Posts Tagged Chakras

The Art of Asha, an Analysis

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Esoterics, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Zoroastrianism on April 30, 2016

“The Art of Asha” are the origin of chess and was introduced by Zarathustra as a kind of teaching aid describing the spiritual powers or hierarchies behind the physical world. Professor Edmond Bordeaux Székely have described the The Art of Asha in “The Essene Book of Asha“.

Today most knowledge of Ashas spiritual background have been lost, only names, a few comments about each piece and the movement rules are known, as they are the same as for chess today.

It has irritated me for some time that nothing more was known, it sounded interesting. As all religions and esoteric traditions are different facets of the same reality, it should be possible to find the meaning behind the Art of Asha.

In a contemplation a week ago I found the key, and I quickly found the relation to Kabbalah, and one key is that man is an inverted plant, what both Hinduism, Kabbalah and Rudolf Steiner states.

Board for the The Art of Asha

Here the positions and the names of the forces of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, the white and dark powers:

As all religious and spiritual traditions describe the same reality it should be possible to find it’s relation to other more known systems, like Kaballah.

And it was not so difficult to find the right positions when I had placed the King/Creator/Man at the bottom of the tree, and Eternal Life just above in the Angels sephira, the puzzle pieces found their places naturally.

I placed the Queen/Preserver at the top, but it was wrong in many ways, so she moved into the center, that expressed her strength much better, just as the weakness of the king was clear through his position outside the ring.

Looking at the meaning of the Asha pieces and the corresponding Sephira they seem to match beautifully.

The symmetry of the pieces is also perfect, so I think it’s a very good theory of the relation.

I have not unraveled how it should be used, there are possibilities for some experimenting, like following the play of two persons around some topic, seeing how it develops, how it ends.

First model – the Pieces of Asha in The Tree of Life

This is the result of the first contemplation, here we have the pieces placed on the Tree of Life. The King is the head of the reverse tree.

asha-in-tree-of-life

Second model – Planets and Life Periods

Further contemplation gave this new version, where our development cycle is added, together with chakras and planets.

asha-in-tree-of-life-development-cycle

More on the chakras here “Some Results of the Initiation“

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rosecroix

Ahriman, Ahura Mazdao, Art of Asha, Astrology, Chakras, Edmond Bordeaux Székely, Inverted Plant, Kabbalah, Life Periods, Lucifer, Main Articles, Planets, Tao, Tree of Life, Yang, Yin, Zarathustra, Zoroastrianism

Love – Initiation – The Dark Night of the Soul

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Dream Interpretation, Esoterics, Love, Rosicrucianism, The Dark Night of the Soul - Metanoia, Thinking, Wisdom on March 9, 2016

This is from a dialog with a friend.
When we have gone through all our karmic challenges up through life, the push from karma stops, there is nothing more to do, there is nothing worth doing any more, we have tried it all. This is called the Dark Night of the Soul after a book by John of the Cross.

Dark-Night-of-the-Soul9 — Contemplative Lifestyle in the Dark Night of the Soul

We are just alone with ourselves, as if God has left us, we are sinking down into our own subconsciousness, or maybe we just got so much peace that we have time to look around in our soul.

We are in a depression that can have different reasons, like work or family reasons, or both.

In all cases the darkness is caused by lack of love in the heart, we haven’t loved and we haven’t been loved for some time, one reason or the other.

The darkness is the karmic residues from our life that we haven’t solved yet, and through contemplation, change of lifestyle, that often are extremely unhealthy, like:

having made night as day,
filled with junk food,
too much electronic entertainment,
addicted to chemical substances as drugs like prozac, alcohol and narcotics.

Sometimes it’s necessary to handle parasites like Candida albicans, ringworm and other skin problems, intestinal worms or polyps various places, that also infests the etherbody.

All of these things, and more, will life/fate helps us to recognize if we have it as problems and we don’t fight fate, what we often do, we don’t want to let go of all our lesser desires.

Dark-Night-of-the-Soul14 — On the way out into the light

Through solving our karma, light begins coming down into our darkness, and with the light returns love to our hearts, but it may take time.

Criticism is the worst danger for love, it both kills the love in sender and receiver, so life/fate may separate pairs in a period to make room for restoring the love in their heart.

Chakras and karmic periods

We have 7 periods of about 7 years, it’s the planet Saturn’s main aspects to the birth horoscope that create these periods, and each period have to do with a chakra from the root chakra and up.

Karmic Periods and Man’s spiritual bodies

It means that in each seven year period we handle the karma connected with each chakra.

Each period also relates to the incarnations where we started working on the chakra, we meet the people we have created the karma with, so we can solve it together.

When we are in the dark night, karma have mostly stopped working on us, so the inner planets, Saturn and in, are only weak in influence, the three outer planets are the hierophants forming our initiation, especially Pluto, their transits to the birth horoscope are extremely strong, and often the same transit happens three times, forward, backward (retrograde) and forward again.

First transit starts the project, the retrograde tells when the problem is understood and the last transit that it’s hopefully solved. These transits are very precise on the day, if our birth date is precise, on these days something relevant happens, usually within but often outside too.

End of karma

When we have no karma anymore we are for the first time in danger, karma keeps us safe, now we have become free agents, but, of course, we don’t know how to behave as a free agent. So contemplate, don’t run around as a drop on a frying pan.

All people have a guardian angel up through life, it’s a discarnated person from our karmic group.

In the dark night we may have around four helpers following us, it can be necessary to influence the physical world to save our lives if we act stupidly enough, or we need guidance in various ways. I have once been told that they saved my life because I behaved erratically, what I did.

Around the fifties Pluto transits itself, this is a very strong transit, and we can feel it nearly physically. But Uranus and Neptune returns are also strong.

As I wrote above, karma is a playpen, within its fence we are protected, everything that happens have been planned, so we are not in danger, except if something magical intervene, but that is very seldom.

We are used to be in the playpen, it’s very secure, but when karma disappear, when we are let out of the playpen, when we can’t feel the fence any longer, it’s unnerving as if God have left us.

Initiation

The three main players in our consciousness

Sentient, intellectual and consciousness soul have been merged together all our lives, acting as one, with most thinking in the sentient soul, but with I consciousness in the intellectual soul.

In the dark night these three are loosened from each other, they become awake all three, and especially the sentient soul feels alone, feels as if God have left it.

The last unhandled karma blocks the life coming from the intellectual soul, from the I, so the life energy and love from the soul can’t be felt. It feels as if God have left it in utter darkness, that it is on its own.

There are no goals anymore, the intellectual soul had the grand view, had the goals, the sentient soul can’t handle decisions ranging more than 24 hours, long range decisions go invariably wrong. That’s also why we may have difficulties following our own decisions from day to day.

We, the sentient soul, shall concentrate on the now, contemplate, handle the last karma, opening up to the intellectual soul, to the I.

When karma begins to disappear light begins shining down into the sentient soul, there may also come a ray of love from the soul, where we may shed a tear of love, our heart feels vulnerable.

Synchronicity – Guidance

When our sentient soul are separated it’s very vulnerable, it don’t have the help from the intellectual soul, it need constantly help from the spiritual world to not go wild.

The soul can help by taking energy away from bad ideas and the guardian angels can manipulate fate so that phone seller’s ring in the second you are about doing something stupid or letting a light bulb explode in such a situation or other things.

If you open a book at a random place or open the TV you may find an answer to a problem, or you may use one of the many seemingly stupid aps on FB, like what is your word or how is your coming year to be, these oracles are also in synchronicity with you, you should not take them ‘on intention’ but see if the words means something about your situation, are you on right course, should you change something. Of course some will be meaningless but most will have meaning.

The Bodies of Man

When we sleep our astral body separates from the etheric body, only connected with the silver cord. When we wake again the two bodies connects again and in that short time before they are joined fully, the dreams are transferred from the astral body to volatile memory in the etherbody.

When the two bodies are rightly joined we have no spiritual access to the astral world, but for some people the two bodies don’t join fully, there is a rift between them which can be used by natural clairvoyants or there can be created a rift through drugs or other means.

This picture show this configuration of man, and the abyss show where the bodies separate.

The Bodily configuration of Man

The Bodies of the Initiate

When we go through the dark night, the spiritual death and resurrection, astral and etheric body grows together for never again to be separated, neither by sleep nor by death, and that means that the rift is closed.

Instead the chakras will give us full sight in the astral world, just as we have in the physical.

The new constitution of man will now look:

The Bodily configuration of the Initiate

Btw when we are in the dark night we also lose interest in reading and writing factual books, because it draws the focus down into the astral body where contemplation have the focus in the soul.

This is the spiritual death and resurrection, we accept the death of our ego and put everything in the hands of God, and then we become resurrected in the soul.

I AM and I AM <that>

Must we inhabit this lifeless limbo forever, you ask. If you set down and contemplate accepting to sit there forever, it will stop. If you don’t accept it and run around doing many things you have done in your old life, caused by restlessness, it will take forever, or until you reach a time limit, and forfeit the possibility.

New Age version

Nisargadatta says it thus: When you say I AM, then you are talking about your soul, the central point in your being. When you say I AM <something>, where something is beautiful, clever, hardworking, have inferiority complex, angry, horny, and so forth, you are talking about the physical around and in the ego.

The soul is the bridge between the spiritual and the physical:

Bifröst – the bridge between the physical and the spirit

The seven layered model of Man

The ego is the upgraded animal mind, the ‘I’ is the new principle of mankind’s evolution, just as the animal mind was the new principle following the plant kingdom. The I or soul is pure Wisdom, Love and Beauty. The earth is called the planet of love because this is the new principle We see ourselves from the physical world so we can’t recognize the beauty of the soul, it’s hidden behind the karma that fills our physical bodies, but when we handle the karma it becomes visible to those who can see.

I have been invited into such a soul, she were an old soul like myself and she was beauty, truth and love, we mirrored each other and I now know that it goes for all old souls, with many incarnations behind them, as it’s the result of handling their karma.

Each of these circles are both representing different bodies, but it’s also our chakra that represents these bodies.

The heart chakra is representing the soul, all of mankind we find through the heart, there we are one, the physical is the periphery of mankind, the outer layer. Living in the now means to access the shared wisdom of mankind through our soul.

Ego and I – Thinking in the Now

The ego thinks in words, the I thinks wordlessly. The ego speculate in words. The I think in large thought structures that shows when needed in the Now, they are not visible, it’s more like sound in contrast to the seeing in the astral world, it’s somewhat like sonar pictures. We see with thoughts, the thoughts come as from outside. It’s complicated to describe, but it’s easy when we first have observed it in our own thinking.

When thinking contemplatively, the ego is not taking part, a structure is shown with all we have understood earlier, but with new things added in the structure. Each time I think on a subject, new things are added to what I already know, without the need for speculation.

When I answer questions I write the answer fully, I seldom use something I have written before and I seldom answer with a quote, because each time I answer a question I become wiser, I see new details I hadn’t seen before.

Sleep

The best time to sleep is from 10pm to 2am!

The best connection to the I and higher I are from 2am to 6am in wake condition, here are much work done on the etherbody, a vital part of the initiation and the ascent from the Dark Night.

That should also be enough sleep for people in the dark night. Sleeping from 6am to 22pm are counterproductive, it tires the etherbody, it so to speak disintegrates what have been build at night, we become tired of sleeping after 6am.

Stress and depressions make day to night, I have of course been there too, have always been sleeping late and been up late, but the need for sleep becomes less when following the above rules.

Speculation and tedious work makes tired, while contemplation, living thinking, don’t. Writing books and reading, especially reading non fiction books are tiring, as it draws the mind down into the physical body.

Dream Interpretation

Dream interpretation is a very important tool to take much pain out of the Dark Night, it’s one of the major ways to get information from the spiritual world after we isolate ourselves from the spiritual.

Appendices

Methods to raise from a joylessness.

From own experiences.

Meditation – Contemplation

From own experiences.

Lotus Flowers – Chakras

The further the student advances in his inner development, the greater will be the organic differentiation introduced into his astral body. The latter is confused and undifferentiated in the case of a person of undeveloped inner life; yet the clairvoyant can perceive even the unorganized astral body as a figure standing out distinctly from its environment. It extends from the centre of the head to the middle of the physical body, and appears like an independent body possessing certain organs.

These organs, now to be considered, are apparent to the clairvoyant near the following parts of the physical body:

the first between the eyes;
the second near the larynx;
the third in the region of the heart;
the fourth in the so-called pit of the stomach;
the fifth and sixth are situated in the abdomen.

These organs are technically known as wheels, chakrams or lotus flowers. They are so called on account of their likeness to wheels or flowers, but of course it should be clearly understood that such an expression is not to be applied more literally than when the lungs are called wings. Just as there is no question of wings in the case of lungs, so, too, in the case of the lotus flowers, the expression must be taken as a figurative comparison.

In undeveloped persons these lotus flowers are dark in colour, motionless and inert. In the clairvoyant, however, they are luminous, mobile, and of variegated colour. Something of this kind applies to the medium, though in a different way; but this question need not here be pursued.

Now when the student begins his exercises, the lotus flowers become brighter; later on they begin to revolve. When this occurs, clairvoyance begins. For these flowers are the sense organs of the soul, and their revolutions express the fact that the clairvoyant perceives supersensibly. No one can perceive the supersensible until he has developed his astral senses in this way.

Thanks to the spiritual organ situated in the vicinity of the larynx, it becomes possible to survey clairvoyantly the thoughts and mentality of other beings, and to obtain a deeper insight into the true laws of natural phenomena.

The organ situated near the heart permits of clairvoyant knowledge of the sentiments and disposition of other souls. When developed, this organ also makes it possible to observe certain deeper forces in animals and plants.

By means of the organ in the so-called pit of the stomach, knowledge is acquired of the talents and capacities of souls; by its means, too, the part played by animals, plants, stones, metals, atmospheric phenomena and so on in the household of Nature, becomes apparent.

The organ in the vicinity of the larynx has sixteen petals or spokes; the one in the region of the heart twelve, and the one in the pit of the stomach ten.

Now certain activities of the soul are connected with the development of these organs, and anyone devoting himself to them in a certain definite way, contributes something to the development of the corresponding organs.

The Sixteen Petalled Lotus – The Throat Chakra

The 16-petalled Lotus

In the 16-petalled lotus, eight of its sixteen petals were developed during an earlier stage of human evolution, in a remote past. Man himself contributed nothing to this development; he received them as a gift from nature, at a time when his consciousness was in a dull, dreamy condition.

At that stage of human evolution, they were in active use, but the manner of their activity was only compatible with that dull state of consciousness. As consciousness became clearer and brighter, the petals became obscured and ceased their activity.

Man himself can now develop the remaining eight petals by conscious exercises, and thereby the whole lotus flower becomes luminous and mobile. The acquisition of certain faculties depends on the development of each one of the sixteen petals.

Yet, as already shown, only eight can be consciously developed; the remainder then appear of their own accord.

The development proceeds in the following manner. The student must first apply himself with care and attention to certain functions of the soul, hitherto exercised by him in a careless and inattentive manner. There are eight such functions:

– The first is the way in which ideas and conceptions are acquired. In this respect people usually allow themselves to be led by chance alone. They see or hear one thing or another and form their ideas accordingly. While this is the case, the sixteen petals of the lotus flower remain ineffective. It is only when the student begins to take his self-education in hand, in this respect, that the petals become effective. His ideas and conceptions must be guarded; each single idea should acquire significance for him; he should see in it a definite message instructing him concerning the things of the outer world, and he should derive no satisfaction from ideas devoid of such significance. He must govern his mental life so that it becomes a true mirror of the outer world, and direct his effort to the exclusion of incorrect ideas from his soul.

