Part One

I am going to discuss and quote bits from Howdie Mickoski's book 'Falling for Truth'. Although some of the details vary, there are many approximations to my current state of affairs and of being. 

It concerns a section where he discusses 'Losing the Human Form'; take that as you will. It's an expression from Castaneda, and I take it to refer to de-identifying with being a human being. That is part of the meaning, anyway. You are a human, yes, but no longer take that as your point of reference, your focus, your 'who I am'. 'Losing the human form' involves shedding an entire structure of layers of beliefs, and becoming 'you' in a far wider sense: infinite consciousness, if you like. 

"People act the way they do because they are clinging to the human form, which is a force, a mould."

"Dropping the human form can only happen when we lose our desire to cling. People will cling to anything they like..... Losing the Human Form is a rather painful experience.... Depending how strong ones shields are will determine how much pain is involved in the process. It often leaves only following a massive internal battle that can manifest as an illness, and it is a natural reaction to struggle against it, as if something bad is happening....."

"When Losing the Human Form has finally been completed, the normal human feelings will no longer be there. Then comes an odd aloofness and detachment..... To anyone who knew that person prior to this happening it will be hard, for they will keep expecting or hoping or trying to make them be the normal person that they were before. Yet following Losing the Human Form, the regular connection to the natural world is simply gone, and nothing comes to replace it." 

Losing the Human Form: I don't really know about that. As I don't quite know about some of the details. But the overall gist of what Howdie writes is something that I can very much resonate with, from the perspective of the health of 'my own' human form.

Part Two

The notion of 'spiritual illness' is not spoken about very much. I suppose that most people don't really want to know. They like to think of spiritual life as something which provides health, harmony, absence of conflict and other uncomfortable, unpleasant feelings. Happiness. 

Happiness, for one, is a non-starter as a goal in spiritual life. OK, we all prefer to feel happy than miserable, but it is ephemeral, and has little to do with ones true stature as a spiritual being. It comes and goes, like autumn leaves in the wind. 

On a certain level, leading a more spiritual life can bring health and a greater sense of well-being. Changing dietary habits, getting more and appropriate exercise, doing a bit of yoga and meditation, ditching the social media habit, finding more positive friends: all can work wonders. But if you fall deeper, things become different. You are up against the most stubborn and often unconscious attitudes and habits. All that you consider to be 'you' gets examined under a merciless microscope, and you have no choice in the matter. 'You' will fall to pieces as much as getting put back together again. The physical body holds all our traumas, our ignorance, our cherished habits, our unquestioned sense of who we are. So when this is challenged and begins to change, the body is not accustomed to it all. It is being invited to take on a new shape, almost. It will protest, squirm, become ill, may even die in the struggle. Welcome to the real world.....

To continue with Howdie: "..... all the expected rules of behaviour and thought get burned out in the process. The human form is the belief that has caused people to think they are people in a life game with rules, winners, losers and advancement. Once the human form is gone - all this is seen to be far less important than previously. It will also take much of the judgement and anger about others away....."

Part Three

I had an 'energy illness' ten years ago. It was more severe than the current one, and I wondered whether my body was going to withstand the onslaught, or whether I was going to die. Literally.

The coughing was so vicious, so violent, so relentless, that I felt at the limits of my body's endurance. For several weeks I would 'sleep' vertically in bed, because lying horizontally would bring on this uncontrollable coughing.

The illness heralded big changes. For one, I had no choice but to quit my job in outdoors retail. This meant that most of the money I had saved 'for a rainy day' got spent over the course of three years when I had no income of any description. I guess the rainy day arrived earlier than anticipated.

As I was in the process of recovery I remained somewhat delirious. I would pace around the house - and later on the flat of my wife's sister in Bogota, when I deemed myself well enough for a visit to Colombia - muttering repeatedly. "Everything's different now. It's all changed. I don't know how, but it's all changed." 

As it turned out, I was correct. I began to experience what some people might call 'downloads' these days, information coming from, not to take the term too precisely, my higher self. It seemed as if something outside of me was informing me, telling me things, and 'I' was very much in the position of following whatever it transmitted to me.

At the time I sometimes talked of a voice speaking to me, but that was inaccurate, and simply the only way I knew at the time of describing the experience. But there was no voice as such: I never heard voices. Instead it was a direct communication from what is, in reality, a part of 'me', but because it seemed new and foreign, I experienced it as outside.

Some people do hear voices, and from what I have read and heard, they should be very wary of such. There is no knowing who these voices truly belong to, and in the astral reside large numbers of entities who do not have your best interests at heart (they probably have no heart anyway....) at all. 

Let's return to Howdie....

"The aftermath of this process takes time. After a true encounter with the Absolute (Nagual) many will find it hard to return to the Tonal (world of order, noise, pain). But to stay or return has nothing to do with ones reason. If one chooses not to return, they will disappear as if the earth has swallowed them up..... But anyone who 'chooses' to return to the earth then must wait until ones particular task is finished, a task each being is given (even if one cannot notice it) and once we have stepped beyond the normal dream what matters is that we complete our task......"

(Note: Nagual and Tonal are both concepts from Castaneda).

Part Four

The illness that has enveloped me over recent times appears less severe, more diffuse, than the one a decade ago. I do not feel as if it is going to kill me - I may be wrong. No coughing, thank goodness, but an entire bundle of slightly bizarre symptoms which have come and gone, and some have come back again. 

In the end it has focussed on one hip. This has given me occasional trouble for many years, occasioning a number of visits to physiotherapy. This time, though, it's been severe, painful, mixed up with sciatica. Painful, yes, big on pain. A sciatica attack leaves me helpless, not knowing what to do, apart from writhe around on the bed uttering expletives when a particularly sharp and stabbing bolt hits me, like an electric current. The only salvation is the knowledge that it won't last forever.

The hip thing feels as if it has been going on for most of my life. In truth, it's about six weeks. This whole illness thing began to brew about a year ago. I knew that trouble was on the horizon; and it was.

I feel that I am over the worst. The thing is that it tends to begin clearing up, only to go 'bang!' one day and take me back to square one. Exercises, warm wheat bags, gentle massage, plenty of rest but regular light exercise as well. Patience - not my strong point.

'The future's uncertain, and the end is always near' as Jim Morrison sang. Let's choose not to take that 'end' in too literal and a materialistic way. A careful read of this piece will reveal the future direction, or no-direction, of this blog. Yep, the future's uncertain. But I do not intend to close the blog, for now at any rate, whatever shape the future may or may not take.

Sources: 'Falling for Truth', Howdie Mickoski, Appendix D.