I met Bapuji the reclusive Sage from Ahmedabad and our collaboration bore fruit in the form of a book named, The Aum Of All Things. Bapuji, was a part of the Income Tax department, till one day, when He left everything and began His pursuit of Oneness. We were in his room. I sat on the bed with him, while the others sat on chairs around us. Bapuji made sure that I had a blanket wrapped around me and a thug cap on my head, as it was freezing cold in Delhi. I was keen to know about the Five Elements or the ‘Panch Taŧvas’ in our environment and within us.

“So in the Taŧvas, first came Divine Ether or Divine Space (Or as Baba Sai of Shirdi calls it to be the Element of Divine Silence) and then came the element of Divine Air. From the element of Divine Air, the element of Divine Fire or Agni Taŧva is created.”

One must understand that when an individual soul moves forth from The Divine Source, the individual soul is first filled or made up of only one element which is the element of Divinity or Prime Ether. This element which is also called the element of Space is one of the least understood elements of the five elemental theory in this phase of the cycle of time. One can quantify air, fire, water, earth but how does one quantify space. According to Baba Sai of Shirdi, Space or the element of Ether is basically the element of Divinity in a form (though Space does not have a form but it fills two forms within itself), thus the invisible element of Space or Ether, is the first Element that was created by The Boss Man and thus is the closest to represent His or Her Form and Individuality and thus Divine Ether is considered to be the closest to Godhood, which an individual, in the body or soul, can ever get to. Thus, each religion, each spiritual Guru, each ancient text, keeps insisting on every individual to go within and strengthen the element of Ether through being silent. I guess, instead of telling one and all through scriptures to “shut the fug up”, the polite terminology is to call it the Element of Ether. 

So first came Divine Ether and through that the rest followed. Basically this also initiates the philosophy that whatever is present in the subtle world eventually manifests itself in the physical gross world. But first it starts with the Divine Elements which manifest Themselves as Subtle Elements which then manifest as Gross Elements. For instance, first comes the thought, which gives rise to intent or feelings or desires, which gets converted into effort, which turns into one’s attitude, which comes out into action, which then leads to a pattern of habit and eventually that becomes one’s personality. Of course most of us feel that they do not think first, but in reality one is so habituated with a pattern of thinking that one does not realise that each one has created a thought in a fraction of a second and thus what manifests comes forth from impulsive reactions and thus we go through life like constipated yaks high on hemp.

“Thus from Divine Ether came forth Divine Air from which came forth Divine Fire. The Air element encompasses the Fire Element as well. From hydrogen, the gas helium is created, am I right? H2 is converted to H3 right?*

 Ya right. That is why I am writing blogs on spirituality.

This is the reason when a candle is kept in a closed glass bottle or box, the flame gets defused in a few seconds depending on how much air is there in the box. As Fire needs the Element of Air to burn. 

“So without the Element of Air, you cannot have the Element of Fire?” I wanted as-quickly-as-possible to move away from the topic of helium.

“We have Fire inside Vāyu (Air), where it generates electricity?”

“So what you are trying to tell me is that if there is no Air, then there will be no Fire?”

“Yes. That is why the Vāyu Taŧva has been created before Agni (Fire). Initially, how were the Elements created? They were created because of Sañkalps (intentions and desires) which had begun to germinate. As Sañkalps started, first came Paṛam Ākash or Divine Ether from which came Paṛam Vāyu or Divine Wind or Air from which came Paṛam Agni or Divine Fire. (For the record, now we have just Ether, Air, Fire, being a part of the five-elemental world, ‘Divine’ or Paṛam, is no longer present in the Elements.) For instance, we all have heard of ancient musicians who through certain Rāgās (ancient Indian musical compositions), would bring down the rain, or light oil lamps called diyās. When the Dēpak Rāgā would be played or sung, the power which the music generated would light lamps and the Malhār Rāgā rendered would get the rain down. So, actually inside the element of Air, the element of Water is also present. H2O is the formula right? It is the merging of hydrogen and oxygen – the constitution of the elements of water. H2O is made from Vāyu.” 