– The second of these functions is concerned with the control of resolutions. The student must not resolve upon even the most trifling act, without well-founded and thorough consideration. Thoughtless and meaningless actions should be foreign to his nature. He should have well-considered grounds for everything he does, and abstain from everything for which no significant motive is forthcoming.

– The third function concerns speech. The student should utter no word that is devoid of sense and meaning; all talking for the sake of talking draws him away from his path. He must avoid the usual kind of conversation, with its promiscuous discussion of indiscriminately varied topics. This does not imply his preclusion from intercourse with his fellows. It is precisely in such intercourse that his conversation should develop to significance. He is ready to converse with everyone, but he does so thoughtfully and with thorough deliberation. He never speaks without grounds for what he says. He seeks to use neither too many nor too few words.

– The fourth is the regulation of outward action. The student tries to adjust his actions in such a way that they harmonize with the actions of his fellow-men and with the events in his environment. He refrains from actions which are disturbing to others and antagonistic to his surroundings. He seeks to adjust his actions so that they combine harmoniously with his surroundings, with his position in life, etc. When an external motive causes him to act, he considers how he can best respond. When the impulse proceeds from himself he weighs with minute care the effects of his activity.

– The fifth function includes the management of the whole of life. The student endeavours to live in conformity with both Nature and spirit. Never over-hasty, he is also never indolent. Excessive activity and laziness are equally alien to him. He looks upon life as a means for work and disposes it accordingly. He regulates his habits, the care of his health, etc., in such a way that a harmonious whole is the outcome.

– The sixth is concerned with human endeavour. The student tests his capacities and proficiency, and conducts himself in the light of such self-knowledge, He attempts nothing that is beyond his powers, but seeks to omit nothing that is within their scope. On the other hand he sets before himself aims that coincide with the ideals and the great duties of a human being. He does not mechanically regard himself as a wheel in the vast machinery of mankind, but seeks to comprehend the tasks of his life, and to look out beyond the limit of the daily and trivial. He endeavours to fulfil his obligations ever better and more perfectly.

– The seventh deals with the effort to learn as much from life as possible. Nothing passes before the student without giving him occasion to accumulate experience which is of value to him for life. If he has performed anything wrongly or imperfectly, he lets this be an incentive for repeating the performance later on, but this time rightly and perfectly. When others act, he observes them with the same end in view. He tries to gather a rich store of experience, and ever to turn to it for counsel; nor indeed will he ever do anything without looking back on experiences from which he can derive help in his decisions and affairs.

– Finally, the eighth is that the student must, from time to time, glance introspectively into himself, sink back into himself, take himself carefully to task, form and test the fundamental principles of his life, run over, in his thoughts, the sum total of his knowledge, weigh his duties, reflect upon the content and aim of life and so on.

The better the student’s thoughts and speech harmonize with the processes in the outer world, the more quickly will he develop this faculty. Whoever thinks and speaks what is contrary to truth destroys something in the bud of his 16-petalled lotus. Truthfulness, uprightness and honesty are in this connection creative forces, while mendacity, deceitfulness and dishonesty are destructive forces.

The student must realize, however, that actual deeds are needed, and not merely ‘good intentions’. If I think or say anything that does not conform with reality, I kill something in my spiritual organs, even though I believe my intentions to be ever so good. It is here as with the child which needs must burn itself when it falls into the fire, even though it did so out of ignorance.

The regulation of the above activities of the soul in the manner described, causes the 16-petalled lotus to ray forth in glorious hues, and imparts to it a definite movement. Yet it must be noted that the faculty of clairvoyance cannot make its appearance before a definite degree of development has been attained. It cannot appear so long as it is irksome for the student to regulate his life in this manner. He is still unfit, so long as the activities described above are a matter of special pre-occupation for him. The first traces of clairvoyance only appear when he has reached the point of being able to live in the specified way, as a person habitually lives. These things must then no longer be irksome, but must have become a matter of course. There must be no need for him to be continually watching himself, and urging himself on to live in this way. It must all become a matter of habit.

Now this lotus flower may be made to develop in another way by following certain other instructions. But all such methods are rejected by true Spiritual Science, for they lead to the destruction of physical health and to moral ruin. They are easier to follow than those here described. The latter, though protracted and irksome, lead to the true goal and cannot but strengthen morally.

The distorted development of a lotus flower results not only in illusions and fantastic conceptions, should a certain degree of clairvoyance ensue, but also in errors and instability in ordinary life. Such a development may be the cause of timidity, envy, vanity, haughtiness, wilfulness and so on in a person who hitherto was free from these defects. It has already been explained that eight of the sixteen petals of this lotus flower were developed in a remote past, and that these will reappear of themselves, in the course of esoteric development.

Faulty training may easily result in the reappearance of the earlier petals alone, while the new petals remain stunted. This will ensue especially if too little logical, rational thinking is introduced into the instruction. It is of supreme importance that the student should be a rational and clear-thinking person, and of further importance that he should practice the greatest clarity of speech. People who begin to have some presentiment of supersensible things, are apt to wax talkative on this subject, thereby retarding their normal development. The less one talks about these matters the better. No one should speak about them until he has achieved a certain degree of clarity.

On premature judgment

Suppose I hear a piece of news and thereupon immediately form an opinion. Shortly afterwards I receive some further news which does not harmonize with the previous information. I am thereby obliged to reverse my previous judgment. The result is an unfavorable influence upon my 16-petalled lotus. Quite the contrary would have been the case had I, in the first place, suspended my judgment, and remained silent both inwardly in thought and outwardly in word, concerning the whole affair, until I had acquired reliable grounds for forming my judgment.

Caution in the formation and pronouncement of judgments becomes, by degrees, the special characteristic of the student. On the other hand his receptivity for impressions and experiences increases; he lets them pass over him silently, so as to collect and have the largest possible number of facts at his disposal, when the time comes to form his opinions. Bluish-red and reddish-pink shades colour the lotus flower as the result of such circumspection, whereas, in the opposite case, dark red and orange shades appear.

See also Buddhas Eightfold Path: The Eightfold Path

The Twelve Petalled Lotus – Heart Chakra

The 12-petalled Lotus

The 12-petalled lotus situated in the region of the heart, is developed in a similar way. Half its petals, too, were already existent and in active use, in a remote stage of human evolution. Thus these six petals need not now be especially developed in esoteric training; they appear of themselves, and begin to revolve when the student sets to work on the other six. Here again he learns to promote this development by consciously controlling and directing certain inner activities in a special way.

It must be clearly understood that the perceptions of each single spiritual organ bear a different character. The 12- and 16-petalled lotus flowers transmit quite different perceptions. The latter perceives forms. The thoughts and mentality of other beings and the laws governing natural phenomena become manifest, through the 16-petalled lotus, as figures, not rigid motionless figures, but mobile forms filled with life. The clairvoyant in whom this sense is developed, can distinguish, for every mode of thought and for every law of Nature, a form bearing their impression. A revengeful thought, for example, assumes an arrow-like, pronged form, while a kindly thought is often formed like an opening flower, and so on. Clear-cut, significant thoughts are regular and symmetrical in form, while confused thoughts have wavy outlines. Quite different perceptions are received through the 12-petalled lotus. These perceptions may be in a sense likened to warmth and cold, as applied to the soul. A clairvoyant equipped with this faculty feels this warmth and cold streaming out from the forms discerned by the 16-petalled lotus.

– The 12-petalled lotus, when developed, reveals to the clairvoyant a deep understanding of the processes of Nature. From every manifestation of growth and development there issue rays of soul-warmth, while everything that is encompassed by decay, destruction, ruin, presents an impression of cold.

The development of this sense may be furthered in the following manner:

To begin with, the student applies himself to regulating his sequence of thought (control of thought). Just as the 16-petalled lotus is developed by cultivating thoughts that conform with truth and are significant, so, too, the 12-petalled lotus is developed by inwardly controlling the trains of thought. Thoughts that dart to and fro like will-o’-the-wisps, and follow each other in no logical or rational sequence, but merely by pure chance, destroy its form. The latter is developed to ever-increasing perfection, the closer thought is made to follow upon thought, and the more strictly everything of illogical nature is avoided. If the student hears illogical thoughts, he immediately lets the right thoughts pass through his mind. He should not, however, withdraw in a loveless way from what is perhaps an illogical environment, in order to further his own development. Neither should he feel himself impelled to correct all the illogical thoughts expressed around him. He should rather co-ordinate silently the thoughts as they pour in upon him, in a way conforming with logic and sense, and himself endeavour, in every case, to retain this same method in his own thinking.

– An equal supervision in his actions forms the second requirement(control of actions). All inconstancy, all disharmony of action conduces to the destruction of the lotus flower here in question. When the student performs some action, he must see to it that his succeeding action follows in logical sequence, for if he acts from day to day with variable intent, he will never develop the faculty here considered.

– The third requirement is the cultivation of endurance.(perseverance). The student is impervious to all influences which would divert him from the goal he has set himself, so long as he can regard it as the right goal. For him, obstacles contain a challenge to surmount them, but are never a reason for restraining his progress.

– The fourth requirement is forbearance (tolerance) towards persons, creatures and also circumstances. The student suppresses all superfluous criticism of everything that is imperfect, evil and bad, and seeks rather to understand everything that comes under his notice. Even as the sun does not withdraw its light from the bad and the evil, so he, too, does not refuse them an intelligent sympathy. Should some trouble befall him, he does not proceed to condemn and criticize, but accepts what necessity has brought him, and endeavours to the best of his ability, to give the matter a turn for the best. He does not consider the opinions of others merely from his own standpoint, but seeks to put himself into the other’s position.

– The fifth requirement is impartiality towards everything that life brings. In this connection we speak of faith and trust. The student encounters every human being and every creature with this trust, and lets it inspire his every action. Upon hearing some information, he never says to himself: ‘I don’t believe it; it contradicts my present opinions.’ He is far rather ready to test and rectify his views and opinions. He ever remains receptive for everything that confronts him, and he trusts in the effectiveness of his undertakings. Timidity and scepticism are banished from his being. He harbours a faith in the power of his intentions. A hundred failures cannot rob him of his faith. This is the ‘faith which can move mountains’.

– The sixth requirement is the cultivation of a certain inner balance (equanimity). The student endeavours to retain his composure in the face of joy and sorrow, and discards the tendency to fluctuate between the seventh heaven of joy and the depths of despair. Misfortune and danger, fortune and advancement alike find him ready armed.

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 12-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 to a caricature of its proper shape. In this case, should a certain clairvoyance be attained, the qualities in question may take an evil instead of a good direction. A person may become intolerant, timid or contentious towards his environment; may, for instance, acquire some feeling for the sentiments of others, and for this reason shun them or hate them. This may even reach the point that, by reason of the inner coldness overwhelming him, he is unable to listen to repugnant opinions, or he may behave in an objectionable manner.

The Ten Petalled Lotus – The Solar Plexus Chakra

The 10-petalled Lotus

An inner training of a particularly intimate character is necessary for the development of the l0-petalled lotus flower, for it is now a question of learning consciously to control and dominate the sense-impressions themselves. This is of particular importance in the initial stages of clairvoyance, for it is only by this means that a source of countless illusions and fancies is avoided. People, as a rule, do not realize by what factors their sudden ideas and memories are dominated, and how they are produced.

Consider the following case. Someone is travelling by railway; his mind is busy with one thought; suddenly his thought diverges; he recollects an experience that befell him years ago, and interweaves it with his present thought. He did not notice that in looking through the window, he had caught sight of a person who resembled another intimately connected with the recollected experience. He remains conscious, not of what he saw, but of the effect it produced, and so believes that it all came to him ‘of its own accord’. Now much in life occurs in such a way! How great is the part played in our life by things we hear and learn, without our consciously realizing the connection! Someone, for instance, cannot bear a certain colour, but does not realize that this is due to the fact that the school-teacher who used to worry him many years ago, wore a coat of that colour. Innumerable illusions are based upon such associations.

Many things leave their mark upon the soul, while remaining outside the pale of consciousness. The following may occur. Someone reads in the paper about the death of a well-known person, and forthwith claims to have had a ‘presentiment’ of it ‘yesterday’, although he neither heard nor saw anything that might have given rise to such a thought. And indeed it is quite true that the thought occurred to him ‘yesterday’, as though of its own accord, that this particular person would die; only one thing escaped his attention: two or three hours before this thought occurred to him yesterday, he went to visit an acquaintance; a newspaper lay on the table; he did not actually read it, but his eyes unconsciously fell on the announcement of the dangerous illness of the person in question. He remained unconscious of the impression he received, and yet this impression resulted in his ‘presentiment’.

Reflection upon these matters will show how great a source of illusion and fantasy is contained in such associations. It is just this source which must be dammed up by all who seek to develop their l0-petalled lotus flower. Deeply hidden characteristics in other souls can he perceived by this organ, but their truth depends on the attainment of immunity from the above-mentioned illusions. For this purpose it is necessary that the student should control and dominate everything that seeks to influence him from outside. He should reach the point of really receiving no impressions beyond those he wishes to receive. This can only be achieved by the development of a powerful inner life; by an effort of the will he only allows such things to impress him to which his attention is directed, and he actually evades all impressions to which he does not voluntarily respond. If he sees something, it is because he wills to see it. And if he does not voluntarily take notice of something, it is actually non-existent for him. The greater the energy and inner activity devoted to this work, the more extensively will this faculty be attained.

– The student must avoid all vacuous gazing and mechanical listening. For him only those things exist to which he turns his eye or his ear. He must practise the power of hearing nothing, even in the greatest disturbance, if he does not will to hear; and he must make his eyes unimpressionable to things of which he does not particularly take notice. He must be shielded as by an inner armour against all unconscious impressions.

– In this connection, the student must devote special care to his thought-life. He singles out a particular thought and endeavours to link on to it only such other thoughts as he can himself consciously and voluntarily produce. He rejects all casual fancies, and does not connect this thought with another until he has investigated the origin of the latter.

– He goes still further. If, for instance, he feels a particular antipathy for something, he will combat it and endeavour to establish a conscious relation between himself and the thing in question. In this way the unconscious elements that intrude into his soul will become fewer and fewer. Only by such severe self-discipline can the l0-petalled lotus flower attain its proper form. The student’s inner life must become a life of attention, and he must learn really to keep away from himself everything to which he should not or does not wish to direct his attention.

If this strict self-discipline be accompanied by meditation prescribed in esoteric training, the lotus flower in the region of the pit of the stomach comes to fruition in the right way, and light and colour of a spiritual kind are now added to the form and warmth perceptible to the organs described above.

The talents and faculties of other beings are thereby revealed, also the forces and the hidden attributes of Nature. The coloured aura of living creatures then becomes visible; all that is around us manifests its spiritual attributes.

It will be admitted that the very greatest care is necessary at this stage of development, for the play of unconscious memories is here exceedingly active. If this were not the case, many people would possess this inner sense, for it comes almost immediately into evidence, when the impressions delivered by the outer senses are held so completely under control, that they become dependent on nothing save attention or inattention. This inner sense remains ineffective so long as the powerful outer senses smother it and render it insensible.

