04 The five elements

Essential to understand Ayurveda is the understanding that this is how our body is human, is the cosmic body, so is the human mind is the cosmic mind

This Vedic proverb, gives us the understanding that what exists outside of us, exists also within us

Ayurveda recognizes the five elements as the building blocks of building blocks of nature

The blocks that make up, conforming the entire existence, all that we can perceive through the senses as the physical world

These elements are: space, air, fire, water and land

Space is the element that represents the open sign of everything it contains, which contains itself, the whole physical world and well we have expressed it in our environment, in the great spaces with can be the infinity of the sky the infinity of the sea, the infinity of

of a forest, all these expressions of nature, give us that feeling, that knowledge of open space, infinite

There is also space within us and the expression of this element within us, is given as the space that exists between the cells and within themselves, that allows communication and information flow within our organism

We have the element Air

Air is the animating force of life, is that

That element that carries and brings, that moves things from one place to another, and in our environment because the air itself, we can see the movement in the dome of a tree, in the in the swell of the sea, expresses movement, all that it expresses motion is attributed to the element air

And in our interior the air element is also expressed as movement, as the movement of thought, nerve impulses, the movement of the intestines, of the circulation

We have the fire element

The fire element we have expressed in everything that generates light, heat and energy

And the expression par excellence in our environment is the sun, which allows the sources of life on our planet

Our star that nourishes us with warmth, with light

In our interior we see it expressed as our digestive fire, as our digestive capacity

to digest food, but not only food but also our intellectual capacity, a kind of intellectual fire that allows us digest and metabolize also the information that we perceive from our environment

Then we have the water element, and water is the element of cohesion, of union in nature, in correspondence with our planet, in our body, three quarters of our body are composed of water and so is the planet we inhabit

In our interior we also see expressed the water element as the fluids, like plasma, the synovial fluid that protects our joints

Then we have the earth element, and earth is the element of mass structure, solidity, in our environment we see it expressed in the mountains, in the rocks, on the planets, and within us we see this element expressed in the bones, cartilages, muscles

everything that provides structure in our organism solidity

As we have seen these elements are expressed both in our environment, outside of us as well as inside we and a combination of these elements, gives rise to the fundamental principles on which Ayurveda rests, which are the doshas

A combination of the space element with the air element gives rise to the dosha vata

A combination of the element fire with the water element, gives rise to the pitta dosha

And a combination of the water element with the earth element

gives rise to to the kapha dosha