“There is water in the Air element, that is obvious but Fire too is in the Air Element?” I inquired. Anything to get away from hydrogen and oxygen.

“Yes. So, Water and Fire are both in the Air Element which in turn is present in the Element of Ether or Space. Mother Earth is the combination of All Elements. So then gradually as all elements came into being, the Ātmās began to multiply.” Answered Bapuji.

What Bapuji wanted to convey was that as souls began to multiply, intentions or desires within them began to grow and slowly the Divine Elements began to get weaker as individual desires began to take control over the soul and as individual desires grew the Divine power started to dwindle and from desires came the need to possess and through the desire to possess everything went wrong.

“Our scriptures say that there are Anant Koti Brähṁāñḍs in existence. Which means there are countless or trillions of galaxies in Creation and that trillions of Creations are made and destroyed from time to time. If there are trillions of galaxies according to the scriptures, then logically that means there are Anant Koti Śivas or Countless Demi Creators too. So there are Śivas or Creators and then there is Māhā, Māhā, Māhā Śiva or The Absolute Authority. That’s why we celebrate Māhāśivrātri once a year, even though Śivrātri comes every month.

“Śiva or The Creator made the world of the five gross elements from the Divine Elements. He takes the whole Creation into Himself (or Herself) just as in science they say the Black Hole engulfs millions of Creations into its belly. Why are we unhappy? The main reason is that the Five Elements that make our bodies have got polluted and filled with negativity. The air we breathe and the water we drink is all polluted. This is bound to affect our emotional, mental, physical state.” Informed Bapuji.

The logic is simple. As we are made out of the Five Elements, to operate at a level of optimum capacity, the raw material and fuel that keeps each of the Five Elements in prime health, have to be top class. We may have the most powerful and fancy sports car. But if the fuel being pumped into the car is suspect and adulterated, the car’s performance is going to be initially slightly below par and slowly the capacity is going to drop till a day comes when the poor metallic bastard stalls forever.

The same way, as our physical five elemental body thrives on the Five Elements in our world, which thrives on the elements in the subtle world, if the root supply has got contaminated, we as human beings are going to move further and further away from our Real Source and Identity.

That is why it is said while cooking food too one should be in a constant state of chanting The Name or in a state of Prayer and being one with The One, to bring down the Divinity through the food which is made up of the Five Elements while cooking. Cooking is more of manual work and the mind can be elsewhere with different feelings being felt while the hands manually go through the process of cooking. Hence one needs to take care of the energy, thoughts and feelings while cooking so that when we intake the food which comprises of all the five elements, it has the purity in the elements going in the body. Some call it satvic food. It isn’t about what one cooks or eats, it’s about the energy through which one cooks it, which is then consumed by the body through the Elements.

Now we cannot change the Five Elements in the Cosmos. What we can do is strengthen the one element, which fortunately is the most pivotal element, the element of Ether, Space, Void, Silence…The Element of Divinity.

As we move deeper into the oasis of silence, the Element of Divinity within us begins to get fortified and nourished which in turn infuses the Element of Divinity in the other Four Elements, strengthening them, till the Five Elements are now strengthened by the element of Silence and Divinity or Ether, which allows us to tap into the subtle elements that exist in the spirit world, which then allows us to tap into the Prime Elements through the subtle elements, which allows us to then tap into the Divine and Prime Element of Ether or Space…..which is where we have first come forth from, The Big Trumpeter….who for some reason bajaoed all our bands by trying to get creative and being under an illusion that mankind will be able to handle the concept of Creation and Free Will; converting an oasis into cesspit of depravity.

Now when I keep harping about silence, I do not mean become dumb and mute or let everybody walk over you or do not speak your mind or do not stand up for your dignity and ration card. By being silent, it means, silent within, where you are in the moment and where your mind is not an expressway of thoughts clanging and clashing and circumventing each other all the time. An individual can be constantly in communication with the world, but may be as silent as a tomb from within, constantly in the moment or in the womb of chanting the God, Goddess or Master’s Name. When you are in the state of constant silence within, calmly accepting all, knowing that all is transitory, slowly the element of Ether or Divinity begins to grow, strengthening the other Elements or tapping into the source of the Subtle Element of Ether which further gets strengthened by the Divine Ether, which is what first came forth from The Divine. 

