The Life-wave and the Seven Elements. The Esoteric Philosophy as Taught by the Stoics.

Among the doctrines of Stoicism was that of the genesis or birth of the elements of the kosmos. Five were spoken of, and two more were vaguely hinted at. The five were aether, beginning with the highest; then what was called fire; then air; then water; and then earth. Now these kosmical elements are not the familiar things which we know by those names, for they were taken merely to symbolize, through certain appropriate qualities which they possess, the actual elements of kosmical being.

These elements of nature, which the Brahmanical philosophy called the tattwas, may likewise be called the principles of kosmos, precisely as man's seven principles may be called the elements of his being. We can say the elements of kosmos, or the principles of kosmos, and it means for present purposes the same thing; and we may say the elements of man or the principles of man, and it means for present purposes precisely the same thing. Seven different qualities or states or conditions of prakriti or nature — call it also substance or matter for the present, if you like. The present is not an appropriate time to go into a too detailed distinction of the difference — which does exist — between matter and prakriti. At any rate, the elements are seven different states or conditions or qualities of prakriti, the manifested side of kosmical being.

These seven elements or principles — five, as openly taught — according to the Stoic philosophy were derived one from the other, in order as follows: first, the Nameless One; second, its progeny or offspring or child, which is the second element lower in the scale; the third was aether, the progeny or offspring of the second, combining in itself, at the same time, the qualities or powers of the second, its parent, and of the first, its grandparent, so to say. Then came fire, containing in itself the elements of the three preceding, and also its own particular swabhava or essential characteristic. You will remember what swabhava means: the particularity, the essential nature, the real characteristic, of a thing, which makes it different from some other thing. The swabhava of a rose makes the rose plant bring forth a rose always, and not a lily or a violet; and the swabhava of a man brings forth as offspring a man always and not a gooseberry or an acorn. This is swabhava, or self-nature. Call it the essential individuality, if you like; it is the special or germinal individuality.

Then from fire, as a parent, sprang air. We are using these familiar terms, with a warning, as said before, that they do not really mean the familiar material things which we know by those names. However, this element called air contains in itself the qualities of its own nature, likewise those of fire, its parent, and of aether, its grandparent, and the qualities of the second and the first elements as well. Then comes water, containing in itself its own qualities and also the qualities of the five which precede it. Finally comes the seventh or last, gross matter, or concreted substance, containing in itself the qualities of all the six which precede it; each element giving birth to each following one as the life-wave ran its course down the shadowy arc of manifestation, or the building of the framework of the kosmos.


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