LOVE AND STRIFE.

Everyone wants to know the ground rules of mixing and matching. Human relationships falls down dead because of a lack of understanding that could have been gained from a basic knowledge of the rules. There is nothing mysterious about it, and Love and Tolerance are the major ingredients to it.
The first thing we need to know is our ruling elements. It helps us to understand our behavior. The 4 ruling elements are: Fire, Air, Earth, Water.
Empedocles, a 5th century BC philosopher, identified Fire, Earth, Air, and Water as the four ultimate elements which make all the structures in the world. He explained the nature of the universe as an interaction of two opposing principles called Love and Strife manipulating the 4 elements, and stated that these 4 elements were all equal, of the same age, that each rules its own province, and each possesses its own individual character. Different mixtures of these elements produced the different nature of things. These physical manifestations of them were part of the history of the universe which also dealt with the origin and development of life.
The four elements are simple, eternal, and unalterable, and as change is the consequence of their mixture and separation, it was also necessary to suppose the existence of moving powers to bring about mixture and separation.
The four elements are both eternally brought into union and parted from one another by two divine powers, Love and Strife. As long as matter exists, Love is responsible for the attraction of different forms of matter, and Strife is the cause of separation. These elements make up the universe, then Love and Strife explain their variation and harmony. Love and Strife are attractive and repulsive forces, respectively, which is plainly observable in human behavior, but the lack of harmony between them pervade the universe. The two forces wax and wane their dominance but neither force ever wholly disappears from the imposition of the other.
But it was a time when the pure elements and two powers coexisted in a condition of rest and inertness in the form of a sphere. The elements existed together in their purity, without mixture and separation, and the uniting power of Love predominated in the sphere. The separating power of Strife guarded the extreme edges of the sphere. Since that time, Strife gained more sway and the bond which kept the pure elementary substances together in the sphere was dissolved. The elements became the world of phenomena we see today, full of contrasts and oppositions, operating on by both Love and Strife.
Empedocles assumed a cyclical universe whereby the elements return to an sphere being the embodiment of pure existence, the embodiment or representative of God.
Empedocles maintained his opposition to the physical explanation of all existence, instead he maintained that the true explanation of things lies in the conception of universal unity of being. The physical senses cannot grasp this unity. It is by spiritual thought alone that we can pass beyond the false appearances of the senses and arrive at the knowledge of being, and at the fundamental Truth that the "All is One."
Empedocles's work contained a story about souls, that there were once spirits who lived in a state of bliss, but having committed a crime they were punished by being forced to become mortal beings, moving in a cycle, from body to body. Humans, animals, and even plants were such spirits. The moral conduct recommended in his work may allow us to become the souls we were before and never fall again.
Empedocles said that those who were born with near equal proportions of the 4 elements are more intelligent and have the most exact perceptions of things.
He is said to have been magnanimous in his support of the poor in character; severe in persecuting the overbearing conduct of the oligarchs; and he even declined the sovereignty of the city when it was offered to him. His brilliant oratory, his penetrating knowledge of nature, and the reputation of his marvelous powers, including the curing of diseases, and adverting epidemics, produced many myths and stories surrounding his name. He was said to have been a man with supernatural powers and controller of storms, and he himself, in his famous poem 'Purifications' seems to have promised supernatural powers, including the destruction of evil, the curing of old age, and the controlling of wind and rain.