Once you are in tune with Divine Silence, all knowledge, power, radiance, goodness, the very essence of Oneness begins to fill the individual and it is through Divine Silence that the Masters know the past, present and the future.

“This happens once and only comes through The One. The divinity of the Ultimate Father and Mother comes through the way S(H)e imparts Knowledge. Now how do you know that The Creator is the Ultimate Authority and the Right One? Through the awakening of the Third Eye Chakra; and that is gained through meditation. S(H)e gives us the Knowledge of the New World. We have come from Amar Lok or from immortality to Mrutyu Lok, which is the land of death. How was the world created? Where are the Deities? How was our soul created? All these answers one can get via dhyān or meditation.” Informed Bapuji.

 “When Lord Kṛiṣna came down to Earth, what did He say? He said that, ‘This war between truth and untruth I cannot stop. This Māhābhaṛăta, I cannot stop.’ Now today, the Devatās or the Demi Gods have descended upon Earth. Imagine Lord Kṛiṣna could not stop the Māhābhaṛăta, then who is going to be able to stop this degeneration that one sees within and all around?”

I believe that the one who goes deep within, meditates, becomes one with his or her breath, merges with his or her breath, thus becoming one with the Source and through the Source, the individual taps into the universal grid of Knowledge, and thus can go beyond man and become superman or as in the earlier days we would say, become God-like. The Māhābhaṛăta really is within one’s self. The five brothers or Pāndavās stand for the five senses, The day you bring your five senses under your control and neither give this power to an external force or person or thing or object to control your state of mind and the senses; then the innumerable emotions and desires – one can call them Kauravās seize to have a hold on you and you are free to soar. True freedom is when one’s state of mind does not get affected or influenced by happiness or sadness. The problem is that this is so simple to achieve that most of us are never going to achieve it as we have lost all respect for simplicity and are into designer stuff; be it designer meditation, healing, cults, religions… The old fashioned simple stuff, doesn’t appeal to us anymore. So yoga has to become power yoga and steam yoga and meditation has various fancy names added to it and Pranic healing has to become some fancy Italian-worded form of healing, as the simple stuff of sitting in a corner, going within, becoming one with The Breath, is not in vogue any more. You can dress a horse in a Ralph Lauren Limited Spring Collection Edition, the fact which remains is that it is still going to be a horse and is never going to clean-up after crapping all over the place. Look everywhere and most people have become spiritual shoppers when the answer truly just lies in going within. Focusing on the breath or one’s Master, and becoming one with the Breath and Master is the only way out. Ok, enough of my ramblings.

“Now what will happen? What do we have? We have our soul, which comprises of the mind, intellect and sanskars and expresses itself through the different bodies which is made up of different combinations of the Elements. We need to connect with The One with Divine Vision and Divine Knowledge to go about this transformation from a state of death to a deathless or immortal state. We want to bring the Paṛam Taŧvas or Divine Elements and the Divine Radiance and Light into the world. The transformation has to come about by converting the purity in the Elements. The only way is to meditate, visualize and become one with the Absolute Authority. Then through the power of affirmations and visualizations bring down the Prime Elements and spread it through all of Creation.”

So basically we have come from the Divine Prime Elements, starting from Divine Ether or Divine Silence. When we go silent within, we begin to raise the Ether Element within us which first allows the other Four Elements to become in harmony with Each Other. The Ether Element or as Baba calls it The God Element, slowly allows one to tap into the Divine Elements, infusing the individual with various powers and super human capabilities, as the individual has begun to connect with the Prime Elements, through the Element of Silence. The more silent you become within, you once again start moving closer and closer towards The Absolute One, which means that first you slowly start consolidating yourself into Divine Ether as our First Element of individuality was only Divine Ether or Divine Silence. When you bring forth Divine Silence within, we start moving towards our Source and eventually become one with The Source.

Be blessed always.