Connected with the
ancient five elements of Matter there are several traditions describing their
character and their role in the material world. We have no idea if the Chaldean
or Egyptian occultism had any perception of their presence and functioning,
although there is a necessary connection between the occult practices and the
five elements. But we do start seeing these elements in one form or the other
even in the early Vedic revelations. The Upanishads expound them in different
contexts, contexts particularly related with the manifestation of the eternal
Spirit, the Brahman, in the universe. In the Puranas elaborate descriptions are
presented when they speak of Nature or Prakriti working in the field of cosmic
space and time. Later we also begin to notice their loud presence in the
functioning of human body and related health aspects, in the science of life;
humourology is a development connected with them. In the following we shall
quickly trace just a few of these developments before we take up the details of
how Narad in the Book of Fate of Savitri might have assumed a gross
physical form when he was visiting Aswapati.
In ancient
Wood is the most human
of the elements. It is the element of spring with a creative urge to achieve
what it sets out to accomplish. Fire is the element of summer, indicating also
the moment of maximum activity. Earth has association with harvest and produce,
abundance, nourishment. Metal is the force of gravity and has structure; it
consolidates inward movement, as that of a flower closing its petals. Finally,
we have water as the source of life; it nourishes and maintains the health of
every cell in the body. The cells constantly grow and die to make way for new
cells.
The corresponding
colours associated with these elements are: green with wood, red with fire,
yellow with earth, white with metal, and black with water. It is also
maintained that, although one speaks of five elements, there is actually just
one single element behind them all. Of the total amount of energy we draw to subsist,
only 10% comes from the food we eat and the rest from the five elements, air,
water, light, earth and the universe we inhabit. That they are subtle in
character is what we discern in this understanding.
It seems that in the
third century B.C. the first Chinese to have written about the elements was
Tsou Yen of the Ying-Yang school, but his works got lost to posterity. Later,
with the arrival of Buddhism in
In the Tibetan system
association of different Buddhas with the five elements is significant in
several respects. In the order of void, water, earth, fire and air these are
Virochana, Akshobhta, Ratnasambhava, Amitabh, and Amoghsiddhi. They also have
their corresponding powers or Shaktis: Akashdhatu, Lochana, Mamkai, Pandhara,
and Tara. The five Buddhas have their thrones or vehicles; these are: Lion,
Elephant, Horse, Peacock, and Garuda. The Buddhas rule over the worlds of the
gods, the demons, the ghosts, and the human beings. But, more pertinently, it
may be noted that the five elements have definite roles to play in the
functioning of the human body. There was at the base of the entire pursuit an
urge for physical immortality and hence the Tantrik techniques got developed in
the long course of time. However, the gains didn’t seem to be commensurate with
the effort. The notion of immortality and search for the cherished Elixir of
Life with the associated alchemic pursuits were not sufficiently spiritual. In
fact, in such a situation there is always the danger of falling into a
vitalistic trap from which it becomes practically impossible to come out with
one’s own effort or strength.
We may refer here
briefly to what John Woodroffe says in his Shākta studies: “In Tantrik worship,
the body as well as the mind has to do its part, the former being made to
follow the latter… Bhutashuddhi, an important Tantrik rite, means purification
of the five ‘elements’ of which the body is composed, and not ‘removal of evil
demons’… For the attainment of competency to worship, the elements of which the
body is composed should be purified. The material human body is a compound of
the five Bhutas of earth, water, fire, air and ether. These terms have not
their usual English meaning but denote the five forms in which Prakriti the Divine
Power as materia prima manifests Herself. These have each a centre of
operation in the five Chakras or Padmas (Centres or Lotuses) which exist in the
spinal column of the human body. In the lowest of these centres (Muladhar), the
Great Devi Kundalini, a form of the Saguna Brahman, resides. She is ordinarily
sleeping there. In Kundalini-yoga, She is aroused and brought up through the
five centres, absorbing, as She passes through each, the Bhuta of that centre,
the subtle Tanmatra from which it derives and the connected organ of sense
(Indriya). Having absorbed all these, She is led to the sixth or mind centre
(Ajna) between the eyebrows where the last Bhuta or ether is absorbed in mind,
and the latter in the Subtle Prakriti. The last in the form of Kundalini Shakti
then unites with Shiva in the upper brain called the thousand-petalled lotus
(Sahasrara).” [1] If successfully done, the follower of the Yoga gets a new
body, a Deva Body. Yet it is far away from the possibility of realising
divinity by the body itself; divine life in a divine body is an altogether
different proposition.
