The Earth Element
The First Element of a Fulfilling Life
Chances are most people aren’t feeling great all the time. The so-called “Kingdom of Heaven” that Jesus talked about isn’t a present reality. Far from it for most of us. So we are where we are, emotionally speaking, and there is this idea that things are better over there, in the future sometime, somehow. In this common way of thinking about it, there is a progression from here, where it is worse, to there, where it is better.
This way of thinking mirrors more complex models of spiritual development that appear in spiritual traditions throughout human history. In these models we are told that we can progress towards a better experience of life by passing through various ‘stages of enlightenment’ or advancing up to higher ‘levels of consciousness’. In these models, the ancient (and modern) masters talk of an evolution from an earlier, simpler state earlier in our life and in our genetic heritage to a present, more complex state. These various traditions then hold out a promise of an even better future experience that comes when we are able to attain these higher ‘levels’.
In keeping with this idea of stages or levels, the earliest state is often represented by the Earth Element. Earth is a good term for it since it reflects the physical world where the lowest point in the realm we perceive is the ground or earth that we stand on.
What exactly is meant by Earth? Is it planet Earth? No, that’s not what these various traditions meant by it. With the Earth Element the ancients were referring to the physical universe in the context of a world with other dimensions (such as the mental plane for thoughts, and the spiritual plane for the soul or gods). And, within our physical dimension, the Earth element can be thought of as representing the presence of anything with form, which includes all matter and anything else we can measure (even dark energy, assuming we can find it). The material world we inhabit is the physical manifestation of the Earth Element. It is the stage on which we play out our lives and during which we have the potential to master the physical elements of our existence.
Living the Best Life
The various spiritual traditions extend this story from the development of the physical world to the development of human consciousness or spirituality. But what light does the Earth element shed on how to live the best life?
We need to take it back to the insight about an evolution or arc from lower to higher levels of consciousness, or worse to better stages. Thinking about the Earth element, we can say that a physical universe exists (hence the connection to Earth or matter) and sufficient evolution has transpired for life to be present. We can also say that this life on its own, even without human consciousness, has a very basic sort of intelligence: even someone in a coma is able to keep the body alive.
With this physical health and safety taken care of we will have demonstrated command of the Earth stage. We will have taken the first step on our progression to self-mastery and living our best life. Without having done this, we won’t be able to effortlessly and successfully advance to the aspects of life beyond the physical dimension. The mental and spiritual aspects of our existence will either be out of reach or corrupted by our weaknesses in the Earth Element.
It is on top of this basic animal or unconscious sort of physical make-up that our ‘sense of being someone’ arises. And, in turn, it is on top of this ‘sense of being someone’ that we can evolve from our current vacillating state of mind towards the ‘sense of being someone’ who is imperturbable and unlimited. That is the progression: a healthy and basic functioning body/mind gives rise to consciousness and then this consciousness can be developed to higher and higher levels which are connected to better and better life experiences. But in order to progress we need a firm foundation to work off of. The lesson here is that it is a good idea to have a well-functioning Earth Element.
In practical terms, at the risk of stating the obvious, this means that ensuring we have a healthy body and secure, peaceful surroundings is of paramount importance. With this physical health and safety secured you will have demonstrated command of the Earth stage. You will have taken a proper first step on your progression to self-mastery and living your best life. Without having done this, you won’t be able to effortlessly and successfully advance to the aspects of life beyond the physical dimension and reap the rich rewards that come with that advancement. Your progress will be spoiled, stunted or capped. The mental and spiritual aspects of your existence will either be out of reach or corrupted by your weaknesses in the Earth Element. This is why we see the New Agers refer to the “Earth Chakra” imbalances leading to various emotional and health problems and the importance of clearing these imbalances up. They’ve picked up on the clue that progress to a better life is connected with the Earth. This is one reason why we hear expressions like “balancing” or “charging the Earth Chakra” as a way of expressing how to allow healing to happen on the physical plane (i.e. in our actual bodies).
The Earth Element is the baseline or ground upon which we build our life. That is the key idea to take from this first element. For healthy humans, a well functioning Earth Element represents a state of activity that persists beneath the surface of everyday consciousness (think of the basic functions like reproduction and emotion and homeostasis). And that unconscious healthy functioning is enough for most of us to move forward in our spiritual progression. It is true that some are reported to have paused for longer than others at this level in order to secure total mastery but this isn’t necessary.
What does pausing at this level to achieve total mastery look like? You might think we are talking about Olympic level athletic performance, but you would be wrong (though that is certainly a basic level of mastery of the Earth Element). A closer example of what true mastery of the Earth Element looks like would be the Qigong masters who can perform extraordinary feats like heating sand in their bare hands or painlessly withstanding blows of incredible force to the soft, fleshy parts of their body. At the level of true masters of the Earth Element it borders on science fiction for what distinguishes a Jesus, say, or the famed Tibetan monk of old, Milarepa, from most other masters, is that their reported command of the physical dimension went to the ultimate level.
