The beginning of “losing the human form” is the attention of the perfect tonal: being able to capture with one’s attention the entire worldview that presents itself in the present moment—the totality of sensory information. This type of attention in itself requires stopping the movement of the first attention, which is focused on objects, for a more diffuse and holistic attention, capable of observing everything, even if not with great sharpness. In this attention, the sense of a distinct “personal self” dissolves and seems to expand into the total experience of the here and now. But the limits of the form only begin to be definitively lost in the transition from the perfect tonal to the “nagual below the island“: when, instead of seeking to expand common attention to encompass the total vision of the island, we begin to SEE that the totality of the island is already unconditionally and effortlessly contained within our attention-perception, and that this attention-perception and our being are one and the same thing.
– Jeremy Christopher (2018)
