation and I didn't ask. One couldn't always remind the poet while he was dictating, of the necessity of punctuation, and thus put a curb on his flow. People asked whether I used shorthand for transcribing. There was no need for it at all, for the dictation was very slow and at times halted, waiting for inspiration, I suppose. I don't know what the nature was of Milton's dictation, but one thing was certain: Sri Aurobindo had not Milton's temper, and I didn't suffer his daughter's fate!
The tempo of the work was subsequently speeded up and it proceeded smoothly without break till the seal of incomplete completion was put about two weeks before the November Darshan of 1950. Very probably he had taken the decision to withdraw from this world of the sad music of humanity and leave in compensation his divine music of Savitri. A curious incident has stuck in my memory. One day he continued working even beyond 1.30 p.m. a rare occurrence and that was the day I was invited for lunch at a friend's place. I thought I would certainly be free by 2 p.m. but no, he seemed to be unusually inspired! I believe I was showing some signs of restlessness at which he remarked, "What's the matter?" I don't remember whether I kept quiet or told him the truth. He, however, shut shop soon after. This incident reminds me strongly of Champaklal's valuable admonition that those who want to serve the Divine must have no personal ties or strings.
1.07 - Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3:But the hold of this ego-consciousness upon our whole habit of existence is difficult to shake off when we have no longer need of the separative, the individualistic and aggressive stage of development, when we would proceed forward from this necessity of littleness in the child-soul to unity and universality, to the cosmic consciousness and beyond, to our transcendent spiritstature. It is indispensable to recognise clearly, not only in our mode of thought but in our way of feeling, sensing, doing, that this movement, this universal action is not a helpless impersonal wave of being which lends itself to the will of any ego according to that ego's strength and insistence. It is the movement of a cosmic Being who is the Knower of his field, the steps of a Divinity who is the Master of his own progressive force of action. As the movement is one and indivisible, so he who is present in the movement is one, sole and indivisible. Not only all result is determined by him, but all initiation, action and process are dependent on the motion of his cosmic force and only belong secondarily and in their form to the creature.
4:But what then must be the spiritual position of the personal worker? What is his true relation in dynamic Nature to this one cosmic Being and this one total movement? He is a centre only - a centre of differentiation of the one personal consciousness, a centre of determination of the one total movement; his personality reflects in a wave of persistent individuality the one universal Person, the Transcendent, the Eternal. In the Ignorance it is always a broken and distorted reflection because the crest of the wave which is our conscious waking self throws back only an imperfect and falsified similitude of the divine Spirit. All our opinions, standards, formations, principles are only attempts to represent in this broken, reflecting and distorting mirror something of the universal and progressive total action and its many-sided movement towards some ultimate self-revelation of the Divine. Our mind represents it as best it can with a narrow approximation that becomes less and less inadequate in proportion as its thought grows in wideness and light and power; but it is always an approximation and not even a true partial figure. The Divine Will acts through the aeons to reveal progressively not only in the unity of the cosmos, not only in the collectivity of living and thinking creatures, but in the soul of each individual something of its divine Mystery and the hidden truth of the Infinite. Therefore there is in the cosmos, in the collectivity, in the individual, a rooted instinct or belief in its own perfectibility, a constant drive towards an ever increasing and more adequate and more harmonious self-development nearer to the secret truth of things. This effort is represented to the constructing mind of man by standards of knowledge, feeling, character, aesthesis and action, - rules, ideals, norms and laws that he essays to turn into universal dharmas.
1.083 - Choosing an Object for Concentration, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
We now conclude that this point is not merely a physical point. It is more a type of conceptual point, or rather the centre of our affection, which cannot find a physical location anywhere. It cannot be seen in this world. Such is the intricacy that is involved in the choosing of the object of meditation itself. This difficulty is a little bit obviated by the assistance that we receive from a Guru at the time of initiation.
1.08 - Origin of Rudra: his becoming eight Rudras, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
ga, and Vāyu agree with our text in the nomenclature of the Rudras, and their types, their wives, and progeny. The types are those which are enumerated in the Nāndī, p. 59 or opening benedictory verse, of Sakuntalā; and the passage of the Viṣṇu P. was found by Mons. Chezy on the envelope of his copy. He has justly corrected Sir Wm. Jones's version of the term ### 'the sacrifice is performed with solemnity;' as the word means, 'Brahmane officiant,' 'the Brāhmaṇ who is qualified by initiation (Dīkṣā) to conduct the rite.' These are considered as the bodies, or visible forms, of those modifications of Rudra which are variously named, and which, being praised in them, severally abstain from harming them: ### Vāyu P. The Bhāgavata, III. 12, has a different scheme, as usual; but it confounds the notion of the eleven Rudras, to whom the text subsequently adverts, with that of the eight here specified. These eleven it terms Manyu, Manu, Mahīnasa, Mahān, Siva, Ritadhwaja, Ugraretas, Bhava, Kāla, Vāmadeva, and Dhritavrata: their wives are, Dhī, Dhriti, Rasalomā, Niyut, Sarpī, Ilā, Ambikā, Irāvatī, Swadhā, Dīkṣā, Rudrānī: and their places are, the heart, senses, breath, ether, air, fire, water, earth, sun, moon, and tapas, or ascetic devotion. The same allegory or mystification characterises both accounts.
[5]: See the story of Dakṣa's sacrifice at the end of the chapter.
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kara Ācārya, and since. There is no discussion in the Bhāgavata, but Rudra is described as present at a former assembly, when his father-in-law censured him before the guests, and in consequence he departed in a rage. His follower Nandī curses the company, and Bhrigu retorts in language descriptive of the Vāmācāris, or left hand worshippers of Śiva. "May all those," he says, "who adopt the worship of Bhava (Śiva), all those who follow the practices of his worshippers, become heretics, and oppugners of holy doctrines; may they neglect the observances of purification; may they be of infirm intellects, wearing clotted hair, and ornamenting themselves with ashes and bones; and may they enter the Śaiva initiation, in which spirituous liquor is the libation."
[4]: This simple account of Sati's share in the transaction is considerably modified in p. 64 other accounts. In the Kūrma, the quarrel begins with Dakṣa the patriarch's being, as he thinks, treated by his son-in-law with less respect than is his due. Upon his daughter Satī's subsequently visiting him, he abuses her husband, and turns her out of his house. She in spite destroys herself. Śiva, hearing of this, comes to Dakṣa, and curses him to be born as a Kṣetriya, the son of the Pracetasas, and to beget a son on his own daughter. It is in this subsequent birth that the sacrifice occurs. The Li
1.08 - Psycho therapy Today, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
drastic measures at all those moments in life when psychic transitions haveto be effected. The most important of these are the initiations at puberty
and the rites pertaining to marriage, birth, and death. All these ceremonies,
--
we find the custom of initiation into manhood, when, by means of a ritual
death, the individual is detached from his family and indeed from hiswhole previous identity, and is reborn as a member of the tribe. Or we find
1.08 - Sri Aurobindos Descent into Death, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
to help them now, after their initiation of the new evolution
in its critical present phase.
1.08 - The Three Schools of Magick 3, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Our Essay approaches its goal; the theory of Life to which initiation tends.
Let us continue!
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This process is what is really meant by initiation; that is to say, the going into oneself, and making one's peace, so to speak, with all the forces that one finds there.
It is forbidden here to discuss the nature of The Book of the Law, the Sacred Scripture of Thelema. Even after forty years of close expert examination, it remains to a great extent mysterious; but the little we know of it is enough to show that it is a sublime synthesis of all Science and all ethics. It is by virtue of this Book that man may attain a degree of freedom hitherto never suspected to be possible, a spiritual development altogether beyond anything hitherto known; and, what is really more to the point, a control of external nature which will make the boasted achievements of the last century appear no more than childish preliminaries to an incomparably mighty manhood.
1.096 - Powers that Accrue in the Practice, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
Do not try these methods. They are very dangerous and can lead to anything. You may end up in a mental hospital if you start these techniques without proper purification of the mind. It requires a Guru. Nobody may practise these samyamas without proper initiation under a competent master.
Thus, this grahsya samapatti, or the mastery one acquires over the object, brings such powers as these. Incidentally, it has a result on the body of the person also. There is a perfection that follows in respect of ones own body, which is described in another sutra: rpa lvaya bala vajra sahananatvni kyasapat (III.47). It appears that one becomes very handsome in ones personality, beautiful in complexion, radiant in the skin, and so on; these are qualities described. Apart from that, great strength follows. One becomes vajrasamhana adamantine in ones energy so that one will become indefatigable and unapproachable by the forces of nature. These perfections of the body are subsidiary consequences that follow the mastery one gains over the elements. The third result that follows, as the sutra tells us, is that the elements do not any more obstruct the person. We will not sink into water, or get burnt by fire, etc. These are the non-obstructing characters revealed by the elements. One can pierce through a wall and pass through it, by the entry of the subtle body through these apparently gross objects. The non-obstructive character of the elements in respect of the yogi is the third aspect.
1.09 - ADVICE TO THE BRAHMOS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"In the Kartabhaja sect, the teacher, while giving initiation, says to the disciple, 'Now everything depends on your mind.' According to this sect, 'He who has the right mind find the right way and also achieves the right end.' It was through the power of his mind that Hanuman leapt over the sea. 'I am the servant of Rma; I have repeated the holy name of Rma. Is there anything impossible for me?'-that was Hanuman's faith.
"Ignorance lasts as long as one has ego. There can be no liberation so long as the ego remains. 'O God, Thou art the Doer and not I'-that is knowledge.
1.09 - Equality and the Annihilation of Ego, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
13:Here too, in this movement by which the soul divests itself gradually of the obscure robe of the ego, there is a progress by marked stages. For not only the fruit of works belongs to the Lord alone, but our works also must be his; he is the true lord of our actions no less than of our results. This we must not see with the thinking mind only, it must become entirely true to our entire consciousness and will. The sadhaka has not only to think and know but to see and feel concretely and intensely even in the moment of the working and in its initiation and whole process that his works are not his at all, but are coming through him from the Supreme Existence. He must be always aware of a Force, a Presence, a Will that acts through his individual nature. But there is in taking this turn the danger that he may confuse his own disguised or sublimated ego or an inferior power with the Lord and substitute its demands for the supreme dictates. He may fall into a common ambush of this lower nature and distort his supposed surrender to a higher Power into an excuse for a magnified and uncontrolled indulgence of his own self-will and even of his desires and passions. A great sincerity is asked for and has to be imposed not only on the conscious mind but still more on the subliminal part of us which is full of hidden movements. For there is there, especially in our subliminal vital nature, an incorrigible charlatan and actor. The sadhaka must first have advanced far in the elimination of desire and in the firm equality of his soul towards all workings and all happenings before he can utterly lay down the burden of his works on the Divine. At every moment he must proceed with a vigilant eye upon the deceits of the ego and the ambushes of the misleading Powers of Darkness who ever represent themselves as the one Source of Light and Truth and take on them a simulacrum of divine forms in order to capture the soul of the seeker.
