It is unlikely that today you can meet a person who at least once in his life wondered what “esotericism” means because this word often sounds from TV screens or on the air. In fact, it is a complex and multi-layered system of various teachings and numerous practices. Astrology, which talks about horoscopes and the influence of planets, also belongs to one of the esoteric sciences. In this article, you will learn more about what is esotericism.
What does “esoteric” mean in principle
Let’s figure out what the word “esoteric” means (from the Greek word meaning “internal”). In fact, this is a vast field of knowledge that studies the deep-mystical meaning of human life. It includes many different teachings that reveal the inner nature of man. Numerous schools, movements, and groups related to esotericism can differ significantly from each other.
The Reiki natural healing system, bioenergy, qigong, cosmonergy, magic, Theosophy, the practice of lucid dreams and projections into subtle plans, as well as much more that allows a person to reveal and develop his incredible inner abilities - all this can be called esotericism.
This science cannot be characterized solely as practice and theory. Its study involves a person leading a conscious life, staying in harmony not only with the surrounding reality but also with himself, comprehension of the world. Esoteric not only gives practically unlimited opportunities but also imposes certain obligations on its followers, primarily regarding the need to keep track of their own thoughts.
Indeed, for the subtle world, thoughts have the same meaning as ordinary actions for the physical world.
Our thoughts entail consequences that manifest themselves in real physical life. Esoterics work much better with subtle matters and thoughts compared to ordinary people. As they develop and improve, practitioners acquire a deeper ability to understand and control the subtle world - thoughts, desires, and intentions. Esoterics are sometimes compared to magic, which, in principle, is not entirely true. The study of the latter is aimed at comprehending the supernatural, unknown to common people, beyond the boundaries of ordinary understanding. Magic allows you to control the world, using a developed spirit (subtle matters).
Esoterics is aimed at consciously changing the human personality. In addition, this science solves its own problems.
What is the meaning of esotericism and what are its tasks
Speaking about what esoteric means, let us take a closer look at those tasks that will help to better understand its essence. Despite all its versatility, we list the main thing that this science teaches:
- Firstly, she talks about an alternative version of the world.
- Secondly, it studies the hidden possibilities of man.
- Thirdly, it speaks of the moral principles of existence, the relationships that exist between man and the universe.
Having learned what esoteric means, a person can study himself more deeply, understand what makes him stronger, smarter, and happier. Having gotten acquainted with their weaknesses, people get the opportunity to correct them. Thanks to esotericism, we understand that happiness cannot be measured by fleeting pleasures - tobacco, alcohol, and money. It exists in those moments that pass with us through our whole life: the smiles of children, the sound of the sea, the sun’s rays, the beauty of nature, music, and work.
Happiness does not depend on the degree of wealth or fame, it lies in those small daily joys, which, in essence, make up our life. Small pleasures, such as a walk along the shore of a water reservoir, admiring the sunset, reading a good book or watching a good movie, playing with a child - all these moments make up the happy puzzle of our everyday life.
You cannot be happy if you spend five days a week from morning to evening at work that disgusts you. Since we devote a significant part of our time to work, it is very important that it gives pleasure. Artists and musicians do not work for salaries, they do so because their soul tells them to. Science workers enthusiastically search for answers to a variety of questions, not thinking about how highly paid they will be because of their search, findings, and the application of their discoveries.
Any work, if only you love it, can make you happy and make you feel in demand, because you can become the best baker-confectioner in the city or the organizer of weddings, which are recorded in a few months.
And although esotericism talks about karma and reincarnation, the choice of a specific direction or action always remains with the individual person. Often you can encounter accusations by the youth towards their parents, who did not teach children just to enjoy life, to enjoy everyday life in all its simplicity and complexity. However, it is stupid to have matured and yet constantly look back at the past, taking offense and blaming everyone around for petty things does not benefit anyone. After all, our future is in our hands, and it depends on us whether we will treat life positively, with love, be friends, engage in creativity, and dream a beautiful and abundant life. We ourselves can learn all this and put it into everyday practise.
Remember how meetings with classmates take place many years after graduation. We all undergo external changes, become fuller or slimmer, look better or worse, achieve certain successes, buy apartments or cars, give birth, and raise children, but our thoughts, jokes, anecdotes remain the same.
