To understand the body, and all of creation for that matter, through the Ayurvedic lens, one must first be introduced to the concept of the five great elements. All organic and inorganic matter in the universe is made up out of ether, air, fire, water and earth. These are, rather than elements of the periodic table, elements that represent the state of matter. Earth is solid, water is liquid, fire is transformative, air is gaseous and ether is the field in which matter appears and the potential from which it stems. These elements are therefore stages in the creation of matter, ether being the most subtle and earth being the most gross, illustrated by the following analogy.
Let’s look at a tangible example and how this elemental way of thinking can be converted in the Ayurvedic principles of health. The earth element is that which gives a solid structure to the cucumber, water is the cohesive factor that holds it together, fire enables it to ripen, air facilitates its growth and ether gives space in which the cucumber can manifest and develop to ultimately sustain other life by being broken down into small particles when we consume it in a delicious salad.
Because everything is made up out of everything, we classify substances according to their elemental predominance. So we could say, the same cucumber is promoting the water element within our body, because it yields those cold, liquid, unctuous, heavy and dispersing qualities that are related to the water element to our system.
Now how does Ayurveda utilize the elemental and qualitative principles in healing? The qualities inherent to the cucumber are in general excellent to consume for the person with burning sensations during the summer, because of the cucumber’s opposite qualities to those present in this particular individual. However, these qualities would be detrimental for the person with a runny nose in the midst of winter. Ayurveda’s approach to treatment is viewed through the lens of the five great elements and operates according to the natural law: like increases like and opposites balance. In Ayurvedic eating principles as well as medicine, substances are classified by their taste, which are six in number; sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent each taste represents a combination of two elements, their energetic potency; cooling or heating energy, their post digestive effect and any special effect there might be, which cannot be defined by logic alone.
In Sanskrit, the five great elements are called pancha maha bhuta’s. Pancha means five, maha means great and bhuta is the past participle of the verb root bhu, ‘to become’, so these elements ‘have been’, because they are at the end of the process of evolution as it is described in the Sankhya’s philosophy which elucidates the journey of consciousness into matter and matter back into consciousness.
Sankhya’s view on the evolution of creation is similar to this beautiful description in the Gospel of John.
‘’In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. So saith the Amen.’’
This is perhaps the most mystical gospel of the bible. The only major difference with Sankhya’s philosophy is that the author didn’t see the need to elaborate on God as an independent entity within creation. But the gospel of John does relate God as the creator, to the same causative factor of existence just as Sankhya’s philosophy does, which is that from the origin of sound, or the ‘logos’, represented by the ‘Amen’ or the primordial vibration ‘Om’, the fabric of space time is generated. This vibration condensates consciousness through the three main qualities, sattva, rajas and tamas, further into the radius of one’s identity, which is called ‘Ahamkara’, or ego. Ahamkara is a biological necessity responsible for the diversity of different lifeforms. Sattva means transparency, or beingness and from sattva the observer arises signified by the cognitive and motor faculties and the mind. Rajas means passion or movement and from that movement the observer connects with the observed or inorganic. This objective world is predominantly tamas, inert, and is signified by the elements, which we take in through the senses.
The fundamental basis of Sankya is that before creation there was an eternal point that had no dimension, no magnitude, no quality, and is incomprehensible by our limited perception. In that way Sankhya and modern physics are very similar, both saying that for whatever reason the singularity multiplied itself into the existence we know today. However, the reason for creation in ancient physics is explained as part of the divine play of singularity, that desired to manifest itself to be able to perceive itself, therefore creating the ability for an individual to experience existence. This cosmos could be seen as a mirror of this supreme reality. Each one of us has the potential to be an individual mirror of that singularity, which is therefore conceptually described as Sat, Chit and Ananada, pure being, pure intelligence, pure bliss, which are to be said the attributes of the total comprehension of life. A human being can melt into this singularity, or ‘true nature’, when the mind is fully active yet emptied from content, just like when a droplet of water merges with the ocean and thus losing its identification with its limited radius (body, mind and senses for us humans). That union represents the ability to perceive the singularity ‘almost’ seamlessly from an apparent unique, limited, separate vessel ‘the body’.
According to Ayurveda this is true Swasthya, the ultimate state of health, which means, ‘being situated’ in that expansive state of awareness and is known by many other names such as redemption, salvation, liberation or enlightenment. The human mind, an extraordinary subtle product of creation, completely alive but without fluctuations is equivalent to silence – the basis of the universe, which is a localized representation of that unmanifested state or singularity that ancient Ayurvedic principles, Indian philosophy, the esoteric branches major religions and modern science talk about in various ways as the substratum of our existence.
This universe is expanding, through primordial vibration, which is sound – the expressed manifestation in the substratum of silence or pure being. So we relate to the element of space, or ether, through sound received by the ears. Space is all-enclosing and all-pervading and serves as a collective ‘home’ for all the objects in the universe. Ether is clear, light, subtle, soft, expansive and immeasurable. When vibration gets direction it becomes air, which is a particular movement. We experience the element of air through the skin as tactile perception. Air is mobile, dry, light, cold, rough and subtle. Movement creates friction, which is hot to the touch and this heat creates radiancy and therefore illuminates, so we interact with the fire element through vision. Fire is hot, sharp, dry, subtle and light. That radiant light causes further liquefaction of ethereal elements, which becomes the water element predominant in chemicals, which are cool, liquid, dull, soft, oily and slimy. Further cooled down, gravitating and consolidating into the heavy, dull, static, dense, hard and gross attributes of the most solid element, crystalize into earth.
Matter is that which occupies space and according to Ayurveda, substance, which is the essence of matter, has inherent qualities or attributes that lead to a certain action. Substance therefore is defined as the inseparable conjugation of quality and action. Without quality there is no action, so the action is controlled by quality. Quality is that hidden potential energy of a substance and when we ingest that substance the qualities are yielded into the body causing a certain action which is the manifestation of consciousness into the matter. Like we already discussed, the supreme reality of pure awareness has no quality, but when awareness is reduced into the consciousness, when you are consciously aware of something, then you experience the quality. Qualities are relative and they change according to the context. A chair is stable to us, but if you look at the earth from the moon, the chair spins around. So if we change time and space, the qualities will change.
Not all of the elemental principles are as easy to comprehend conceptually, especially the ether element. But we interact with each element through one of our five cognitive senses, hearing, sensing, seeing, tasting and smelling, predominantly. We engage with the five elements through the five tanmātrās or subtle elements, which are the objects of the five cognitive senses by which the objective world is sensed, allowing us to perceive the external environment.
The elements evolve to include their own related tanmātrā and each of the prior tanmātrās. For example, ether is just sound, but air is composed of sound and touch, while earth is made up of sound, touch, vision, taste and smell. So olfactory perception is unique to the element of earth and is the most complete manifestation of consciousness into the matter.
Life is possible on this planet because Mother Earth holds all organic and inorganic substances to her surface. Let us all be filled with gratitude for the pure compassion of the Great Mother in the form of the five great elements that sustains existential life, creates and redeems it.
Originally from The Netherlands, Robin Voss is a graduate of The Ayurvedic Institute’s Ayurvedic Studies Program, Levels 1 and 2.
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