‘Steering clear of pitfalls on the spiritual path is very important’, I wrote, ‘whatever else you do, make sure you steer well clear of these pitfalls…’ I was writing a book about the type of spiritual insights a person might have whilst on the path of personal enlightenment. Nothing too heavy, you understand – I take care to throw in a bit of humour from time to time to keep the readers engaged. There’s an art to that of course, an art that continues to elude me, I must admit. The pitfalls are very bad indeed, you see – they are what you could call ‘non-spiritual’. They’re full of non-spiritual stuff and you’ve got to stay away from that shit. You’ve definitely got to stay away from that shit when you’re on the path of personal enlightenment. Hence the advice, hence the advice. Hence the advice which is always given to beginners, which is that they should always, which is that they should always.

‘It’s important for important things to be important’, I began again, squinting furiously against that glare of the street lamps, which for some reason had become much too bright for me to bear. I could see them even with my eyes closed. Happier days were on their way, I knew, although not for me. Definitely not for me. ‘It’s great for things to be great’, I stated poignantly, realizing as I said this that nothing would ever be great for me. ‘It’s all those pitfalls, you see,’ I explained, attempting to express my predicament to an imaginary audience, ‘I keep falling into those pitfalls and that has been a big obstacle to my spiritual progress.’ It makes me sad when I think about my lack of spiritual progress – it’s my biggest and highly embarrassing disappointment in life. Whenever I start to feel a bit more cheerful, a bit more upbeat and humorous, and my characteristic manic grin returns to my face, I remember this conspicuous lack of progress and a cloud of gloom immediately descends upon me. And what a dark, dark cloud this is…

My head is like an overly large turnip, mottled and discoloured as a result of too much exposure to the elements. The wind and the sun and the searing rain. The savage bites of untold midges. The lines and whorls that have been cruelly etched by the unkind decades. It glows with its own unearthly light due to the action of subdermal light-emitting phyto-plankton. ‘I am he with the glowing head,’ I told myself solemnly, ‘I am he who grins in the dark…’ My teeth are rotten and crumbling and my eyebrows are encrusted with microbiota. Sea lice swarm ceaselessly in my underpants.

‘What musical instruments do you play?’ I was often asked. My answer was swift and to the point, ‘I partake in ‘the subterranean dirge of all trapped spirits,’ I replied glibly, ‘when the small nameless creatures rustle and squeak in the depths of the night that is my song.’ Kudos is mine at this stage – I drift aimlessly through the empty corridors of time and none may know my name. I had been shopping again but unsuccessfully this time. I had nothing to show for my efforts apart from a weary, unfocussed stare. I had been shopping for a more ebullient personality but nothing appealed. I saw nothing I liked. I had been shopping for values to live my life by but I didn’t have the motivation to see it through. I’ll try again another day, I tell myself. I’ll try again another day so there’s no need to get all despondent about it.

The spiritual path is a tricky old thing, you see. It’s full of pitfalls that the unwary can so very easily full into, pitfalls that can distract the spiritual aspirant, and then when this happens to you (as it has happened to me so very many times) you will find that your lofty goals desert you in a hurry and that’s when you lose your way. You get involved in things you never should have got involved in. You pick up bad habits from hanging around with the type of beings whose only interest in life is losing themselves in the Sordid Circus of Samsara. You have become like them, feckless and easily frustrated, full of ludicrous notions about yourself. Excessively grandiose notions, should I say? You have become a hero in your own imagination, a lonely but nevertheless heroic  figure battling away against all the forces that are against you. You became a magician, a mage. You became a shaman. You acquired a truly majestic level of kudos, you learnt with great difficulty to communicate with the unclean spirits and they told you all their secrets. You attained Multidimensional Awakening but even that couldn’t stem the dark tide that rises within you. That dark, dark tide of which none of us like to speak…