The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: of intuition and experience, and all through the 'Upanishads'
you find these extraordinary flashes embedded in the midst
of a great deal of what we should call a rather rubbishy kind
of argument, and a good deal of merely conventional Brahmanical
talk of those days. But the people who wrote and spoke thus
had an intuition into the heart of things which I make bold to
say very few people in modern life have. These 'Upanisihads,'
however various their subject, practically agree on one point
--in the definition of the "self." They agree in saying: that
the self of each man is continuous with and in a sense identical
with the Self of the universe. Now that seems an extraordinary
 Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: is like their own, such as bees or wasps or ants, or back again into the
form of man, and just and moderate men may be supposed to spring from them.
Very likely.
No one who has not studied philosophy and who is not entirely pure at the
time of his departure is allowed to enter the company of the Gods, but the
lover of knowledge only. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why
the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and hold
out against them and refuse to give themselves up to them,--not because
they fear poverty or the ruin of their families, like the lovers of money,
and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honour, because
they dread the dishonour or disgrace of evil deeds.
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