Nighantu, Nighantuka (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root ghat, ghant to collect, bring together]

A glossary; particularly in the plural, the Vedic glossary explained by Yaska in his nirukta or glossarial commentary.

(See also: Nighantu, Nighantuka, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Sloka :

Sloka

(Sanskrit) "The Sanskrit epic meter formed of thirty-two syllables: verses in four half lines of eight, or in two lines of sixteen syllables each" (H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary).

See also: Sloka , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Nirukta (Sanskrit) [from nir forth, out + the verbal root vac to speak, utter]

Uttered, pronounced, expressed, defined; as a noun, the etymological interpretation of a word, also the name of such works, especially of a commentary on the Nighantus (a Vedic glossary) by Yaska, the oldest commentary on the Vedas presently known.

(See also: Nirukta, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Nazi organizations National Socialist German Workers Party Sturmabteilung Schutzstaffel Hitler Youth Lebensborn National Socialist Motor Corps Nazism in history Early Nazi Timeline Beer Hall Putsch Nuremberg rally Third Reich Night of the Long Knives Nur für Deutsche Nazi concepts Glossary of the Third Reich National Socialist Program Racial policy of Nazi Germany Führerprinzip Lebensraum V ...

Including:

Nazism - Ideological theory Nazism - Nazi Theory
Nazism - Nazi mysticism
Nazism - Key elements of the Nazi ideology
Nazism - Nazism and romanticism Nazism - Ideological competition Nazism - Support of anti-Communists for Fascism and Nazism Nazism - Nazism and Persians
Nazism - Economic practice Nazism - Effects Nazism - Backlash effects Nazism - People and history Nazism - Nazism in relation to other concepts Nazism - The role of the nation Nazism - Factors which promoted the success of Nazism Nazism - Nazi / Third Reich terminology in popular culture Nazism - Holy sites

Read more here: » Nazism: Encyclopedia - Nazism

A Theosophical definition of Sabda-Brahman :

Sabda-Brahman

(Sanskrit) A phrase literally signifying "WordBrahman"  - a curious analogy with the archaic Greek mystical teaching concerning the Logos. SabdaBrahman, therefore, may be rendered as the active unmanifest Logos of the solar system, and hence as the soul of Brahman expressing itself through its akasic veils as the divine Logos, or Word or Sound. This term is closely connected in meaning with the teaching concerning daiviprakriti. H. P. Blavatsky in her posthumous Glossary speaks of the Sabda-Brahman as "Ethereal Vibrations diffused throughout Space."

See also: Sabda-Brahman , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition ofPlane (Planes) :

Plane (Planes)

This is a word used in theosophy for the various ranges or steps of the hierarchical ladder of lives which blend into each other. There are no solutions of continuity in space, either in inner and invisible space or in outward and visible space. The physical world grades off into the astral world, which grades off again into a world higher than it, the world which is superior to the astral world; and so it continues throughout the series of hierarchical steps which compose a universe such as our universe. Remember also that the boundless All is filled full with universes, some so much greater than ours that the utmost reach of our imagination cannot conceive of them.

To quote H. P. Blavatsky in this connection, in her Theosophical Glossary under this same head:

"As used in Occultism, the term denotes the range or extent of some state of consciousness, or of the perceptive power of a particular set of senses, or the action of a particular force, or the state of matter corresponding to any of the above." (See also Hierarchy)

See also: Plane (Planes) , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Elementaries :

Elementaries

"Properly, the disembodied souls of the depraved; these souls having at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality" (Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky).

Strictly speaking, the word "elementaries" should be used as H. P. Blavatsky defines it in this quotation from her. But in modern theosophical literature the word has come to signify more particularly the phantoms or eidola of disembodied persons, these phantoms or eidola really being the kama-rupic shades, with especial application to the cases of grossly materialistic ex-humans whose evil impulses and appetites still inhering in the kama-rupic phantom draw these phantoms to physical spheres congenial to them. They are a real danger to psychical health and sanity, and literally haunt living human beings possessing tendencies akin to their own. They are soulless shells, but still filled with energies of a depraved and ignoble type.