The Six Petalled Lotus – The Sacral Chakra

The 6-petalled Lotus

Still greater difficulty attends the development of the 6-petalled lotus flower situated in the centre of the body, for it can only be achieved as the result of complete mastery and control of the whole personality through consciousness of self, so that body, soul and spirit form one harmonious whole. The functions of the body, the inclinations and passions of the soul, the thoughts and ideas of the spirit, must be tuned to perfect unison. The body must be so ennobled and purified that its organs are impelled to nothing that is not in the service of the soul and spirit. The soul must not be impelled, through the body, to lusts and passions which are antagonistic to pure and noble thought. The spirit, however, must not stand as a slave-driver over the soul, dominating it with laws and commandments; the soul must rather learn to follow these laws and duties out of its own free inclination.

The student must not feel duty to be an oppressive power to which he unwillingly submits, but rather something which he performs out of love. His task is to attain an equilibrium of soul between body and spirit, and he must perfect himself in this way, to the extent of being free to abandon himself to the functions of the senses, for these should be so purified that they lose the power to drag him down to their level. He must no longer require to curb his passions, inasmuch as they of their own accord follow the good.

The Heart Organ

When esoteric development has progressed so far that the lotus flowers begin to stir, much has already been achieved by the student which can result in the formation of certain quite definite currents and movements in his etheric body.

The object of this development is the formation of a kind of centre in the region of the physical heart, from which currents and movements, in the greatest variety of colours and forms, radiate. This centre is, in reality, not a mere point, but a most complicated structure, a most wonderful organ. It glows and shimmers with every shade of colour, and displays forms of great symmetry, capable of rapid transformation. Other forms and streams of colour radiate from this organ to the other parts of the body, and beyond it, to the astral body, which they completely permeate and illumine. The most important part of these currents flows to the lotus flowers. They permeate each petal and regulate its revolutions; then streaming out at the points of the petals, they lose themselves in outer space. The greater the development of a person, the greater the circumference to which these rays extend.

The 12-petalled lotus flower has a particularly close connection with this central organ. The currents flow directly into it and through it, proceeding, on the one side, to the 16- and the 2-petalled lotus flowers, and on the other, the lower side, to the flowers of eight, six and four petals. It is for this reason that the very greatest care must be devoted to the development of the 12-petalled lotus, for an imperfection in the latter would result in the irregular formation of the whole structure.

Continued practice enables the student to determine for himself the position of his etheric body. Hitherto this position depended upon the forces proceeding from without or from within the physical body. Through further development the student is able to direct his etheric body to all sides.

This faculty is effected by currents moving approximately along both hands, and centred in the 2-petalled lotus in the region of the eyes. All that is made possible through the radiations from the larynx assuming round forms, of which a number how to the 2-petalled lotus, and thence form undulating currents along the hands. As a further development these currents branch out and ramify in the most delicate manner, and become, as it were, a kind of web, which then encompasses the entire etheric body as though with a network.

Whereas hitherto the etheric body was not closed to the outer world, so that the life currents from the universal ocean of life flowed freely in and out, it now becomes necessary that these currents should pass through this membrane. Thus the individual becomes sensitive to these external streams; they become perceptible to him. And now the time has come to give the complete system of currents and movements its centre situated in the region of the heart.

This again is effected by persevering with the exercises in concentration and meditation; and at this point also the stage is reached when the student becomes gifted with the ‘inner word.’ All things now acquire a new significance for him. They become as it were spiritually audible in their innermost self, and speak to him of their essential being. The currents described above place him in touch with the inner being of the world to which he belongs. He begins to mingle his life with the life of his environment and can let it reverberate in the movements of his lotus flowers.

At this point the spiritual world is entered. If the student has advanced so far, he acquires a new understanding for all that the great teachers of humanity have uttered. The sayings of the Buddha and the Gospels, for instance, produce a new effect on him. They pervade him with a felicity of which he had not dreamed before. For the tone of their words follows the movements and rhythms which he has himself formed within himself. He can now have positive knowledge that a Buddha or the Evangelists did not utter their own personal revelations, but those which flowed into them from the innermost Being of all things.

To separate truth from opinions

In esoteric training, there is question of four attributes which must be acquired on the socalled probationary path for the attainment of higher knowledge.

The first is the faculty of discrimination in thoughts between truth and mere semblance or opinion.
The second attribute is the correct estimation of what is inwardly true and real, as against what is merely apparent.
The third rests in the practice of the six qualities already mentioned in the preceding pages: [see above] thought-control, control of actions, perseverance, tolerance, faith and equanimity.
The fourth attribute is the love of inner freedom.

A mere intellectual understanding of what is included in these attributes is of no value. They must become so incorporated into the soul that they form the basis of inner habits. Consider, for instance, the first of these attributes: the discrimination between truth and semblance.

The student must so train himself that he quite as a matter of course distinguishes, in everything that confronts him, between the non-essential elements and those that are significant and essential.

He will only succeed in this if, in his observation of the outer world, he quietly and patiently ever and again repeats the attempt. And at the end he will naturally single out the essential and the true at a glance, whereas formerly the nonessential, too, could content him. ‘All things corruptible are but reflection’ – is a truth which becomes an unquestionable conviction of the soul. The same applies to the remaining three of the four attributes mentioned.

The Great Initiates

It will be clear from the above that the instructions given in esoteric training exert a determining influence reaching the innermost depths of human nature. Such are the instructions regarding the four qualities mentioned above. They can be found in one form or another in all the great religions.

The founders of the great religions did not give mankind these teachings from some vague feeling. They gave them for the good reason that they were great Initiates. Out of their knowledge did they shape their moral teachings. They knew how these would react upon the finer nature of men, and desired that their followers should gradually achieve the development of this finer nature.

The founders of the great religions are therefore the great Initiates. Their teaching flows into the soul of men, and thus, with humanity, the whole world moves forward. Quite consciously did they work to further this evolutionary process of humanity. Their teachings can only be understood if it be remembered that they are the product of knowledge of the innermost depths of human nature. The great Initiates knew, and it is out of their knowledge that they shaped the ideals of humanity. Yet man approaches these great leaders when he uplifts himself, in his own development, to their heights.

The Guardian of the Threshold

Guardian of the Threshold Were the student to obtain an insight into these higher worlds without sufficient preparation regarding their nature, he would find himself confronted by the picture of his own soul as though by an enigma. There his own desires and passions confront him in animal or, more seldom, in human forms. It is true that the animal forms of this world are never quite similar to those of the physical world, yet they possess a remote resemblance. Inexpert observers often take them to be identical.

Now upon entering this world, an entirely new method of judgment must be acquired. For apart from the fact that things actually pertaining to inner nature appear as outer world, they also hear the character of mirrored reflections of what they really are. When, for instance, a number is perceived, it must be reversed, as a picture in a mirror; 265 would mean here in reality 562. A sphere is perceived as though from its centre. This inner perception must then be translated.

The qualities of the soul appear likewise as in a mirror. A wish directed towards an outer object appears as a form moving towards the person wishing.

Passions residing in the lower part of human nature can assume animal forms or similar shapes, that hurl themselves against the individual. In reality, these passions are struggling outward; they seek satisfaction in the outer world, but this search in an outward direction appears in the mirrored reflection as an attack on the individual from whom they proceed.

If the student, before attaining insight into higher worlds, has learnt by quiet and sincere self-observation to realize the qualities and defects of his own character, he will then, at the moment when his own inner self confronts him as a mirrored image, find strength and courage to conduct himself in the right way.

People who have failed to test themselves in this way, and are insufficiently acquainted with their own inner self, will not recognize themselves in their own mirrored image, and will mistake it for a reality foreign to themselves. Or they may become alarmed at the vision, and, because they cannot endure the sight, deceive themselves into believing the whole thing is nothing but an illusion which cannot lead them anywhere. In either case the person in question, through prematurely attaining a certain stage of inner development, would himself fatally obstruct his own progress.

The Two Petalled Lotus – The Third Eye

The 2-petalled Lotus

This is the moment when the 2-petalled lotus in the region of the eyes is required. If it now begins to stir, the student finds it possible to set his higher Ego in connection with higher spiritual beings. The currents from this lotus flower flow towards the higher entities in such a way that the movements in question are fully apparent to the individual.

Just as the light renders the physical objects visible, so, too, these currents disclose spiritual beings of higher worlds.

Through inward application to the fundamental truths derived from Spiritual Science, the student learns to set in motion, and then to direct the currents proceeding from the lotus flower between the eyes.

The Higher ‘I’

It is at this stage of development especially that the value of sound judgment, and a training in clear and logical thought, is proved. The higher self which hitherto slumbered unconsciously, in an embryonic state, is now born into conscious existence. This is not a figurative, but a positive birth in the spiritual world, and the being now born, the higher self, if it is to be capable of life, must enter that world with all the necessary organs and aptitudes. Just as Nature must provide for a child being born into the world with suitable eyes and ears, so, too, the laws of self-development must provide for the necessary qualities, with which the higher self can enter existence. Vesica Pisces

These laws governing the development of the higher spiritual organs are none other than the laws of sound reason and morality of the physical world. The spiritual self matures in the physical self as a child in the mother’s womb. The constitution of the spiritual self is similarly conditioned by the laws of common intelligence and reason that govern physical life. No one can give birth to a soundly constituted higher self, whose life in thought and feeling, in the physical world, is not sound and healthy.

Natural, rational life is the basis of all genuine spiritual development. Just as the child when still in the maternal womb, lives in accordance with natural forces to which it has access, after its birth, through its organs of sense, so, too, the human higher self lives in accordance with the laws of the spiritual world, even during physical existence. And even as the child, out of a dim life-instinct, acquires the requisite forces, so, too, can man acquire the powers of the spiritual world before his higher self is born. Indeed he must do this if the latter is to enter the world as a fully developed being. It would be quite wrong for anyone to say: ‘I cannot accept the teachings of Spiritual Science until I myself become a seer,’ for without inward application to the results of spiritual investigation, there is no chance whatever of attaining genuine higher knowledge. It would be as though a child, during gestation, were to refuse the forces coming to it through its mother, and proposed to wait until it could create them for itself. Just as the child in its incipient feeling for life, learns to appreciate what is offered to it, so can the non-seer appreciate the truth of the teachings of Spiritual Science.

An insight into these teachings, based on a deeply rooted feeling for truth, and a clear, sound, all-round critical and reasoning faculty, is possible, even before spiritual things are actually perceived. The esoteric knowledge must first be studied, so that this study becomes a preparation for clairvoyance. A person attaining clairvoyance without such preparation would resemble a child born with eyes and ears but without a brain. The entire world of sound and colour would display itself before him, but he would be helpless in it.

At this stage of his esoteric development, the student realizes, through personal inward experience, all that had previously appealed to his sense of truth, to his intellect and reason.
He has now direct knowledge of his higher self.
He learns how his higher self is connected with exalted spiritual beings, and forms with them a united whole.
He sees how the lower self originates in a higher world, and it is revealed to him how his higher nature outlasts his lower.
He can now distinguish the imperishable in himself from the perishable; that is, he learns, through personal insight, to understand the doctrine of the incarnation of the higher self in the lower.
It will become plain to him that he is involved in a great spiritual complex, and that his qualities and destiny are due to this connection.
He learns to recognize the law of his life, his Karma.
He realizes that his lower self, constituting his present existence, is only one of the forms which his higher being can adopt.
He discerns the possibility of working down from his higher self on to his lower self, so that he may perfect himself ever more and more.
Now, too, he can rightly distinguish the great differences between human beings, in regard to their level of perfection.
He becomes aware that there are others above him, who have already traversed the stages which still lie before him, and he realizes that the teachings and deeds of such men proceed from the inspiration of a higher world. He owes this knowledge to his first glimpse into this higher world. The so-called great Initiates of humanity now become vested with reality for him.

These, then, are the gifts which the student owes to his development at this stage: insight into his higher self; insight into the doctrine of the incarnation of this higher being into a lower; insight into the laws by which life in the physical world is regulated according to its spiritual connections, that is, the law of Karma; and finally, insight into the existence of the great Initiates.

From Belief to Knowledge

Thus it is said of a student who has reached this stage, that all doubt has vanished from him. His former faith, based on reason and sound thought, is now replaced by knowledge and insight which nothing can undermine. The various religious cults have presented, in their ceremonies, sacraments, and rites, externally visible pictures of the higher spiritual beings and events. None but those who have not penetrated to the depths of the great religious cults, can fail to recognize this fact. Personal insight into spiritual reality explains the great significance of these externally visible cults. Religious service, then, becomes for the seer an image of his own communion with the higher, spiritual world.

It has been shown how the student, by attaining this stage, becomes, in truth, a new being. He can now mature to still higher faculties, and, by means of the life-currents of his etheric body, control the higher and actual life-element, thus attaining independence, to a high degree, from the restrictions of the physical body.

There is more on the etheric body here: The Three Spiritual Principles of the Universe

On Alcohol, Meat and physical exercises

From From the Contents of Esoteric Classes

Although one can’t eat one’s way into the spiritual world, eating the wrong things can make spiritual development difficult or impossible.

Alcohol only arose after the Atlantean epoch to help men to become individualized. It closes man off from his higher capacities and encloses him in himself. That’s why alcohol was used in the Dionysian mysteries. But now all civilized people have reached that stage so that alcohol is an unnecessary evil today.

Through its use one loses the ability to get along with others and to understand them. Alcohol is especially harmful for esoterics since its use changes all developed higher forces into forces of the personal ego, repeatedly locks it into itself, and tears the astral body apart through the opposing streams of the higher and lower I forces. The principle through which everyone can consciously attain his individualization was brought through the coming of Christ to the earth. That’s why Christ Jesus says: I am the true vine.

By consuming alcohol one prepares a fertile soil for hosts of spiritual beings, just as a dirty room gets filled with flies.

The meat (but not milk and eggs) that we eat is permeated by the animal’s astral body, and so our astral body has to work to digest it. This takes it away from its real task of creating pictures. Also at night it’s held fast by the etheric body so that it can’t leave it properly. This hinders it from its nightly task of restoring vital forces.

Vegetarian food that consists of physical and etheric things support the creation of large, comprehensive pictures and so gives a greater insight that lets one oversee things better without much deliberation. The greater force doesn’t exhaust us, but summons spiritual forces.

Vegetarian food is excellent for doctors and lawyers who will find it easier to see through their patients or their clients’ affairs, but it’s not the right thing for bankers, industrialists, salesmen and others who have a lot of calculating, for one loses the ability to make physical combinations.

People who inherited a body that can’t stand vegetarianism should not undertake an esoteric training.

The jogging, exercising and bathing that are often recommended are wrong for an esoteric; they pull him down into his physical body. He should try to move his limbs as little as possible.

Ahanhata, Ajna, Astral Body, Chakras, clairvoyance, Crown Chakra, Esoteric Development, Etheric body, Hara Chakra, Heart Chakra, Higher I, Karma, Larynx, Lotus Flowers, Manipura, Muladhara, Root Chakra, Rudolf Steiner, Sacral Chakra, Solar Plexus, Svadhistana, The Eightfold Path, Third Eye, Throat Chakra, Vishuddha

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Dream Interpretation in Esoteric Work

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Buddhism, Dream Interpretation, Esoterics, Rosicrucianism on May 1, 2010

Dreams in Esoteric Work

A Neglected Discipline

I grow up in a Rosicrucian family and my mother gave me a few rules about dream interpretation she had learned from her teacher. When I began dreaming some serious dreams around 49 it irritated me that there wasn’t any good esoteric theories for dream interpretation. The psychoanalysts had some theories, especially around C.G.Jung, but there was no immediate relation between Jung and the esoteric traditions.

