Fire, Air, Water, Earth, were but the visible garb, the symbols of the informing, invisible Souls or Spirits — the Cosmic gods to whom worship was offered by the ignorant, and simple, respectful recognition by the wiser. In their turn the phenomenal subdivisions of the noumenal Elements were informed by the Elementals, so called, the "Nature Spirits" of lower grades. — The Secret Doctrine I, 461Each cosmic essence or element, when it is evolved, is an immense aggregate of elemental lives, which in theosophical terminology are called elementals — inhabitants of the respective cosmic elements. In other words, the elementals of any one cosmic essence are its children and therefore belong to and themselves imbody the swabhava of their parent. This is true for all the cosmic essences of the manifested universe, so that we have elementals springing forth from every one of the cosmic planes, from prithivi or earth, right on up to the highest or adi-tattwa.
Another and more familiar use of the word elementals signifies beings or entities in the very beginning of their evolutionary growth in the scale of lives of a universe. If we apply this to the element-principles of man's constitution, we shall be able to make the appropriate applications to the cosmic scale. There are, for instance, elementals born of our buddhi, of our manas, others from our kama, etc.
The word elementals may likewise be used for all entities beneath the human kingdom. More specifically, however, the term refers to the first entities that arise in and of the seven elements of nature before other more advanced entities come into manifestation. Thus on the hierarchical ladder we have: first, the three elemental kingdoms, then the elementals manifesting in the mineral kingdom, next those in the vegetable kingdom, then those manifesting as animals, followed by the 'perfected' elementals which we call human beings. The three elemental kingdoms are so designated because they are the first families or races of beings arising in the cosmic elements before any more evolved entity can manifest itself, and they provide the groundwork upon which the more evolved structure of a world is built by entities of higher kingdoms.
There are seven planes or kingdoms of nature, and these manifest in various forms. Looked at from one angle we call them lokas and talas; from another we say that nature is composite of seven tattwas and bhutas, or seven principles and elements. The point is that every element contains all the other elements locked up within its heart, until the appropriate field and time in space come for the appearance of such latent elements.
The cosmic tattwas unfold in serial order and thus produce the hierarchies formed by the corresponding lokas and talas: beginning with the first or adi-tattwa, the second or anupapadaka-tattwa emanates from it, the while retaining a certain portion of the first tattwa. From the second tattwa unfolds the third, akasa-tattwa, which contains not only its own dominant swabhavic forces and substances, but likewise its portions of the second and also of the first cosmic tattwa. This continues down to the seventh and last. When the time of the cosmic pralaya approaches, the whole process of emanational unfolding reverses itself — the universe now begins the procedure of 'radiating' away or infolding itself.
Each one of these elements or kingdoms or realms or lokas — call them what you will — of inner and outer nature is filled full with its own populations, i.e. is composite of monads, monadic centers, varying in degree of evolution, ranging from self-consciousness to mere consciousness, down to passive unself-consciousness. Furthermore, the higher the scale of life, the greater and more spiritual do the inhabitants of these realms become. The highest are very powerful; some elemental beings are so high — not in evolutionary rank but in origin — that, being offsprings of one of the cosmic elements, they partake of the cosmic wisdom of which they as entities are life-atoms. There are other elemental beings whose origin is so low in the material spheres that they are instinctively antagonistic to human beings, some even fearfully malignant, not by choice, not by will, but by their character; on the other hand, others are friendly to the human race, even beneficent. A few have quasi-human form, but most are non-human in shape, some being gigantic in size, titans, with corresponding powers. The great majority of these elementals are only quasi-conscious.
There are many races and families of elementals, and also many subraces and subfamilies. They are, in fact, the building stones of nature. Nature itself is composed of them; for no entity anywhere can separate itself from the boundless All. They are the unevolved life-atoms of the several cosmic elements; and these beings have been alluded to under different names by mystical and initiated writers of various countries. The Fire Philosophers of Europe said that there were four main elements of the universe, and that from these were born respectively: the salamanders of fire, the sylphs of air, the undines of water, and the gnomes of earth. (3) These are but names, yet the idea thus set forth is perfectly true: from the essential elements of the universe are born the native entities belonging by essential characteristic to these elements.
Actually, these elements of the cosmos are seven, not four, but the three higher ones are never referred to in any detail in exoteric writings. The four usually spoken of are manifested or rupa, possessing form; and the three higher classes are arupa, formless. Consequently, some of these elements composing the very fabric of the universe are high; some are gross and material; there are also those of an intermediate type. Since there is a spiritual element and an intellectual, a psychological, an astral and a physical one, all going to form the general substance of the visible and invisible universe, the elementals originally springing from these seven mother-substances or elements partake in each instance of the swabhava of the fountain of being out of which they are born. (4)
This is the reason that some of these elemental beings are of surpassing wisdom, because originating in the spiritual and intellectual planes of the universe; some are of exceeding malignity to man; there are those which are highly intellectual, while others are totally unintellectual; some are purely instinctual. All these adjectives are but words, applied to these elementals with the necessary reservations of quality and kind. In all cases they originate as the life-atoms of the mother-substances from which they come. As they are elemental beings, unconscious god-sparks, so to say, life-atoms of the original substances, they are devoid of a spiritual ego, or, to use H.P.B.'s words, "Elemental Beings void of Divine Spirit." Hence in popular language they have been called soulless, i.e. without an evolved soul; and this is generally true, because it is evolution alone which brings forth the hitherto unexpressed spiritual ego in men, or in beings equivalent to men. Divinity is as much at the heart of every elemental being as it is at the heart of a god. But until that core of divinity is evolved forth into manifestation, so that the entity is thereafter governed by the spiritual flame within as an ego, it is said to be without a spiritual soul.