Their destiny of course is like that of all other pretas or bhutas  - ultimate disintegration; for the gross astral atoms composing them slowly dissolve through the years after the manner of a dissolving column of smoke or a wisp of dark cloud on a mountainside.

See also: Elementaries , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Theosophy :

Theosophy

A compound Greek word: theos, a "divine being," a "god"; sophia, "wisdom"; hence divine wisdom. Theosophy is the majestic wisdom-religion of the archaic ages and is as old as thinking man. It was delivered to the first human protoplasts, the first thinking human beings on this earth, by highly intelligent spiritual entities from superior spheres. This ancient doctrine, this esoteric system, has been passed down from guardians to guardians to guardians through innumerable generations until our own time. Furthermore, portions of this original and majestic system have been given out at various periods of time to various races in various parts of the world by those guardians when humanity stood in need of such extension and elaboration of spiritual and intellectual thought.

Theosophy is not a syncretistic philosophy-religion-science, a system of thought or belief which has been put together piecemeal and consisting of parts or portions taken by some great mind from other various religions or philosophies. This idea is false. On the contrary, theosophy is that single system or systematic formulation of the facts of visible and invisible nature which, as expressed through the illuminated human mind, takes the apparently separate forms of science and of philosophy and of religion. We may likewise describe theosophy to be the formulation in human language of the nature, structure, origin, destiny, and operations of the kosmical universe and of the multitudes of beings which infill it.

It might be added that theosophy, in the language of H. P. Blavatsky (Theosophical Glossary, p. 328), is "the sub-stratum and basis of all the world-religions and philosophies, taught and practiced by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being. In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely divine ethics; the definitions in dictionaries are pure nonsense, based on religious prejudice and ignorance." (See also Universal Brotherhood)

See also: Theosophy , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Daiviprakriti :

Daiviprakriti

(Sanskrit) A compound signifying "divine" or "original evolver," or "original source," of the universe or of any self-contained or hierarchical portion of such universe, such as a solar system. Briefly, therefore, daiviprakriti may be called "divine matter," matter here being used in its original sense of "divine mother-evolver" or "divine original substance."

Now, as original substance manifests itself in the kosmic spaces as primordial kosmic light  - light in occult esoteric theosophical philosophy being a form of original matter or substance  - many mystics have referred to daiviprakriti under the phrase "the Light of the Logos." Daiviprakriti is, in fact, the first veil or sheath or ethereal body surrounding the Logos, as pradhana or prakriti surrounds Purusha or Brahman in the Sankhya philosophy, and as, on a scale incomparably more vast, mulaprakriti surrounds parabrahman. As daiviprakriti, therefore, is elemental matter, or matter in its sixth and seventh stages counting from physical matter upwards or, what comes to the same thing, matter in its first and second stages of its evolution from above, we may accurately enough speak of those filmy ethereal wisps of light seen in the midnight skies as a physical manifestation of daiviprakriti, because when they are not actually resolvable nebulae, they are worlds, or rather systems of worlds, in the making.

When daiviprakriti has reached a certain state or condition of evolutionary manifestation, we may properly speak of it under the term fohat. Fohat, in H. P. Blavatsky's words, is

"The essence of cosmic electricity. An occult Tibetan term for Daivi-prakriti, primordial light: and in the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaseless destructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is the same, Fohat being the universal propelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant."  - Theosophical Glossary, p. 121

All this is extremely well put, but it must be remembered that although fohat is the energizing power working in and upon manifested daiviprakriti, or primordial substance, as the rider rides the steed, it is the kosmic intelligence, or kosmic monad as Pythagoras would say, working through both daiviprakriti and its differentiated energy called fohat, which is the guiding and controlling principle, not only in the kosmos but in every one of the subordinate elements and beings of the hosts of multitudes of them infilling the kosmos. The heart or essence of the sun is daiviprakriti working as itself, and also in its manifestation called fohat, but through the daiviprakriti and the fohatic aspect of it runs the all-permeant and directive intelligence of the solar divinity. The student should never make the mistake, however, of divorcing this guiding solar intelligence from its veils or vehicles, one of the highest of which is daiviprakriti-fohat.