14:Immediately he must take the further step of relegating himself to the position of the Witness. Aloof from the Prakriti, impersonal and dispassionate, he must watch the executive Nature-Force at work within him and understand its action; he must learn by this separation to recognise the play of her universal forces, distinguish her interweaving of light and night, the divine and the undivine, and detect her formidable Powers and Beings that use the ignorant human creature. Nature works in us, says the Gita, through the triple quality of Prakriti, the quality of light and good, the quality of passion and desire and the quality of obscurity and inertia. The seeker must learn to distinguish, as an impartial and discerning witness of all that proceeds within this kingdom of his nature, the separate and the combined action of these qualities; he must pursue the workings of the cosmic forces in him through all the labyrinth of their subtle unseen processes and disguises and know every intricacy of the maze. As he proceeds in this knowledge, he will be able to become the giver of the sanction and no longer remain an ignorant tool of Nature. At first he must induce the NatureForce in its action on his instruments to subdue the working of its two lower qualities and bring them into subjection to the quality of light and good and, afterwards, he must persuade that again to offer itself so that all three may be transformed by a higher Power into their divine equivalents, supreme repose and calm, divine illumination and bliss, the eternal divine dynamis, Tapas. The first part of this discipline and change can be firmly done in principle by the will of the mental being in us; but its full execution and the subsequent transformation can be done only when the deeper psychic soul increases its hold on the nature and replaces the mental being as its ruler. When this happens, he will be ready to make, not only with an aspiration and intention and an initial and progressive self-abandonment but with the most intense actuality of dynamic self-giving, the complete renunciation of his works to the Supreme Will. By degrees his mind of an imperfect human intelligence will be replaced by a spiritual and illumined mind and that can in the end enter into the supramental Truth-Light; he will then no longer act from his nature of the Ignorance with its three modes of confused and imperfect activity, but from a diviner nature of spiritual calm, light, power and bliss. He will act not from an amalgam of an ignorant mind and will with the drive of a still more ignorant heart of emotion and the desire of the life-being and the urge and instinct of the flesh, but first from a spiritualised self and nature and, last, from a supramental Truth-consciousness and its divine force of supernature.
1.09 - The Secret Chiefs, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
In the R.R. et A.C., this is indicated to the Adept Minor by the title conferred upon him on his initiation to that grade: Hodos Camelionis: the Path of the Chameleon. (This emphasizes the omnivalence of the force.) In the higher degrees of O.T.O. the AA is not fond of terms like this, which verge on the picturesque it is usually called "the Ophidian Vibrations," thus laying special stress upon its serpentine strength, subtlety, its control of life and death, and its power to insinuate itself into any desired set of circumstances.
It is of this universally powerful weapon that the Secret Chiefs must be supposed to possess complete control.
1.10 - Conscious Force, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:ALL PHENOMENAL existence resolves itself into Force, into a movement of energy that assumes more or less material, more or less gross or subtle forms for selfpresentation to its own experience. In the ancient images by which human thought attempted to make this origin and law of being intelligible and real to itself, this infinite existence of Force was figured as a sea, initially at rest and therefore free from forms, but the first disturbance, the first initiation of movement necessitates the creation of forms and is the seed of a universe.
2:Matter is the presentation of force which is most easily intelligible to our intelligence, moulded as it is by contacts in Matter to which a mind involved in material brain gives the response. The elementary state of material Force is, in the view of the old Indian physicists, a condition of pure material extension in Space of which the peculiar property is vibration typified to us by the phenomenon of sound. But vibration in this state of ether is not sufficient to create forms. There must first be some obstruction in the flow of the Force ocean, some contraction and expansion, some interplay of vibrations, some impinging of force upon force so as to create a beginning of fixed relations and mutual effects. Material Force modifying its first ethereal status assumes a second, called in the old language the aerial, of which the special property is contact between force and force, contact that is the basis of all material relations. Still we have not as yet real forms but only varying forces. A sustaining principle is needed. This is provided by a third self-modification of the primitive Force of which the principle of light, electricity, fire and heat is for us the characteristic manifestation. Even then, we can have forms of force preserving their own character and peculiar action, but not stable forms of Matter. A fourth state characterised by diffusion and a first medium of permanent attractions and repulsions, termed picturesquely water or the liquid state, and a fifth of cohesion, termed earth or the solid state, complete the necessary elements.
1.10 - Mantra Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
16. Get the Mantra initiation from your Guru. Or pray to your Ishta Devata and start doing Japa of the particular Mantra, if you find it difficult to get a Guru.
17. May you all become Mantra Yogis with Mantra Siddhi! May you all become real benefactors of the world by becoming divine healers through Mantra cure! May Mantra cure, divine healing centres be started all over the world!
1.10 - The Roughly Material Plane or the Material World, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
A very extensive and exciting book could be written solely about the effects of the various magnetic and electric fluids on the grossly material plane. But the interested reader who has decided to walk on the path of initiation and will not be deterred by the study of the principles, will find out by himself all about the varieties of powers and properties. The fruits and the insights he earned, in the course of his studies, will indemnify him amply.
1.10 - The Three Modes of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Prakriti in her force of the Ignorance. If on this basis the nature, the motion of Prakriti, is also to become free, it must be by a quiescence of action in a luminous peace and silence in which all necessary movements are done without any conscious reaction or participation or initiation of action by the mind or by the lifebeing, without any ripple of thought or eddy of the vital parts: it must be done under the impulsion, by the initiation, by the
242
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Self-Power and Bliss other than our own personal being or its building of Nature. This is a state of freedom which can come in the Yoga of works through renunciation of ego and desire and personal initiation and the surrender of the being to the cosmic Self or to the universal Shakti; it can come in the Yoga of knowledge by the cessation of thought, the silence of the mind, the opening of the whole being to the cosmic Consciousness, to the cosmic Self, the cosmic Dynamis or to the supreme Reality; it can come in the Yoga of devotion by the surrender of the heart and the whole nature into the hands of the All-Blissful as the adored Master of our existence. But the culminating change intervenes by a more positive and dynamic transcendence: there is a transference or transmutation into a superior spiritual status, trigun.atta, in which we participate in a greater spiritual dynamisation; for the three lower unequal modes pass into an equal triune mode of eternal calm, light and force, the repose, kinesis, illumination of the divine Nature.
This supreme harmony cannot come except by the cessation of egoistic will and choice and act and the quiescence of our limited intelligence. The individual ego must cease to strive, the mind fall silent, the desire-will learn not to initiate. Our personality must join its source and all thought and initiation come from above. The secret Master of our activities will be slowly unveiled to us and from the security of the supreme Will and Knowledge give the sanction to the Divine Shakti who will do all works in us with a purified and exalted nature for her instrument; the individual centre of personality will be only the upholder of her works here, their recipient and channel, the reflector of her power and luminous participator in her light, joy and force. Acting it will not act and no reaction of the lower
Prakriti will touch it. The transcendence of the three modes of
1.1.1.01 - Three Elements of Poetic Creation, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Poetry, or at any rate a truly poetic poetry, comes always from some subtle plane through the creative vital and uses the outer mind and other external instruments for transmission only. There are three elements in the production of poetry; there is the original source of inspiration, there is the vital force of creative beauty which contri butes its own substance and impetus and often determines the form, except when that also comes ready made from the original sources; there is, finally, the transmitting outer consciousness of the poet. The most genuine and perfect poetry is written when the original source is able to throw its inspiration pure and undiminished into the vital and there takes its true native form and power of speech exactly reproducing the inspiration, while the outer consciousness is entirely passive and transmits without alteration what it receives from the godheads of the inner or the superior spaces. When the vital mind and emotion are too active and give too much of their own initiation or a translation into more or less turbid vital stuff, the poetry remains powerful but is inferior in quality and less au thentic. Finally, if the outer consciousness is too lethargic and blocks the transmission or too active and makes its own version, then you have the poetry that fails or is at best a creditable mental manufacture. It is the interference of these two parts either by obstruction or by too great an activity of their own or by both together that causes the difficulty and labour of writing. There would be no difficulty if the inspiration came through without obstruction or interference in a pure transcript that is what happens in a poets highest or freest moments when he writes not at all out of his own external human mind, but by inspiration, as the mouthpiece of the Gods.
The originating source may be anywhere; the poetry may arise or descend from the subtle physical plane, from the higher or lower vital itself, from the dynamic or creative intelligence, from the plane of dynamic vision, from the psychic, from the illumined mind or Intuition,even, though this is the rarest, from the Overmind widenesses. To get the Overmind inspiration is so rare that there are only a few lines or short passages in all poetic literature that give at least some appearance or reflection of it. When the source of inspiration is in the heart or the psychic there is more easily a good will in the vital channel, the flow is spontaneous; the inspiration takes at once its true form and speech and is transmitted without any interference or only a minimum of interference by the brain-mind, that great spoiler of the higher or deeper splendours. It is the character of the lyrical inspiration, to flow in a jet out of the beingwhe ther it comes from the vital or the psychic, it is usually spontaneous, for these are the two most powerfully impelling and compelling parts of the nature. When on the contrary the source of inspiration is in the creative poetic intelligence or even the higher mind or the illumined mind, the poetry which comes from this quarter is always apt to be arrested by the outer intellect, our habitual thought-production engine. This intellect is an absurdly overactive part of the nature; it always thinks that nothing can be well done unless it puts its finger into the pie and therefore it instinctively interferes with the inspiration, blocks half or more than half of it and labours to substitute its own inferior and toilsome productions for the true speech and rhythm that ought to have come. The poet labours in anguish to get the one true word, the au thentic rhythm, the real divine substance of what he has to say, while all the time it is waiting complete and ready behind; but it is denied free transmission by some part of the transmitting agency which prefers to translate and is not willing merely to receive and transcribe. When one gets something through from the illumined mind, then there is likely to come to birth work that is really fine and great. When there comes with labour or without it something reasonably like what the poetic intelligence wanted to say, then there is something fine or adequate, though it may not be great unless there is an intervention from the higher levels. But when the outer brain is at work trying to fashion out of itself or to give its own version of what the higher sources are trying to pour down, then there results a manufacture or something quite inadequate or faulty or, at the best, good on the whole, but not the thing that ought to have come.
1.11 - The Soul or the Astral Body, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Each of these four elements, which determine mans temper, in the active form, owns the good properties, and in its passive form, the contrary or bad qualities. It would be too prolix to inform here about the effects of the elements, and it is better for the incipient adept to find out himself further effects by his own meditation. This manner also has a very special reason, on the path to initiation. Here I shall a few examples only:
The choleric temper, in its active polarity, has the following good qualities: activity, enthusiasm, eagerness, resolution, courage, productivity, etc. In the negative form these qualities are: gluttony, jealousy, passion, irritability, intemperance, bent to destruction, etc.
1.12 - The Left-Hand Path - The Black Brothers, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
And the Angel sayeth: Verily is the Pyramid a Temple of initiation. Verily also is it a tomb. Thinkest thou that there is life within the Masters of the Temple that sit hooded, encamped upon the Sea? Verily, there is no life in them.
Their sandals were the pure light, and they have taken them from their feet and cast them down through the abyss; for this Aethyr is holy ground.
1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
Similarly, poetry and music, which are but unconscious processes of handling these secret vibrations, can be a powerful means of opening up the consciousness. If we could compose conscious poetry or music through the conscious manipulation of higher vibrations, we would create masterpieces endowed with initiatory powers. Instead of a poetry that is a fantasy of the intellect and a nautch-girl of the mind,202 as Sri Aurobindo put it, we would create a mantric music or poetry to bring the gods into our life. 203 For true poetry is action; it opens little inlets in the consciousness we are so walled in, so barricaded! through which the Real can enter. It is a mantra of the Real,204 an initiation. This is what the Vedic rishis and the seers of the Upanishads did with their mantras, which have the power of communicating illumination to one who is ready. 205 This is what Sri Aurobindo has explained in his Future Poetry and what he has accomplished himself in Savitri.