Later, while dealing
with the aspect of Kundalini Shakti, Woodroffe writes the following: “The
Supreme in never localised whilst its manifestations are. It is everywhere both
within and without the body, but it is said to be in Sahasrara, because it is
there that the Supreme Shiva-Shakti is realised. And this must be so, because
consciousness is realised by entering in and passing through the highest
manifestation of mind, the Sattwamayi Buddhi, above and beyond which is Chit
and Chidrupini Shakti themselves. From their Shiva-Shakti Tattwa aspect are
evolved Mind in its form as Buddhi, Ahankar, Manas and associated senses
(Indriyas) the centre of which is in and above the Ajna Chakra and below the
Sahasrara. From Ahankar proceed the Tanmatras or generals of the
sense-particulars which evolve the five forms of sensible matter (Bhuta),
namely, Akash (Ether), Vayu (Air), Agni (Fire), Apas (Water), and Prithvi
(Earth)… The terms indicate varying degrees of matter from the ethereal to the
solid. Thus Prithvi or earth is any matter in the Prithvi state; that is which
may be sensed by the Indriya of smell. Mind and matter pervade the whole body.
But there are centres therein in which they are predominant. Thus Ajna Chakra
is a centre of mind, and the five lower Chakras are centres of the five Bhutas;
Vishuddha of Akash, Anahata of Vayu, Manipura of Agni, Svadhishthan of Apas,
and Muladhara of Prithvi… Man as the microcosm is the all-pervading Spirit
(which most purely manifests in the Sahasrara) vehicled by Shakti in the form
of Mind and Matter the centres of which are the sixth and following five
Chakras respectively.” [2]
From the point of view of a
practising Yogi the role of the five great elements can be profitably seen in
the body-meditations prescribed by the Yogatattva Upanishad. In his
monograph on the Chakras Leadbeater renders the relevant description as
follows: “There are five elements, earth, water, fire, air, and ether. For the
body of the five elements, there is a fivefold concentration. From the feet to
the knees is said to be the region of earth; it is four-sided in its shape,
yellow in colour, and has the letter la. Carrying the breath with the
letter la along the region of earth (from the feet to the knees) and
contemplating Brahma with four faces and of a golden colour, one should perform
meditation there… The region of water is declared to extend from the knees to
the anus. The water is semi-lunar in shape and white in colour, and has va for
its Bija (seed). Carrying up the breath with the letter va along the
region of water, he should meditate upon Narayana, having four arms and a
crowned head, as being of the colour of pure crystal, as dressed in orange
clothes and as decayless… From the anus to the heart is said to be the region
of fire. Fire is triangular in shape, of red colour, and has the letter ra for
its Bija or seed. Raising the breath, made resplendent through the letter ra,
along the region of fire, he should meditate upon Rudra, who has three eyes,
who grants all wishes, who is of the colour of the midday sun, who is smeared
all over with holy ashes, and who is of a pleased countenance… From the heart
to the middle of the eyebrows is said to be the region of air. Air is
hexangular in shape, black in colour, and shines with the letter ya.
Carrying the breath along the region of air, he should meditate upon Ishwara,
the omniscient, as possessing faces on all sides... From the centre of the
eyebrows to the top of the head is declared to be the region of ether; it is
circular in shape, smoky in colour, and shining with the letter ha.