See also: Daiviprakriti , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Hypnotism :

Hypnotism

Derived from a Greek word hypnos, which means "sleep," and strictly speaking the word hypnotism should be used only for those psychological-physiological phenomena in which the subject manifesting them is in a condition closely resembling sleep. The trouble is that in any attempt to study these various psychological powers of the human constitution it is found that they are many and of divers kinds; but the public, and even the technical experimenters, usually group all these psychologicalphenomena under the one word hypnotism, and therefore it is a misnomer.

One of such powers, for instance, which is well known, is called fascination. Another shows a more or less complete suspension of the individual will and of the individual activities of him who is the sufferer from such psychological power, although in other respects he may show no signs of physical sleep. Another again  - and this perhaps is the most important of all so far as actual dangers lie  - passes under the name of suggestion, an exceedingly good name, because it describes the field of action of perhaps the most subtle and dangerous side-branch of the exercise of the general power or force emanating from the mind of the operator.

The whole foundation upon which this power rests lies in the human psychological constitution; and it can be easily and neatly expressed in a few words. It is the power emanating from one mind, which can affect another mind and direct or misdirect the latter's course of action. This is in nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand a wrong thing to do; and this fact would readily be understood by everybody did men know, as they should, the difference between the higher and the lower nature of man, the difference between his incorruptible, death-defying individuality, his spiritual nature, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the brain-mind and all its train of weak and fugitive thoughts.

Anyone who has seen men and women in the state of hypnosis must realize not only how dangerous, how baleful and wrong it is, but also that it exemplifies the trance state perfectly. The reason is that the intermediate nature, or the psychomental apparatus, of the human being in this state has been displaced from its seat, in other words, is disjoined or dislocated; and there remains but the vitalized human body, with its more or less imperfect functioning of the brain cells and nervous apparatus. H. P. Blavatsky in her Theosophical Glossary writes: "It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as it interferes with the nerve-fluid and the nerves controlling the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels." (See also Mesmerism)

See also: Hypnotism , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Mysticism :

Mysticism

A word originally derived from the Greek and having a wide range of meaning in modern Occidental religious and philosophical literature. A mystic may be said to be one who has intuitions or intimations of the existence of inner and superior worlds, and who attempts to ally himself or to come into self-conscious communion with them and the beings inhabiting these inner and invisible worlds.

The word mysticism, of course, has various shades of significance, and a large number of definitions could easily be written following the views of different mystical writers on this theme. From the theosophical or occult point of view, however, a mystic is one who has inner convictions often based on inner vision and knowledge of the existence of spiritual and ethereal universes of which our outer physical universe is but the shell; and who has some inner knowledge that these universes or worlds or planes or spheres, with their hosts of inhabitants, are intimately connected with the origin, destiny, and even present nature of the world which surrounds us.

Genuine mysticism is an ennobling study. The average mystic, however, is one who lacks the direct guidance derived from personal teaching received from a master or spiritual superior.

See also: Mysticism , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Chakra :

Chakra

(Cakra, Sanskrit) A word signifying in general a "wheel," and from this simple original meaning there were often taken for occult and esoteric purposes a great many subordinate, very interesting, and in some cases highly mystical and profound derivatives.

