Quintessence: The 5th Element

By Leo Gura - April 8, 2019

Classically, the 4 elements were Air, Water, Fire, and Earth. The 5th element — which few people know about — was called the quintessence (literally, “the 5th essence”) or Aether — otherwise known as Nothingness or Emptiness or Void.

In science, Aether was known as luminiferous ether, the medium through which light and gravity waves were supposed to have propagated. In the early 20th century physicists like Einstein and others “debunked” the notion of ether by reasoning that light waves did not need a medium to propagate through. They ran various experiments trying to measure the existence of ether but nothing turned up, so they discarded the notion as superfluous. Except Aether is not superfluous, it is central! What the scientists did not understand, and still do not understand, is that Aether wasn’t a measurable medium like water, air, or even space — it is Nothing! This is not the same as saying that Aether does not exist. Aether exists as Nothing, the Groundless Ground, or pure Existence itself — existence devoid of any content. Don’t bother trying to measure it because you can’t. Existence is prior to measurement. The medium for the propagation of light waves and gravity waves (and anything else for that matter) is consciousness. And also don’t confuse Aether/Nothingness with the vacuum of space. Aether is prior to space or time. It “holds” space and time.

What people don’t understand is that quintessence is not just Nothingness, it is not just Existence, it is also Consciousness, Truth, God, Love, Goodness, Intelligence, Self, Other, and World!

But how can Love be Nothingness? How could it not! Only Nothingness has the capacity to embrace all. Only Nothingness is selfless enough to embrace all. Only no-thing can unconditionally accept every-thing. The embrace is so complete that Nothingness literally IS everything! This is pure, Platonic Love. Not just love as an emotion (although it is that too), but love as Being itself. Love is the union of all opposites into one seamless totality. Love is the unification of all divisions. Love is the super-set of all sub-sets. Love is universality. Love is infinity. Love is unlimited.

The 5th Element got their metaphysics exactly right:

After all is said and done, in the final analysis, the force that saves the world is none other than the force that makes the world: Love.

You ARE quintessence. You ARE Love.

Your ability to unify all opposites, all dualities, is the measure of your love. It is Unity as an Absolute. A Unity so all-embracing it has no opposite. A nonduality so nondual it doesn’t know duality. A Love so complete it does not know judgment, criticism, rejection, hatred, selfishness, or evil. Yet at the same time it embraces them all by being them all. Human love is a tiny branch off the tree of universal Love. This tree is infinite, with countless branches of varying size. You are one branch AND you are the entire tree. To actualize one branch is to be human. To actualize the entire tree is to be God. Each branch is not other than the tree, such that all there is, is tree. What it means to be a tree is to be each branch and the sum total of them all at once. To realize this totality is Truth and Love.

Notice, when you feel an emotion of deep love, what you’re feeling is not an egoic desire but a selflessness and a deep unity with the universe. In that moment you are being selfless, and it feels right and good. It feels divine.

So how do you conquer evil? By experiencing yourself as Love. Just like in the clip above. It sounds childish, until you try to do it and you quickly see just how hard it is for your ego to do. It is the mark of a masterful sage to be able to embrace all. You can’t do it because you have too much evil in you. All-encompassing Love threatens you like light threatens a shadow. You can’t do it because you are too busy defending your self while Love is self-less-ness. Love is also fearlessness. If there is no self, there is nothing to lose, and nothing to fear.

“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

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