Mantras, great poetry, great music, or the sacred Word, all come from the overmind plane. It is the source of all creative or spiritual activity (the two cannot be separated: the categorical divisions of the intellect vanish in this clear space where everything is sacred, even the profane). We might now attempt to describe the particular vibration or rhythm of the overmind. First, as anyone knows who has the capacity to enter more or less consciously in contact with the higher planes a poet, a writer, or an artist it is no longer ideas one perceives and tries to translate when one goes beyond a certain level of consciousness: one hears. Vibrations, or waves, or rhythms, literally impose themselves and take possession of the seeker, and subsequently garb themselves with words and ideas, or music, or colors, during the descent. But the word or idea, the music or color is merely a result, a byproduct: it only gives a body to that first, highly compelling vibration. If the poet, the true one, next corrects and recorrects his draft, it is not to improve the form, as it were, or to find a more adequate expression, but to capture the vibrating life behind more accurately; if the true vibration is absent, all the magic disintegrates, as a Vedic priest mispronouncing the mantra of the sacrifice. When the consciousness is transparent, the sound can be heard distinctly, and it is a seeing sound, as it were, a sound-image or a sound-idea, which inseparably links hearing to vision and thought within the same luminous essence. All is there, self-contained, within a single vibration. On all the intermediate planes higher mind, illumined or intuitive mind the vibrations are generally broken up as flashes, pulsations, or eruptions, while in the overmind they are great notes.
1.13 - Gnostic Symbols of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
sinian initiations, says Hippolytus, is the dark path of Per-
sephone, who was abducted by the god of the underworld; it
1.13 - System of the O.T.O., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Well, here's the essential difference ab ovo usque ad mala; the AA concerns the individual, his development, his initiation, his passage from "Student" to "Ipsissimus"; he has no contact of any kind with any other person except the Neophyte who introduces him, and any Student or Students whom he may, after becoming a Neophyte, introduce.
The details of this Pilgrim's Progress are very fully set forth in One Star in Sight; and I should indeed be stupid and presumptuous to try to do better than that. But it is true that with regard to the O.T.O. there is no similar manual of instruction. In the Manifesto, and other Official Pronunciamenti, there are, it is true, what ought to be adequate data; but I quite understand that they are not as ordered and classified as one would wish; there is certainly room for a simple elementary account of the origins of the Order, of its principles, of its methods, of its design, of the Virtue of its successive Grades. This I will now try to supply, at least in a brief outline.
Let us begin at the beginning. What is a Dramatic Ritual? It is a celebration of the Adventures of the God whom it is intended to invoke. (The Bacchae of Euripides is a perfect example of this.) Now, in the O.T.O., the object of the ceremonies being the initiation of the Candi- date, it is he whose Path in Eternity is displayed in dramatic form.
What is the Path?
1.13 - The Spirit, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
These three chapters relating to body, soul and spirit have represented man in his most perfect form. By now, the disciple ought to have realized how very important it is to know ones own microcosm for the initiation and especially for the magic and the mystic practice, as a matter of fact, for the whole of the secrets. Most of the authors, from sheer ignorance or for other cogent reasons, have omitted this extremely important part, the foundation.
1.14 - IMMORTALITY AND SURVIVAL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
In oriental discussions of the subject, that which survives death is not the personality. Buddhism accepts the doctrine of reincarnation; but it is not a soul that passes on (Buddhism denies the existence of a soul); it is the character. What we choose to make of our mental and physical constitution in the course of our life on earth affects the psychic medium within which individual minds lead a part at least of their amphibious existence, and this modification of the medium results, after the bodys death, in the initiation of a new existence either in a heaven, or a purgatory, or another body.
In the Vedanta cosmology there is, over and above the Atman or spiritual Self, identical with the divine Ground, something in the nature of a soul that reincarnates in a gross or subtle body, or manifests itself in some incorporeal state. This soul is not the personality of the defunct, but rather the particularized I-consciousness out of which a personality arises.
1.14 - The Book of Magic Formulae, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
But since this book is only written for readers with high ethical and moral standards and since only mature people will be in a position to follow its instructions successfully and to understand and truly acquire what we have to say about true initiations, I shall talk about this quite openly too.
First of all the book of formulae is not to be understood in a literal sense, for the expression "magic spells" or "magical formulae" used in the grimoires has served as a cloak for certain ideas. In other cases its object has been to take away the magician's consciousness from its normal state by barbaric words, names and expressions, and thus bring him into a state of ecstasy in which, it is assumed, he is able to influence a being. But generally speaking, the only success that untrained persons will have in this case, is hallucinations, phantoms or delusions, or incomplete, mediumistic results which need not be dealt with here. Usually such mediumistic results are, provided that they are genuine at all, the outcome of the extoriorisation of the person's unconsciousness. Sometimes elementals, and, should the person concerned have a strong capability for emanation, even elementaries might be formed which the genuine magician has already been informed about in " initiation into Hermetics". These elementaries are falsely regarded as the beings which are the object of evocation, and a person whose astral senses have not yet been sufficiently developed is not able to tell the difference or to control the situation. Therefore readers are warned against trying to practise ritual magic without necessary training. Apart from disappointments, the disturbances in the person's spirit and soul could have most regrettable consequences for the health. A genuine magician who has completed his magical training, may, however, without any danger whatever, safely practise ritual magic. This field of magic is no place for dabbler's experiments but a scheme of operation which facilitates the magical labour for the mature magician with already developed powers.
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the different degrees of initiation into the mysteries. We also
find them in the classical as well as Christian trichotomy con-
1.14 - The Suprarational Beauty, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This predominance given to reason and taste first and foremost, sometimes even almost alone, in the creation and appreciation of beauty arises from a temper of mind which is critical rather than creative; and in regard to creation its theory falls into a capital error. All artistic work in order to be perfect must indeed have in the very act of creation the guidance of an inner power of discrimination constantly selecting and rejecting in accordance with a principle of truth and beauty which remains always faithful to a harmony, a proportion, an intimate relation of the form to the idea; there is at the same time an exact fidelity of the idea to the spirit, nature and inner body of the thing of beauty which has been revealed to the soul and the mind, its svarpa and svabhva. Therefore this discriminating inner sense rejects all that is foreign, superfluous, otiose, all that is a mere diversion distractive and deformative, excessive or defective, while it selects and finds sovereignly all that can bring out the full truth, the utter beauty, the inmost power. But this discrimination is not that of the critical intellect, nor is the harmony, proportion, relation it observes that which can be fixed by any set law of the critical reason; it exists in the very nature and truth of the thing itself, the creation itself, in its secret inner law of beauty and harmony which can be seized by vision, not by intellectual analysis. The discrimination which works in the creator is therefore not an intellectual self-criticism or an obedience to rules imposed on him from outside by any intellectual canons, but itself creative, intuitive, a part of the vision, involved in and inseparable from the act of creation. It comes as part of that influx of power and light from above which by its divine enthusiasm lifts the faculties into their intense suprarational working. When it fails, when it is betrayed by the lower executive instruments rational or infrarational, and this happens when these cease to be passive and insist on obtruding their own demands or vagaries,the work is flawed and a subsequent act of self-criticism becomes necessary. But in correcting his work the artist who attempts to do it by rule and intellectual process, uses a false or at any rate an inferior method and cannot do his best. He ought rather to call to his aid the intuitive critical vision and embody it in a fresh act of inspired creation or recreation after bringing himself back by its means into harmony with the light and law of his original creative initiation. The critical intellect has no direct or independent part in the means of the inspired creator of beauty.
In the appreciation of beauty it has a part, but it is not even there the supreme judge or law-giver. The business of the intellect is to analyse the elements, parts, external processes, apparent principles of that which it studies and explain their relations and workings; in doing this it instructs and enlightens the lower mentality which has, if left to itself, the habit of doing things or seeing what is done and taking all for granted without proper observation and fruitful understanding. But as with truth of religion, so with the highest and deepest truth of beauty, the intellectual reason cannot seize its inner sense and reality, not even the inner truth of its apparent principles and processes, unless it is aided by a higher insight not its own. As it cannot give a method, process or rule by which beauty can or ought to be created, so also it cannot give to the appreciation of beauty that deeper insight which it needs; it can only help to remove the dullness and vagueness of the habitual perceptions and conceptions of the lower mind which prevent it from seeing beauty or which give it false and crude aesthetic habits: it does this by giving to the mind an external idea and rule of the elements of the thing it has to perceive and appreciate. What is farther needed is the awakening of a certain vision, an insight and an intuitive response in the soul. Reason which studies always from outside, cannot give this inner and more intimate contact; it has to aid itself by a more direct insight springing from the soul itself and to call at every step on the intuitive mind to fill up the gap of its own deficiencies.
1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
Every man can reach perfection, for the evolution of the whole of mankind leads towards it. The spiritual guide designated to each individual by Divine Providence for his initiation into the astral world leads and controls the spiritual development of his protege and in many cases carries on with his commission after his protege has re-incarnated in the physical world. The magician should therefore try at the very beginning of his development to get into contact with his genius. How this is achieved has already been told in " initiation into Hermetics". It sometimes happens that people who have already reached a high degree of perfection here on earth are able to continue their spiritual development in the astral world up to perfection, but these are selected by Divine
Providence to fulfill one or more missions on earth. Such spiritual leaders are then magicians or initiates by birth who at a certain phase of the physical development of their human bodies, usually shortly after the period of puberty, become suddenly aware of their state, their degree of spiritual development, and just need a little more to be mature enough for their divine mission. Such missions need not always be of a magical or spiritual nature, they may also have to do with other aspects of this world.
1.16 - Advantages and Disadvantages of Evocational Magic, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
This statement of true facts may be a warning to all truth seeking people not to follow the path of sorcery, for one can see from what has been said above that such a step is a great regression in the spiritual evolution and development of a human being. That all I have said is no fantastically made up story but a sad, true fact that can be checked by any true magician. Are-incarnated sorcerer proceeding along the right path of initiation is exposed to a far greater number of temptations than an average human being who is starting his spiritual development from the beginning.
The planes which formerly bound him try time after time in the most refined manner to get their previous victim again under their control.
--
The magician is able to call any being from the astral world without any danger, without becoming dependent on it and without becoming a victim of necromancy. A necromancer is a person with a low degree of spiritual and magical development, whose main object is to get into contact with astral beings of the earth-zone, preferably with dead people. The necromancer will in most cases try to make use of a being from the astral sphere, that is he will either require of such a being certain magical duties in the physical, astral or mental plane or merely try to satisfy his curiosity. For this purpose the necromancer will choose a human being after his physical death who during his life on earth busied himself with any of the secret sciences and who possibly has reached a certain degree of perfection in this. If such a person happens to be a true magician who has followed the true path of initiation and has learned all its laws here on earth, having thus acquired a certain degree of perfection, who noble-minded strove for positive aims and controlled the negative powers, he will, if he thinks it beneficial, appear to the necromancer and point out to him the advantages or disadvantages of his projects and intentions. A true magician will, however, never keep up a constant connection with a necromancer, nor will he try to influence the necromancer in such a manner that he becomes dependent on him. He will always be prepared to warn the necromancer and will give him permission to call him in case of emergency. Furthermore, he will give good advice to the necromancer and initiate him into the laws of the astral sphere, but he will never be prepared to serve the necromancer, or to do whatever he wants, or to fulfill his material desires. Only bad magicians with little experience and an affection for negative powers or mere sorcery will try to maintain a contact with a necromancer or assist him in realizing his desires and to satisfying his curiosity. If the necromancer gets into the sphere and under the control of such a being, he will acquire the same kind of vibration as that being has in the earth-zone and thus becomes a fellow-sufferer. The astral being will then prevent the necromancer from making any progress in his spiritual and magical development and will see that he is never enlightened or blessed with personal advance. The being will then be full of malicious pleasure because it has succeeded in being troublesome to a human being on earth. It remembers the days of its own life on earth, its difficulties and troubles there, the temptations it could not resist, the powers it misused and the lack of chances for its true initiation, and it will also try to hinder the necromancer in his development. The danger that arises for the necromancer in such a case need not be analysed. I will, however, mention the fact that the necromancer may easily be vampirised by such a being and that the being will try to realize in the astral world its own egocentric plans by help of the vampirised powers of the necromancer.