Chakra also means a cycle, a period of duration, in which the wheel of time turns once. It also means the horizon, as being circular or of a wheel-form. It likewise means certain centers or pranic spherical loci of the body in which are supposed to collect streams of pranic energy of differing qualities, or pranic energies of different kinds. T

hese physiological chakras, which are actually connected with the pranic circulations and ganglia of the auric egg, and therefore function in the physical body through the intermediary of the linga-sarira or astral model-body, are located in different parts of the physical frame, reaching from the parts about the top of the skull to the parts about the pubis.

It would be highly improper, having at heart the best interests of humanity, to give the occult or esoteric teaching concerning the exact location, functions, and means of controlling the physiological chakras of the human body; for it is a foregone conclusion that were this mystical knowledge broadcast, it would be sadly misused, leading not only in many cases to death or insanity, but to the violation of every moral instinct. Alone the high initiates, who as a matter of fact have risen above the need of employing the physiological chakras, can use them at will, and for holy purposes  - which in fact is something that they rarely, if indeed they ever do.

See also: Chakra , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Chaos :

Chaos

(Greek) A word usually thought to mean a sort of helter-skelter treasury of original principles and seeds of beings. Well, so it verily is, in one profound sense; but it is most decidedly and emphatically not helter-skelter.

Chaos is properly the kosmic storehouse of all the latent or resting seeds of beings and things from former manvantaras. Of course it is this, simply because it contains everything. It means space, not the highest mystical or actual space, not the parabrahma-mulaprakriti, the Boundless  - not that. But the space of any particular hierarchy descending into manifestation, what space for it is at that particular period of its beginning of development. The directive principles in chaos are the gods when they awaken from their pralayic sleep.

Chaos in one sense may very truly be called the condition of the space of a solar system or even of a planetary chain during its pralaya. When awakening to planetary action begins, chaos pari passu ceases.

See also: Chaos , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Chela :

Chela

(Cela) An old Indian term. In archaic times more frequently spelled and pronounced cheta or cheda. The meaning is "servant," a personal disciple attached to the service of a teacher from whom he receives instruction. The idea is closely similar to the Anglo-Saxon term leorning-cneht, meaning "learning servant," a name given in Anglo-Saxon translations of the Christian New Testament to the disciples of Jesus, his "chelas." It is, therefore, a word used in old mystical scriptures for a disciple, a pupil, a learner or hearer. The relationship of teacher and disciple is infinitely more sacred even than that of parent and child; because, while the parents give the body to the incoming soul, the teacher brings forth that soul itself and teaches it to be and therefore to see, teaches it to know and to become what it is in its inmost being  - that is, a divine thing.

The chela life or chela path is a beautiful one, full of joy to its very end, but also it calls forth and needs everything noble and high in the learner or disciple; for the powers or faculties of the higher self must be brought into activity in order to attain and to hold those summits of intellectual and spiritual grandeur where the Masters themselves live. For that, masterhood, is the end of discipleship  - not, however, that this ideal should be set before us merely as an end to attain to as something of benefit for one's own self, because that very thought is a selfish one and therefore a stumbling in the path. It is for the individual's benefit, of course; yet the true idea is that everything and every faculty that is in the soul shall be brought out in the service of all humanity, for this is the royal road, the great royal thoroughfare, of self-conquest. The more mystical meanings attached to this term chela can be given only to those who have irrevocably pledged themselves to the esoteric life.

See also: Chela , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Chhaya :

Chhaya

(Chaya, Sanskrit) Literally a "shade," "simulacrum," or "copy." In the esoteric philosophy, the word signifies the astral image of a person, and with this idea are bound up some of the most intricate and recondite teachings of human evolution. The Secret Doctrine of H. P. Blavatsky contains many invaluable hints as to the part played by the chhayas of the pitris in human development.

It is a word also which is applied with similar meaning to kosmical matters, for the esoteric student should never forget the ancient maxim of Hermes: "What is above is the same as what is below; what is below is the same as what is above."

Briefly, then, and so far as human evolution is concerned, the chhaya may be called the astral body or image.

