Dæmon Or Daimon
A Greek term that has come to mean all kinds of spirits and disincarnate entities, good or bad. Generally of the type of mischievous astral entity that can enter and obsess people. The “devils” in Biblical terminology, which Jesus often had to exorcise from others.
Daityas
Sanskrit for giants, titans who were always at war with the Gods.
Ḍākinī
(Tib. mkha’ ‘gro ma [khahn-dro]) Literally, space voyager, or sky-goer. Thus it refers to one that is immersed in emptiness, because space here symbolises emptiness. Also, an accomplished yogini. Female “protectors of the Law”, the Consorts of the various wrathful Deities. They can be most fierce in the pursuit of their duties. (The symbolism of the conversion of saṁskāras is here implicated.) Can offer a consummate union with a practitioner, for to make the practitioner fully enlightened. (This signifies the complete mastery of the nature of the Elements of the saṁskāras by means of Mind.)
Dalai Lama
The temporal head of the Tibetans. Said to be an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of compasssion.
Dangma
A purified Soul, a Seer or Initiate who has awakened his higher spiritual perceptions and thus can esoterically See. An Adept. The term the Eye of Dangma refers to the awakened third Eye, the result of the accumulation of many lives of Initiatory service and labour for the common good. The higher spiritual perceptions should not be confused with the lower clairvoyance and the psychicism so often mistaken by the ignorant to be of the highest attainment.
Death
Esoterically, loss of spiritual vision, to be born into the ephemeral realms where there is blindness, pain and suffering. Exoterically the loss of the physical body. One dies to all aspects of oneself, to all the various stages and changes one goes through on the road to liberation. There is really no such thing as Death per se, only constant change and metamorphosis, for life eternally is, and will always be. Consciousness persists. Mind persists.
Demeter
See Ceres. The Greek Goddess of corn and of the harvest (of consciousness). Mother of Persephone, Goddess of Spring.
Demiurgus
(Demiurge) In Platonism, the Supernal power that created the Universe, its supreme architect. In Gnosticism, it is a Logos that is subordinate to the Supreme Being. Sometimes also taken as the author of “evil”.
Demons
See Dæmons
Deva
(Tib. lha) “shining one”, deity, the general term for the celestial beings of the heavenly worlds. Derivation is from the Sanskrit roots dā, “making gifts” (as a god does), dip, being radiant, and dyut, the sphere of heaven. Esoterically they are viewed as members of the angelic kingdom, the feminine counterpart to the human kingdom, to which such entities as fairies, nature spirits, Seraphim, undines, ghandaravas, apsaras, and ḍākinīs belong.
Devachan
The plane or locality wherein reside the “luminous ones”. Simply the after-death state, as created by the Deva kingdom, generally associated with the highest astral subplanes, but more technically correct the four lower or “concrete” subplanes of the mental, to which the disincarnate being goes before reincarnation. Technically a realm of experience of blissful states of pure cognition of any stream of thought that the being is attracted to.
Devamatri
The mother of the Devas. A title of the Hindu Deity Aditi, signifying subjective space.
Devanagari
The characters of the Sanskrit language. Literally the language of the Devas, thus hinting at the mantric sounds that rule their forms of activity.
Devi
The feminine of Deva.
Devil
The embodiment of evil according to Christian sources. My book The Revelation, Volume I, interprets this term from two perspectives:
a. Spelled backwards, meaning something that once lived and can yet possibly exert an unpleasant, or psychic, influence over another, or which can embody an adverse aspect of the personality. They are also mischievous astral entities.
b. Spelled D’evil, meaning The Evil, as it is rendered in John 17:15. It connotes the sumtotal of that which is “Evil” and thus the followers of the left hand path, the black magicians and Sorcerers.
Dharana
A Sanskrit term relating to a state of concentrated one-pointed meditation upon any object of thought, or non-thought.
Dhāraṇī
Mantras, sacred verses or sounds, words of power. They are a means for fixing the mind upon an idea, vision, or meditation experience. They often contain a combination of many mantras or seed syllables for meditation. They essentially represent a formula for the awakening of the higher states of awareness, and are thus bearers or vehicles of the enlightenment consciousness.
Dharma
The Truth, manifesting as the fount of the sacred Law (of God). The highest spiritual teaching that is built into the very fabric of space by the Creative Deity, and which constitutes a mode of release from the vicissitudes thereof, once followed. Truth has its basis in Love, and expresses itself as the Law of the good of the unifying whole. There is also a black dharma which governs the way followed by the dark brotherhood.
Dharmachakra
The turning of the wheel of the (good) Law.
Dharmadhatu Wisdom
See Vairocana.
Dharmakāya
The highest of the three bodies (trikaya) possessed by the Buddha, or of any Initiate of the fourth degree or greater. It is the body of Bliss, identified with Monadic substance. Dharma is the fount of the Law of the Good, and kaya is its vehicle. It has been defined as the primordial, eternally self-existing essentiality of Bodhi. See also Sambhogakaya (the second of the three bodies) and Nirmanakaya (the third).
