Space: the element of containment
Space is the primary element within which the four secondary elements emerge and operate: the context within which the other elements interact. Space qualities are immediacy, presence, emptiness, directness, freedom and being.The overt expression of space is awareness. Its subtle expression is emptiness. It is embodied in the technique of drushti: spontaneous, effortless attention.
The arena of space is everywhere, its source is consciousness, its medium awareness, and its key: presence. It is cultivated by letting go into the intrinsic functioning of awareness itself: which is to see through the eyes, to hear through the ears, to smell through the nose, to taste through the tongue, to feel through the body, to know through mind.
The superficial application of space is focussed attentiveness (drushti). Its subtle application is meditation. This is not a technique or practice. It is relaxing fully into that which is actually happening: free from imagination, assumption, expectation and projection.
Establishing space requires the utilisation of restraint, the sign of its presence is the opposite, freedom. It brings an effortless shift from doing to being. Without clear seeing (drushti) the other elements will not come into balance, and we will be left stranded in the endless struggle of technique, ignorant of the fact that it is only the efforts that result from our intentions that masks our inherent perfection.
