BEING ALONE ...A BENEDICTION

BEYOND THE LONELINESS AND ISOLATION

It is difficult to put that feeling into words, but I will try.

It is a fear that comes when one feels to be completely alone, entirely by oneself, utterly cut off from everything.

It was fearful and breathtaking...................

I didn't belong to anyone; there was a sense of complete isolation.

Most people have this feeling of loneliness, this sense of isolation, with its fear, only they smother it, run a way from it, get themselves lost in some form of activity, religious or otherwise. The activity in which they indulge is their escape, they can get lost in it, and that's why they defend it so aggressively.

Often, being very clever and capable, such people mislead others by their devotion to the activity which is their escape; if it isn't religion, it's politics, or social reform - anything to get away from themselves.

They may seem to be selfless, but they are actually concerned with themselves, only in a different way. They become leaders, or the followers of some teacher; they always belong to something, or practice some method, or pursue an ideal.

They are never just themselves; they are not human beings, but labels.

So you see how fortunate you are to not have found an escape ?

Loneliness is something you don't understand, and in that sense it's like a disease that will keep on recurring; so it's meaningless to run away from it.

You have tried running away, but it keeps overtaking you ...........doesn't it ?

Is this not what you are already doing ?

In this relationship ( with another ) called society, every human being is cutting him/herself off from another by their position, by ambition, by desires for fame, power, to be popular and so on; but he/she has to live in this brutal relationship with others like themselves, so the whole thing is glossed over and made respectable by pleasant sounding words....there is no relationship.

In everyday life, each one is devoted to his/her own interests, though it may be in the name of country, in the name of peace, or God, and so this isolating process goes on.

One becomes aware of this whole process in the form of intense loneliness, a feeling of complete isolation. Thought, which has been giving all importance to itself, isolating itself as the `me', has finally come to the point of realizing that it has been held in the prison of it's own making.

It is like seeing a cobra. Having once seen it you can never mistake it; you don't have to depend on anybody to tell you what a cobra is. Similarly, when once you have understood this feeling, that understanding is always with you; when once you have learned to look, you have the capacity to see.

But one must go through and beyond this feeling, for there is much more to be discovered.

TO BE ALONE

There is an ''aloneness'' which is not this loneliness, this sense of isolation. That state of ''aloneness'' is not a remembrance or a recognition...

it is untouched by the mind, by the word, by the society, by tradition.

It is a ...BENEDICTION.