Empedocles’ explanation of the cosmos is so terrifying in its symmetry and simplicity that it could hardly be allowed to survive intact in our complicated modern world. But I will do my best to keep it simple.
The universe works like this.
There is an endless cosmic cycle of uniting and separating, coming together and moving apart. The uniting is the work of Love. The separation is done through Strife: the power of hate and fighting and hostility. And there are four fundamental “roots” of all existence—earth, water, fire and air. They blend and merge with each other through the power of Love. Then they divide again under the influence of Strife until earth is left alone and heavy at the center, embraced by water and then by an envelope of fire, with purest air surrounding everything on the outside.
Nothing else exists.
And this process of uniting and moving apart is all that ever has happened or will happen. Absolutely anything and everything is a part of this endless cycle. Each little fizz or bang or cataclysm is just another blip along the way.
But there is room here for a little warning.
Because the same identical process keeps repeating itself at every conceivable level, down through the life-cycle of the stars to the tiniest insect as it breathes in and out, you can never be too sure that the grand events all around you are actually what you think they are. For it might well be that what looks to all intents and purposes like a drama of cosmic proportions—is studied most accurately, measured scientifically—is in fact no more than the collective sighing of humanity.
As for earth being in the middle, you might think this is a plain sign of Empedocles being ever so primitive and naive. But there is far more to the matter than that.
In reality there is nowhere else it could be, because this is where we are: at the center of everything we see. Even if we leave it to travel somewhere else, our eyes will still be made out of earth. Whatever we discover, or believe we discover, however wonderful the life forms we might happen to bump into, they will all only be the creation of our terrestrial perception. We are the most naive of devils if we imagine we will ever find reality by drifting around in outer space.
And then we come to the most important point.
In the whole of existence there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is not divine.
Love is divine. Strife is divine. Each one of the four elements, or roots, is divine. So whatever you see or hear is divine. And whatever you see or hear with is divine.
This means that when you manage to separate your awareness into one pure element—not by thinking about it, simply by doing it—you are pure divinity. When you identify with several elements in combination, or perceive more than one at the same time, you are a complicated divinity. You are likely to be a confused divinity, apparently quite mortal.
But still you are divine.
You might seem to change. But one day, if you are still enough, you will discover that in essence nothing whatsoever changes.