I started a research to find that information and I found out that Jung took his starting point in the chtlonic religions, the elemental kingdoms, what relates to the subconscious, where the esoteric traditions took their starting point in the super conscious, the higher ‘I’, but Steiner had also a description of the subconscious and the Chthonic world. I found what the archetypes like anima, animus, false ego’s, I and the teacher also existed in the esoteric tradition of man, and in dreams.

Some years later I found a file on the internet describing old Christian (and Hebrew) dream interpretation, with thousand of years experience, and found out it was the same method as I had found.

I read Fritz Pearl’s dream interpretation and it confirmed my findings, just as also Erich Fromm did. Erich Fromm also told that man could interpret his dreams under hypnosis, but he lost the understanding after awakening. The dreams are sent to the astral body, physically represented by the limbic system, the subconscious, and from there we sometimes become aware of the dreams when we wake up. It seems to be a rest of an old communication channel from the super-conscious to the subconscious from before we developed our left brain hemisphere and our ‘I’.

Erich Fromm tells that this dream language are the same we find used in old fairy tales and in the Bible as parables, that these texts have more than one level of information, that our subconscious understand the deeper level where our conscious brain only understand the upper layer, just as in dreams.

The subconscious uses the dreams to influence our conscious thinking indirectly, but when we interpret our dreams we can increase our progress immediately where the subconsciousness takes a long time to reach the goal, if ever.

Jung concentrates on the feeling’s in dream interpretation where the other concentrates on the symbols, like Chinese characters, Logograms, as concrete guidance from God or the higher ‘I’, depending on context.

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth … For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.
The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.

In the first part I have references to esoteric texts, in the second part a table relating the technical terms within different traditions including Jung, Steiner, Aristotle, and Kabbalah, and in the third part practical dream interpretation.

Esoteric views on Dream Interpretation

The Language

Erich Fromm writes in “The Forgotten Language”:

The Talmud says: “Dreams which are not interpreted are like letters which have not been opened.”

Rudolf Steiner has this general advice about the understanding of the spiritual world (GA156):

The only way we can experience anything from the spiritual world is to understand that we must take what it offers us as letters and words, which we must learn to read. That is it. And not to learn, to believe that we can spare ourselves learning to read the esoteric script, would be just as clever as someone taking a book and saying, “There are fools who say that something is expressed in this book. I thumb from page to page in it and see only pretty letters.” those who cannot read the letters absorb only what they see and are unconcerned about what is expressed.

He states that we should learn to understand the messages from the spiritual world, they are there to collect.

From the Content of the Esoteric Classes we have the following around the methodology:

I would add, get a notebook and write the dreams down each time you wake, there can easily be more than one message a night. Even the bible recommends taking notes, Dan. 7.1:

… Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream. See also Dream Interpretation: A Biblical Understanding.

You are everything in the dream

The persons who appear in dreams are all part of you, with few exceptions, if a person hinders you in the dream, it’s an aspect of yourself that are the cause (GA156), this is vital to understand, as it’s all too easy to project the dreams and problems onto others:

If, for example, one person fights or wounds another, you experience yourself as the inflictor of the wound and also as the soul that is wounded or attacked. You are everything in these images. You are utterly within them. If you had an image in front of you in which a beheading is depicted you experience yourself at the same time as the person who is beheaded and the person who does the beheading. That is how you experience yourself within this very fluctuating world of images. You yourself are every image and every movement in it.

Following Bobby Matherne is Fritz Perls dream interpretation (Gestalt Therapy) a good representative for this methology:

Fritz Perls taught people to interpret every component of a dream as a part of their own self. If you are driving a car and some one is skating in front of you slowing you down, you are both the driver of the car and the skater. If you then encounter a woman whose pickup truck is broken down, you are both the truck and the woman seeking help.

The Hebrew and the Christians have worked with dream interpretation for many thousand of years, so it is no surprise that they are much more concrete than the abstract psychoanalysts, and when I found their description I saw that they matched my experiences.

From Christian Dream Interpretation

Discerning Dreams About Yourself
At least 95% of your dreams will be about you – your inner self, your current situation, your relationships. Your dreams come from your heart and will express the things that are important to your heart.
The most common area your spirit will reveal will be your emotional, heart struggles and sanctification issues, expressed symbolically. Body and health issues are also important to your spirit, so they may be revealed, again in a symbolic way. Your relationships to other people are important to your heart, so these may be conveyed in signs and symbols. And the circumstances and events that surround your life, ministry or vocation are also important to your heart, so these may be portrayed symbolically in your dreams.

The source of the dreams

Steiner have the following, about dreams and the students relation to the higher self, From the Content of the Esoteric Classes, 10-26-’09:

Anyone who has a hidden opposition to his teacher will find that this feeling soon breaks through and adversely influences the effect of meditation. In an esoteric’s daily meditations he should keep it in mind that he’s mainly trying to get through to his higher self, and he should reflect on what this higher self is. He shouldn’t think that he’s supposed to bring something to this higher self — he should have an expectant attitude towards him and expect everything from him. Usually there are three ways in which it approaches a pupil on his path. The first way is a rather flitting one and it requires the attentiveness that an esoteric should have for all things. Namely, this is in a dream, and what happens there is what one calls a doubling of the ‘I’. For instance, one has a problem or wants to do something. Then someone appears to one in a dream who tells one what to do or who solves the problem, one who is better and cleverer than oneself. One should pay attention to such dreams.

The cleverer is what I later call the teacher. As most dreams are rather depressing, they tell where we go wrong and that we should do something to change it, it is very easy to get a somewhat strained relationship to the teacher, but the dreams are created in love to us, but the dream interface is so primitive that it can’t be done in a more gentle way.

Edgar Cayce is another well known source on dream interpretation:

Cayce reports that most dreams fall into the daily recapping and assessment category, with your higher self serving as the dream maker. In these dreams, you are given the opportunity to see how your thoughts and actions compare to your ideals – the person that you truly want to be. Study the basic theme of your dreams to discover if they reflect a theme or behavior in your life. If they are intense or recurring dreams, it may indicate an area of your life that demands your attention. Very often you will find clues to positive change right within the dreams themselves. Just remember that in most cases, your dreams are for your benefit…providing insights into ways in which you can change and grow. Understanding My Intense Dreams

And here on the three main actors in the soul of man, subconscious (astral), consciousness (I), and super consciousness (higher I):

According to Mr. Cayce, the most common influence impelling a dream is our subconscious and superconscious attempting to correlate life events and decisions to eternal, spiritual ideals. On one occasion Cayce modified the word correlation to “co-relation of subconscious and superconscious forces manifesting through the developing mind of the entity.” He frequently sought to remind us that we have three levels of consciousness, and they need to co-relate in order for us to have better integration of body, mind, and soul, each sharing in our life’s events, relationships, and decisions. Co-relating

In Job’s book (33:1-18), which is a description of “The Dark Night of the Soul” also called Metanoia, it says:

Why do you complain to him that he responds to no one’s words?
For God does speak—now one way, now another— though no one perceives it.
In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.

It continues telling that those who don’t hear the message of the dreams becomes sick, as they don’t heed the warnings.

Jung and Steiner

If both Jung and Steiner were right, they had to have a common ground. I don’t describe precisely what Animus and Anima are, as it’s explained better by others, but I show where they fit into the seven layer model of man, and how they fit into the model of Steiner, Aristotle and Plato. It may extend the understanding of both models.

The three Soul components:

Orektikon, Eros, Sentient soul represents Anima for men and Animus for woman,
Kinetikon, Logos, Intellectual soul, also called Heart and Mind soul, represents the Lower ‘I’/Persona/Ego, and
Dianoetikon, Thumos, Consciousness soul, represents the Higher ‘I’.

The last soul component is the least developed, but we are currently working on it.

This table relates the Jung symbolism to various esoteric models, especially the model of Plato/Aristotle/Steiner:

	The Bodies of Man	Steiner Aristotle/Plato Hebrew	Age From – To Chakra	Feminine associations	Usage In Dreams
					Man	Woman
1	Physical body Malkuth	Physical Body	0 – (7) Root
2	Etheric body Yesod	Ether or Life body Threptikon	(7) – (14) Generative	Lilith	Anima	Animus
		Sentient body Aesthetikon	(14) – 21 Solar Plexus
3	Astral body Hod Kama New Age Ego
		Sentient soul Orektikon/Eros Nephesch	21 – 28 Heart	Maria Magdalene
					Lower I The Persona
4	‘I’ Netzach Nous Monad	Intellectual soul or Heart and Mind soul Kinetikon/Logos Ruach	28 – 35 Throat	Maria, Cleophas wife
		Consciousness soul or Spirit soul Dianoetikon/Thumos N’schamah	35 – 42 Brow	Virgin Sophia	Higher I The Divine Child
5	Manas Tiphareth Transformed astral body	Spirit self	42 – 49 Crown		The Teacher The Wise Man or Woman
6	Buddhi Chesed Transformed etheric body	Life spirit	49 – 56	The World Mother
7	Atma Geburah Transformed physical body	Spirit body	56 – 63

Karma and Dreams

My experience is that dreams 99,9% of the time has to do with the previous day. They are not good to tell you deep spiritual truth or intricate stories about the future, so it’s only in rare cases dreams contain other than help for your daily life.

When you go through the events of the day, just before you sleep, you may recognize situations where you created karma, and by understanding what you did wrong, you may correct the error in the current life, instead of postponing it for future incarnations.

Dreams have a similar function, they try to instill your subconscious to evade the situation if or when it would happen again, but if you understand your dream, you can work consciously on it also, sparing yourself from many depressing experiences.

A few Examples:

If you dream that your car is broke or you can’t find the key’s, it means that you don’t do the right things.

If you jump on a trampoline it means you do a lot of work without getting anywhere.

If you are too late for the train, you didn’t take an oppurtunity which fate had set up for you.

If you start in kindergarten, you have behaved childish.

All of these dreams is a reference to the day before.

If we don’t react on the dreams, and handle the problems, the dreams may become nightmares.

I think dreams get more intense with age, as the possibility to understand and change the situation grows with maturity. You should see the dreams as messages from your Higher I telling you where you went wrong. These dreams are usually depressing as they tell you to correct things, but if you do well, you may get a dream in between where you fly on a private jet, move up to a higher class in school, even a chaste kiss for particularly good work in a complicated situation, and so on, showing progress.

Dream Symbols and interpretation

Anima/Animus

Anima/Animus represents the base unconscious Feelings and the Ether body, and are female actors in mens dreams and male actors in women’s dreams, for example your husband/wife, friends, colleagues, classmates, old girlfriends/boyfriends, or an unknown person.

As it concerns feelings, you seldom speak with your Anima/Animus, it’s mostly some kind of action, Love or some affection, or the opposite to that, showing the state between your feminine and masculine side.

Animus/Anima can in real seldom situations represent your physical body, maybe in connection with health problems. Remember, it’s the opposite of your own gender.

A.Andrew Gonzales,www.sublimatrix.com

Ego, Persona or Lower ‘I’

The Ego, the Lower ‘I’ represents Thinking, the dreamer in the dream. One of the goals is to unify the Lower ‘I’ with the corresponding Anima/Animus, that is Feeling and Thinking. Related to the Chymical Wedding.

Shadows or False Ego’s

There can also be other actors (Shadows), playing the role of False Ego‘s . Typically friends, classmates, colleagues, or less common, typically in groups, unknown players. These persons sometimes characterize traits which tells what the dream is about, but in all circumstances it’s easier for the “dreaming facility” to use an existing person than to create a new personality.

The Shadow’s I see as debris flowing around in the unconscious mind blocking the Chakras. They are the background for the plot of the dreams.

The False Ego’s are the persona’s we set up when relating to other people to hide us behind, protect our selves, or to impress other persons. Their role in the dreams are to show that they are there and to remove them you have to recognize them. There can of course be persons in the dream which is only extras just to give the background, but then they will be out of focus, they will be difficult to remember.

A friend of mine dreamed that she was playing on a tin drum in a concentration camp, followed by many anonymous people walking in ranks. It showed that her fear for other peoples views made her entertain a lot of false ego’es to please everybody, but it was a virtual hell for her soul.

Higher ‘I’, The Divine Child

The Higher ‘I’ represents the Willing, and is usually represented by a child, or teenager in the dream. Whatever happens to the child is a result of your life. The more the child prosper the better. The goal is to become the Divine Child.

The Wise Teacher

One more role is the Teacher, which I presumes represents the Spirit self, and in dreams usually is shown as your Father, Mother, a Teacher, or Chief from life, who you have some respect for. In dreams they often come down from upstairs or leave upstairs. Can be of both sexes, but I it’s mostly of the opposite gender.

Dream Symbols

Three other symbols which are paramount in dreams are your House, various Schools, and Transport Vehicles:

In dreams the House usually represents your physical and psychical state of development. Is it clean, is it in chaos, are you building on your second or third floor, is it finished? Working on the first floor tell’s about work on the higher consciousness, and windows or a television tell’s about spiritual vision.

The schools tell a little about how it is going, are you in a kindergarten, school, High School, or the University? Do you have a table? Have you forgotten your books? And so forth.

If you are reading Donald Duck or other zines you are wasting your time with inferior reading stuff.

Big golden or old looking books is about your collected wisdom, precisely what it means depend on context. It could be related to a chakra.

In dreams transport vehicles tells about how your journey is progressing. If you are riding a bicycle you are not doing especially well. Your car can go out of gasoline, or you can’t find the keys, you may have lost your ticket for the bus, come late for the train. If everything is going as it should, which is more seldom, you may get a first class ticket for the airplane, or the train is waiting for you at the central station, saying that you have done right and you are on the track, even that a new period is started.

Numbers

It is extremely seldom to remember numbers in dreams, as it normally have no meaning. It’s like reading a book in a dream, without remembering the text, where the reading is vital not the text. If you remember a number it’s important to write it down quickly. What the number signifies depends on the context; it could be the number of days, time of day, number of hours, a specific date, and so forth.

Names

It’s also seldom to hear Noun’s in dreams, so when you hear one, try to find out what it stands for. Names in dreams can be quite humorous, but still contain vital information.

All the time my wife have been part of my dreams she had played the role of my anima, and other woman have also played the role, depending on the archetype needed in the message of the dream.

Anonymous dream persons

Actual people from the real world are played by anonymous players, you have to use the context to decipher the real world implication.

The times where the dream have involved my wife or other real world people, it has been played by an anonymous character.

Periods

The table show seven-year periods connected to various chakras. Each period handles a given set of problems each person have to work with, and the chakras describe these. Cycles of Seven.

Here and Now

Most dreams are rather concrete, and they accentuate specific problems from the day before, and these problems are typically waves of underlying currents, life themes, waiting to be handled.

What makes dreams difficult to understand are that we live in the middle of our problems, that we can’t overview our own situation; but our dreams can, and if we learn to interpret our dreams it will help us to understand our own situation.

Dream Interpretation and Chakras

From time to time there are dreams telling about your progress or in which areas you have problems; here some symbols and colors related to the Chakras.

The Figure are the symbol of the Chakra, hold the cursor above the symbol, a short text maybe with a word in UPPERCASE, tells what which part to look for, as an example is Muladhara’s symbol a Square. Clicking on a symbol opens a Vortex of Light description of the Chakra. The Crown chakra has no dream symbol as I am aware of.

