The element fire is inherent in every material object. Fire exists in matter, in rocks, stones, wood, in carbon forms like our own bodies, in different life forms. When you strike two pieces of rock, sparks come out. When you rub two pieces of wood together, smoke comes out, heat is created, embers are seen and eventually fire is visible. If you strike metal against metal, you will see sparks fly.

This fire element is in every form of matter. Only, one has to discover, how to utilize that fire element. Even when one is isolated and alone in a deep forest and jungle, the elements, the tattwas, are there to help one out of any predicament, yet we don’t know how to utilize them for our safety, security and welfare. We think that whatever we do with nature is something primitive – it is not so.

One should appreciate the bounty and gifts of nature, for all the five elements are there to nurture our life. When one is able to discover fire by striking two pieces of stone together, by rubbing two pieces of wood together, safety, security and possibilities of better nourishment are attained. The whole life changes with the emergence of fire which is one element inherent in every form of matter.

In every life form too, there is one element which is inherently existing, and that is the God element, the God gene. How do we experience that God gene? By giving it a name: the spirit or the soul, the atman.

We have never seen the spirit or the soul, but we know that without it we do not exist. Just as every life form, even the cosmos, is endowed with an atman, the potency of life force; there is a collective experience known as the Paramatman or the cosmic self, and we are all part of the same.

From that perspective, the original gene is also in us and that is what yogis have stated: ‘we have realized it because of our experience’. The nature of us is Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram. This nature is also within and in the universe, it is both all-pervasive and contained.

The effort of all spiritual endeavours in life is to discover that Satyam, Shivam and Sundaram, the inherent element, the Divine, the transformative, the transcendental element in each one of us.

Just as fire is inherent in everything and has to be discovered, our inherent element, the Divine element, has to be discovered. However, the path has to be cleared for it by clearing the mind of all influences.

9 September 2019, Sannyasa Peeth, Paduka Darshan, Munger

From the book “Dharma in Life”, pg. 30-32, Sw Niranjanananda Saraswati