Thus, the elements dissolved in consciousness do not touch it.

Bhūtāni —elements, existing beings— are the five mahābhūta (earth, water, fire, air, ether) and, by extension, everything composed of them. Vilīnāni: dissolved, reabsorbed, not destroyed but integrated. It is not that the elements disappear into consciousness; rather, they are revealed as always having been cit-maya, made of consciousness. Water does not touch the ocean when it falls into it; not because the ocean repels it, but because it was already ocean. So it is with the elements: they were never outside of cit. The true essence (tattva) of the bhūta is cid-ātmatā (consciousness-nature); their secondary appearance is pāñcabhautika, of five elements. The yogi who meditates on bhūta-śuddhi, elemental purification, does not “cleanse” the elements as if they were dirty. He recognizes their nature as cit, and in that recognition, the duality between element and consciousness dissolves. The earth beneath one’s feet is not dead matter; it is cit condensed, cit masquerading as inert. To walk, then, is to walk upon one’s own consciousness.