Facing the Challenges
Posed by
Elementals of
Earth, Water, Air and Fire
B. P. Wadia
Mr. B. P. Wadia (1881-1958)
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The following
text is a chapter
in the book “Living the Life”, by
B. P. Wadia (Indian
Institute of World
Culture, Bangalore,
India, 1981, 156 pp.).
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“Self-control and self-expression are not two
processes but two phases of but one process.”
Our fitness or
otherwise to enter the Occult World and maintain our position therein is tested
definitely at an early stage of our inner Life.
The test comes from the Great Law, Sifter of man’s
Dharma, on the Path of Woe. The significance of this process can be understood
by a correct reading of a few verses in the Gospel of St. Luke (Chapter 9). To
different types of aspirants Jesus gives different answers. He rejects one
eager to “follow thee whithersoever thou goest” by a diplomatic answer that “The
Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”
To a second he advises, “Let the dead bury their dead;
but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.” To the third he says, “No man
having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of
God.”
Here are three definite situations and all of us
should enquire if we belong to any of them. Are we only lip-professors, and is
our earnestness rooted in selfishness or egotism, and our devotion energized by
personal ends and personal motives? For us, then, there is no place in the
Occult World. Or are we half-hearted, yet desirous of trafficking in the shades
of the shadow world of the dead? Have we very definitely come out from among
them? Or do we belong to the third type – having abandoned earthly possessions
we regret our step and yet are attracted by the Ideal, possess a desire to be
like Them, so that we might help Them?
This test has to be passed.
Occultism speaks of the neophyte passing the tests of
the elementals of earth, water, air, fire, when he enters the World of the
Spirit. The correct understanding of this mystery emblem is naturally beyond
most of us. But let us try to understand as best we can what it implies.
In the composition of our being are the four elemental
forces which, on their material side, are spoken of by the Ancients as Elements
of Earth, Water, Air, Fire. The four temperaments, phlegmatic, sanguine,
choleric and melancholic; the four types of Nature-spirits, gnomes, undines,
sylphs and salamanders; and several other quartets are related to and
correspond with each other. For the purposes of our study, it will suffice for
us to honestly ask and find answers in full and stern justice to these
questions:
- Are we of the earth earthy, so full of worldly
belongings that we are thrown out by ourselves from the Occult World? Are we
like unto that young man who “went away sorrowful” (note, he was not sent away)
“for he had great possessions”? Or are we watery people, sentimental,
goody-goody, wishy washy, desirous of observing customs and manners of the
world of the dead? Or are we self-opinionated folk who must air our views in
season and out of season and tell the world what we are doing or going to do,
what we think and feel and who, like unto the third aspirant of Jesus, “first
go to bid them farewell, which are at home, at my house,” and incidentally tell
them what we are going to do, righteously and virtuously follow the Lord, and
air our views on the subject, and other matters besides? Or are we the fiery
type - who can burn up earth and dry up water, and whose only enemy is the gale
of fury which sometimes overpowers the weak flame and the young fire?
There are fires which cannot be extinguished and there
is the Spiritual Fire, which so subdues the breeze and gale of Ahamkara, that
it burns steady and bright. This Fire is the controller; it too is the
manifester and expresser of its nature.
Young aspirants sometimes forget that self-control and
self-expression are not two processes but two phases of but one process.
The co-ordination of these two has to be achieved. To
eliminate the earthy-rigidity of the senses, the watery-mobility of the
emotions, the airy velocity of the thoughts by proper, adequate and all-round
control, and to use them as channels of the Fiery Soul which is our real Self,
so that it can express itself in its true grandeur and glory, is the double
work of every aspirant.
To make our body of senses and limbs the stately
mansion which puts forth the majesty and tenderness of Mother Earth; to make
our emotions start from the spring of Love, glide forth in the river of
gentleness and empty themselves in the Ocean of Compassion; to make our
thoughts harbingers of goodwill and like birds rise in the Ether of Space,
singing their songs - joyous and clear and fresh; to transform ourselves into
the steady-burning Flame of Nachiketas’s Fire - symbol of the Disciple; that is
the task that lies before us.
Self-made is the Path, Self-determined is the effort
to tread it. Treading the Path we realize the Self. In Self-realization we
become the Path. Thus the Truth, the Way, and the Life are one.
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In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
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