Therefore every scholar is warned not to take up any such contacts and not to make himself dependent on any being. The manner in which a necromancer calls a being from the astral plane rests on two methods. One method is spiritistic: the being is asked to reveal itself by help of mediums; that is by mediumistic writing or by mediums put into a state of trance. This method requires great perseverance until the being is able to take up a direct contact and to appear to the necromancer. The other method is that of evocation: the necromancer takes up contact with the being by help of a picture of the spirit's previous incarnation or by enlivening such a picture until finally the being steps out of it like an elementary, taking on its previous shape. A necromancer does not usually succeed at once, but if he goes on with his work persistently he might, depending on his maturity, development, willpower and imagination, force the being to appear to him visibly.
1.16 - Religion, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. Fundamentally he may be faithful to his own religion. But he will not be satisfied with the official doctrines of his Church, and will try to penetrate deeper into gods workshop. And such is the purpose of our initiation. According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion. He will state that, apart from the deficiencies, each defender of religion will endeavour to represent his religion as the best of all. Each religious truth is relative and the comprehension of it depends on the maturity of the person concerned. Therefore the adept does not interfere with anybody in this respect, nor will he try to sidetrack anyone from his truth, criticize him, to say nothing of condemning him. At the bottom of his heart he may feel sorry for fanatics or atheists without showing it outwardly. Let everybody hold on to what he believes and makes him happy and content. Should everybody stick to this maxim, there would be neither hatred nor religious dissensions on this earth. There would be no reason for disputes and all turns of mind could exist happily side by side.
Quite a different thing is, if a seeker, dissatisfied by materialism and doctrines, and longing for spiritual support, will ask advice and information of an adept. In such a case the adept is obliged to supply the seeker with spiritual light and insight, according to his mental powers. Then the magician should spare neither time nor pains to communicate his spiritual treasures and lead the seeker to the light.
1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all its organs the seal of that Nature, Prakriti, Maya, by which he has been put forth into manifestation out of God's eternal being; she has minted him like a coin out of the precious metal of the divine substance, but overlaid with a strong coating of the alloy of her phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of animal humanity, and although the secret sign of the Godhead is there, it is at first indistinguishable and always with difficulty decipherable, not to be really discovered except by that initiation into the mystery of our own being which distinguishes a Godward from an earthward humanity.
In the Avatar, the divinely-born Man, the real substance shines
1.16 - The Season of Truth, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
The secrets are simple, we have said, and we wonder if that difficult transmutation, that complex alchemy, those thick manuals and mysterious initiations, those educated austerities and spiritual exercises, those meditations and retreats and tortured breathing, that whole labor of the spirit are not actually the labor of the mind trying to make it difficult, tremendously difficult, so it can inflate itself further, and then glory in untying the enormous knot it had itself tied. If things are too simple, it does not believe in them, because it has nothing to do because it yearns to do, at all costs. That is its food and livelihood its ego's livelihood. But that mental inflation and pontification may hide from us an utter simplicity, a supreme facility, a supreme nondoing that is the art of doing well. We have had to do and do again, tramp around the trails of the mind to individualize a fragment of that formidable, immense Consciousness-Force, that universal Energy-Harmony, to make it self-conscious, as it were, in one form and in billions of forms. But has not the time come, at the end of the little flame's long journey, to break the mold that helped us to grow and rediscover the totality of Consciousness and Energy and Harmony in one small center of being, a little point of matter, in one clear little note, and to let That do, That change our eyes, That permeate our tissues, That widen our substance to let a supreme Child who runs over the great prairies of the world play in us and for us, if we want, because he is us? This difficult transmutation may not be so difficult after all. It must be as simple as truth, simple as a smile, simple as a child at play. Perhaps everything hinges simply on whether we wish to take the path of difficulty the path of the mind desperately inflating itself to try to blow itself up to the size of the universe, the path of the buts and whys and hows and all the implacable laws that choke us time and again in our mental straitjacket or the path of an unknown little something stealing through the air, sparkling in the air, winking at every street corner and every encounter, in everything, all the trifles of the day, as though carrying us along in an indescribable golden wake in which everything is easy and simple and miraculous we are right in the midst of the miracle! We are in the full supramental season. It is knocking at all our closed windows, at our countries, our hearts, our crumbling systems, our shaky laws, our faltering wisdoms, in our thousands of ills that keep coming out, our thousands of little lies abandoning the skiff in distress it is softly slipping its golden skiff beneath the old specious appearances, it is growing its unexpected buds beneath the old rags, awaiting a tiny little crack to spring out into the open, a tiny little call. The transmutation is not difficult; it is all there, already done, only waiting for us to open our eyes to the unreality of misery and falsehood and death and our impotence to the unreality of the mind and the laws of the mind. It is waiting for our radical saltus into that future of truth, our mass uprising against the old cage, our general strike against the Machine. Oh! let us leave it to the elders, the old elders of the old world, the old believers in misery and suffering and the bomb and the gospel and the millions of gospels that struggle for a share of the world, to run their old squeaky machine for a few more days, to quarrel over borders, argue over reforms of the rot, debate agreements of disagreement, stockpile bombs and false knowledge and libraries and museums, preach good and evil, preach the friend and the enemy, preach country and no-country, build more and more machines and supermachines and rockets to the moon and misery for every pocketbook let us leave to them the last convulsions of the falsehood, the last cries of the rot, we who do not care about countries, borders, machines and all that walled-in future, we who believe in a light and inexpressible something that is pounding at the doors of the world and pounding in our hearts, in a completely new future, completely clear and vibrant and marvelous, without borders, without laws, without gospels, beyond all their possibilities and impossibilities, their good and evil, their small countries and small thoughts we who believe in Truth, in the supreme beauty of Truth, the supreme joy of Truth, the supreme power of Truth. We are the sons of a more marvelous Future which is already there, which will spring out into the open by our cry of trust, sweeping away all the old machinery like an unreal dream, a nightmare of the mind, an old windbag filled with only as much air as we still consent to lend it. The transmutation has to be done in our hearts, the last revolution to be carried out, the supramental revolution of the human species as others had launched the human revolution among the apes its great rebellion against the Machine, its general strike against mental knowledge, mental power and mental fabrications against the mental prison its mass defection from the old groove of pain, and its calling out for what has to be, its simple cry for truth amidst the rubble of the mental age: the truth, the truth, the truth, and nothing but the truth.
Then Truth shall be.
1.17 - God, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
It is evident that true initiation knows neither a mystic nor a magic path. There is only one initiation linking both conceptions, in opposition to most of the mystic and spiritual schools which are dealing with the very highest problems, through meditation or other spiritual exercises, without having gone through the first steps at first. This would be very similar to somebody starting with the university studies without having gone through the elementary classes first. The results of such a onesided training, in some cases, are disastrous, sometimes even drastic, according to the individual talents. Generally the error is to be found in the fact that most of the matter comes from the Orient, where the material as well as the astral world is regarded as maya (illusion), and consequently little attention is paid to it. It is impossible to point out the details, for this would overstep the frame of this book. Sticking to a carefully planned, step-by-step development, there will be neither a mishap nor a failure nor bad consequences, for the simple reason that ripening takes place slowly but surely. It is quite an individual matter whether the adept will choose as his idea of God, Christ, Buddha, Brahma, Allah, or someone else. All depends on the idea, in the initiation.
The pure mystic wishes to approach his God only in the all-embracing love. The yogi, too, walks toward one single aspect of God. The bhakti- yogi keeps to the road of love and devotion, the raja and hatha yogi choose the path of self-control or volition, the jnana yogi will follow that of wisdom and cognition.
1.18 - Evocation, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
All the various ways of evocation described in grimoires are not for magicians but for sorcerers. Therefore, for a true magician, the instructions given in a grimoire are useless, and consequently the magician will put them aside. He knows the true path of initiation, he knows, too, how an evocation is to be carried out, and he is therefore convinced that he will fully succeed in his operations.
After the end of the evocation it is the magician's duty to send the spirit being back to its sphere, i. e. to discharge it. He accompanies it with his consciousness and, in doing so, he has an inner feeling of satisfaction and certainty that the being will return to the sphere from which it has been called and from which it has come. All the implements used for the evocation are returned by the magician to their depository and all accumulated powers are again discharged by his will and imagination. And this is the end of the evocation.
1.201 - Socrates, #Symposium, #Plato, #Philosophy
210a Socrates, might be initiated into. But for the final initiation and revelation, to which all this has been merely preliminary for someone on the right track, I am not sure if you have the capability. However I will do my utmost to explain to you, and you must try to follow if you can.
A person who would set out on this path in the right way must begin in youth by directing his attention to beautiful bodies, and first of all, if his guide is leading him aright, he should fall in love with the body of one individual only, and there procreate beautiful discourse.
--
erotica. Diotima is speaking as if Socrates was now reaching the final stages of initiation into a religious mystery-cult. See Mysteries in Glossary of names. eidos. See glossary. 197 psuche.
48
12.03 - The Sorrows of God, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Upanishadic standpoint declares that the being above is a silent witness, inactive, immobile, still. The one below is active and tastes of things both bitter and sweet, in other words, it takes part and is involved in the varied life-experiences. Certain lines of spiritual experience find that the being above is the reality, that the other is only an image, a reflection or illusion; and the image looks like a troubled image because it is, as it were, a reflection in the troubled waters of cosmic ignorance: dispel the ignorance, nothing remains but the transcendent Witness-Being, all alone. Such is the position of myvda or illusionism. But there are other lines of experience giving a different view and a different realisation. Both the transcendent and the immanent are form of the same Reality, with different functions, standing on different levels. Thus, as we say, the one below is not a vain image, or a mere reflection, but a descent here in the manifestation, of the reality above. This is also as real as that, the other, only it functions differently. The descent means two things, a double operation, first, the assumption of ignorance: what was light becomes obscurity, what was vast and infinite becomes small and finite, what was straight becomes crooked, what was delight becomes pain, what was one and united becomes many and disparate, what was whole becomes fragmentary. The descending being in one part or facet turns into the exact opposite of what it was originally, it is a denial of itself; secondly, in another aspect or part of itself, in its essence and profundity, it remains unaltered, intact as it were with no change whatsoever in its nature and character. That is the immanent Godhead, the emanation, the extension or projection of the transcendent into the external material appearance. This immanent Godhead has its own function, it is the initiation of the ascent after the descent, in the vast field of an apparent total ignorance it is as it were the catalytic element introducing a reverse movement upward.
Left to itself, Nature, the inferior inconscient Nature would admit of no change, it would only repeat the past; it would be a circular or cyclic movement, at the most it would move in a horizontal line; no upward movement would be possible. It is only when the consciousness descends, sends a shaft of light into the dark inert mass below, uses it as a churning rod, that there occurs the stirring of a new creation; a new formation begins, a new content is added and a new disposition built up. To the human consciousness that appears as calamities and catastrophes. It is truly the great sacrificial horse in the Upanishadic image that shakes its limbs and the elements roar and thunder the forward-marching galloping fiery force of a progressing Consciousness.
1.20 - Equality and Knowledge, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Gita in describing how we come by this knowledge, says that we get first initiation into it from the men of knowledge who have seen, not those who know merely by the intellect, its essential truths; but the actuality of it comes from within ourselves: "the man who is perfected by Yoga, finds it of himself in the self by the course of Time," it grows within him, that is to say, and he grows into it as he goes on increasing in desirelessness, in equality, in devotion to the Divine. It is only of the supreme knowledge that this can altogether be said; the knowledge which the intellect of man amasses, is gathered laboriously by the senses and the reason from outside. To get this other knowledge, self-existent, intuitive, self-experiencing, self-revealing, we must have conquered and controlled our mind and senses, samyatendriyah., so that we are no longer subject to their delusions, but rather the mind and senses become its pure mirror; we must have fixed our whole conscious being on the truth of that supreme reality in which all exists, tat-parah., so that it may display in us its luminous self-existence.