Raising the breath along the region of ether, he should meditate upon Sadashiva
in the following manner—as producing happiness, as of the shape of bindu (a
drop), as the Great Deva, as having the shape of ether, as shining like pure
crystal, as wearing the rising crescent moon on his head, as having five faces,
ten hands, and three eyes, as being of a pleasing countenance, as armed with
all weapons, as adorned with all ornaments, as having the goddess Uma in
one-half of his body, as ready to grant favours, and as the cause of all
causes.” [3]
The ascent from the gross to the
subtle and going all the way up to the Two-in-One, Shiva and Shakti in one
poise, is the Yogi’s occult Sankhya-ladder taking him on the upward way to the
beatitude of the conscious Existent, the soul uniting with God. That is his
desirable siddhi. But there are knots around knots, and within knots, and one
starts wondering if there aren’t in the human body fifty Chakras and Adharas
supporting the entire mechanism; indeed, one treatise belonging to the
The Sankhya and Shakta traditions
in
The Greek system has an
interesting view of linking the elements with the geometrical cosmology. It
kind of makes the system scientific. The concept of shapes and numbers
originating from Plato and Pythagoras provided a perceptible visibility to the
character of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and the fifth essence
or quintessence added later by Aristotle.
Plato had a low opinion
of the arts. To him if the world itself was an image or copy of the real, arts
represented copy of a copy, twice removed from reality. In his Republic he
writes: “...painting
[and] ...the whole art of imitation is busy about a work which is far removed
from the truth; ...and is its mistress and friend for no wholesome or true
purpose. ...[it] is the worthless mistress of a worthless friend, and the
parent of a worthless progeny.” But on geometry: it is “…pursued for the sake of the
knowledge of what eternally exists, and not of what comes for a moment into
existence, and then perishes, ...[it] must draw the soul towards truth and give
the finishing touch to the philosophic spirit.” Plato lived for 82 years and it
is said that he never laughed in his life. Emotions linked up with arts would
have the power to cloud pure reason and so they have to be banished from the
Plato states: “We must proceed to distribute the
figures we have just described between fire, earth, water, and air… Let us
assign the cube to earth, for it is the most immobile of the four bodies and
most retentive of shape the least mobile of the remaining figures, icosahedron
to water the most mobile, tetrahedron to fire the intermediate, octahedron to
air.” About the fifth element he says: “There still remained a fifth construction, which
the god used for embroidering the constellations on the whole heaven.”
Plato’s account of
creation of the universe, as given in great detail in the Timæus,
essentially derives its authority from an ancient and remote tradition handed
over from generation to generation. Written towards the end of Plato's life, c.
355 BC, the Timæus “describes a conversation between Socrates, Plato’s
teacher, Critias, Plato’s great grandfather, Hermocrates, a Sicilian statesman
and soldier, and Timæus, a Pythagorean philosopher, scientist, general,
contemporary of Plato, and the inventor of the pulley.”
The principal speaker
of the dialogue, Timæus, was an eminent astronomer of the time, having made the
nature of the universe his special study; he had scaled all the heights of
philosophy too. After positing that the world was created in the likeness of
the Creator, he proceeded to assert that there cannot be multiple or infinite
universes, but that there is just one and only-begotten single universe.
Further, being a creation, it is necessarily corporeal, making it distinct
perhaps from the typal-ideal that exists in the realm of original forms. We are
also told that the composition of this world is based on the four elements
fire, air, water and earth, made perfect from perfect parts.
Now that which is created is of
necessity corporeal, as also visible and tangible. And nothing is visible where
there is no fire, or tangible which has no solidity, and nothing is solid
without earth. Wherefore also God in the beginning of creation made the body of
the universe to consist of fire and earth. But two things cannot be rightly put
together without the third; there must be some bond of union between them. And
the fairest bond is that which makes the most complete fusion of itself and the
things which it combines; and proportion is best adapted to effect such a
union. For wherever in any three numbers, whether cube or square, there is a
mean, which is to the last term what the first is to it; and again, when the
mean is to the first term as the last term is to the mean—then the mean
becoming first and last, and the mean becoming the first and last both becoming
means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and having
become the same with one another will be all one. If the universal frame had
been created a surface only having no depth, a single mean would have sufficed
to bind together itself and the other terms; but now, as the world must be
solid, and solid bodies are always compacted not by one mean but by two, God
placed water and air in the mean between fire and earth, and made them to have
the same proportion as far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to
water, and as air is to water so water is to earth); and thus he bound and put
together a visible and tangible heaven. And for these reasons, and out of such
elements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it
was harmonised by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship; and
having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other
than the framer.