Chakra	Color	Animal	Figure	Comments
SahasraraCrown	Purple			Moon
Ajna Third Eye Pineal	Indigo			Clairvoyance, psychic abilities, imagination, dreaming, Venus.
Vishuddha Throat	Blue	White elephant		Pressure when you are not communicating your emotions properly, Mercury.
Ahanhata Heart	Green	Birds, animals with antlers		Lack of compassion, Sun.
Manipura Navel Solar Plexus	Yellow	Sacrificial animal		Personal Power, anger or a sense of victimization, Mars.
Svadhistana Sacral Hara	Orange	Water animals		Emotional problems or sexual guilt, Jupiter.
Muladhara Root	Red	Elephant, horse, and other big and heavy animals		Earth, survival, grounding, stillness, Saturn.

Literature

Dreams

Dream Interpretation: A Biblical Understanding

Af Herman Riffel:

Many believers read the scriptural accounts of dreams and never think it could happen to them. Today, though, many are realizing that God has never ceased using dreams and visions to guide, instruct, and warn. This book will give you a biblical understanding of dreams that you never had before!

Christian Dream Interpretation:

A short but very well written text on dream interpretation.

Myths-Dreams-Symbols

based on Eric Ackroyd1 & 2 and Edward C. Whitmont.

The Individuation Process: The Shadow, Anima/Animus, Mana personalities, the higher Self.

Site directory.

A Step-By-Step Approach

This Step by Step Approach describes Dream Interpretation in a way usable with my terminology. It also has descriptions of how to combine the I Ching with Dream Interpretation:

I find that a very useful guideline for dream interpretation, especially at first, is to take everything in the dream to represent an aspect of the dreamer.

For example, if the dream involves the person travelling in a car with their uncle, then the car represents some aspect of the person’s life, and the uncle also represents a part of the person. This isn’t the only way to interpret dreams, but it’s a very good starting point, I think.

Here’s the step-by-step approach that I use.
I hope that by going through the example and then trying the exercise you’ll start to get a feel for what’s involved in trying to interpret a dream, whether it’s your own or someone else’s.

Dream Encyclopedia

Example: The House in Your Dream
…..
Each dream image holds enormous data, emotional response, and created patterns of behaviour. So in considering the house in your dream you need to remember you are in touch with a full surround databank of fantastic information about you, your past and your possibilities. You can interact with this information by exploring it in the right way. And to help with this let us look at and question some of the possibilities your dream house might hold.
…..

Contains many interesting and usable entries about the Archetypes used in dreams.

Dream Dictionary

Example with House:

Seeing a house in your dream, represents your own soul and self. Specific rooms in the house indicate a specific aspect of your psyche. In general, the attic represents your intellect, the basement represents the unconscious, etc. If the house is empty, then it indicates feelings of insecurity. If the house is shifting, then it suggests that you are going through some personal changes and changing your belief system. Dreaming that you are cleaning your house means your need to clear out your thoughts and getting rid of old ways. You are seeking self-improvement. Seeing an old, run-down house in your dream, represents your old beliefs, attitudes and how you used to think or feel. A situation in your current life may be bringing about those same old attitudes and feelings. Alternatively, the old house may symbolize your need to update you mode of thinking. Dreaming that your house is broken into, suggests that you are feeling violated. It may refer to a particular relationship or current situation in your life. Alternatively, it indicates that some unconscious material is attempting to make itself known. There are some aspects of yourself that you have denied. Dreaming of a haunted house means unfinished emotional business, related to your childhood family, dead relatives, or repressed memories and feelings. Dreaming that a house disappeared, indicates that you are not feeling grounded. You feel uprooted by a particular circumstance or relationship in your life.

This entry looks quite ok, I havent checked other entries.

Dreams and Dreaming:

From Dreams and Dreaming:

Dreams as not really nonsensical, but a lot of them are crypted somehow. Major psychologists have studied how dreams work and why they appear, and whether they occur according to patterns, and which patterns. Carl Jung, Medard Boss, Calvin Hall, Montague Ullman and others have decreed that dreams do carry meanings, but you need to understand how dreaming functions. Dreams functions on their own terms. Through the basics of dream interpretations to get a hold on many of them.

Some dreams reflect mind content that pertains to tasks and problems and other issues the mind gets deeply involved in. And parts of the jumbled “video clips” within may just present “left-overs” from days before. Dream interpretations need to be tentative, perhaps open-ended too. Consider the deep feelings and messages involved in the recurrent and most impressive dreams you have had.

Decode and interpret the flows of various icons, images, scenes, actors, happenings, concomitant feelings so as to arrive at tentative or putative postulates about what impressive dreams could mean. In such work there is help in mulling over single, outstanding ideas or episodes inside the stream or flow of a single dream. Take notes of them and learn to draw special illustrations that serve you in a log book. all of it could help, but it may be time-consuming work that had better be done for the whole life. In short, you have to learn to assess well.

Carl Gustav Jung on Dreams:

Here we come upon something of the utmost importance for the applicability of dream-analysis: the dream describes the inner situation of the dreamer, but the conscious mind denies its truth and reality, or admits it only grudgingly.

More on Carl Jung’s Archetypes.

Jungian dream interpretation: a handbook of theory and practice

Comprehensive guide to an understanding of dreams in light of the basic principles of analytical psychology. Particular attention to common motifs, the role of complexes, and the goal and purpose of dreams.

Catching the Thread:

Sufism, Dreamwork, and Jungian Psychology

By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Irina Tweedie

Aristotle

In Greek Sculpture and the Four Elements J.L.Benson references Steiner on Aristotle’s description of the soul of man:

Aristotle distinguishes in man the vegetative soul, by which he means approximately what we call ether body, then the aesthetikon or sensitive soul, which we call the sentient or astral body. Next he speaks of orektikon which corresponds to sentient soul, then comes kinetikon corresponding to the intellectual soul, and he uses the term dianoetikon for the consciousness soul.

J.L.Benson writes in Greek Color Theories and the Four Elements :

To my knowledge Steiner, working closely with concepts from Goethe’s scientific work, is the only modern thinker to give full weight to the macrocosmic aspect of the microcosmic foursome. Above the physical body (which Aristotle dealt with en passant : de An. 411a he uses the term etheric body for Aristotle’s threptikon or nutritive soul, astral or sentient body for the aesthetikon or sensitive soul and ego for nous.

Rudolf Steiner

On dreams:

One gradually notices that one’s dream life takes on a more regular character. The spiritual world flows into this at first. Meditation is the occult key for this. One should get a notebook and briefly write down characteristic dreams in the morning. Thereby, one gets practice in retaining what flows to one from higher worlds. That’s the first elementary method to later get to bringing spiritual experiences through, that is, that they break through into bright day consciousness. Dreams that are only reminiscences from daily life or that are based on heart disturbances, headaches or other bodily conditions are only of value if they’re clothed in a symbolical form, for instance if the thumping heart appears as a cooking oven, or the painful brain as a dome into which animals creep, etc. Only the symbolism is of value here and not the dream’s content. For the symbolic form is initially used by the spiritual world to introduce us to the forces of higher worlds. That’s why one must pay attention to the fine points of this symbolism. In your case — according to your capacities — it’ll also be good if you compare the dreams that you become aware of with the experiences of the next day. For your dreams may soon take on a portentous character. If this happens we’ll say some more about how this thing can be made productive for your spiritual life. Please give these indications a try and tell me how things are going in about eight days.

The Essential Nature of Man from Theosophy.

Chakras

Vortex of Light

This site offers an abbreviated introduction to the Chakra System, applications for meditation and healing using this system, and its relationship to other healing systems.

Chrystal Links

Visual appealing page on the Chakras.

Kheper.net

Contains information on a deeper Esoteric level

Paracelsus in “The Life of Paracelsus” by Franz Hartmann

“If we desire to enter into communication with the spirit of a deceased person, we may make a picture representing that person, and write his name and the questions we wish to ask him upon it, and put that picture under our head after retiring to rest; and during our sleep the deceased appears to us in our dreams and answers our questions. But the experiment must be made in a spirit of unfaltering faith, full of confidence that it will succeed, else it will fail, because it is not the picture that brings the spirit, but our faith that brings us into communication with it; and the picture is only made for the purpose of assisting the imagination, and to make it more powerful (Philosoph., v.).

Previous version of the text

The earlier version: What are the feminine and masculine sides we all talk about? My goal was to find the relation between Jung’s vocabulary and esoteric terminology, together with hints on dream interpretation, there are written much wrong on the subject.

Anima, Animus, Aristotle, C.G.Jung, Carl Jung, Chakras, Chinese characters, Christian Dream Interpretation, Co-relating, Dark Night of the Soul, Dream, Dream Interpretation, Dreams, Edgar Cayce, Erich Fromm, Eros, Fritz Perls, Gestalt Therapy, Jobs Book, Jung, Kabbalah, Logograms, Logos, Main Articles, Metanoia, Plato, Psychology, Rudolf Steiner, Shadows, Social Sciences, Sophia, Steiner et al, Subconscious, Talmud, The Dark Night of the Soul, Thumos, Twin Souls, Unconscious mind

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The Crucible

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Buddhism, Dream Interpretation, Esoterics, Rosicrucianism on April 18, 2010

This star or “Christmas Tree” is a variant of the seven pointed star in Esoteric History of Man called the Crucible and is a Rosicrucian symbol.

Right side of man Outer planets Physical world Salt	Ahanhata- Heart Monad – Soul – Ego Mercury Gold	Left side of man Inner planets Spiritual world sulfur – phosphorus
Right side of man Outer planets Physical world Salt
Manipura Navel Solar Plexus Astral Tin			Vishuddha Throat Manas Quicksilver
Svadhistana Sacral-Hara Etheric Iron			Ajna Third Eye Pineal Buddhi Copper
Muladhara Root Physical Lead			Sahasrara Crown Atma Silver
Ahrimanic – Yin	From the Occult Sign of the Lamb	Luciferic – Yang

The drawing is interesting in more than one way:

Following the lines we have the planets in the order of the development of our planet Earth: old Saturn, old Sun, old Mon, … and which we also have in our weekdays. (Esoteric History of Man).
The planets in the ‘old’ esoteric sequence: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon. In the exoteric, Mercury and Venus have changed place.
The left side contains the Ahrimanic outer planets and the right side the Luciferic inner planets with the Sun in the Equilibrium. (Serpents of the Kundalini Fire).

My understanding are that these planets are connected to our Chakras, and there are many diverging theories about how these planets are connected to the Chakras. My thesis are that the sequence follows the tree above. Most people have the same planets for the lower three as here, but for the upper four there are many different theories. In former times the Sun was connected to the Solar Plexus, but as we have reached our current level of development it now corresponds to the heart.

My major problem are the connection between the Moon and the Crown Chakra, but it could be justified. There could also be other considerations. I would like some ideas if you have thought about it?

The symbolism appear in dreams, in connection with natural initiations, so the right understanding is necessary so just of this reason I wan’t to know the right relation. (What are the feminine and masculine sides we all talk about?)

It could be that the Crown Chakra is the old way to the gods and the new way goes through the heart, that would explain why the Moon, symbolizing the previous incarnation of the Earth, was connected to the Crown chakra and the Sun to the Heart chakra.

From Spiritweb on the Kumaras(Theosophy):

The Divine Mother is in you. Her abiding place, as you know, is the white four-petaled chakra at the base of the spine. This sacred fire is your life force. It is the energy that rises to meet the light that descends over the crystal cord. You can see the crystal cord on the Chart of the Presence. The energy of the Father-Mother God descends over the crystal cord and the sacred fire of the Mother rises from the base chakra. So, we are nourished by Father above and by Mother below and yet Father above contains Mother, and Mother below contains Father.

Man was created on the old Saturn incarnation of the Earth by The Mother, Thrones in Christian symbolism or Binah in Kabbalah (Diagram). The Crown Chakra is nearest to the Father of the old Moon, so it would be appropriate to have the Moon there. And in the middle between the Mother and the Father we have the Son in the Heart Chakra, in equilibrium.

Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon

Ahanhata, Ahriman, Ajna, Astral, Atma, Buddhi, Chakras, Crown, Crucible, Earthly Mother, Ego, Equilibrium, Etheric, Hara, Heart, Heavenly Father, Jupiter, Lucifer, Manas, Manipura, Mars, Mercury, Monad, Moon, Muladhara, Navel, Physical, Pineal, Root, Sacral, Sahasrara, Saturn, Solar Plexus, Soul, Sun, Svadhistana, Third Eye, Throat, Venus, Vishuddha, Yang, Yin

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The Eightfold Path

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Buddhism, Rosicrucianism on March 18, 2009

The Eightfold Path

The Wheel of Dharma

1. Right View –

I view things from what appears to me outwardly.

Man attains this kind of knowledge about the world when he acquires a right view of things, a view that has nothing to do with sympathy or antipathy or preference of any sort. He must strive as best he can to acquire the right view of each thing, purely according to what presents itself to him outwardly. That is the first principle: the Right View of things.

Lotus
2. Right Intent –

I judge in accordance with my right view.

Secondly, man must become independent of what has remained from earlier incarnations; he must also endeavor to judge in accordance with his right view of a thing and not be swayed by any other influences. Thus Right Judgment is the second principle.

Lotus
3. Right Speech –

I give true expression of my right view and judgment.

The third is that he must strive to give true expression to what he desires to communicate to the world, having first acquired the right view and right judgment of it; not only his words but every manifestation of his being must express his own right view, that and that alone. This is Right Speech.

Lotus
4. Right Focus –

I let my right view, judgment, and speech become deed.

The fourth principle is that man must strive to act, not according to his sympathies and antipathies, not according to the dark forces of Samskara within him, but in such a way that he lets his right view, right judgment and right speech become deed. This is Right Action.

Lotus
5. Right Alertness –

I act in my highest and best line of work.

The fifth principle, enabling a man to liberate himself from what is within him, is that he should acquire the right vocation and station in the world. We may best understand what Buddha meant by this, if we remember how many people are dissatisfied with the tasks devolving upon them, believing that some other position would be more advantageous. But a man should be able to derive from the situation into which he is born or into which fate has placed him, the best that is possible, i.e. to acquire the right `occupation’ or `vocation’. Whoever finds no satisfaction in the situation in which he is placed, will not be able to derive from it the power to unfold right activity in the world. This is what Buddha called Right Vocation.

Lotus
6. Right Purpose –

I work steadily till right action becomes a habit in me.

The sixth principle is that a man should make increasing efforts to ensure that what he acquires through right views, right judgment and so forth, shall become habit in him. He is born into the world with certain habits. A child gives evidence of this or that inclination or habit. But man’s endeavors should be directed, not towards retaining the habits, proceeding from Samskara but towards acquiring those that gradually become his own as the result of right views, right judgment, right speech, and so on. These are the Right Habits.

Lotus
7. Right Effort –

I link the present with the past and thus account for what I have already learned in previous lives.

The seventh principle is that a man should bring order into his life through not invariably forgetting yesterday when he has to act to-day. He would never accomplish anything if he had to learn his skills anew each time. He must strive to develop recollectedness, mindfulness, regarding everything in his life. He must always turn to account what he has already learned, he must link the present with the past. Thus along the Eightfold Path man must acquire Right Mindfulness in the sense of Buddha’s teaching.

Lotus
8. Right Motivation –

I let the things of the world speak directly to me without partiality to views of other humans or my former incarnations.