Finally, we must have a faith which no intellectual doubt can be allowed to disturb, sraddhavan labhate jnanam. "The ignorant who has not faith, the soul of doubt goeth to perdition; neither this world, nor the supreme world, nor any happiness is for the soul full of doubts." In fact, it is true that without faith nothing decisive can be achieved either in this world or for possession of the world above, and that it is only by laying hold of some sure basis and positive support that man can attain any measure of terrestrial or celestial success and satisfaction and happiness; the merely sceptical mind loses itself in the void. But still in the lower knowledge doubt and scepticism have their temporary uses; in the higher they are stumbling-blocks: for there the whole secret is not the balancing of truth and error, but a constantly progressing realisation of revealed truth. In
1.22 - ADVICE TO AN ACTOR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER (affectionately): "I don't give initiation. If a guru gives initiation he must assume responsibility for the disciple's sin and suffering. The Divine Mother has placed me in the state of a child. Perform the iva Puja as I told you. Come here now and then.
We shall see what happens later on through the will of God. I asked you to chant the name of Hari at home. Are you doing that?"
1.22 - THE END OF THE SPECIES, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
since, once their initiation is complete they will
have gauged the strength of their associated
1.25 - ADVICE TO PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER (to Balarm's father and the others): "The Bhaktamala is one of the Vaishnava books. It is a fine book. It describes the lives of the various Vaishnava devotees. But it is one-sided. At one place the author found peace of mind only after compelling Bhagavati, the Divine Mother, to take Her initiation according to the Vaishnava discipline.
"Once I spoke highly of Vaishnavcharan to Mathur and persuaded him to invite Vaishnavcharan to his house. Mathur welcomed him with great courtesy. He fed his guest from silver plates. Then do you know what happened? Vaishnav said in front of Mathur, 'You will achieve nothing whatsoever in spiritual life unless you accept Krishna as your Ideal.' Mathur was a follower of the Sakta cult and a worshipper of the Divine Mother. At once his face became crimson. I nudged Vaishnavcharan.
1.26 - Mental Processes - Two Only are Possible, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I had a marvellous lesson myself some years earlier. I had cut down a certain ritual of initiation to what I thought were the very barest bones, chiefly to make it easy to commit to memory.[48] Then came a candidate who was deaf not merely "a little hard of hearing;" his tympana were ruptured and the question was How?
All right for most of it; one could show him the words typed on slips. But during part of the ceremony he was hoodwinked; one was reduced to the deaf-and-dumb alphabet devised for such occasions. I am as clumsy and stupid at that as I am at most things, and lazy, infernally lazy, on top of that. Well, when it came to the point, the communication of the words became abominably, intolerably tedious. And then! Then I found that about two-thirds of my "absolutely essential" ritual was not necesasary at all!
1.27 - Structure of Mind Based on that of Body, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Now then! In the course of that kind of initiation conferred by Sammasati, the layers are stripped off very much as happens in elementary meditation (Dharana) to the conscious mind.
(There is a way of acquiring a great deal of strange and unsuspected knowledge of these matters by the use of Sulphuric Ether, (C2H5)2O, according to a special technique. I wrote a paper on it once, 16 pp. 4{to}, and fearing that it might be lost had many copies made and distributed. Where is it? I must write you a letter one day.[50])
1.28 - Need to Define God, Self, etc., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
You ask whether these remarks do not conflict with my repeated definition of initiation as the Way In. Not at all; the Inmost is identical with the All. As you travel inward, you become able to perceive all the layers which surround the "Self" from within, thus enlarging the scope of your vision of the Universe. It is like moving from a skirmishing patrol to G.H.Q.; and the object of so doing is obviously to exercise constantly increasing control over the whole Army. Every step in rank enables you both to see more and to do more; but one's attention is inevitably directed outward.
When the entire system of the Universe is conterminous with your comprehension, "inward" and "outward" become identical.
--
The real meaning of the passage is simple enough, if you understand that it refers to a specific result of initiation. You have to be able to reckon up the Universe, as a whole and in every part; and to get rid of all its false or partial realities by discarding everything but the One Reality which is the sole truth in, and of Illusion.
There is one set of equations which express the relation of the Perceiver and the Perceived, adjusted in accordance with the particular limitations on both sides; another cancels out all the finite terms, and leaves us with an ultimate x = o = 00.
1.29 - What is Certainty?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
"Oh, don't gas away like this! I want to know what to do about it. Am I to accept this cauerwauling Gamut, and enlarge my Mind, and call it an initiation? Or am I to nail my own of-all-Truth Tonic Solfa to the Mast, and go down into the Maelstrom of Insanity with colours flying? Do you really need Massed Bands to lull Baby to sleep?
The Master of the Temple deals very simply and efficiently with problems of this kind. "The Mind" (says he) of this Party of the First Part, hereinafter referred to as Frater N (or whatever his 8 = 3 motto may be) is so constructed that the interval from C to C is most harmoniously divided into n notes; that of the Party of the Second Part hereinafter referred to as not a Heretic, an Atheist, a Bolshie, ad Die-hard, a Schismatic, an Anarchist, a Black Magician, a Friend of Aleister Crowley, or whatever may be the current term of abuse Mr. A, Lord B, the Duke of C, Mrs. X, or whatever he or she may chance to be called into five. The Structure called of-all-Truth in neither of us is affected in the least, any more than in the reading of a Thermometer with Fahrenheit on one side and Centigrade on the other.
--
We may then with some confidence reaffirm that our certainties do assert our limitations; but this kind of limitation is not necessarily harmful, provided that we view the situation in its proper perspective, that we understand that membership of the of-all-Truth class does not (as one is apt to think at first sight) deepen the gulfs which separate mind from mind, but on the contrary put us in a position to ignore them. Our acts of "love under will," which express our devotion to Nuit, which multiply the fulfillments of our possibilities, become continually more efficacious, and more closely bound up with our Formula of initiation; and we progressively become aware of deeper and vaster Images of the of-all-Truth class, which reconcile, by including within themselves, all apparent antinomies.
It is certain without error that I ought to go to bed.
1.35 - The Tao 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I bound myself to devote my life to Magick at Easter 1898 (era vulgari) and received my first initiation on November 18 of that year.
My friend and climbing companion, Oscar Eckenstein, gave me my first instructions in learning the control of the mind early in 1901, in Mexico City. Shri Parananda, Solicitor General of Ceylon, an eminent writer upon, and teacher of, Yoga from the orthodox Shaivite standpoint, and Bhikkhu Ananda Metteya, (Allan Bennett) the great English Adept, who was one of my earliest instructors in Magick, and joined the Sangha in Burma in 1902, gave me my first groundings in mystical theory and practice. I spent some months of 1901 in Kandy, Ceylon with the latter, until success crowned my work.
--
From 1905 to 1918 the Tao Teh King was my continual study. I constantly recommended it to my friends as the supreme masterpiece of initiated wisdom, and I was as constantly disappointed when they declared that it did not impress them, especially as my preliminary descriptions of the book had aroused their keenest interest. I thus came to see that the fault lay with Legge's translation, and I felt myself impelled to undertake the task of presenting Lao Tze in language informed by the sympathetic understanding which initiation and spiritual experience had conferred on me. During my Great Magical Retirement on Aesopus Island in the Hudson River during the summer of 1918, I set myself to this work, but I discovered immediately that I was totally incompetent. I therefore appealed to an Adept named Amalantrah, which whom I was at that time in almost daily communication. He came readily to my aid, and exhibited to me a codex of the original, which conveyed to me with absolute certitude the exact significance of the text. I was able to divine without hesitation or doubt the precise manner in which Legge had been deceived. He had translated the Chinese with singular fidelity, yet in almost every verse the interpretation was altogether misleading. There was no need to refer to the text from the point of view of scholarship. I had merely to paraphrase his translation in the light of actual knowledge of the true significance of the terms employed. Any one who cares to take the trouble to compare the two versions will be astounded to see how slight a remodeling of a paragraph is sufficient to disperse the obstinate obscurity of prejudice, and let loose a fountain and a flood of living light; to kindle the gnarled prose of stolid scholarship into the burgeoning blossom of lyrical flame.
I completed my translation within three days, but during the last twenty years I have constantly reconsidered every sentence. The manuscript has been lent to a number of friends, scholars who have commended my work, and aspirants who have appreciated its adequacy to present the spirit of the Master's teaching. Those who had been disappointed with Legge's version were enthusiastic about mine. This circumstance is in itself sufficient to assure me that Love's labour has not been lost, and to fill me with enthusiastic confidence that the present publication will abundantly contri bute to the fulfillment of my True Will for which I came to earth. Let us wring from labour and sorrow the utmost of which humanity is capable. Fulfill my Will to open the portals of spiritual attainment to my fellowmen, to bring them to the enjoyment of that realization of Truth, beneath all veils of temporal falsehood, which has enlightened mine eyes and filled my mouth with song.
1.37 - Death - Fear - Magical Memory, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Alternatively, there may be something in the nature of such impressions that is unsuitable for carrying over into the conscious mind of the new man. Or there may be a rule e.g. the draught of the waters of the River Le the and it might be possible for some Adept (whose initiation is of a higher degree than, or of a different type to, mine) to make his way through that particular barrier.
Enough of may, might, perhaps, and all that harpy brood! The plain fact is that I remember nothing at all of any Post Mortem experiences, and I have never known anyone else who does.
1.39 - Prophecy, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
One last word on this subject. There is a Magical Operation of maximum importance: the initiation of a New Aeon. When it becomes necessary to utter a Word, the whole Planet must be bathed in blood. Before man is ready to accept the Law of Thelema, the Great War must be fought. This Bloody Sacrifice is the critical point of the World-Ceremony of the Proclamation of Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child, as Lord of the Aeon.*[AC39]
The whole matter is prophesied in The Book of the Law itself; let the student take note, and enter the ranks of the Host of the Sun.
1.3 - Mundaka Upanishads, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yajur, initiation, and all sacrifices and works of sacrifice,
and dues given, the year and the giver of the sacrifice and
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: Siva says, By My command. Those who live here need no initiation, diksha, etc., but get mukti.. Such is the comm and of Siva.
D.: The purana also says that those who are born here are Sivas group of followers, such as ghosts, spirits, disembodied beings, etc.
--
D.: I think that celibacy and initiation are prerequisites even for a householder in order that he may succeed in self-investigation. Am
I right? Or can a householder observe celibacy and seek initiation from a master on occasions only?
M.: First ascertain who the wife and the husb and are. Then these questions will not arise.
--
Bhagavan, indicating initiation by look and initiation by touch.
Sri Bhagavan observed: Dakshinamurti observed silence when the disciples approached Him. That is the highest form of initiation. It includes the other forms. There must be subject-object relationship established in the other dikshas. First the subject must emanate and then the object. Unless these two are there how is the one to look at the other or touch him? Mowna diksha is the most perfect; it comprises looking, touching and teaching. It will purify the individual in every way and establish him in the Reality.
Talk 520.
1.44 - Demeter and Persephone, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
For that the ancients regarded initiation in the Eleusinian
mysteries as a key to unlock the gates of Paradise appears to be
1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: Siva says, "By My command." Those who live here need no initiation, diksha, etc., but get mukti.. Such is the comm and of Siva.
