Description of the material elements (Taittiriya Upanisad 1.7)
At first, the material creation may look very dazzling, but it becomes progressively less attractive as we understand its real nature.
Section 7: Description of the material elements
Descriptions of the material elements are offered in many parts of the scriptures to help us understand the material universe and thus gradually lose our interest in it. At first, the material creation may look very dazzling, but it becomes progressively less attractive as we understand its real nature.
Text 1.7.1
pṛthivy antarikṣam dyaur diśo ’vāntara-diśaḥ
agnir vāyur ādityaś candramā nakṣatrāṇi
āpa oṣadhayo vanaspataya ākāśa ātmā ity adhibhūtam
athādhyātmam prāṇo ’vyāno ’pāna udānaḥ samānaḥ
cakṣuḥ śrotram mano vāk tvak carma māmsam snāvā’sthi majjā
etad adhividhāya ṛṣir avocat
pānktam vā idam sarvam pānktenaiva pānktam spṛṇotīti
The entire material manifestation is composed of different groups of five elements. Everything that exists is composed and enabled by these different sets.
The first group is composed of the Earth (pṛthivī), the sky (antarikṣa), the heavens (dyauḥ), the directions (diśaḥ), and sub-directions (avāntara-diśaḥ). The second group is composed of the fire (agniḥ), the air (vāyuḥ), the sun (ādityaḥ), the moon (candramā), and the constellations (nakṣatrāṇi). The third group is composed of the waters (āpaḥ), the herbs (oṣadhayaḥ), the trees (vanaspatayaḥ), the ether (ākāśaḥ), and the physical body (ātmā). These all concern the elements.
Concerning the self, there are three more groups as follows. The fourth group is composed of the five vital airs: prāṇa, vyāna, apāna, udāna, and samāna. The fifth group is composed of the eye (cakṣuḥ), ear (śrotram), mind (manaḥ), voice (vāk), and skin (as the organ of touch, tvak). The sixth group is composed of the skin as a covering (carma), flesh (māṃsam), connective tissues (snāvaḥ), bones (asthi) and marrow (majjā). Thus described the great sages, seers of the truth.
Commentary: This verse describes the elements that compose the universe, describing both physical elements, such as earth, fire, water, etc., and subtle elements, such as the vital air and the mind, as well as the demigods who control these elements.
The Srimad Bhagavatam offers a number of descriptions of the material elements. These descriptions are offered to help us understand the material universe and thus gradually lose our interest in it. At first, the material creation may look very dazzling, but it becomes less and less attractive as we understand its real nature. In the third canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, for example, Lord Kapila describes 24 material elements:
1- The five gross elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether).
2- The five subtle elements (odor, taste, color, touch and sound).
3- The four internal senses (mind, intelligence, ego, and contaminated consciousness).
4- the five senses for gathering knowledge (the auditory sense, the sense of taste, the tactile sense, the sense of sight, the sense of smell).
5- The five outward organs of action (the active organs for speaking, working, traveling, generating, and evacuating).
To these 24 elements, a 25th element can be added: the time factor, which acts as the mixing element, putting the material manifestation into action. This time element represents the influence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is behind the entire material manifestation. In this way, the original devotional Sankhya philosophy counts the material elements as a way to ultimately bring us to the Lord.
However, the material elements can be counted in many other ways. Krsna offers a summary in the Uddhava Gita (SB 11.22.17-26):
"In the beginning of creation nature assumes, by the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance, its form as the embodiment of all subtle causes and gross manifestations within the universe. The Supreme Personality of Godhead does not enter the interaction of material manifestation but merely glances upon nature.
As the material elements, headed by the mahat-tattva, are transformed, they receive their specific potencies from the glance of the Supreme Lord, and being amalgamated by the power of nature, they create the universal egg.
According to some philosophers there are seven elements, namely earth, water, fire, air and ether, along with the conscious spirit soul and the Supreme Soul, who is the basis of both the material elements and the ordinary spirit soul. According to this theory, the body, senses, life air and all material phenomena are produced from these seven elements.
Other philosophers state that there are six elements — the five physical elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether) and the sixth element, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That Supreme Lord, endowed with the elements that He has brought forth from Himself, creates this universe and then personally enters within it.
Some philosophers propose the existence of four basic elements, of which three — fire, water and earth — emanate from the fourth, the Self. Once existing, these elements produce the cosmic manifestation, in which all material creation takes place.
Some calculate the existence of seventeen basic elements, namely the five gross elements, the five objects of perception, the five sensory organs, the mind, and the soul as the seventeenth element.
According to the calculation of sixteen elements, the only difference from the previous theory is that the soul is identified with the mind. If we think in terms of five physical elements, five senses, the mind, the individual soul and the Supreme Lord, there are thirteen elements.
Counting eleven, there are the soul, the gross elements and the senses. Eight gross and subtle elements plus the Supreme Lord would make nine.
Thus great philosophers have analyzed the material elements in many different ways. All of their proposals are reasonable, since they are all presented with ample logic. Indeed, such philosophical brilliance is expected of the truly learned."
All these different descriptions of the material elements expose the real nature of the material creation as a simulation of the eternal spiritual reality. In the Bhagavad-gita, Krsna describes the material world as a reflection of the spiritual reality, explaining it using the analogy of a tree reflected on the waters of a lake. The reflection looks exactly like the original tree, but there are two important differences: it is upside down, and it is ephemeral in nature.
Everything that exists in the spiritual reality is also manifested in this world, but here everything is inverted. The pure love of the inhabitants of the spiritual world is manifested here as lust, their loving service to Krsna manifests here as exploitation, their eternal joy is manifested as temporary pleasure, the harmony in their transcendental dealings is represented here as conflict, knowledge becomes ignorance, freedom becomes material bondage, eternality becomes temporariness, and so on. Not only that, but the very nature of this world is ephemeral, with things being different from what they appear to be, just as a reflection looks perfectly solid until we touch it.
Desire is the natural propensity of the soul, and therefore desire can’t be stopped. We may try to suppress desires and we may even be successful for a short time, but desires will eventually come back. Unless our desires are purified and directed to the service of Krsna, they will always bring us back to material activity. Even if one is able to elevate himself to the impersonal brahmajyoti, in the absence of a devotional attitude to the Lord (which allows him to properly express desires in the spiritual platform), the natural propensity of the soul for desiring variety will force him to eventually come down to the material world to perform actions in the material platform.
The question is thus not to eliminate desire, but to direct this natural propensity to desire and act to the service of the Lord. When we become successful in this intent, we become naturally attracted to the transcendental qualities of the Lord and lose interest in dead material things, just as one loses interest in dry bread when he gets a pizza.