What this means exactly is shrouded in myth: whether they really had mastered the Earth Element to the point where they could control the wind or walk on water I will leave to others to adjudicate. But total mastery isn’t the point here. We just need the basics to move forward. What are the basics? How much mastery of the Earth Element is needed? What does being healthy mean? It just means we need to be healthy enough that the body doesn’t become a distraction. Otherwise we’re going to spend all or most of our time dealing with our safety or our health or just trying to stay awake (or fall asleep, depending on the time of day!). We’ll be living out of discomfort or fear or dullness instead of having the energy and attention for next-level progress.
The point of trying to understand this dusty old model of the Four Elements is, first, to realize that suffering is unnecessary and, two, to understand the way to end it. The lesson of the Earth Element is as simple as this: we will struggle to go further on our journey to a fulfilling life if we don’t have a healthy body operating in a safe environment with the ingredients for this health and peace abundantly available.
The lesson of the Earth Element, even though it doesn’t take us very far on this journey to a fulfilling life, is simple: we will struggle to go further if we don’t have a healthy enough body operating in a safe enough environment with the ingredients for this health and peace abundantly available. When we are embodied as a human, composed of earthy elements, we are able to notice and comprehend our body’s lack of alignment with this inherent balance. This is the key lesson of the Earth Element. For, once we comprehend our suffering is due to this lack of alignment with the nature of the Earth Element, we have available a path to end it. And if we can end it, or at least sufficiently ameliorate it, then we are in a position to move forward to uncovering the fruits of mastering the other elements.We have to start somewhere. And the Earth Element is the ground we begin with on a path to self-mastery or a fulfilling life.
When we are embodied as a human, composed of earthy elements, we are able to notice and comprehend our lack of alignment with this inherent balance. This is the key lesson of the Earth Element. For, once we comprehend our suffering, we have available a path to end it.
Before concluding, there is one final point. We need to be careful here. It is easy to get a little lost when thinking about this idea of progressing towards mastery and moving beyond the Earth Element. For example, some New Agers and Buddhists, certain orthodox sects in the world’s major religions, and many others will tell us that the various stages along this journey to mastery or peace (or the equivalent in their tradition) are all about trying to get rid of ego, deny the self or transcend the body and reject the flesh (i.e ignore the Earth Element). But this asceticism misses a key point. The body or the physical, fleshy world of the Earth Element is the theater of our self-realization. It is the ground we stand on to make our progress.
If we don’t follow that roadmap, if we don’t take care of our physical form, then we suffer the consequences of that choice. Not only will we experience physical pain and dissatisfaction but we will be prevented from advancing to these more advanced states of consciousness that are extolled by enlightened masters the world over. Some, such as Tibetan Buddhists, would even say that our soul is on a great migration with the potential to move towards greater and greater power and less and less suffering. This process takes many lifetimes to unfold but to be born into a human body in the Earth dimension is a profound gift for, in their way of seeing it, it is in this form that the most progress can be made the most rapidly.
Many of us think we know all this stuff about being healthy and going with the flow already and we want to get on to the more interesting stuff, like relationships or doing work or reading or creating. Or we might think we are ready for the spiritual path and developing more transformational skills like meditation or yoga. But the lesson of this element is that we need to do the work on our body and health and sleep and our surrounding physical environment first, or at least foremost. We don’t need to be walking on water or performing tricks from The Last Airbender. We just have to have all of those Earth Element features of our nature and existence to a basic level of security or mastery before we move on. If we don’t do that and instead surge forward with the development of the mind and spirit, we risk not making much progress with those more advanced aspects of ourselves. Or if we do meet with success in these endeavors without having taken care of the Earth Element properly first, we can be sure they will be accompanied sooner or later by difficulty or sickness or tragedy or disappointment (or exploitation, as is witnessed when great spiritual masters are discovered to have been abusive in one form or another to their students).
Once we have this physical structure set up on a strong foundation, we have the ground upon which we can build. The Buddha used a metaphor about trying to build the second story of a house without a first one built yet. The Earth Element is like the first story of that house. If we haven’t built it up properly, there either won’t be anything to rest the next level on or if we do an incomplete job we won’t have a solid base for what’s next.
Once we have this physical structure set up on a strong foundation, we have the ground upon which we can build. The Buddha used a metaphor about trying to build the second story of a house without a first one built yet. The Earth Element is like the first story of that house. If we haven’t built it up properly, there either won’t be anything to rest the next level on or if we do an incomplete job on the first level we won’t have a solid base for what’s next.
And what is next? Just like in our physical world, on top of this foundation of Earth, there is Air. Or, using the framework symbolically, we could say that the Air Element represents the formations of our mind. Once we have a body with a functioning brain, we will experience thoughts, perception, communication and the intelligence or discernment required to understand ideas and opinions. All these mental phenomena happen in a non-physical dimension that resembles air in its insubstantiality. Thoughts and ideas are like air in that way. We know they’re there but we can’t perceive them with our sense organs. But this is the topic of the next article, AIR.
The Four Elements, a five-part article:
- INTRODUCTION
2. EARTH (this page)
3. AIR
4. FIRE
5. WATER
You can also listen to a couple of podcasts I recorded covering similar material.
For an entirely different (and quite esoteric!) take on the Four Elements based on the teachings of the Hindu classic, The Bhagavad Gita, you can listen to the reading of Rudolf Steiner’s 1905 lecture on the subject:
For more information you can visit the Happy Mind website.
