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According to Varindra Vittachi, Bapak once said that there are five types of illness. These are, broadly, ordinary or minor ailments, hereditary defects or weaknesses, sickness that comes as a warning that one's life is not being lived in the right way, illness given as punishment for wrong doing and that given to summon one to death.

Now, I knew this was no minor ailment, knew of no direct hereditary defects and I was, by now, fairly certain I wasn't being summoned to death. It didn't feel like a punishment, either. I was feeling fit and on top of the world, health-wise, and full of creative energy. So I must be living wrongly, I reasoned. But in what way and why, I asked myself? I decided it is me to make some serious efforts to discover what it was that I was being warned about. Once again, as has happened so many times during my 30 years in Subud, I was being guided but could not read the signals. I was aware, too, that Bapak had said that illness made us draw closer to God and that we should thank God for it. Instinctively understanding the veracity of this failed to stop my mind running in ever-decreasing circles.

A friend lent me her copy of The Healing Power of Illness by Thorwald Dethlefsen and Rudiger Dahlke. Their main thesis (and I paraphrase) is that illness is a manifestation of an unaddressed, inner problem. The minute we enter this physical world, as spirit in a body, we are bipolar, dual natured. Our aim is to become whole, or healed - to become integrated. Disease is the expression of our dis-integration and is unavoidable, therefore. That which we repress - our shadow in psychotherapeutic terms - must have its expression and, if it is not lived out, will em-body itself in symptoms. Therefore, to quote Dethlefsen and Dahlke, "Symptoms make us honest. In our symptoms we have what our consciousness lacks."

The keys to understanding the nature of the unexpressed problem are simple. Initially, it is necessary to work out what aspect of our living is represented by the physiological nature of the diseased organ. This can usually be determined by its function. For example, the skin represents our contact with the world; our kidneys represent partnership; our joints our ability to move forward; our back and shoulders our ability to bear our burdens and so on. The second key is to determine the intrinsic nature of the illness. Is it a swelling or hardening, suggesting blockage? Or is it an inflammation (usually an itis) representing anger? The third key is to observe the everyday language we use to describe our symptoms. For example, have you got 'a pain in the neck'? And if you've got acid indigestion, ask yourself, 'What's eating me?' If you've a sore throat, what is it, in your life at this time, that's making you so angry you cannot, or are not willing, to swallow?

As another example, Dethlefsen writes that high blood pressure occurs when a person desires to achieve a certain goal, releasing the energy necessary to achieve it, but clamps down on the desire with a psychological block, thus preventing the action. This is reflected by and enacted physically through the heart (the desire) pumping blood (the energy) through narrowed arteries (the psychological clamping down) giving rise to high pressure. The sufferer literally puts him or herself  'under pressure', driving forward while always finding - or creating - blocks. The same symptoms can manifest because of internal or external conflicts without solution or through controlled aggression. It's up to the individual to find what fits when using the book.

Reading the relevant parts of The Healing Power of Illness and several other books in the same genre, a picture began to emerge for me. The thyroid is responsible for the body's metabolic rate, particularly the breathing and the release of energy (it is the thyroid's ability to become inactive that enables certain animals to hibernate). More importantly, it is the gateway between the physical body and the spiritual body, incorporating the mind and feelings - 'The way the body inhales the soul,' to quote Karl Konig. In short, the activity of the thyroid mirrors our desire to be here, committed to life.

The throat is a two-way bridge. We take in our breath, swallow our food (and, by analogy, life, love, ideas and concepts) through the throat. We also exhale and voice our opinions, feelings and emotions through it. If, however, we believe that expressing certain emotions is wrong and they remain unvoiced because we fear the consequences, for example, or such expression was forbidden while we were growing up, we will harbour them. They become resentments which we continue to grow and nurse by further non-expression over the years. This causes energy to amass in the throat. A goitre, the name for this typical thyroid swelling, is simply a reflection of the hatred of being inflicted upon and the inability, or unwillingness, to do anything about it.

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