D.: The purana also says that those who are born here are Siva's group of followers, such as ghosts, spirits, disembodied beings, etc.
--
D.: I think that celibacy and initiation are prerequisites even for a householder in order that he may succeed in self-investigation. Am
I right? Or can a householder observe celibacy and seek initiation from a master on occasions only?
M.: First ascertain who the wife and the husb and are. Then these questions will not arise.
1.48 - Morals of AL - Hard to Accept, and Why nevertheless we Must Concur, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This last point is of especial virtue: see AL III, 63-68. The value to you of the Book varies directly with the degree of your own initiation.
Footnotes:
1.49 - Thelemic Morality, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
First of all, one is tempted to argue that, that being so, there can be no disagreement; that is, on our general Theory of the Universe. True enough! The farther one goes in initiation, the rarer will such incidents become. Even a quite uninitiated person always provided that Thelema has freed him morally should find that nine times in ten, the inhibiting antagonism is accidental, or at least apparently irrelevant.
(Notice, please, that our conditions of the "rightness" of both sides are rigid: the usual inhibition is a threat to vanity, or some instinct equally false, and to be weeded out.)
--
So much for my own position; but let us look at the original case with another protagonist: let us say a young Thelemite, fanatically enthusiastic and not very far advanced in the Path of initiation. Suppose he argues: "To hell with my integrity, to hell with my spiritual development: I don't give a hoot what happens to me: all I know is that I can help the Order, and I'm jolly well going to do it."
Who is going to balance that entry in his Karmic account? Might not even his willingness to give up his prospects of advance justify his title to go forward? The curious, complex, obscure and formidable path that he has chosen may quite conceivably be his best short cut to the City of the Pyramids!
1.51 - How to Recognise Masters, Angels, etc., and how they Work, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
To my annoyance, I could not find the Elemental Watch Towers anywhere in the house. I daresay I gave up looking rather easily. I had got into a state of disgusted indifference about such things. Rose might have destroyed them in a drunken fit, just as she might have pawned them if they had possessed any commercial value. I shrugged my shoulders accordingly, and gave up the search. The skis that I had promised Ward were not to be found any more than the Watch Towers. After putting Neuburg through his initiation,*[AC46] we prepared to go to London. I had let the house, and my tenant was coming in on the first of July. We had four days in which to amuse ourselves; and we let ourselves go for a thorough good time. Thus like a thunderbolt comes the incident of June 28, thus described in my diary:
Glory be to Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit in the Highest! A little before midday I was impelled mysteriously (though exhausted by playing fives, billiards, etc. till nearly six this morning) to make a final search for the Elemental Tablets. And lo! when I had at last abandoned the search, I cast mine eyes upon a hole in the loft where were ski, etc., and there, O Holy, Holy, Holy! were not only all that I sought, but the manuscript of Liber Legis.[102]
--
Instantly my burden fell from my back. The long crucifixion of home life came to a crisis, immediately on my return to London. At the same time every other inhibition was automatically removed. For the first time since the spring of 1904 I felt myself free to do my Will. That, of course, was because I had at last understood what my Will was. My aspiration to be the means of emancipating humanity was perfectly fulfilled. I had merely to establish in the world the Law which had been given me to proclaim: "...thou hast no right but to do thy will." Had I bent my energies from the first to proclaiming the Law of Thelema I should doubtless have found no obstacle in my path. Those which naturally arise in the course of any work soever, would have been quietly removed by the Secret Chiefs. But I had chosen to fight against myself for five years, and "If Satan shall be divided against Satan, how shall his kingdom stand?" The more I strove, the more I encouraged an internal conflict, and stultified myself. I had been permitted to complete my initiation, for the reason that by doing so I was fitting myself for the fight; but all my other efforts had met with a derisory disaster. More, one does not wipe out a lustre of lunacy by a moment of sanity. I am suffering to this day from the effects of having wasted some of the best years of my life in the stupid and stubborn struggle to set up my conscious self against its silent sovereign, my true Soul. 'Had Zimri peace who slew his master?'
[The following is from Vol. 4 of The Confessions, pp. 590 - 598.[103]]
1.52 - Family - Public Enemy No. 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Bless you, the whole strength of the family is based on the fact that it cares for the family only: therefore its magical formula thus concentrated is of necessity hostile to so exclusively individual an aim as initiation.
Its sentiments are reciprocated.
1.57 - Beings I have Seen with my Physical Eye, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The conditions of such intercourse are complex: (a) one must have the necessary degree of initiation, magical efficiency, and natural ability; (b) one must be at the time in the appropriate magical state, or mood; (c) both parties must desire to make the contact, or else one must be lawfully the superior, a master and slave relationship, (d) the magical conditions at the time must be suitable and propitious; e.g., one would not make love to a salamandrine during a sandstorm. Of course, like all operations, any such efforts must be justified by their consoance with one's True Will.
On this note I end this abortive letter.
1.67 - The External Soul in Folk-Custom, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
is believed at initiation to unite his life with that of some
particular wild animal by a rite of blood-brotherhood; he draws
--
Examples of this supposed death and resurrection at initiation are
as follows. In the Wonghi or Wonghibon tribe of New South Wales the
--
The Ualaroi of the Upper Darling River said that at initiation the
boy met a ghost, who killed him and brought him to life again as a
--
afterwards brings him to life again during the period of initiation.
The rites of initiation in this tribe, as in the other Central
tribes, comprise the operations of circumcision and subincision; and
--
noise of the bull-roarer at initiation is made by a spirit named
Katajalina, who lives in an ant-hill and comes out and eats up the
--
lads at initiation and afterwards disgorges them in the form of
initiated men.
--
to the novices at initiation. The ceremony has been described for us
by an eye-witness. A man, disguised with stringy bark fibre, lay
--
tribal initiation, of which circumcision is the central feature, is
conceived by them, as by some Australian tribes, as a process of
--
much solemnity before the eyes of young men at initiation. In a
sacred enclosure they were shown a row of dead or seemingly dead men
--
a chief object is the initiation of young men. In recent years the
true nature of the association has been duly recognised by the
--
looking after him during the period of initiation. When all are
assembled before the shed, the high priest calls aloud upon the
--
for their respective totems, the novice at initiation is always
brought back by an artificial totem animal. Thus when a man was
--
the novice at initiation, there may exist or have existed not only a
belief in the possibility of permanently depositing the soul in some
--
of life at which initiation takes place is regularly puberty; and
this fact suggests that the special danger which totemism and
1.70 - Morality 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
But as to your own wit of judgment as to the general rules of your own private Code of Morals, what is "right" and what is "wrong" for you, that will emerge only from long self-analysis such as is the chief work of the Sword in the process of your initiation.
Love is the law, love under will.
17.11 - A Prayer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The tradition enjoins that to realise this Maha-Vidya a sadhaka should take an initiation and do the ceremonial worship as directed. And when initiated by a true adept he must first meditate on the Holy Feet, Sri Mahapaduka, uttering the sacred words that mean "I adore the Sri Mahapaduka in the eight-petalled white lotus that looks upward, that has twelve extremities and that is established within the womb of the thousand-petalled lotus, spread out like an umbrella and facing downward. The great Holy Feet is possessed of all sciences, embodies the Powers of all deities. It represents the three strides of the holy preceptor in the three centres, the crown (Brahma-randhra), the heart and the lower abdomen, even as it is richly decorated with resplendent ornaments."
Then the sadhak must contemplate the Twin Deity, Shiva and Parvati, the aggregate of all the gods, and possessed of the Gnostic Light displayed in the burning of the three cities of demons. They wear red and white garlands and garments, ointments and ornaments. They shower the desirable boon of divine protection with the twin hands outstretched in mysterious gesture of lotus embrace; delightful face and eyes they have, the mind enraptured in knowledge and bliss, their form is the very image of the supreme Guru, with his' red and white lotus-feet.
--
Then he must contemplate, as force in his mantric vision, the Light wave ranging from the lowest mystical circle to the opening in the crown he must know and realise it as rising up from the bottom of the spine to the crown of the head. He should meditate on it and realise that it is the tan-coloured point of lightning and the golden rising sun; it is a flaming Force which is no other than the Original Consciousness, it acts like a kindled fire that burns the knots of sin. Then he should contemplate on himself and see that his tangles of evil and sin that impede the fruition of initiation and the flow of shakti, have all been burnt out by the gathered rays reflected from the spontaneous Grace of the original consciousness-force. All the bonds of evil and sin having thus been destroyed by its rays, he must remember in his inner heart the original Divine Knowledge with the following prayer:
"May the Goddess Kundalini, luminous as the new-risen sun, rise up from her abode, in her graceful movement to open the centres (lotuses) in succession on her way upwards and kindle the spiritual light by the nectarous rays of the Abode of Shiva."
1.71 - Morality 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
What is the meaning of initiation? It is the Path to the realisation of your Self as the sole, the supreme, the absolute of all Truth, Beauty, Purity, Perfection!
What is the artistic sense in you? What but the One Channel always open to you through which this Light flows freely to enkindle you (and the world through you) with flowers of inexhaustible fervour and flame?
1.72 - Education, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
I suppose I might have put it more concisely: Classics is itself initiation, being the key of the Unconscious; Mathematics is the Art of manipulating the Ruach, and of raising it to Neschamah; and Science is co-terminous with Magick.
These are the three branches of study which I regard as fundamental. No others are in the same class. For instance, Geography is almost meaningless until one makes it real by dint of honest travel, which does not mean either "commuting" or "luxury cruises," still less "globe-trotting." Law is a specialized study, with a view to a career; History is too unsystematic and uncertain to be of much use as mental training; Art is to be studied for and by one's solitary self; any teaching soever is rank poison.
1.74 - Obstacles on the Path, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This story do you think? is neither here no there. No, my remarks are rarely asyntartete. The Masters, at one stage or another of initiation it is forbidden to indicate the conditions arrange for some test of the Aspirant's attitude in some matter, not necessarily involving cash. If he fails, goodnight!
Swords, now. The snags connected with this type of test are probably the nastiest of any. Misunderstanding, confusion, logical error (and, worse, logical precision of the kind that distinguishes many lunatics), dispersion, indecision, failure to estimate values correctly oh! there is no end to the list. So much so, indeed, that there is no specific critical test, it is all part of the routine, and goes on incessantly.
1.75 - The AA and the Planet, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Am I to understand that the AA has two main lines of Work. (1) The initiation of Individuals, (2) Action on the world in general say "Weltpolitik"? Because your letters on the # History of Magick do imply (2); and yet the AA discourages any form of group working. Is it that the Masters (8 = 3 Magistri Templi) having been admitted to the Third Order the AA proper; below this are R.R. et A.C. and GD are no longer liable to the dangers which make group activity in lower grades undesirable. Or do they still work as Individuals, yet, because they are initiates, appear to act as a corporate body? You have often expressed yourself as if this were so. 'Of course, They had to pick on me to do the dirty work' is a typical growl of the old Big Lion! But again there is that Magical Memory of yours when you came down from that Hermitage in the little wood overhanging the nullah below the Great Peak 'somewhere in Asia' and sat in some sort of Consistory in the valley where the great Lamaserai or whatever it was towers over the track, (I quote some of your phrases from memory.) Which is it?"
My dear child, that is all very sensibly put; and the answer is that Convenience would decide. Then you go on, after a digression:
--
Genius or initiation, which implies the liberation and development of the genius latent in us all (is not one of names of the "Holy Guardian Angel" the Genius?) is practically the monopoly of the "crazy adventurer," as the official mind will most certainly rate him. Then why do not the Masters oppose all forms of organization tooth-and-nail?