We remain at the same level, satisfied with the average signs of a happy life, and yet we can change our fate, becoming a better version of ourselves, more intelligent, wise, and free. To live in such a way as not to adapt to the standards set by society, but to develop and improve, so that, like yogis, it would be safe for us to go to the mountains at the age of eighty and not get upset at forty and stagnate due to poor health.
What is esotericism for man?
So what does esoteric mean? How can its knowledge be useful to a person? This modern science includes various directions.
- Knowing yourself.
Thanks to numerous schools, people learn to be themselves. This knowledge is achieved through meditation, breathing practices, travelling to distant and remote lands where people live in harmony with nature and much more. In the process of studying themselves, people are freed from restrictions that do not allow them to manifest themselves in any good life situation. As a result, it is possible to achieve enlightenment, to go beyond conceivable and inconceivable boundaries and frameworks (although not everyone can do it, it certainly is not impossible and surprisingly common). In this direction, the interweaving of esotericism and Tibetan Buddhism, tantra yoga, sutra yoga, and Dzogchen is clearly visible.
- Improving, discovering new abilities, including healing others.
This direction can give tremendous success. Some people have almost supernatural abilities - to rise and levitate above the floor, cure deadly diseases, move objects with their eyes, etc. A person can develop a variety of talents, and numerous esoteric teachings can help the person in this.
- Influence on the outside world.
This branch of esotericism is represented by various teachings that help a person to influence existing reality. Many have somehow heard of psychics, black and white magicians, capable of positively or negatively influencing all kinds of events, their own lives, and the lives of other people. These doctrines also include those teachings that make it possible to achieve success in life, in deeds, in love, and many more ways.
This part of esotericism is the most incomprehensible, and therefore the most frightening and unloved by the uninitiated. However, if you really understand what esotericism means and its course, it turns out that most of the work for those who send corruption and evil eye is done just by those who send them. People who really developed certain abilities in themselves prefer not to deal with trifles. A variety of theoretical and practical studies concerning what constitutes astral plane, energy healing, etc. can be attributed to this area of esotericism.
Today esotericism is increasingly intertwined with ordinary everyday life. A number of doctors have starting to talk about the benefits of positive thinking and biofields openly. The number of television programs devoted to esoteric topics is increasing, hundreds of thousands of books on esoterics are being published. Businessmen, managers, marketers, people of many other professions resort to elements of exercises in their everyday worklife. Only you can decide whether to condemn such trends or to open your heart and mind towards the new.
Why does a person seek to know what esoteric means
The paths to any knowledge can be different. It can begin with some events, accidentally heard phrases, meetings with interesting people, or just some events that appear as accidental but are so beneficial in essence. But one thing is for sure, this science comes into human life only when it is needed.
The very reasons why we seek to know what esoteric means can be very different:
- Some turn to esotericism because they want an unprecedented sensation. If it becomes boring from everyday life, the world loses its bright colors, and communication with others does not bring satisfaction and joy. And having learned what esoteric means, turning to it, you can again colorize your life with bright colors, see reality in a new light, and believe in miracles thus giving you the opportunity to witness it as an actual reality.
- Others go for esoteric knowledge to help cure serious illnesses when modern medicine seems to fail or cannot completely heal the disease. We are talking not only about physical ailments but also about psychological conditions, constant dissatisfaction, depression, inability to achieve goals, lack of energy, and desire to do something and strive for something. Such people turn to esotericism so as to deal with their despair. Then the various rituals and practices help to recover the individual.
Like magic, esotericism belongs to the oldest of the sciences, accumulating and multiplying knowledge over the centuries and millennia. Meanwhile, to comprehend that great wisdom is within the power of anyone with a truly great desire. After that, one can easily cope with difficulties, become free, happy, and achieve results without stopping at failure.
The benefits of a person who knows what esotericism is and studies it
Knowing what esoteric means, a person can:
- Determine where good and evil are, and what they are;
- Launch a channel of energy and information exchange between your own soul and the subtle world;
- Learn the skills of meditation, which allows you to get into the subtle world;
- Begin methodical work on oneself (with one’s karma, karmic knots, on eliminating the manifestations of evil in oneself), entailing a change in one’s own destiny;
- To reveal superpowers in oneself;
- Achieve happiness while solving many other problems in the world at large.
What does esoteric mean in comparison with science and religion?
What does esoteric mean? As a science, it answers the innermost questions regarding good and evil, the soul, and parallel worlds. Religion and science also come into contact with esotericism, although they lie on different planes. Religion does not need any evidence of the existence of the divine, at the same time, esotericism can provide us with such arguments. While studying the subtle worlds, a person can touch what is hidden from the rest, feel the pulse of the energetic world.
It is this science that answers questions about the soul, about connections with the subtle worlds, about how these worlds interact with their own spiritual Self. When understanding what esoteric means, one cannot help but note that it is thanks to it that you can not only know that the soul really exists but would also be able to study it, develop and strengthen it. That is why esotericism is called a well developed science and not a bunch of speculations.
Striving for self-improvement with the help of this science, a person is able to get rid of the negativity generated by the physical world. The individual can also become free from fears and delusions, and also from evils and vices. Moreover, esotericism is not at all opposed to religion, both of these concepts are unique and coexist together and in of themselves. In religion, you can find support and help, and with the help of esotericism, you can achieve spiritual growth and self-knowledge, using scientific postulations about the subtle world.
Despite the fact that some religions deny esotericism, many priests are not only tolerant and accepting of the various manifestations of this science, but they themselves sometimes can have those special abilities (like foresight, remote healing, levitation, etc.) and do resort to using it.
As for the negative attitude of some religions to esotericism, it is explained by the protection of minions of the church. Giving people shelter and faith in tomorrow, religion is extremely negatively opposed to everything that can turn a person away from the church.
This decision can, to some extent, be called true, because, being a person, each person is able to interpret the same information in his own way. People need a light that shows the path to eternal happiness, peace, and joy. Since this path is unambiguous in religion, many achieve happiness precisely through faith and strict observance of religious laws.
Religion helps to develop, support, and understand beliefs, doctrines, ethics, and moral principles. It does not need any theorems and proofs, since it is based on a powerful invisible force called faith in God.
However, because some people have little religion in their life, or because they are unable to practise their religion fully, they are eager to understand what is the fullness of the universe. They are not satisfied by the explanations of the priests, The Church, and The Bible because they know that there is something more to it all. This is more precisely represented by esotericism. Various facts indicate that, in addition to the physical world, there also are other worlds. Not only various religions introduce us to such facts but now science has also begun to accept such levels of reality. Not only does the world control each of us, but we ourselves also have an influence on it. Not everyone knows about the ways of this impact.
Important note: For one’s own and the world’s protection, safety, and health, novices should avoid getting into experimenting with such subjects and abilities unless it is under the guidance of a thoroughly experienced benevolent spiritual master/guru/or teacher.
Any science studies physical phenomena, it heals bodily wounds, explains the phenomena that we encounter daily, constantly opens up new horizons, proving that the modern world cannot exist without it. And yet it cannot claim to be the first, because health does not always automatically entail human happiness and spiritual development.
However, if we talk about what esotericism means, it is worth noting that it contains the missing information, with which you can find answers to numerous questions, solve specific problems, and also use it daily because our whole life is constantly small things encountered on the way.
What does esoteric mean in comparison with occultism?
Arguing about what esoteric means and what processes and phenomena it studies, one can often come across the concept of occultism. The occult sciences are a system of secret knowledge that reveals the spiritual and material world and gives the initiates truly enormous opportunities. Despite a certain similarity between them, there is but one fundamental difference:
- Esotericism suggests that a person is engaged in self-knowledge, develops spiritually, realizes his divine essence, renouncing himself from the material world.
- Occultism offers, through the development of one’s own abilities, to come to power and strength in the physical world. With the help of such knowledge, one can obtain a high status in society or material wealth.
To this date, a number of occult sciences - numerology, palmistry, healing, astrology, fortune-telling, and others - are classified as esoteric. Such a statement cannot be called true and all this knowledge is aimed at improving the quality of human life in the material world. We must remember that the task of esotericism is spiritual perfection and paving the way to God and not material abundance that is more likely to make our soul impure.