An eternal world in time that has
been, and is, and will be in all time, was fashioned after the nature of the
Creator himself. But, of course, before the body of the world was fashioned
from the elements, the Creator made the soul “in origin and excellence prior to
and older than the body, to be the ruler and the mistress, of whom the body was
to be the subject.” The soul was compounded of the indivisible, the divisible,
and the essential taken in good proportion and with it began “a beginning of
never-ceasing and rational life enduring through all time.” Thus, while the
body comes from the elements, it is the soul that interfuses each of them, from
the centre to the circumference of the whole created universe. [4]
There is a geometrical
structure also associated with each element. The Platonic Solids, as they are
known, connected with the five elements are: (1) fire—tetrahedron; (2)
air—octahedron; (3) water—icosahedron; (4) earth—cube; (5) the universal, the
quintessence we now call ether—dodecahedron. Aristotle, however, was not in
favour of such a characterisation of the elements linked up with geometry. He
considered fire as hot and dry, air as hot and wet, water cold and wet and
earth as cold and dry. It is the Aristotelian view that dominated thought for
several centuries, till the Middle Ages. One really wonders why people just
refuse to think independently, even today; inquiry became a victim.
It is interesting to
see that connections were sought between the four elements and the aspects of
health even by the early philosophers. By the time of Hipocrates (c. 460 - c.
377 BC) the theory of the four humours was well developed in
In the course of time
ancient Greek concepts and views got incorporated in the Christian theology.
They had but to be included in order to make theology complete, for the simple
reason that no part of knowledge could remain outside its purview. But it is
unfortunate that the provisionality of this human knowledge or the prerequisite
of intuitive perception was never recognised and later, in order to defend and
assert what became a part of the creed and system, arrogance prevailed in all
its dealings. Nevertheless, in the context of our discussion of the five
elements let us take just one or two examples that have entered in it,
interestingly even in the narrative of Milton’s great epic, Paradise Lost.
The basic idea is that the appearance of the material world out of the formless
mass is at the bidding of the Creator, but definiteness comes to things only in
the working of the five elements. The celebrated glory of transubstantiation is
a wonderful consequence of Christian mysticism founded on experience,
experiences of the saints who were also in touch with the psychic being,
something new which was not present in the earlier Greek days.
I saw when at his Word the formless Mass,
This world’s material mould, came to a heap:
Confusion heard his voice, and wilde uproar
Stood rul’d, stood vast infinitude confin’d;
Till at his second bidding darkness fled,
Light shon, and order from disorder sprung:
Swift to their several Quarters hasted then
The cumbrous Elements, Earth, Flood, Aire, Fire,
And this Ethereal quintessence of Heav’n
Flew upward, spirited with various forms,
That rowld orbicular, and turned to Starrs
Numberless, as thou seest, and how they move;
Each had his place appointed, each his course,
The rest in circuit walles this Universe. [5]
This is in the context when the
Angel, though the Regent of the Sun, the Light of God, one of the seven Spirits
that stand within the sight of God, was beguiled to speak jubilantly about the
works of the Creator in order to glorify him. He shows to Satan the place where
the new creation is to be born, the Earth. The deed was done, but perhaps one
more dark possibility that could have arisen was to be faced and removed
forthwith.
There is an interesting point made
by
In the Garden of Eden as the feast
prepared by Eve was being enjoyed, Raphael explains in minute details how the
corporeal turns into the incorporeal:
…Therefore what he gives
(Whose praise be ever sung) to man in part
Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found
No ingrateful food: and food alike those pure
Intelligential substances require
As doth your Rational; and both contain
Within them every lower facultie
Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch,
taste,
Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,
And corporeal to incorporeal turn.
For know, whatever was created, needs
To be sustained and fed; of Elements
The grosser feeds the purer, Earth the Sea,
Earth and Sea feed Air, the Air those Fires
Ethereal, and as lowest first the Moon… [6]
There is a truth in the
idea of transubstantiation though the modern mind thinks that it contradicts
common sense. Of course, it does; but it falls beyond the scope of its capacity
to get to the depth of its truth. Nor can it be called a miracle, simply
because we cannot comprehend the occult of it. The doctrine claims that the
bread and wine used in the communion ceremony is changed in substance, so that
what is bread and wine to all the senses is in fact the body and blood of
Christ. What a wonderful possibility opened out if only we can grasp its deeper
and truer esotericism, its mystic-spiritual significance! In it is the hope of
the substance changing into that of the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus
Christ himself. In it is indeed the Real Presence. When we do not know the
process, to us it looks to be a mystery; when it does happen without our coming
to know of it, it appears to be a miracle. But reason should admit that there
are things beyond reason, that it should be reasonable to itself. Hamlet-like
we have to hold that there are things in earth and heaven we can hardly
imagine.