It depends, surely, on the stage which a society has reached on its fall to the servile state. Civilization of course, implies organization up to a certain point. The freedom of any function is built upon system; and so long as Law and Order make it easier for a man to do his True Will, they are admirable. It is when system is adored for its own sake, or as a means of endowing mediocrities with power as such, that the "critical temperature" is attained.
--
To assist the initiation of the individual.
To maintain a form of social order in which the adventure of initiation is easy to undertake!
To work out the Magical Formula of the New Aeon.
18.05 - Ashram Poets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
give them thy own initiation.
We shall pin thy words upon our flagand
1.83 - Epistola Ultima, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Vol. III, 6 LIBER ALEPH The Book of Wisdom or Folly. This book contains some of the deepest secrets of initiation, with a clear solution of many cosmic and ethical problems. First published 1961; reprinted by Weiser in 1991.
GOETIA, The The most intelligible of the medival (sic) rituals of Evocation. Contains also the favourite Invocation of the Master Therion. Republished as facsimile of first edition London: Equinox, 1976 and Thame: First Impressions, 1992. Re-set reprint Weiser, 1995. Note that the "favourite Invocation of the Master Therion" is not part of the original Goetia which is a 17th century Grimoire, but a modern translation and adaptation of a Grco-Egyptian rite of exorcism.
--
LIBER ARARITA This book describes in magical language a very secret process of initiation. In Equinox III (9) (The Holy Books of Thelema).
LIBER CORDIS CINCTI SERPENTE The Book of the Heart Girt with the Serpent: an account of the relations of the Aspirant with his Holy Guardian Angel. In Equinox III (1) and III (9) (The Holy Books of Thelema).
--
LIBER VII THE BOOK OF LAPIS LAZULI Gives in magical language an account of the initiation of a Master of the Temple. This is the only parallel, for beauty of ecstasy, to The Book of the Heart Girt with the Serpent. In Equinox III (9) (The Holy Books of Thelema).
LIBER TRIGRAMMATON Describes the course of Creation under the figure of the interplay of Three Principles. The book corresponding to the Stanzas of Dzyan. In Equinox III (9) (The Holy Books of Thelema).
LITTLE ESSAYS TOWARD TRUTH (Formerly called The Wine of the Graal). A collection of 17 Essays which constitute in themselves a complete system of initiation. Reprinted by New Falcon
MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE A complete work on Magick, with Appendices, the more important columns from 777, etc. There have been various reprints; the most complete is that contained in Magick: Book 4 parts I-IV (Weiser, 1994, 1997). Magick in Theory and Practice, generally simply cited by Crowley as Magick, is part III of Book 4. All page citations in Magick Without Tears refer to the first edition; the 1994 and 1997 editions have these numbers in the margins.
1951-02-10 - Liberty and license - surrender makes you free - Men in authority as representatives of the divine Truth - Work as offering - total surrender needs time - Effort and inspiration - will and patience, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Generally, no. It needs time. But there are instantaneous conversions; to explain all that to you in detail would take too much time. You know perhaps that in all schools of initiation it used to be said that it takes thirty-five years to change ones character! So you must not expect the thing to be done in a minute.
If one is to be indifferent to everything, why are prizes given to the children?
1951-03-10 - Fairy Tales- serpent guarding treasure - Vital beings- their incarnations - The vital being after death - Nightmares- vital and mental - Mind and vital after death - The spirit of the form- Egyptian mummies, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There is a mummy which has been the cause of a large number of catastrophes; she was a princess, daughter of a Pharaoh, and secretly at the head of a college of initiation at Thebes.
Well, men are like that.
1951-03-31 - Physical ailment and mental disorder - Curing an illness spiritually - Receptivity of the body - The subtle-physical- illness accidents - Curing sunstroke and other disorders, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the ancient schools of initiation there was the practice of saying simply This is true or This is false to those who already had the knowledge of these things.
Can anyone relate his experience on this subject? Naturally you must be able to give the correlation between a certain psychological state and a particular part of the body.
1951-05-07 - A Hierarchy - Transcendent, universal, individual Divine - The Supreme Shakti and Creation - Inadequacy of words, language, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is a grouping organised in order of merit. For instance, you have a chief at the centre and you may have four persons around him, and around these four, 8, then 12, 24, 36, 48, 124, and so on, each with his special mission, his special work, his particular authority, and all referring in an ascending order to the centre. That is a hierarchy. In governments they try to form hierarchies, but these are untrue, they are arbitrary and not worth anything. But in all ancient initiations there were hierarchies which were expressions of individual meritindividual powers and meritshaving always at their centre the representative of the Supreme and the Shakti; sometimes having only the Supreme, depending on the religions. But the groups were always organised in that way, that is, with a growing number of individuals, each one having to refer to the officer immediately above him. For instance, the 124 had to refer to the 48, the 48 had to refer to the 24, the 24 refer to the 12, the 12 to the 8, and so on. That is a hierarchy. The word is used in a very imprecise and vague way. They speak of a hierarchy and think it is the men who govern and have subordinates. But the true hierarchy is an occult hierarchy, and this occult hierarchy had as its purpose the manifesting, the expressing of a more profound hierarchy which is a hierarchy of the invisible worlds.
What is the transcendent Mother?
1953-04-29, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What is to be done?Become still more conscious. It is very bad to learn just a little. One must learn more until one comes to the point where one sees that one knows nothing. I spoke to you about the novice who wants to pass on to others what he has learntuntil the day he sees he has not much to pass on. Usually all religious teaching is based on that. A very little knowledge, with precise formulas which are well written (often quite well written) and crystallise in the brain, and assert: That is indeed the truth. You have only to study what is there in the book. How easy it is! In every religion there is a bookwhe ther it be the Catechism, the Hindu texts, the Koran, in short, all the sacred booksyou learn it by heart. You are told that this-is-the-truth, and you are sure it is the truth and remain comfortable. It is very convenient, you dont need to try to understand. Those who dont know the same thing as you, are in the falsehood, and you even pray for those who are outside the Truth! This is a common fact in all religions. But in all religions there are people who know better and dont believe in these things. I had met one of these particularly, one belonging to the Catholic faith. He was a big man. I spoke to him about what I knew and asked him: Why do you use this method? Why do you perpetuate ignorance? He answered: It is a policy of peace of mind. If we didnt do that, people wouldnt listen to us. This, indeed, is the secret of religions. He told me: There are in our religion, as in the ancient initiations, people who know. There are schools where the old tradition is taught. But we are forbidden to speak about it. All these religious images are symbols representing something other than what is taught. But that is not taught outside.
The reason for this is very generous and kind (according to them): People who have a tiny brain and there are plentyif we tell them something thats too high, too great, it troubles them, disturbs them, and they become unhappy. They will never be able to understand. Why worry them uselessly? They dont have the capacity to find the truth. Whilst, if you tell them: If you have faith in this, you will go to heaven, they are quite happy. There, you see. It is very convenient. That is why it is perpetuated, otherwise there would be no religions.
1954-02-03 - The senses and super-sense - Children can be moulded - Keeping things in order - The shadow, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In some ancient initiations it was stated that the number of sees that man can develop is not five but seven and in certain special cases even twelve. Certain races at certain times have, out of necessity, developed more or less perfectly one or another of these supplementary sees. With a proper discipline persistently followed, they are within the reach of all who are sincerely interested in this development and its results. Among the faculties that are often mentioned, there is, for example, the ability to widen the physical consciousness, project it out of oneself so as to concentrate it on a given point and thus obtain sight, hearing, smell, taste and even touch at a distance.
What are the names of these twelve senses?
1954-03-03 - Occultism - A French scientists experiment, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
We have subtle senses; even as we have a physical body, we have other more subtle bodies which also have senses, and much more refined senses, much more precise and much more powerful than our physical senses. But naturally, as it is not customary in modern education to work in these domains, these things generally escape our ordinary knowledge. Yet children spontaneously live a great deal in this domain. They see things which are as real for them as physical things, they speak about them and they are usually told that they are stupid because they speak of things others dont see but which are as true for them, as tangible and real as what can be seen by everyone. Their dreams have an intensity and a capital importance in their life, and it is only with intensive mental growth that those capacities diminish. Now, there are people who have the good luck to be born with a spontaneous development, with inner sees, and nothing can prevent them from remaining awake. If these people meet in good time someone who can help them in a methodical development, they can become very interesting instruments for the study and discovery of this occult world. In all ages there have been initiatory schools, which took up these particularly talented people and educated them in this kind of science. These schools were always more or less secret or hidden, for ordinary men are quite intolerant of those capacities which are beyond them and disturb them. But there were fine periods in human history when these schools were recognised and much appreciated and respected, as in ancient Egypt, ancient Chaldea, ancient India, and even partially in Greece and Rome. There were always schools of initiation, even in mediaeval Europe, but there they had to be very carefully hidden, for they were pursued and persecuted by the official Christian religion, and if perchance it was discovered that such and such men or women were practising these occult sciences, they were tied to the stake and burnt alive as sorcerers! In our times this knowledge is almost lost; there are only a very few people who have it; but with mental growth the intolerance also has gone. People dont like these things very muchthey are disturbed, annoyed by them but still they are obliged to admit that these things are not crimes and people practising occultism are no longer burnt at the stake or imprisoned. Only, there are many people who claim to know but there are very few who do know. In any case, before entering upon this study, one must have, as I told you at the beginning, a very great self-mastery, must have attained a kind of abnegation, a self-forgetfulness, an egolessness, a disinterestedness and see of sacrifice which enables one to practise this without any danger. For, if you keep all egoistic or passionate movements, full of desires, you are sure, in the practice of this science, to meet with accidents which may have fatal consequences. As I said at the beginning, the absolutely indispensable condition is to have an intrepidity which does not allow any fear to enter into you. For this has been very often said, and it is quite true, that when you enter the invisible realm, the first things you meet are literally terrifying. If you have no fear, there is no danger, but the least fear puts you into danger. So, before anybody at all was allowed to practise this science, for a very long time, sometimes for years, the novice was submitted to a discipline, which gave him the assurance that he could practise it without experiencing the least fear and without any danger. That is why, my children, I have never spoken to you about it. This article was not specially for you the Bulletin goes to the whole world and it can reach here and there people who are prepared. But still, because it is written, I am telling you about it this evening, and I tell you that if anyone among you feels a special inclination, possesses special faculties and is ready to overcome every weakness, all egoism and all fear, I am ready to help him on the way and reveal these secrets to him. Voil!
Now, you will have to be a little more mature for me to undertake this task.
1955-11-02 - The first movement in Yoga - Interiorisation, finding ones soul - The Vedic Age - An incident about Vivekananda - The imaged language of the Vedas - The Vedic Rishis, involutionary beings - Involution and evolution, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
They used an imaged language. Some people say that it was because they wanted it to be an initiation which would be understood only by the initiates. But it could also be an absolutely spontaneous expression without a precise aim to veil things, but which could not be understood except by those who had the experience. For it is quite obviously something that is not mental, which came spontaneouslyas though it sprang from the heart and the aspirationwhich was the completely spontaneous expression of an experience or knowledge, and naturally, an expression which was poetic, which had its own rhythm, its own beauty and could be accessible only to those who had an identical experience. So it was veiled of itself, there was no need to add a veil upon it. It is more than likely that it happened like that.
When one has a true experience which is not the result of a preliminary thought constructing and obtaining the experience by a special effort, when it is a direct and spontaneous experience, an experience that comes from the very intensity of the aspiration, it is spontaneously formulated into words. When it is total and complete enough, it is formulated into words which are not thought out, which are spontaneous, which come out spontaneously from the consciousness. Well, it is more than likely that the Vedas were like that. But only those who have had the experience, had the same state of consciousness, can understand what it means.