See also: Chhaya , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Christos :

Christos

(Greek) Christos or "Christ" is a word literally signifying one who has been "anointed." This is a direct reference, a direct allusion, to what happened during the celebration of the ancient Mysteries. Unction or anointing was one of the acts performed during the working of the rites of those ancient Mysteries in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The Hebrew word for an anointed one is mashiahh  - "messiah" is a common way of misspelling the Hebrew word  - meaning exactly the same thing as the Greek word Christos.

Each human being is an incarnation, an imbodiment, of a ray of his own inner god  - the divinity living in the core of the core of each one. The modern Christians of a mystical bent of mind call it the Christ Immanent, the immanent Christos, and they are right as far as they go, but they do not carry the thought far enough. Mystically speaking, the Christos is the deathless individuality; and when the striving personal ego becomes united permanently with this stainless individuality, the resultant union is the higher ego, "the living Christ"  - a Christ among men, or as the Buddhists would say, a human or manushya-buddha.

See also: Christos , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Clairaudience :

Clairaudience

In its largest sense Clairaudience means simply "clear-hearing." True clairaudience is a spiritual faculty, the faculty of the inner spiritual ear, of which the psychical clairaudience is but a distorted and therefore deceptive reflection; neither is it hearing with the physical ear, so imperfect and undeveloped a sensory organ as the latter is. The power to hear with the inner ear enables you to hear anything you will, and at whatever distance, whether on Mars, or on the Sun, or on the Moon, or on Jupiter, or perhaps even on some distant star, or easily anywhere on Earth.

Having this spiritual clairaudience, you can hear the grass grow, and that hearing will be to you like a symphonic musical poem. You can hear the celestial orbs singing their songs as they advance along their orbits through space, because everything that is, is in movement, producing sound, simple or composite as the case may be.

Thus in very truth every tiny atom sings its own note, and every composite entity, therefore, is an imbodied musical poem, a musical symphony. (See also Music of the Spheres)

See also: Clairaudience , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Clairvoyance :

Clairvoyance

In its largest sense Clairvoyance simply means "clear-seeing," insight behind the veils, inner visioning. Genuine clairvoyance is a spiritual faculty and is the ability to see and to see aright; and in seeing to know that your seeing is truth. This is no psychical faculty.

The clairvoyance commonly called the psychical clairvoyance is very deceptive, because it is a mere moonlight reflection so to speak, and this moonlight reflection is uncertain, deceiving, and illusory. Genuine spiritual clairvoyance, of which the psychical clairvoyance so called is but a feeble ray, will enable one to see what passes at immense distances.

You can sit in your armchair and see, with eyes closed, all that you care to see, however far away. This can be done not only in this exterior world, but one can penetrate into the interior and invisible worlds with this spiritual vision, and thus know what is going on in the worlds spiritual and ethereal.

This vision is not physical vision, nor that which, on the astral plane, manifests itself as psychical clairvoyance; but true vision is spiritual clairvoyance  - seeing through the inner spiritual eye.

See also: Clairvoyance , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Consciousness :

Consciousness

In all its forms and protean manifestations, consciousness is spirit-matter  - force and matter, or spirit and substance, are one  - hence consciousness is the finest and loftiest form of energy, is the root of all things, and is coextensive with kosmic space. It is, therefore, the foundation and the essence of gods, of monads, and of atoms  - the three generalized degrees, kosmically speaking, of the universe.

A natural corollary from this is that the universe therefore is imbodied consciousness, or much more correctly we should call it a quasi-infinite aggregate of imbodied consciousnesses.

See also: Consciousness , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

A Theosophical definition of Bodhi :

Bodhi

(Sanskrit) This word comes from the root budh, meaning "to awaken." It is the state when man has so emptied his mind that it is filled only with the self itself, with the selfless selfhood of the eternal. Then he realizes the ineffable visions of reality, of pure truth. The man who reaches this state is called a buddha, and the organ in and by which it is manifested, is termed buddhi.

See also: Bodhi , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul