The tattvas of Kashmir Shaivism, as well as Sankhya and Vedanta, enumerate 5

elements - Anthroposophy enumerates 4. The great elements, the Mahabutas of

Kashmir Shaivism, are earth, water, fire, air, space. For Anthroposophy they are earth,
water, air, fire.
The West starting with Aristotle starts from the ground up man as earthly being. To
include space, the starting point has to be outside it. That means that the issue goes
back to the foundational principles in each. The positing of space as the 5 th element not
only originates in the East, but goes back thousands of years to Sankhya. Man now lives
within space, lost in space. The East saw the Cosmic man, the west the earthly man.
The issue goes back to the foundational principles in each. The exclusion of space in
Anthroposophy can be seen as related to its experience and emphasis on beings. This
basic philosophic orientation goes right into the 'substance' of what and how one sees.
The 'rounding', of the moon, for example, closed off within itself is a visual 'metaphor'
for 'being', though not being as such. It shows man as a being within space, an object
in space along with others. Consciousness encapsulated becomes a being.
It might easily be said and is often implied in Anthroposophy that the 'being principle'
results because we have grown in knowledge and the 'consciousness principle'
belonged to an older, less 'mature' human being. However modern man has not
arrived at the 'being principle' because he has attained maturity, rather he has attained
'maturity' because of the 'being principle' which 'rounded out' the planets and brought
man down to earth.
When we speak of 'being principle' vs 'consciousness principle', it can be likened as
metaphor to the experience of major and minor in music. Experience of the major
involves an opening out, an expansion. In the experience of the minor there is a kind
of diminishment, the above is closed off. Dissonance rounds out the triad when
'major' and 'minor' clash. Thus, the dissonance when some expressions of
Anthroposophy are heard to some-one imbued with Kashmir Shaivism and vice-versa.
Speaking in terms of music, 'major' belongs to the East and 'minor' to the West. It
wasnt irrelevant that the 'stream of evolution', as Rudolf Steiner relates it, moved to
the West. In doing so it brings man to the 'minor' experience which then gives rise to
the 'being principle' in philosophy imbuing all thought and activity.
The following question arises. Can we speak of 'consciousness' without 'beings', or, are
the 'transcendent' and the 'immanent' (beings) BOTH eternal? When does the time

arrive to overcome the 'one-sidedness' of each, the onesidedness of East and the
onesidedness of West? The older focus of the east was one-sided - thus the very
common belief that liberation meant a withdrawal from the world. In this sense, the
'being' focus of Anthroposophy is also one-sided, it is a science of beings. Kashmir
Shaivism sees liberation differently than Advaita Vedanta. Where is there to go? asks
Abhinavagupta, there is only one reality.
If the immanent aspect of the universe (beings) is developed further, in greater detail,
than in Kashmir Shaivism, and if Anthroposophy sees how beings are encapsulated
consciousness, a consciousness which in itself is one, a 'new conceptualization', can be
found with expressions dissonant to neither.