Many interesting legends, stories, romances, have been written about the elementals, a few even describing the union of human beings with the beautiful and in some cases mechanically wise, yet soulless, elemental beings of the cosmos (as an instance, cf. the mystical legend Undine by Baron de La Motte-Fouque). In Persian mythology even the Peris at the gates of Paradise cannot enter therein until they have evolved a self-conscious spiritual soul. They cannot enter heaven because they have no self-consciously aspiring center to attract them to the atmosphere of conscious spirit. They cannot pass because they cannot give the passwords. They do not know them, for already they have met their Ring-pass-not. It is only the stained and weary, but nevertheless successful, human pilgrim soul who can pass the final test at the portals of heaven, and enter in; and that test demands an evolved spiritual self-consciousness.
Now every elemental life-atom of one of these cosmic elements is an entity beginning its upward evolutionary journey toward self-conscious divinity. All these entities and all their manifold classes or races or families aspire to become men and will be in the next manvantara. (5) Not in this one, however, because the door opening into the human kingdom has closed for the present manvantara — the lowest point of matter having been reached by the evolving life-waves — and also because we have already begun the ascent along the luminous arc, retracing our steps toward divinity. Each one of these elementals in future great manvantaras of the universe will become first a semiconscious entity, then a quasi-conscious entity or human being, and still later will evolve into becoming a god, a supergod, and so on forever.
We human beings were elementals in some far bygone cosmic manvantara, and we have evolved at present the first faint light of spirituality. However imperfectly it may be, we are already beginning to sense the working of the divine flame within, which is the influence of the inner god.
These elemental beings are constantly and throughout boundless Space springing forth from the seven mother-substances, and thus beginning their journey; while at the other end of the evolutionary pilgrimage vast armies of full-blown gods are passing over the horizon, following the cosmic pathway leading into an ever-enlarging splendor, and thus ever growing into something still more sublime. There is a constant life stream from elemental life-atoms to gods.
What, then, originates these life-atoms from the cosmic elements? Thoughts — thoughts of the supergods and gods; of daimones and heroes; of men and beasts — for thoughts are ensouled energies. And as nature is divided into seven elemental or cosmic substances, all classes of beings can trace their origin back to one or to another of these seven mother-substances or rivers of life.
In any solar system, as in our own with its seven (or twelve) sacred planets, these rivers of life express themselves by building up planets, each planet corresponding to one of the cosmic elements. We find this teaching imbodied in the Neoplatonic doctrines as expressed by Proclus:
The Pythagoreans however say, that the elements may be surveyed in the heavens in a twofold respect, in one way indeed prior to the sun, and in another after it: for the moon is ethereal earth. . . . But they say that the planet Mercury is ethereal water, Venus air, and the sun fire. And again, that Mars is celestial fire, Jupiter celestial air, Saturn celestial water, and the inerratic sphere celestial earth. And thus speaking in a divided manner they make the extremes to be every where fire and earth, but conjoin the ethereal natures through media, viz. through Venus and Mercury: for both these have a collective and unifying power. But they conjoin the celestial natures, through Saturn and Jupiter: for through these that which is connective of wholes, and the commensurate, accede to all things. What we now say, however, is conformable to the history delivered by many [of the Pythagoric doctrines]. For that this mode of distribution is not Platonic, we may learn from this that Plato arranges the sun immediately above the moon, afterwards Venus, and then Mercury.
It is necessary therefore to understand, that all the elements are in each of the celestial spheres, since in the sublunary elements also, each participates of the rest. For fire participates of earth; since being moved with facility, it would most rapidly perish, if it was entirely without stability. And earth participates of fire; for being moved with difficulty, it requires heat to resuscitate and restore it. As this therefore is the case in these sublunary elements, much more must all the elements be in each of the celestial spheres, though some of the heavenly bodies participate more of fire, others of air, others of water, and others of earth. — On the Timaeus of Plato, Bk. III, p. 426There is the teaching in brief: mystic, wonderful, sublime. Just remember that each elemental, whether on the cosmic or microcosmic scale, is a learning, growing, evolving being. Its heart or core is a monad which, working through its spiritual elemental as its 'body,' produces from within itself its other veils. Man in a far past cosmic manvantara was such an elemental, and by gradual evolutionary growth he now has become a man; and as the human monad continues through the ages of future time to unfold from within its own essence its higher latent powers and faculties into self-expressive activity, man will evolve into becoming a god. Exactly the same is it with all entities in the scale of cosmic life: they are all learning and growing, each one having begun in some cosmic manvantara as an unself-conscious god-spark, and destined in the rolling of the wheel of life to become a self-conscious god, and from godhood to move forwards into ever-enlarging spheres of experience now beyond the utmost comprehension or intuition of man.
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