The eighth quality is acquired when, without partiality for one view or another and without being influenced by any element remaining in him from former incarnations, he surrenders himself with pure devotion to the things of the world, immerses himself in them and lets them alone speak to him. This is Right Contemplation.

Buddha – Mercury

This is the Eightfold Path, of which Buddha said to his disciples that if followed it would gradually lead to the extinction of the thirst for existence with its attendant suffering, and impart to the soul something that brings liberation from elements enslaving it from past lives.

Throat Chakra, the Sixteen Petaled Lotus

The Eightfold Path is connected to the Vishuddha, the throat Chakra or the Sixteen Petaled Lotus as Rudolf Steiner Calls the astral organ.

In “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds And Its Attainment” Rudolf Steiner goes more in depth with the Eightfold Path. The Initial words from the text about the Sixteen Petaled Lotus:

The organ in the vicinity of the larynx has sixteen petals or spokes; the one in the region of the heart twelve, and the one in the pit of the stomach ten.

Now certain activities of the soul are connected with the development of these organs, and anyone devoting himself to them in a certain definite way contributes something to the development of the corresponding organs. In the sixteen-petaled lotus, eight of its sixteen petals were developed in the remote past during an earlier stage of human evolution. Man himself contributed nothing to this development; he received them as a gift from nature, at a time when his consciousness was in a dull, dreamy condition. At that stage of human evolution they were in active use, but the manner of their activity was only compatible with that dull state of consciousness. As consciousness became clearer and brighter, the petals became obscured and ceased their activity. Man himself can now develop the remaining eight petals by means of conscious exercises, and thereby the whole lotus flower becomes luminous and mobile. The acquisition of certain faculties depends on the development of each one of the sixteen petals. Yet, as already shown, only eight can be consciously developed; the remainder then appear of their own accord.

The development proceeds in the following manner. The student must first apply himself with care and attention to certain functions of the soul hitherto exercised by him in a careless and inattentive manner. There are eight such functions …

[In Danish: “Hvordan når man til erkendelse af de højere verdener?” af Rudolf Steiner.]

References

I have made the presentation of Buddhas Eightfold Path from Rudolf Steiners lectures on The Gospel of Luke.

The goal was to make a short and simple description of the path, followed with references for deeper understanding of the why.

Se also the Twelf Petaled Lotus, Ahanhata, The Heart Chakra:

And the Six Petaled Lotus, Svadhistana, The Sacral Chakra:

Kristina Kaine has elaborated over the theme in “Eightfold Path of Buddha in the Gospel of St John“.

A meditation for modern man: Meditation as contemplative inquiry : when knowing becomes love / Arthur Zajonc

See also The Noble Eightfold Path at Wikipedia.

The Path

Ahanhata, Buddha, Buddhism, Chakras, Dharma, Eightfold Path, Equilibrium, Gautama Buddha, Jane Adams, Larynx, Main Articles, Noble Eightfold Path, Otto Frello, Right Action, Right Alertness, Right Contemplation, Right Effort, Right Focus, Right Habits, Right Intent, Right Judgment, Right Mindfulness, Right Motivation, Right Purpose, Right Speech, Right View, Right Vocation, Rudolf Steiner, Svadhistana, The Heart Chakra, The Sacral Chakra, Vishuddha

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What are the feminine and masculine sides we all talk about?

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Buddhism, Dream Interpretation, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism on January 17, 2009

We all talk about our feminine and masculine sides without really knowing what we talk about.

I read Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Rosicrucian literature, Jung, Fromm, and other psychoanalysts, adding to my intuitive understanding, but I still didn’t grasp it fully.

Many interesting, partly frustrating, experiences gave finally a long searched result. I will not describe precisely what Animus and Anima are, as it is explained better by others, but I will show where they fit into the seven layer model of man, and how they fit into the Steiner and Aristotle model.

I will take it a little further by explaining a few but basic rules around Dream Interpretation and the Roles of the participating figures.
borromeanrings_a

Jung and the Aristotelian model of the Soul

The model of Steiner/Aristotle split in three groups, the Body, the Soul, and the Spirit. Each part can again be split in three, the body as Physical, Ether, and Sentient body, and the soul as Sentient, Intellectual, and Consciousness soul, and the Spirit as Spirit self, Life spirit, and Spirit body. The model is described in The Essential Nature of Man.

Age contains the periods where each body and relating chakra is developed. (7) signifies change of teeth and (14) start of puberty. The Crown with 49 is by grace not through work. Following the Hebrew’s a person was first adult at 50.

	The Bodies of Man	Steiner Aristotle	Age From – To Chakra	Feminine associations	Usage In Dreams
					Man	Woman
1	Physical body Malkuth	Physical Body	0 – (7) Root
2	Etheric body Yesod	Ether or Life body Threptikon	(7) – (14) Generative	Lilith	Anima	Animus
		Sentient body Aesthetikon	(14) – 21 Solar Plexus
3	Astral body Hod Kama
		Sentient soul Orektikon	21 – 28 Heart	Maria Magdalene
					Lower I The Persona
4	Ego Netzach Nous Monad	Intellectual soul or Heart and Mind soul Kinetikon	28 – 35 Throat	Maria, Cleophas wife
		Consciousness soul Dianoetikon	35 – 42 Brow	Virgin Sophia	Higher I The Divine Child
5	Manas Tiphareth Transformed astral body	Spirit self	42 – 49 Crown		The Teacher The Wise Man or Woman
6	Buddhi Chesed Transformed etheric body	Life spirit	49 – 56	The World Mother
7	Atma Geburah Transformed physical body	Spirit body	56 – 63

In Dream Interpretation

The three Soul components:

Sentient soul represents Anima for men and Animus for woman,
Intellectual soul represents the Lower ‘I’/Persona/Ego, and
Consciousness soul represents the Higher ‘I’.

Anima/Animus

Anima/Animus represents the base unconscious Feelings and the Ether body, and are represented by female actors in mens dreams and male actors in womens dreams. It can be your husband/wife, friends, colleagues, classmates, old girlfriends/boyfriends, or an unknown person.

Animus/Anima can in real seldom situations represent your physical body, if there is something which should be taken care of. And remember, it’s the opposite of your own gender.

Ego, Persona or Lower ‘I’

The Ego, the Lower ‘I’ represents Thinking, and is represented by the dreamer in the dream. One of the goals is to unify the Lower ‘I’ with the corresponding Anima/Animus, that is Feeling and Thinking. The relation is connected with the Chymical Wedding.

Shadows or False Ego’s

The Shadow’s I see as debris flowing around in the unconscious mind blocking the Chakras. They are the background for the plot of the dreams.

Higher ‘I’, The Divine Child

The Wise Teacher

One more role is the Teacher, which I presumes represents the Spirit self, and in dreams usually shown as your Father, Mother, a Teacher, or Chief from your real life, who you have some respect for. They can in the dream be connected with the next floor upstairs. Can be both sexes, but I think it’s mostly of the opposite gender.

Dream Symbols

Three other symbols which are paramount in dreams are your House, various Schools, and Transport Vehicles:

In dreams the House usually represents your physical and psychical state of development. Is it clean, is it in chaos, are you building on your second or third floor, is it finished?

The schools tells a little about how it is going, are you in a kindergarten, school, High School, or the University? Are there room for you, have you forgotten your books, and so forth.

In dreams transport vehicles tells about how your journey is progressing. If you are riding a bicycle you are not doing especially well. Your car can go out of gasoline, you may have lost your ticket for the bus, come late for the train, or you got a first class ticket for the airplane.

Numbers

It is extremely seldom that numbers in dreams are remembered, as they normally have no meaning. It’s like reading a book in a dream, where the reading is remembered not the text. If you remember a number it’s important to write it down quickly. What the number signifies depends on the context, it could be the number of days, time of day, number of hours, a specific date, and so forth.

Names

It’s also seldom to hear Noun’s in dreams, so when your hear one, try to find out what it stands for. Some of these names can be quite humorous, but still contain vital information.

Anonymous dream persons

Actual people from the real world will be played by anonymous players, you have to use the context to decipher the real world implication.

Here and Now

Most dreams are rather concrete, and they accentuate specific problems from the day before, and these problems are typically waves of underlying currents, life themes, which should be handled.

What makes dreams difficult to understand are that we live in the middle of our problems, that we cant overview our own situation; but our dreams can, and if we learn to interpret our dreams it will help us to understand our own situation.

Dream Interpretation and Chakras

From time to time there may be dreams telling about your progress or in which areas you have problems; here some symbols and colors related to the Chakras.

Chakra	Color	Animal	Figure	Comments
Sahasrara Crown	Purple			Moon ?
Ajna Third Eye Pineal	Indigo			Clairvoyance, psychic abilities, imagination, dreaming, Mercury.
Vishuddha Throat	Blue	White elephant		Pressure when you are not communicating your emotions properly, Venus.
Ahanhata Heart	Green	Birds, animals with antlers		Lack of compassion, Sun.
Manipura Navel Solar Plexus	Yellow	Sacrificial animal		Personal Power, anger or a sense of victimization, Mars.
Svadhistana SacralHara	Orange	Water animals		Emotional problems or sexual guilt, Jupiter.
Muladhara Root	Red	Elephant, horse, and other big and heavy animals		Earth, survival, grounding, stillness, Saturn.

borromeanrings_b

Examples

The Tin Drum

A friend of mine had a dream where she was going in front of a group of girls in a concentration camp playing on a tin drum.

The group of girls were her false ego’s, she put up whenever she met any of her friends, family, and so forth. She was trapped like in a concentration camp by that behavior. She understood the dream herself.

To met a person again.

I walked on the platform going to get a train. I met a young girl, but walked on. I then sat down between two girls, where one of them was the same I passed earlier, but older.

I were in a discotheque and met a girl, I then continued walking around before i ran into her again.

Both dreams was preparing the same meeting with an old acquaintance, and contained in the small group of dreams about the future.

A real short dream

Saw a Trampoline.

The person had the previous day done a lot of work without coming anywhere; if the dream theme is recurring a change in the theme of life is needed.

Literature

Dreams

Myths-Dreams-Symbols

based on Eric Ackroyd1 & 2 and Edward C. Whitmont.

The Individuation Process: The Shadow, Anima/Animus, Mana personalities, the higher Self.

Site directory.

Dream Interpretation: A Biblical Understanding

Af Herman Riffel

A Step-By-Step Approach

I find that a very useful guideline for dream interpretation, especially at first, is to take everything in the dream to represent an aspect of the dreamer.

This Step by Step Approach contains a description of Dream Interpretation which is quite usable with my terminology. It also contains descriptions of how to combine the I Ching with Dream Interpretation.

Dream Encyclopedia

…..

Contains many interesting and usable entries about the Archetypes used in dreams.

Dream Dictionary

Example with House:

This entry looks quite ok, I havent checked other entries.

Dreams and Dreaming

Carl Gustav Jung on Dreams

More on Carl Jung’s Archetypes.

Jungian dream interpretation: a handbook of theory and practice

Catching the Thread:

Sufism, Dreamwork, and Jungian Psychology

By Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Irina Tweedie

Aristotle

In Greek Sculpture and the Four Elements J.L.Benson references Steiner on Aristotle’s description of the soul of man:

Aristotle distinguishes in man the vegetative soul, by which he means approximately what we call ether body, then the aesthetikon or sensitive soul, which we call the sentient or astral body. Next he speaks of orektikon which corresponds to sentient soul, then comes kinetikon corresponding to the intellectual soul, and he uses the term dianoetikon for the consciousness soul.

J.L.Benson writes in Greek Color Theorie and the Four Elements :

To my knowledge Steiner, working closely with concepts from Goethe’s scientific work, is the only modern thinker to give full weight to the macrocosmic aspect of the microcosmic foursome. Above the physical body (which Aristotle dealt with en passant : de An. 411a he uses the term etheric body for Aristotle’s threptikon or nutritive soul, astral or sentient body for the aesthetikon or sensitive soul and ego for nous .

Rudolf Steiner

On dreams:

The Essential Nature of Man from Theosophy.

Chakras

Vortex of Light

This site offers an abbreviated introduction to the Chakra System, applications for meditation and healing using this system, and its relationship to other healing systems.

Chrystal Links

Visual appealing page on the Chakras.

Kheper.net

Contains information on a deeper Esoteric level

borromeanrings_e

Myths-Dreams-Symbols

Anima, Animus, Aristotle, Chakras, Dream Interpretation, Jung, Rudolf Steiner, Shadows, Sophia, Steiner et al, Twin Souls

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The Rosicrucian Cross

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Esoterics, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism on October 15, 2008

The Rosicrucian Cross is the symbol for the Spiritual Stream started by Christian Rosenkreuz known under the name Rosicrucianism.

The Rosicrucian Cross combines the seven Red Roses, Lotus Flowers or Chakra’s with the Cross we have seen in the Caduceus Staff or the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah. When the Roses Bloom on the cross, the Chakras has been opened. The twelve rays are the influence of the Zodiac as the roses symbolize the planets.

With the Black Cross.

A meditation on the cross by Rudolf Steiner:

Imagine you see before you a black cross. Let this black cross be for you a symbol for the baser elements that have been cast out of man’s impulses and passions; and at the point where the beams of the cross meet, picture to yourself seven resplendent bright red roses arranged in a circle. Let these roses symbolize for you a blood that is the expression of passions and impulses that have undergone purification.

And further on the cross:

He who tears the roses from the black cross and has nothing left but the black cross, would fall into the clutches of Ahriman. The black cross in itself represents life when it strives to embrace inanimate matter. Also, if one were to separate the cross from the roses, keeping only the latter, one would nor find the proper thing. For the roses, separate from the cross, tend to elevate us to a life of selfish striving toward the spiritual, but not to a life in which we reveal the spirit in a material world. Not the cross alone, not the roses alone, but the roses on the cross, the cross carrying the roses: That is our proper symbol.

The seven Roses can be combined with the five pointed star of Venus (Lucifer) as used by the Rosicrucian Fellowship:

There exist a third cross with only one Rose:

SingleRoseCross

The Rose represents the female principle while the Cross represents the masculine principle. The same is represented through the sign for Earth, The Universal Androgyne:

In Max Heindel‘s description of the Temple Legend, where Hiram Abiff builds the Temple of Salomon, he writes the following about the Origin of the Cross:

Hiram was again conducted to the surface of the earth and as he walked from the scene of his shattered ambition, the conspirators set upon and fatally wounded him; but before he expired, he hid the hammer and disc upon which he had inscribed the Word. This was never found until ages later when Hiram, “the widow’s Son,” was reborn as Lazarus and became the friend and pupil of the Lion of Judah, who raised him from death through initiation. When the hammer was found it had the shape of a CROSS, and the disc had become a ROSE. Therefore Hiram took his place among the immortals under the new and symbolical name

Christian Rosenkreuz.

He founded the Order of Temple-Builders which bears his name; in that Order aspiring souls are still instructed how to fuse the base metals and make the White Stone.

One of the entrances to the temple was decorated with Roses. The Rose connects to Shekinah (Sophia) who has been titled ‘The Rose of the World’, Rosamundi.

The hammer Hiram Abiff received from Tubal-Cain is The Tau Cross:

The Cross is still used in Masonic Symbolism.

