At last, Fire appears as the Element. The final one, the most dangerous, even if, as it was said before, the elemental fire is not the common fire, which is like an image, an approximation of the central and ‘true’ fire. There are, too, many kinds of fire. Some of them burn to ashes and destroy. Some others, subtler, give life and strength. The fire Moses saw in the burning bush is not the one of Hell. Fire, like blood, is hot, it brings light, and it is the sign of spirit and love, but a high kind of love. If the fire is not understood, or if its seeker is not of the same nature, everything can be burnt and destroyed. So it is not always possible to experience fully the presence of this great fire. Sometimes it is better just to feel it, or to see its reflection. Otherwise, the proud will be disappointed. As we can see, once again, the element is ambivalent. It gives as it takes, as you take or give. But what is always present is light. The essential, beautiful and everlasting light.
The dark fire of desire burns in Sacher-Masoch’s Venus in Furs, like a fire in the chimney. This fire, shared by different visions of love, illuminates ‘Madam Venus’ and opens a new space for desire and fantasy, but through a very complex process. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein deals with another fire, the fire of hate. This novel is perhaps one of the more violent ones, because the creator and his creature hate each other beyond the limits of life and death. It goes deep into mankind’s desire for eternity, but a mock eternity that reveals all the evil sides of us. Unlike Dr Jekyll, Dr Frankenstein wants something he does not understand. And hence he is punished with his own destruction. The visions of the Desert Fathers move the frontier between madness and sanity. Often the spiritual visions are compared to a fire, a great fire of divine origin. Like the tongues of fire of the Pentecost, it is a strong current pouring down from Heaven to earth. And the aura of a saint reminds us of the process of (dangerous) imitation between man and God, a strange and blasphemous imitation that can be regarded also as a sacred one. Mercy could be the key… The hymn from the Dead Sea Scrolls talks about mercy, and mercy can be very difficult – sometimes even impossible – to give. But when it occurs, like unexpected rain in a desert land, it washes away all the injuries, insults and betrayals to allow a certain perfection to arise.
The Rig Veda goes far back, to the very root of our world and its mystery. The birth of the gods, like a mystery within a mystery, evokes the birth of light. Agni appears to be Fire itself, the personification of one of the greatest symbols of Vedic and Hindu cosmology, and the symbol of sacrifice, but a sacrifice that makes a bridge between men and gods. And here we are: with the Bhagavad Gita we reach a new dominion, that is to say the way a man can become a god; and if we understand that Arjuna and Krishna are both sides of the same unique Being, it is easier to know what all this means: divine fire can be like a hidden reality, and it is up to us to conquer and reveal it… Love, then, is like the great and dangerous fire, able to kill or to give life. Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet tells us about that. Why fire and love? It is melted with blood, too. And the heart is the crucible of love, but there are so many different kinds of love. The one Gibran speaks of does not belong to us… Rumi’s poems are always enigmatic, following not one but several paths. The ‘light of God’ can be the lantern that guides you through the miseries of ego and earthly struggles, and Rumi’s wisdom enlightens you without the help of reason. Finally, this optimistic conception of love is reflected, in a magnified way, in Tagore’s poems. The evocation of Creation and the immensity of a burning sky end in an everlasting beginning, with the energy of a new day. It is the miracle of life rehearsed by the gods themselves for humans’ sake.