Dharmas
Factors of existence, a doctrine found in the Abhidharma of Theravāda Buddhism. Briefly, each dharma (element) is a separate entity or force, there is no substance apart from the qualities of a dharma, they have no duration, but flash as new appearances with each moment. The dharmas cooperate with each other. (There are 72 of these saṁskṛta-dharmas.) Thus they stem from causes and proceed to extinction when influenced by wisdom, but when influenced by ignorance they are continuously generated. The gaining of liberation therefore is that which is productive of their extinction.
Dhatu
This means “root or base”. It comprises the categories of classes of all manifested things.
Dhyana
A state of “absorbed contemplation”, deepest meditation, abstraction into the Causal realms of the Soul, or higher, according to the abilities of the meditator. In Buddhism, one of the six Paramitas (great virtues) of perfection.
Dhyan Chohan
This is a Tibetan word that means “a great Lord” or “Master”. Esoterically, it refers to one who is greater than a Master of Wisdom, thus an Initiate of the sixth degree, who is indeed a great Lord of life. It is the degree of Initiation attained by the Buddha at his parinirvāṇa. With respect to this it should be noted that what it took to produce a Buddha in Gautama’s relatively simple times differs to what is required now. Nowadays meeting the challenges of the complexity of our civilisation requires much greater accomplishment, hence the “entrance level” for Buddhahood has been raised.
Dhyan Bodhisattvas
The reflexes, or Bodhisattva aspects of the Dhyani Buddhas.
Dhyāni Buddhas
The five Buddhas of meditation substance: Vairocana, Akṣobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitābha, and Amoghasiddhi. They are “They of merciful Heart”, and embody the five differing attributes of the qualities of Mind, the five alchemical Elements, and the qualities of the related five planes of perception, from the ātmic plane down. They can also be equated with the five Kumaras that are the Mind born Sons of Brahmā. They are of immense importance in Buddhist Tantric philosophy, and are in fact key symbols of meditation for all on the path to Light, the modes of liberation via the development of their respective Wisdoms.
Diamond
The gem that on account of its hardness symbolises the highest attainable state of awareness (Sunyata, Cintamati). It is the “jewel in the heart of the lotus”, the point of Power at the heart of any chakra. It relates to the attainment of buddhic perception.
Diamond consciousness
See above
Diaphragm
The organ that regulates rhythmic breath and separates the body into two halves, that associated with the solar plexus (the stomach) and the generative organs, thus concerned with the lower, carnal man; and that associated with the Heart and Throat, thus concerned with the Higher Creative aspects of the person, with the development of Love, and all aesthetic, spiritual qualities, related to traveling the Path to Light.
Diaphragm Centre
A minor chakra situated at the diaphragm, and associated with the regulation of the flow of pranas between the lower and upper portions of the person. It is part of the pranic triangle.
Djin
An Arabic term for nature spirits, genii. They are literally mischievous Devic entities.
Dorje
The Tibetan “thunderbolt” or version of the Hindu Vajra, embodying the qualities of the five elements, pranas, the five Dhyani Buddhas, and is thus the symbol of immutable Power, that which is an expression of the jewel in the heart of the Lotus.
Dragon of Wisdom
Or fiery Dragon of Life – a Master of Wisdom, one who has fully liberated the fiery aspect of His Being, in its highest attribute, as an aspect of atma. A Serpent grows into a dragon. The Life of a Solar or Planetary Logos can be viewed in this manner. See also Naga.
Dryads
Essentially the Devic lives that ensoul the trees of our forests and woodlands. They embody the vital life, the substance and consciousness of individual species and groups of trees, and in their higher self-conscious orders become the Deva Lords governing an entire landscape.
Dugpas
A Tibetan term referring to a follower of the indigenous Bhon religion, and has now come to mean a sorcerer, a black magician. A wearer of a black cap and follower of the black Dharma in contradistinction to the white Dharma.
Dukkar
Tibetan deity, “the many-eyed and many-armed”, a version of Tara, also of the Mother of the World.
Dukkha
Sanskrit for sorrow or pain, dissatisfaction.
Durga
The feminine wrathful aspect or consort of Shiva. She metaphorically tramples her victims to death.
Dvipa
Zones of the terrestrial world, situated around the Mount Meru (The Mt. Olympus of the Hindus), like the leaves of a lotus flower. Each Dvipa is separated from the next by an ocean.
Dwarpa Yuga
Also Dvapara Yuga. The third of the four ages (yugas) of Hindu philosophy, the second counting from below upwards. (This consists of 2,400 years, or 2,000 years, with two “twilights”.)
Dweller on the threshold
This is the sum of the personality attributes developed throughout the course of the many incarnations of the Soul, and which stand before and battle the Angel of the presence (the Soul) as a being undergoes the testings for the third Initiation. These are predominantly the sum of one’s mental attributes, but are also of the desire body, and various lusts of the physical form. They are reinforced habit patterns (samskaras) that assume a vital life of their own at this stage of assumed mastery and which the spiritual being must “kill” before he can enter the domain of Light in full consciousness.
Dzyan
A (Tibetan) corruption of the Sanskrit term Dhyana, or Jnana, meaning the divine Wisdom that comes through meditation practices. Also spelled Dzyn, dzin.
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