Arthur Edward Waite on the Rosicrucian Cross in Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross:

‘ holygrail9 Thus the Rose is a symbol of Mary because of her motherhood, but in relation to her it belongs to divine things, even as she herself stands on the threshold of Deity, being Spouse of the Divine Spirit and bearer of the Divine word made flesh. So also is the Rose of Shekinah, a Divine Rose, as she whom it typifies is Divine Mother of souls.’

The Rose of Sophia is actually the Holy Grail and Jesus Christ the Hostie.

In The Fraternity of the Rose Cross the connection between the Rosicrucian Rose and the Kabbalah is shown through the Ten petals of the Rose and the Pythagorean Number:

The rose is a yonic symbol associated with generation, fecundity, and purity. The fact that flowers blossom by unfolding has caused them to be chosen as symbolic of spiritual unfoldment. The red color of the rose refers to the blood of Christ, and the golden heart concealed within the midst of the flower corresponds to the spiritual gold concealed within the human nature.

The number of its petals being ten is also a subtle reminder of the perfect Pythagorean number. The rose symbolizes the heart, and the heart has always been accepted by Christians as emblematic of the virtues of love and compassion, as well as of the nature of Christ – the personification of these virtues. The rose as a religious emblem is of great antiquity. It was accepted by the Greeks as the symbol of the sunrise, or of the coming of dawn.

The perfect Pythagorean number ten (tetractys) can be developed by adding the points in a pyramid four high = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10:

First row are Kether, second row are Chokmah and Binah, third row are Chesed, Geburah, and Tiphareth, and fourth row are Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malkuth.

The Tree of Life in Rosicrucian Context

Many see Kabbalah as an intellectual game without any relation to the real world, nothing could be more wrong! It’s a description of man, and what is involved in his development. Each Sephira is, of course, a spiritual principle, but for all spiritual principles there are also living beings, and further more, each being is also part of a larger being.

The Tree of Life seen from a Rosicrucian viewpoint: The seven Roses represents the seven lower Sephirots (or Chakras), where the three upper Sephirots are above man, on the other side of the Abyss.

Kabbalah Tree of Life with Rosicrucian names

The three Sephirots of the second Triangle, below the Abyss, are Called “The World Father” or Atma, “The World Mother” or Buddhi, and “The World Son” or Manas by the Rosicrucian’s, which are the higher layers of Man. This can also be seen in this table.

The Tree of Life can also be written with the European Esoteric names for the Sephira:

European Esoteric Names for the Sephira in the Kabbalah Tree of Life

The Ten Sephira corresponds to the Spirit of Love, Harmony, Will, Wisdom, Motion, Form, Personality or Time, Fire, Twilight, and Man.

Spiritual Hierarchy in Various Context

The Spiritual Hierarchy
Traditional	Other	Kabbalah	Esoteric
*First Hierarchy*			*Spirits of*
Seraphim		Kether	Love
Cherubim		Chokmah	Harmony
Thrones		Binah	Will
*Second Hierarchy*
Kyriotetes	Dominions	Chesed	Wisdom
Dynamis Mohat	Mights, Virtues	Geburah	Motion, Movement
Exusiai	Powers, Authorities	Tiphareth	Form
*Third Hierarchy*
Archai Asuras	Principalities, Primal Beginnings	Netzach	Personality, Time
Archangels	Messengers of the Beginnings, Sons of Fire, Fire Spirits	Hod	Fire
Angels	Messengers, Sons of Life, Lunar Pitris	Yesod	Twilight

The Crest of Johann Valentin Andreæ
The Microcosmic Cross
Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/FoundEsoter/19050928p01.html

Adrogyne, Arthur Edward Waite, Atma, Buddhi, Chakras, Christian Rosenkreuz, Cross, Hiram, Hiram Abiff, Kabbalah, Main Articles, Manas, Mary, Max Heindel, Pythagorean Number, Rosamundi, Rose, Rose Cross, Rosicrucian Fellowship, Rosicrucianism, Rosy Cross, Rudolf Steiner, Sephirot, Shekinah, Sophia, yonic

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Serpents of the Kundalini Fire

Posted by Kim Graae Munch in Buddhism, Esoterics, Indian esoteric, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism on September 29, 2008

To continue the tale of the serpents lets look at the Kundalini Fire from India. The Kundalini system looks like the Caduceus Staff with the two Serpents around the spine: Kundalini with Chakras The serpents has two different colors like the two outer pillars in the Kabbalah Tree of Life, and they have the same interpretations as the Feminine and Masculine energies. Seven Lotus Flowers or Chakras, which are spiritual organs, are placed on the spine.

Macrocosmic Man

Left side of Man is the masculine side and the right side is the feminine side, as we see the Tree of Life from the front, the macrocosmic man.

Chakras in the Tree of Life
! Face looking out of paper !

The correspondence between the Chakras (see later) and the Sephirots:

Sahasrara or the Crown Chakra, corresponds to Keter
Ajna, the Third Eye , or the Brow Chakra corresponds to Chokmah, and the back head chakra with Binah.
Vishuddha or the Throat Chakra corresponds to Chesed and Ta Chui, The Neck Chakra, with Gevurah.
Ahanhata or the Heart Chakra corresponds to Tiferet
Manipura or the Navel Chakra, where Hod corresponds to the Liver and Netzach corresponds to the Stomach
Svadhistana or the Sacral Chakra corresponds to Yesod
Muladhara, the base of spine, the Root Chakra, corresponds to Malkhut

From the heart and up the feminine and masculine energies are nearly in Equilibrium with the heart near the center.

5. Chesed, 6. Gevurah, 7. Chokmah, 8. Binah, 9. Daat, 10. Kether

Microcosmic Man

Rudolf Steiner describes the two sides of man as being a kind of fight between Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers, where Lucifer is the masculine power (Yang) and Ahriman is the feminine power (Yin). Both described in the literature as Serpents or Dragons. Lucifer represents The Right Pillar, and Ahriman The Left Pillar. They are on Earth seen as Evil powers, but they are necessary factors in our development, as we both need the Feminine and Masculine influence, but we need to find the balance between them. From The Balance in the World and Man, Lucifer and Ahriman:

The left part of you — your left man, as it were — is the fortification set up by Lucifer, and your right man is the fortification set up by Ahriman. And the whole art of life consists in finding the true balance between them.

See also an extended Collection of Steiner texts about Lucifer and Ahriman(pdf) . The energy flows from the left side to the right side, from the Luciferic or Masculine side to the Ahrimanic or Feminine side.

Spiritual Anatomy Microcosmic Man

Crossed arms or legs shortcuts the natural streams and should be avoided, except where specified in meditative practices.

From The Kingdom of God from www.adishakti.org/

“Now this Kundalini is the power which is placed in the sacrum bone, nowhere else… And imagine this bone is called sacrum; “sacrum” means “sacred. So they knew there was something in it… This is the primule, is the germinating power within us. Now this fact has been accepted for thousands of years in India and elsewhere. For in the Bible also … they talk of the Tree of Life. That is the same as this… So this is the thing that is being described in our ancient books, in all the scriptures, even in the Qur’an they are described as Ruh, R,U,H, Ruh. “Ruh” means the “cold breeze”, the “cool breeze”. The cool breeze of the Holy Ghost is described in the Bible also.

Japanese Mitsudomoe

The Mitsudomoe represents the trinity of the Shinto religion: Sky, Man, and Earth, which is the same as the three Pillars of Kabbalah: first, second and third, or Steiners Lucifer, Christ, and Ahriman, or the Hindi Rajas, Sattva, and Tamas.

Japanese Mitsudomoe

Korean Sam-Taegeuk

In Sam-taegeuk we have the same three, with red as heaven, blue as Earth, the physical world, and yellow as man.

Korean Sam-Taegeuk

In relation to Kabbalah, blue is the left pillar, yellow the center pillar, and red is the right pillar.

Bön tradition of Tibet

Bön is the oldest spiritual tradition of Tibet, and they use the same symbol as the Korean Sam-Taegeuk.

The Three Gunas

In the Aurvedic tradition the three Gunas are the three principles of the world. The “trinity”, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, represent the gunas, or qualities of tamas, sattva and rajas. From Brahman, Atman, Karma and Gunas

They are sattva (goodness, virtue, essence), rajas (power, passion, activity) and tamas (dullness, inertia). All earthly events, like the laws of nature, are guided by one of the three gunas or a combination thereof. There should be a balance between them for harmonious workings of the world. Disequilibria will lead to chaos, war, suffering, corruption and destruction.

The three gunas dominate People by various degrees and a way to regulate these in the body and mind is through ayurvedic cooking:

Sattvic foods :

Are fresh, juicy, light, unctuous, nourishing, sweet and tasty.
Give the necessary energy to the body without taxing it.
The foundation of higher states of consciousness.
Examples : juicy fruits, fresh vegetables that are easily digestible, fresh milk and butter, whole soaked or also sprouted beans, grains and nuts, many herbs and spices in the right combinations with other foods,…

Rajasic foods :

Are bitter, sour, salty, pungent, hot and dry.
Increase the speed and excitement of the human organism.
The foundation of motion, activity and pain.
Examples : sattvic foods that have been fried in oil or cooked too much or eaten in excess, specific foods and spices that are strongly exciting, …

Tamasic Foods :

Are dry, old, decaying, distasteful and/or unpalatable.
Consume a large amount of energy while being digested.
The foundation of ignorance, doubt, pessimism, …
Examples : foods that have been strongly processed, canned or frozen and/or are old, stale or incompatible with each other – meat, fish, eggs and liquor are especially tamasic.

Saints and seers can survive easily on sattvic foods alone. Householders that live in the world and have to keep pace with its’ changes also need rajasic energy. They ought to keep a balance between the sattvic and rajasic foods and try to avoid tamasic foods as much as possible.

Tamas is Yin or the left pillar of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, and Rajas is Yang or the right pillar, and Sattva is the equilibrium, Tao the imaginary line between Yin and Yang, the center pillar.

Hatha Yoga

The definition of Hatha Yoga, from Erin Goldman:

Yoga, as you may know, means union. Hatha is actually two words in one. Ha meaning sun and tha meaning moon. So one might say that Hatha Yoga is the union of opposites (of sun and moon). We all have “sun energy” within us. This is a masculine, active, fire energy. We also have within us “moon energy”. This is a feminine, passive, cooling energy. The practice of Hatha Yoga joins together these two opposite energies, creating a balanced individual. The combination of the words Ha and Tha in sanskrit means forceful. Thus, the practice creates a more balanced and more powerful you.

And as Ha are the masculine Sun it relates to Rajas, Yang or Lucifer and Tha the feminine Moon relates to Tamas, Yin or Ahriman, and Hatha is the equilibrium and relates to Sattva, Tao, or Christ.

Yamas and Niyamas

In Hatha yoga there are a set of moral and ethic directives, Yamas and Niyamas, that work on the area of Ha and Tha:

The Yamas

Since Yama comes from the root word ‘yam’ ‘to hold’ or ‘to rule’, yama yoga represents the behaviours that ‘control’ certain negative tendencies (the ‘animal/instinctive nature’) that occur in all human beings. These are the five ideals of:

Ahimsa (non-violence)

Satya (truth)

Asteya (non-stealing, or non-cheating)

Brahmacharya (continence, involving self-restraint and moderation in all you do)

Aparigraha (non-coveting, including no envy, jealousy or unhealthy competitiveness).

The Niyamas

The niyamas are the general actions that are necessary if we truly want to achieve a condition of health and deep balance within ourselves. The niyamas ask us to aim for:

Purity (Sauca)

Contentment (Santosha)

Ardour (Ishawar-Pranidhana)

Discipline (Tapas)

And study of the Self (Svadhyaya)

Yamas is rules to discipline Tha or Yin where Niyamas are rules to discipline Ha or Yang.

Ketu and Rahu

Satyam

Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 5.4.1-5.5.1:

“Clearly, that is itself, and that was just this, namely, the Satyam (the real or true) itself. ‘Brahman is the real (Satyam)’– a man who knows this immense and first-born divine being in this manner conquers these worlds. ‘Brahman is the real (Satyam)’– a man who knows this immense and first-born divine being in this manner, would he ever be conquered himself? For Brahman is simply Satyam (the real or true).

…..The gods venerated only Satyam (the real or true) , which is made up of three syllables — sa, ti, yam. Sa is one syllable, ti is another, yam is the third. The first and last syllables constitute the real, while the middle syllable is the unreal. So the unreal is trapped on both sides by the real and becomes completely united with the real. The unreal does not injure a man who knows this.”

Vesica Pisces Brahman EN

And a slightly different explanation given in Chandogya Upanishad 8.5.4:

“Now the name of Brahman is Satyam (Real or true). This word has three syllables: sa, ti, and yam. Of these, sat is the immortal, and ti is the mortal, while the syllable yam is what joins those two together. Because the two are joined together (yam) by it, it is called yam. Anyone who knows this goes to the heavenly world every single day.”

The last can be shown in western esoteric tradition as:

Vesica Pisces Soul parts.

Incan Tradition

In the Incan tradition they have yachay, munay, and llankey which is the same as the three Pillars of Kabbalah: right, center and left pillar, or Steiners Lucifer, Christ, and Ahriman, or the Hindi Rajas, Sattva, and Tamas:

In the Andes they recognize three ways of knowing, each associated with a different part of our physical body. I have found this distinction to be very useful in organizing my thoughts about what the Andean culture has to offer and how it differs from our own. One way of knowing is through the yachay, which is located in the head. The yachay is the center of the intellect. A second way of knowing is through the munay, which is located in the heart. The munay is the center of love. And a third way of knowing is through the llankay, which is located slightly below the navel. The llankay is the center of the physical body. The Andeans take the whole of who we are as a being and differentiate it into three aspects, sometimes, for they also differentiate it in other ways as well, into two aspects (the right side and left side of the body), or some other number, depending upon the context. […] Anyway, one class of distinctions the Andeans make in our existence is between the intellect (yachay), the heart (munay), and the ability to manipulate the physical world (the llankay), we can be differentiated in other ways as well. Kenosis.

The Pentagram and the Ether Streams

Steiner describes, in “From the Contents of Esoteric Classes“, the pentagram with:

We’re always surrounded by five ether streams in the world around us on earth. They’re called earth, water, fire, air and thought ethers. These etheric streams are also active in man: earth either from the head to the right foot, from there water ether to the left hand, from there fire ether to the right hand, from there air ether to the left foot, and then thought ether back to the head. This is the occultist’s sacred pentagram, the symbol of man. Its point is directed upwards, which indicates that the spirit streams to man from the heights. The pentagram is present in many flowers and other things in nature. The sign of black magic is a pentagram with one point at the bottom, through which magicians attract bad forces from the earth and send them out of the two top horns into the environment by means of their bad will in order to use soul and nature forces for their own egotistical, evil purposes.

etherstreams

The cross sections of the five etheric streams and their connections with color, taste, and body regions are as follows:

Prithivi Tattwa, earth ether, square with only the corners distinct, yellow, sweet, bones and muscles;
Apas Tattwa, water ether, crescent moon at fifth day, white, tart, digestion;
Teja/Agni Tattwa, fire ether, equilateral triangle, red, hot, blood;
Vaju Tattwa, air ether, circle, green, sour, nerves;
Akasha Tattwa, thought ether, two intersecting spirals — one is distinct, dark blue, bitter, lymph vessel system.

The five ether streams are called Tattwas.