Let us read St. John 6:
By the miracles of the loaves and fishes and of walking upon the waters, on the
previous day, Christ not only prepared his hearers for the sublime discourse
containing the promise of the Eucharist, but also proved to them that he
possessed, as Almighty God-man, a power superior to and independent of the laws
of nature, and could, therefore, provide such a supernatural food, none other,
in fact, than his own flesh and blood.
But it seems, that
regarding transubstantiation Christ was talking more of the future possibility
than of an immediate event leading to the transformation of the physical body.
The threefold food is the feast of tomorrow and not of the present. Moses
dispensed Manna; the heavenly Father is the bread of Heaven, Christ himself
offering later his true flesh and blood. That will be the Holy Communion in the
fulfilment of the Eucharist ritual, if we are to say in that manner. That will
be the Real Presence declared in “This is my body—This is my blood.” In it are
included all the three, Body and Soul and Divinity. Such is the concept totally
beyond Grecian formulations, and of course beyond the rational mind of our own
time. It is even said: “
We have to perhaps read
implications of some of these clues in the reverse process of Narad’s communion
with the dense Matter:
Into solid Matter’s
dense communion
Plunging and its
obscure oneness of forms
He shared with a dumb
Spirit identity.
Spirit’s identification
with Matter means that it becomes the Upanishadic Food, Anna; it becomes the
Eucharistic Bread and Wine. Participating in the holy sacrament is a communion
which could be of different degrees. In the causal Matter the communion would
be creative and nourishing and dynamic, Spirit and Substance flowing into each
other, the former energising and the latter determining and moulding the potent
expressive urges; there would be an intimate and firm identity. On the other
hand, in solid Matter which is weighed heavily by the inconscience the
communion would be clumsy, onerous, burdensome, uncertain. The character of
Matter at this stage is, apart from its gravity, one of obscurity. This can be
seen in contrast to communion and oneness of the gnostic being with the Creator
within him where the relations of gnostic being with gnostic being are an
“expression of their one gnostic self and supernature shaping into a
significant power and form of itself the whole common substance.” [7]
Presently, the dense communion is with the dumb Spirit. Narad shares it when he
comes down to this last stage in his descent from
It is because the Spirit identifies itself
with Matter that Matter has hope. What is the hope, therefore, Narad is
bringing to us? But he brings the Word of Fate. By his action he sets free the
spring of providence, of the cosmic Future. Such a vast action is in his identity
with the destiny of the earth. It is to promote this destiny that he rushes to
Madra to meet Savitri and her parents. Narad shares identity with the obscurity
of Matter and as he has done that there is a hope that the see-saw game will
stop and the glory and the marvel usher in a new day, the Everlasting Day.
RY Deshpande
[1]
Shakti and Shākta, pp. 350-52
[2]
Ibid., p. 434
[3] The Chakras
[4] Plato,
427-347 BC, The Dialogues of Plato, translated by B. Jowett, pp. 14-15; The
Timæus, 32
[5]
[6] Ibid., Book V
[7]
The Life Divine, p. 978
Source: This is Chapter VI of the author’s book entitled Narad’s
Arrival at Madra published by the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of
Education, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pondicherry (2006). It is based on the opening
passage of 83 lines of the Book of Fate of Savitri. As it is dealing
with the Sankhya process of materialization, I’m reproducing it here in the
context of the discussion at
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2009/1/2/4042583.html
where we have very valuable details about
the nature of the physical reality behind the gross formation with which the
physical science is familiar. Thanks to Pavitra for keeping a record of the
conversation he and a couple of other disciples had with Sri Aurobindo in 1926,
just a few months before his retirement to concentrate on the work of the
supramental descent in the bodily material. There are a few chapters in
the book discussing this topic from various angles and these will be serialised
to have a comprehensive idea of the whole thing as far as possible for us.
Chapter V appears at:
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2009/1/5/4046092.html