1956-02-22 - Strong immobility of an immortal spirit - Equality of soul - Is all an expression of the divine Will? - Loosening the knot of action - Using experience as a cloak to cover excesses - Sincerity, a rare virtue, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Much. Not only they can, they do it. They do a lot of harm. The number of people who are tormented because they had the misfortune of meeting a so-called sannyasin,1 is considerable, considerable. I am not telling you this to frighten you, because here you are protected, but it is a fact. While receiving initiation these men have received the imposition of a force from the vital world, which is extremely dangerous. This is not always the case, but most often this is what happens.
Because sincerity is so rare a virtue in the world, one ought to bow down before it with respect when one meets it. Sinceritywhat we call sincerity, that is to say, a perfect honesty and transparency: that there may be nowhere in the being anything which pretends, hides or wants to s itself off for what it is not.
1956-05-23 - Yoga and religion - Story of two clergymen on a boat - The Buddha and the Supramental - Hieroglyphs and phonetic alphabets - A vision of ancient Egypt - Memory for sounds, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
What language was spoken in the Schools of initiation? How did they express themselves, those people?
I know that sounds are given for the words. Now, whether they know the exact pronunciation or not is another matter. They dont even know the pronunciation of ancient Greek.
--
I read somewhere that the priests of Egypt used to give initiation with mantras.
Sanskrit mantras? But that must be in a novel, surely!
1956-06-20 - Hearts mystic light, intuition - Psychic being, contact - Secular ethics - True role of mind - Realise the Divine by love - Depression, pleasure, joy - Heart mixture - To follow the soul - Physical process - remember the Mother, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But very often it happens that people form groups and make rules for themselves. That is a discipline which is self-imposed. It constantly happens. All societies, secret or other, and all initiation groups have always done things like that: they make rules which they impose upon themselves and usually follow very strictly. And there are even terrible penalties and quite disastrous consequences when, after having taken the oath, one wants to leave the discipline. This happens constantly in the world.
One could discuss the effectiveness, that would be another thing. But in any case, the question is not whether one can do itit does happen, it is something which has been happening since the most ancient times. Always man has tried to form groups in one way or another and impose laws on these groups.
--- Overview of noun initiation
The noun initiation has 4 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (2) initiation, induction, installation ::: (a formal entry into an organization or position or office; "his initiation into the club"; "he was ordered to report for induction into the army"; "he gave a speech as part of his installation into the hall of fame")
2. (1) initiation, founding, foundation, institution, origination, creation, innovation, introduction, instauration ::: (the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new; "she looked forward to her initiation as an adult"; "the foundation of a new scientific society")
3. knowledgeability, knowledgeableness, initiation ::: (wisdom as evidenced by the possession of knowledge; "his knowledgeability impressed me"; "his dullness was due to lack of initiation")
4. trigger, induction, initiation ::: (an act that sets in motion some course of events)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun initiation
4 senses of initiation
Sense 1
initiation, induction, installation
=> ceremony, ceremonial, ceremonial occasion, observance
=> affair, occasion, social occasion, function, social function
=> social event
=> event
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
initiation, founding, foundation, institution, origination, creation, innovation, introduction, instauration
=> beginning, start, commencement
=> change of state
=> change
=> action
=> act, deed, human action, human activity
=> event
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 3
knowledgeability, knowledgeableness, initiation
=> wisdom, wiseness
=> trait
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 4
trigger, induction, initiation
=> causing, causation
=> act, deed, human action, human activity
=> event
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun initiation
3 of 4 senses of initiation
Sense 1
initiation, induction, installation
=> inauguration, inaugural
=> coronation, enthronement, enthronization, enthronisation, investiture
=> bar mitzvah
=> bat mitzvah, bath mitzvah, bas mitzvah
Sense 2
initiation, founding, foundation, institution, origination, creation, innovation, introduction, instauration
=> authorship, paternity
Sense 4
trigger, induction, initiation
=> fomentation, instigation
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun initiation
4 senses of initiation
Sense 1
initiation, induction, installation
=> ceremony, ceremonial, ceremonial occasion, observance
Sense 2
initiation, founding, foundation, institution, origination, creation, innovation, introduction, instauration
=> beginning, start, commencement
Sense 3
knowledgeability, knowledgeableness, initiation
=> wisdom, wiseness
Sense 4
trigger, induction, initiation
=> causing, causation
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun initiation
4 senses of initiation
Sense 1
initiation, induction, installation
-> ceremony, ceremonial, ceremonial occasion, observance
=> circumstance
=> funeral
=> wedding, wedding ceremony, nuptials, hymeneals
=> pageant, pageantry
=> dedication
=> opening
=> commemoration, memorialization, memorialisation
=> military ceremony
=> initiation, induction, installation
=> exercise
=> fire walking
=> formality, formalities
=> Maundy
=> potlatch
Sense 2
initiation, founding, foundation, institution, origination, creation, innovation, introduction, instauration
-> beginning, start, commencement
=> springboard, jumping-off point, point of departure
=> activation
=> attack, tone-beginning
=> constitution, establishment, formation, organization, organisation
HAS INSTANCE=> Creation
=> introduction, debut, first appearance, launching, unveiling, entry
=> face-off
=> first step, initiative, opening move, opening
=> groundbreaking, groundbreaking ceremony
=> housing start
=> icebreaker
=> inauguration, startup
=> initiation, founding, foundation, institution, origination, creation, innovation, introduction, instauration
=> installation, installing, installment, instalment
=> jump ball
=> kickoff
=> resumption, recommencement
=> scrum, scrummage
=> startup
Sense 3
knowledgeability, knowledgeableness, initiation
-> wisdom, wiseness
=> judiciousness, sagacity, sagaciousness
=> knowledgeability, knowledgeableness, initiation
=> statesmanship, statecraft, diplomacy
=> discretion, discernment
Sense 4
trigger, induction, initiation
-> causing, causation
=> sending
=> trigger, induction, initiation
=> compulsion, coercion
=> influence
=> inducement, inducing
--- Grep of noun initiation
initiation
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/BimbosInitiation
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Initiation_(theosophy)
Warriors of Virtue(1997) - A young man, Ryan, suffering from a disability, wishes to join the other kids from his schools football team. During an initiation rite, Ryan is swept away through a whirlpool to the land of Tao. There he is hunted by the evil Lord Komodo, who desires the boy as a key to enter the real world. Ryan i...
Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation(1990) - When a long-running horror series brings in cult director Brian Yuzna (Society, The Dentist), the resulting film is generally a huge change of pace. Sometimes, as in the marvelous Return of the Living Dead III, that is a good thing. In this case, the result is a big, confused mess. Maud Adams stars...
Hell Night(1981) - This plodding, derivative slasher opus a surprise box-office hit stars Exorcist vet Linda Blair as one of a quartet of sorority and fraternity pledges required to spend the title evening of their initiation inside the spooky Garth Manor. The mansion was the site of a gruesome multiple murder,...
Blood Sisters(1987) - Several young women plan on joining a sorority. As part of the initiation, they have to spend the night in a haunted former brothel. Nudity and violence ensue, just like we hope they will.
A Walk to Remember(2002) - Inspired by the best-selling novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks, "A Walk to Remember" tells the story of a preacher's daughter, Jamie (Mandy Moore) and guileless rebel Landon (Shane West), whose worlds collide when, after an initiation gone wrong involving initiating a student into a clique,...
One Dark Night(1982) - As part of an initiation into a club called the Sisters, a young girl must spend the night in a mausoleum.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/40442/Initiation_feat_Hatsune_Miku -- Dementia, Music
Brotherhood (2010) ::: 6.4/10 -- R | 1h 16min | Crime, Drama, Thriller | 18 November 2010 (South Korea) -- A college fraternity initiation rite goes awfully wrong. A bullet wounded frat boy and a kidnapped convenience store clerk end up at the frat house. Panic continues. Director: Will Canon Writers:
https://allods.fandom.com/wiki/Quest:Initiation_Ritual
https://allods.fandom.com/wiki/Quest:Preparing_for_Initiation
https://characters.fandom.com/wiki/Corrine_(The_Initiation_of_Sarah)
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Ardent_Tsucora_Initiation
https://dnd4.fandom.com/wiki/Battlemind_Duulora_Initiation
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Initiation
https://marvelanimated.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Rising:_Initiation_(TV_Series)
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Rising:_Initiation
https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Andromeda:_Initiation
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Initiations
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Initiations_(episode)
https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Initiations
https://roblox.fandom.com/wiki/Combat_Initiation_badge
https://rpgmuseum.fandom.com/wiki/Initiation
https://saintsrow.fandom.com/wiki/Initiation_Station
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Contingency_Orders_for_the_Grand_Army_of_the_Republic:_Order_Initiation,_Orders_1_Through_150
https://swfanon.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Echoes_in_the_Void/Initiation
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Daring_Initiation_(short_story)
https://the-farthest-star.fandom.com/wiki/Initiation
Initiation feat. Hatsune Miku -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Dementia Music -- Initiation feat. Hatsune Miku Initiation feat. Hatsune Miku -- Music video directed by YKBX for the title track Initiation by Keiichirou Shibuya and Hiroki Azuma, featuring Hatsune Miku. It was included on DVD with the release of the album. -- Music - Dec 26, 2012 -- 346 5.59
Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e -- -- MAPPA -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Drama Fantasy Military Shounen -- Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e Katsute Kami Datta Kemono-tachi e -- With the initiation of the Patrian civil war came the creation of half-beast, half-human soldiers—a development of the outnumbered Northerners in a desperate attempt to counter the overwhelming Southern forces. Able to quickly dominate battlefields and achieve victory with ease, the soldiers' godlike abilities earned them the name "Incarnates." However, as the war raged on, the Incarnates encountered a problem involving the beasts inside them that they were unable to rectify by ordinary means. -- -- Once the war was over, mysteries and accounts of the Incarnates submitting to the misfortune of their war days surfaced. Aware of the horrors they faced during the war, Special Sergeant Major and former captain of the Incarnates Hank Henriette becomes a Beast Hunter—those who take the lives of Incarnates who have succumbed to the issues they experienced on the battlefields. -- -- After witnessing her father, a former Incarnate soldier, meet his end at the hands of one such Beast Hunter, Nancy Schaal Bancroft resolves to hunt the man who took her father's life. However, Nancy's eye-opening encounter with the Beast Hunter influences her to instead seek the reason behind her father's death and the Incarnates' problematic existence in society. -- -- 95,746 6.40
43S preinitiation complex
Abortive initiation
Acquisition initiation (ISPL)
Archaeal initiation factors
Bacterial initiation factor
Bacterial initiation factor 1
Bacterial initiation factor 2
Book of the Highest Initiation
Buddhist initiation ritual
Declaration of the Initiation of the Process of Independence of Catalonia
Eukaryotic initiation factor
Eukaryotic initiation factor 3
Eukaryotic initiation factor 4F
Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4 gamma 1
Initiation
Initiation (1987 film)
Initiation (2020 film)
Initiation (disambiguation)
Initiation factor
Initiation Into Hermetics
Initiation Love
Initiation (Rhea's Obsession album)
Initiation ritual (mafia)
Initiation-specific alpha-1,6-mannosyltransferase
Initiations (Star Trek: Voyager)
Initiation Tape
Initiation (The Office)
Initiation (Theosophy)
Mcts1, re-initiation and release factor
Powered Descent Initiation
Preinitiation complex
Project Initiation Documentation
Religious initiation rites
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
Sacraments of initiation
Session Initiation Protocol
Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation
The Beta Test Initiation
The Initiation (album)
The Initiation (novel)
The Initiation of Sarah (2006 film)
Transcription initiation protein SPT3 homolog
Transcription preinitiation complex
Translation initiation factor IF-3
Tumor initiation
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