And in “The Creative Cosmic Tone“

It is characteristic of it [the etheric body] that it is indeed, the architect, the creator of the physical body. Just as ice forms out of water, so does the physical body fashion itself out of the etheric body, which, like the ocean, is flooded through by many currents flowing in all directions. Among them are five main currents. When you stand with feet apart and arms outstretched, you can accurately follow the direction of these five currents. They form a pentagram. Everybody has these five currents hidden in him. The healthy etheric body appears so that these currents are, as it were, his bony framework. You must not suppose however, that everything pertaining to the etheric body is only within, because when a person moves, for instance, the currents actually go through the air. This pentagram is as mobile as a man’s physical bony framework. Thus, when the occultist speaks of the pentagram as the figure of man, it is not a matter of something that has been thought out, but rather he is speaking of it as the anatomist does of the skeleton.

Yin and Yang Meridians

Here we see the meridians of the chinese acupunkture system, with Yin as right side and Yang as left side.

The Rosicrucian Cross

The Rosicrucian Cross is the symbol for the Spiritual Stream started by Christian Rosenkreuz known under the name Rosicrucianism. The Rosicrucian Cross combines the seven Red Roses, Lotus Flowers or Chakra’s with the Cross we have seen in the Caduceus Staff or the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah. When the Roses Bloom on the cross the Chakra’s has been opened. The twelve rays are the influence of the Zodiac as the roses symbolize the planets.

In this context, the roses are Yang and the cross Yin, but together they are life, Tao or in Hindi Rajas, Tamas and Sattva.

In Steiners terminology Lucifer, Ahriman and Christ:

From a meditation by Steiner:

Kundalini Rising

There are three forces connected with the spine, also called Sushumna or Aaron’s rod. These are Kundalini, the serpent-fire, Ida the female force, and Pingala the male force. The Moon moves in the Ida and the Sun in the Pingala. Ida is cooling. Pingala is heating. The two serpents, around the Spine, has two different colors like the two outer pillars in the Kabbalah Tree of Life, and they have the same interpretations as the Feminine and Masculine energies. They connect Earth with the spiritual world and the spiritual world with Earth. For these to flow the Lotus Flowers, or Chakras, has to be open or running. When European esoteric talk about Initiation eastern religions talk about Kundalini Rising. The development path is described in The Eightfold Path. Kundalini Raising

Chakras

The Chakras is known all over the world and are the spiritual organs controlling our body. The Inkas in south America know five of them, and they match the Indian descriptions.

The five ñawi (eyes) are roughly equivalent to the chakras. Kulli ñawi corresponds to the third eye, Sonqo ñawi to the heart, kunka ñawi to the throat, cosco ñawi to the navel, and siki ñawi to the root chakra.

The Chinese know them and use them in their medicine. They are the base for Astrology, and most alternative medical schools. When we are born, our Astral organs contains a picture of our Karma, which through our youth are build into the Etheric organs, and the pictures are erased from the Astral body as they are imprinted in the Etheric body. Astrology tells about Karmas influence on you, through those Etheric organs. Through your life you build your new karma in your Astral body, constantly modeling the Astral organs. When the Kundalini fires, your Astral body’s Chakras are imprinted into the Ether body, and you have now made your own Etheric organs, from the Karma you have build in this life, and is now free from the tyranny of your birth chart. The Chakras relation to our spiritual bodies are shown in a table in Dream Interpretation in Esoteric Work

Yetzer ha Tob and Yetzer ha Ra

From “An Introduction to the Study of the Kabalah” by William Wynn Westcott:

In another form of symbolism the Kabalist tells us a man has two companions, or guides; one on the right, Yetzer ha Tob, to good acts, he is from the higher Sephiroth; and one on the left, Yetzer ha Ra, encouraging the appetites and passions, temptations to evil, is an agent of Samael and of The Beast.

Man is in a very unfortunate position according to the Zohar 95 b, for it is there said that the Evil Angel joins him at birth, but the Good Angel only at the age of 13 years.

Merkabah

Merkabah, also spelled Merkava, is the divine light vehicle allegedly used by ascended masters to connect with and reach those in tune with the higher realms, symbolized with the Kabbalah. “Mer” means Light, “Ka” means Spirit, and “Ba” means Body. Mer-Ka-Ba means the spirit/body with rotating fields of light, which transports energy in our spiritual bodies, our chakras are the seven lowest of these sephira.

The four Chayot angels, Man, Ox, Lion and Eagle, represent the basic archetypes that God used to create the current nature of the world, the lower 4 sephira. They also relate to the inner planets, Earth, Moon, Venus, and Mercury.

Gustav Dore

In Alchemy

In Synergetic Qabala the relation between the Gunas and Alchemical metals are described

Alchemy is not concerned exclusively with consciousness, but also seeks the subtle transformation of the body, so that the physical level is also brought into perfect equilibrium. Thus, the alchemical metals may be considered analogous to the chakras of the yogis. We can draw another parallel among the three major principles of alchemy and those of Yoga, which are known as the Gunas. Mercury……….Sattva Sulphur………Rajas Salt……….Tamas The quality of Mercury is vital and reflective; it equates with the spiritual principles of goodness and intelligence; Sattva guna is illuminative. The quality of Sulphur is fiery and passionate like the principles of Rajas, which incites desire, attachment and action. The quality of Salt is arrestive and binding, and reflects the gross inertia of matter, which is much like Tamas. These gunas and the three alchemical substances symbolize spirit, soul and body. Another “alchemical” way the gunas were applied concerns food: sattvic foods incline one toward meditation and the spiritual life (fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains); rajasic foods are stimulating (i.e. spicy food); tamasic food incites the baser instincts (animal flesh). The concept of four basic elements, harmonized in a fifth, is also common to both alchemy and yoga doctrines. The Indian elements are known as Tattvas. They are: Akasha (quintessence); Tejas or Agni (fire); Apas (water); Vayu (air); Prithivi (earth). Furthermore, the preparation for the practice of both alchemy and yoga requires a moral or ethical preparation. Both stress that evil tendencies should be overcome while positive virtues are developed. This includes both behavior and the purification of various body centers. The objective is not wealth, but health or wholeness. Alchemy also speaks of a “secret fire”, which is often compared to a serpent or dragon. Here again, we find the correspondence to Kundalini, the serpent-power. Alchemy is performed by the aid of Mercury, the illuminative principle, and the powers of the sun and moon. Both alchemists and Tantrics practice with the essential aid, sometimes sexual, of a mystical sister, the alchemist’s soror mystica or yogi’s yogini, complement of King/Queen, Shiva-Shakti, God/Goddess joined together in the miracle marriage. The yogic system works in three channels in the subtle body. One equates with the sun, another with the moon. They are called ida and pingala. The third, or harmonizing channel, is known as sushumna, and is associated with illumination. The twin serpents twine together and open the third way, as shown in the Cadeusus.

Paracelsus in “The life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim…” by Franz Hartmann

The Bible tells us that Man is made out of nothing ; that is to say, his spirit, the real man, is from God, who is not a thing, but the eternal reality ; but he is made into three somethings or substances,’ and these three constitute the whole of Man: they are himself, and he is they, and from them he receives all that is good or evil for him. Every state in which man can possibly enter is determined by number, measure, and weight.’ The “Three Substances” are the three forms or modes of action in which the universal primordial Will is manifesting itself throughout Nature, for all things are a Trinity in a Unity. The ” Salt” represents the principle of corporification, the astringent or contractive and solidifying quality, or, in other words, the body ; the ‘Sulphur’ represents the expansive power — the centrifugal force, in contradistinction to the centripetal motion of the first quality — it is that which “burns,” i.e., the soul or light in all things ; and the “Mercury” is the Life, i.e. that principle or form of will which manifests itself as life, or consciousness and sensation. Each of these forms of will is an individual power ; nevertheless they are substantial, for “matter” and “force” are one, and originate from the same cause. The three substances, held together in harmonious proportions, constitute health; their disharmony constitutes disease, and their disruption death.

Steiner in Salt, Mercury, Sulphur

In olden times men did not use the abstract word think to express something that arose in the mind as a picture. When a real knower spoke about ‘thinking’ he spoke of the salt-process just described. Nor did he speak in an abstract way of the ‘will’ but of the astral forces laying hold of the airy element in man, of the sulphur-process from which the will is born. Willing was a process of concrete reality and it was said that the adjustment between the two — for they are opposite processes — was brought about by the mercury-process, by that which is fluid and yet has form, which swings to and fro from the etheric nature to the astral nature, from the fluidic to the aeriform.

Dambala and Aida Wedo – Tahiti

Body, Soul, and Spirit

In the western countries the church only work with Body and Soul, having done away with the spirit in 689. Steiner says :

Even the concept of the threefold nature of the human organism or the human being in its entirety has in a certain respect been abolished for occidental civilization by the eighth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the year 869. I have often mentioned this. The dogma was then established that the Christian does not have to believe in the threefold human being but only in a twofold human being.
The belief in body, soul and spirit was tabooed, and medieval theologians and philosophers who still knew a great deal about the true facts had a hard time to circumvent this truth, for the so-called trichotomy, the “membering” of the human being into body, soul, and spirit had been declared a heresy. They were compelled to teach the duality, namely, that man consists of body and soul, and not of body, soul and spirit.

and here:

Outside the circle of spiritual science, as you know, the total nature of man is thought of as consisting of but two parts, the bodily-physical and the psychic. In the realm of recognized science it is not customary nowadays to mention the spirit. Indeed, following certain premises, the result of reverting to the threefold organization of man (body, soul and spirit), as did the catholicizing Viennese philosopher, Günther, in the nineteenth century, raised scientific misgivings and also the blacklisting, in Rome, of Günther’s interesting books. This was done because as early as 869, at the eighth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople, the Catholic Church, in contradiction to both the Old and the New Testaments, had abolished the spirit. It had guided the development of dogmatism in such a way that the organization of man was permitted to comprise body and soul only. Curiously enough, this catholic development has persisted into our present science. If we seek to ascertain from history why scientists admit only body and soul we find but one reason. In the course of time the spirit has been forgotten; the habits of thought prevalent in certain circles have lost the ability to accept the spirit along with the soul of man.

This has melted soul and spirit together to one unit giving the dualistic view with body and soul as opposites, placing the bad Ego in the body and the goodly in the soul, where the Ego should be in the equilibrium in the soul between the materialistic body and the goodly spirit, we should walk the golden middle-way between the physical and the spiritual..

Literature

I have used “The Kabbalistic Sefirot and the Chakras“, and “The Chakras” by Kheper.net, and “Chakras” by Bellabenes Astralseiten (German), in preparation of this text. The Mans inner Cosmic System looks at the organs role in the body. Steiner says that the meaning of Mercury and Venus was changed in old times, so when Steiner connect Venus with the Kidneys and Mercury with the lungs, old traditions will typically do the opposite, as in Universal Healing TAO.

Diagram 13 from An Occult Physiology ... Diagram 14

Notes on Lucifer & Ahriman, The spiritual Bodies and Initiation, and The Eightfold Path. A visually inspiring page on Chakras at Chrystal Links. In “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds And Its Attainment” Rudolf Steiner goes more in depth with the Lotus Flowers or Chakras. In “The Occult Significance of the Bhagavad Gita” Steiner looks at Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. Kundalini Shakta by Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe). In Alchemy: Salt, Mercury, Sulphur and Alchemy: The Evolution of the Mysteries by Rudolf Steiner.

Principles of Christian Dream Interpretation

This paper is quite interesting. The Jews and Christians has thousand of years experience with dream interpretation and they accepted the spiritual world as the source of the dreams which our psychoanalysts don’t, and that limit their success in dream interpretation.

dragon_1

Ha and tha

Acupuncture, Agni, Ahanhata, Ahriman, Aida Wedo, Ajna, Akasha, Akasha Tattwa, Alchemy, Anahata, Apas, Apas Tattwa, Ascendant, Ayurveda, Bön, Brahma, Brow Chakra, Chakra, Chakras, Christian Dream Interpretation, Consciousness soul, Cosco Nawi, Crown Chakra, Dambala, Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, Equilibrium, Ether Streams, Gevurah, Gunas, Hatha Yoga, Heart Chakra, Ida, Intellectual soul, Kabbalah, Ketu, Kulli Nawi, Kundalini, Kunka Nawi, llankey, Lotus Flowers, Lucifer, Macrocosmic Man, Main Articles, Manipura, Meditation, Mercury, Merkaba, Merkabah, Merkavah, Microcosmic Man, Mitsudomoe, Moon, Muladhara, Munay, Navel Chakra, Niyama, North Node, Paracelsus, Pentagram, Pingala, Prithivi, Prithivi Tattwa, Rahu, Rajas, Religion and Spirituality, Root Chakra, Rosicrucian Cross, Rosicrucianism, Rudolf Steiner, Sacral Chakra, Sahasrara, Salt, Sam-taegeuk, Sattva, Satyam, Sentient soul, Serpents, Shiva, Siki Nawi, Sonqo Nawi, Soul, South Node, Spirit, Sulphur, Sun, Sushumna, Svadhistana, Tamas, Tao, Tattvas, Tejas, Tejas Tattwa, Three Gunas, Throat Chakra, Vaju Tattwa, Vayu, Vishnu, Vishuddha, Yachay, Yama, Yang, Yetzer ha Ra, Yetzer ha Tob, Yin, Yoga

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Posts Tagged Chakras

First model – the Pieces of Asha in The Tree of Life

Second model – Planets and Life Periods

Chakras and karmic periods

End of karma

Initiation

Synchronicity – Guidance

The Bodies of Man

The Bodies of the Initiate

I AM and I AM <that>

Ego and I – Thinking in the Now

Sleep

Dream Interpretation

Appendices

Methods to raise from a joylessness.

Meditation – Contemplation

Other articles on related subjects:

Lotus Flowers – Chakras

The Sixteen Petalled Lotus – The Throat Chakra

On premature judgment

The Twelve Petalled Lotus – Heart Chakra

The Ten Petalled Lotus – The Solar Plexus Chakra

The Six Petalled Lotus – The Sacral Chakra

The Heart Organ

To separate truth from opinions

The Great Initiates

The Guardian of the Threshold

The Two Petalled Lotus – The Third Eye

The Higher ‘I’

From Belief to Knowledge

On Alcohol, Meat and physical exercises

Dreams in Esoteric Work

A Neglected Discipline

Esoteric views on Dream Interpretation

The Language

You are everything in the dream

The source of the dreams

Jung and Steiner

Karma and Dreams

Dream Symbols and interpretation

Anima/Animus

Ego, Persona or Lower ‘I’

Shadows or False Ego’s

Higher ‘I’, The Divine Child

The Wise Teacher

Dream Symbols

Numbers

Names

Anonymous dream persons

Periods

Here and Now

Dream Interpretation and Chakras

Literature

Dreams

Dream Interpretation: A Biblical Understanding

Christian Dream Interpretation:

Myths-Dreams-Symbols

Site directory.

Dreams and Dreaming:

Carl Gustav Jung on Dreams:

Jungian dream interpretation: a handbook of theory and practice

Catching the Thread:

Aristotle

Rudolf Steiner

Chakras

Paracelsus in “The Life of Paracelsus” by Franz Hartmann

Previous version of the text

The Eightfold Path

Throat Chakra, the Sixteen Petaled Lotus

References

Jung and the Aristotelian model of the Soul

In Dream Interpretation

Anima/Animus

Ego, Persona or Lower ‘I’

Shadows or False Ego’s

Higher ‘I’, The Divine Child

The Wise Teacher

Dream Symbols

Numbers

Names