THE WEB OF LIFE

by John Davidson

PART 5b
Human Weakness

This series of articles is derived from the authors book,

The Web of Life (publ. C.W. Daniel, 1988)

John Davidson is the author of a series of six books on

Science and Mysticism which look at the natural world from a mystical perspective.

The author is a Cambridge science graduate with a

life-long interest in mysticism.
8 Copyright 1988, 2015
John Davidson
www.johndavidson.org

The true source of our being lies deep within us, beyond the physical, astral and causal
realms, beyond even the spiritual regions of manifestation, in the complete unity and
oneness of God, Universal Being or whatever name you care to call it. As human beings we
are locked into the physical realm of our karmas, and while the universal problem is one of
duality, of separation from our Source, in the physical form this separation takes on
particular definable aspects.
Under the influence of our karmas, we take birth, and our mind, conditioned by the habits
of innumerable past lives, moves out from its inner centre of the antashkarans, putting its
attention on the physical world through the intermediary of the five indriyas of perception
(yin) and the five of motor action response (yang). The mind thus comes into contact with
the five tattwas in its outward movement, giving rise to five major modalities of human
weakness. Weakness or 'sin' is thus understood as a movement of our inner attention away
from the inner source of our being and into physical reality. In the perfect man, the mind
should keep its focus of attention within, using the senses and working through the tattwas,
while itself remaining in fully consious control. For most of us, however, our mind plays in
the world of the tattwas in the vain search for the peace, unity and wholeness it would
experience if it sought those realities within and which it once knew in the realm of the
Universal Mind.
The mind, moving outward, thus manifests as emotion and human weakness of five major
flavours according to the indriyas which are drawing it and the tattwas with which it is
interacting. Starting from below, association with the earthy tattwa gives rise in us to
feelings of attachment to the world about us. Most of our attachments and desires for things
of the world are for its solid aspects. Our sense of possesion rarely extends to the air or
watery aspects of our environment, as discussed in chapter five.
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In association with the watery tattwa, we are deeply bound up with sex lust. Indulgence in
sex draws our attention down to the lower part of our body with a tremendous wastage of
pranic energy or life force. Celibacy, however, can only be successfully managed by a few
because of the unbalanced reaction caused by suppression of this immensely powerful urge
and natural human inclination. Mystics, therefore, advise a controlled married life, keeping
in mind the higher ideal of celibacy. Then, with the practice of meditation and the rise of
the attention, the mind, finding far higher enjoyment in the bliss within, naturally discovers
an aversion to what it once considered an essential pleasure.
The sensation of taste is also an aspect of lust, an indulgence in an apparently enjoyable
bodily sensation which again draws the mind away from its inner centre.
The next higher tattwa is that of fire and the mind in contact with the subtle aspect of this
energy field takes on its characteristics of expansion and heat in the emotion of anger. Note
how anger can suddenly kindle, like fire in dry timber, and how explosively violent and
irrational this emotion can be when running completely out of control. Thus, while
attachment binds us solidly to the things of the world and lust drags our attention to lower
centres, anger scatters our mind and blows apart our focus of concentration, as we have all
experienced.
Next is the airy tattwa with its motor indriya of grasping or getting hold of physical
possessions. Its emotion is that of greed or avarice, an imbalance under the influence of
ego, in the use of the airy aspect of the human constitution. Essentially, greed leads us into
the attempt to get hold of more than we need and a hoarding possessiveness regarding those
things that we feel belong to us.
Man unconsciously realizes the airy and intangible quality of ownership. But rather than
relax into this reality, he attempts to stem these feelings of insecurity by greedily getting
hold of more and more, in compensation for his usually unconscious realization that he can
never permanently fix his possessions into orbit around himself.
The weakness of akash is inextricably bound up with the operations of the antashkarans.
Essentially, imbalance in our use of akash leads us to a self-centred use of our intelligence
through the inner activity of our ego or ahankar. It leads, therefore, to our sense of personal
identity, the thought of 'I' and 'mine', with which we have become obsessed.
Just as akash is the 'sky' out of which the other tattwas take their being, just so is its
weakness of ego, the source of the other four perversions.
Man's attention is thus brought into contact with the objects of this world by being drawn
out through the five senses, both the mental indriyas and the physical organs themselves.
Through these, his attention plays in the tattvic fields and becomes liable to the emotions
and weaknesses of attachment, lust, anger, greed and egotism.
His involvement is further complicated by the response he makes through the five mental
indriyas of action, manifesting as his activities in physical life. His senses and his actions
lead him into 'sin' in its widest sense, and for each action - whether mentally inward in
desire form, or outwardly expressed in physical activity - a groove is impressed upon his
antashkarans. A karmic seed has thus been sown which must bear fruit in some future birth,
unless erased by the practice of deep meditation.

Human Expression and the Perfect Man

One more aspect of human expression needs to be covered. When a master or perfect
mystic adept takes birth, he manages the formation of his own karmas. In life, he is always
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above their limitations in his inward being and always in fully conscious control. He can be
in his body whenever he wants to and he can leave his body whenever he so desires.
But in order to express himself as a human being, he is able to do what none of us can
manage and that is to use the physical vehicle purely as a means of expression at the human
level, but always under fully conscious control.
A master therefore will, in a most beautifully perfect manner, display human emotion and
activity, whilst being perfectly human. He uses his senses and acts, but is not a slave to
them. He will laugh and behave as a perfect father, mother, son, daughter, employee or
employer or in any other role. In all situations, there will be a quality about him that is
intangibly unique. He will possess things necessary for his physical existence, according to
his 'position' in the normal social structure, but he is not a slave to them. He may be married
and have children but without our human indulgence. He can be stern, too, as occasion
demands, like a mother with her child, but he is never inwardly carried away in anger. He
has no greed, but uses things as occasion demands. Above all, although he has the human
characteristics of being separate, his ahankar is under full control and is merely a part of his
expression as a human being. He is not a victim of ego and self-identification.
In this way, therefore, the perfect mystic is always full of grace, charm and warm,
well-balanced humanity.

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