Loneliness and Aloneness

[Guest guest]

Loneliness and Aloneness:

 

Is our fear of aloneness based on a memory of loneliness? Do we

associate the fact of being completely alone, outwardly and inwardly,

with frightening memories of loneliness and despair? Do we confuse

two entirely different states of awareness? Are we turning away from

our own highest potential by a fear of something unrelated? What is

aloneness? What is loneliness? Why do we confuse the two? Can we

break free from the shackles of the known to embrace complete

aloneness and total freedom? Can we thereby banish loneliness,

forever, from our hearts? Can we rid ourselves of the fear of

loneliness by being completely, unconditionally alone? Is aloneness

the only antidote to loneliness?

 

 

Being completely, unconditionally alone is our natural state.

Therefore, it is a state of peace and rest, clarity and contentment.

This is true physically and spiritually. In physical terms, each of

us is born alone, lives alone and dies alone. What I mean by this is

that another human being or pet may be a fellow passenger for a part

of our life's journey. Yet, we are always, from birth to death, with

ourselves. Relationships begin and end. There is togetherness with

and separation from another. This may be on account of various

reasons, voluntary or forced, physical, psychological, emotional or

circumstantial. The companionship of another, the love of another,

the constant presence of another, however intimate and loving, has

limitations of various kinds. Yet, we are, from birth to death,

constantly with ourselves. Thus, aloneness is a physical fact.

 

 

 

Our learnt response to facts can sometimes create a learnt discomfort

for facts. A learnt response, born of dependence and inadequacy, is

loneliness. Aloneness is a fact. It is a natural state and is

universal. Loneliness is a cultivated and learnt response, born of a

selective identification with people and places as "mine". The

notional split of "mine" and "not mine" creates the fear and despair

of loneliness. We have learnt to identify with some people and places

on the basis of familiarity and likes. We are comfortable with the

known, however miserable it may be. We call it "mine". It gives us a

sense of comfort and apparent freedom, although momentary, from fear.

The fear arises from the belief in "another", the uncertain and the

unknown, which is categorized as "not mine" because it is unfamiliar

or because we dislike it. The compartmentalisation of people and

places into two opposing groups, one of whom we identify with, sets

the stage for fear and loneliness. It is a learnt response, a product

of conditioning. We seek the comfort of the familiar known which we

have learnt to identify as our own. The unfamiliar unknown is

feared as being "other" and "another". It is the notional split in

our minds that is the source of our fear, loneliness and despair. Our

dualistic perception, our thought process based on a dichotomy

of "we" and "they" creates fear and loneliness. Since the problem

arises within our own minds, the solution also lies within us.

 

 

 

The only remedy for our innate fear and anxiety, our lonelieness,

alienation and sorrow is to heal the split within our own minds. The

only way to return to our natural state of spontaneity, love, peace,

joy and contentment is to return to our deepest self, the very

substratum of our awareness beyond words, memory and thought. Our

natural state is one of unitive, infinite awareness. This awareness

sees in a unitive way, a direct perception free from the limitations

and dichotomies of thought. It sees life as one, understands the

essential oneness of all creation. In this unitive perception, there

is no "other". Another human being is essentially like me, we are two

waves in a single ocean. Since there is no notional split,

no "another", no compartments of "we" and "they", there is only a

complete oneness. This oneness is aloneness. The experience of

oneness is the state of bing truly alone. For, here, the other is no

different from my own self. His joys and sorrows are my own. This

compassion is universal and not selective. It is spontaneous and not

cultivated. All our fear, our anxiety, our alienation, our conflict,

hatred and sorrow ends in this unitive state of oneness with all that

exists. This oneness is a unitive perception, not a destruction and

demolition of diversity of forms, of individuality and of

uniqueness. In fact, with an underlying awareness of unity beyond

definition and description, we are able to keenly appreciate and

understand the uniqueness of every person and every moment.

Comparative and judgemental perception disappear. We see

life with an unmatched freshness, free from memory and conditioning.

 

 

Aloneness, then, is a state of unmatched splendour. It is a

realization of our innate and ultimate potential. For, in this state,

we are at peace and in harmony with life as it is, with the whole of

creation. We are not in a state of expectation of what people or

things should be. We are not caught in a notional split of "we"

and "they". We are free from the fragmentary awareness of thought. We

are free from the narrow compartments of learnt responses. The state

of aloneness is one of indescribable ecstasy and freedom. It is

completely liberating and deeply fulfilling, a complete break from

the self imposed shackles of loneliness and fear. Loneliness and fear

are self imposed slavery but aloneness is the ecstasy of total

freedom.

 

 

2003 Ashok Gollerkeri

http://www.ashokgollerkeri.com

[Guest guest]

--- "ASHOK GOLLERKERI <ashok_gollerkeri"

<ashok_gollerkeri wrote:

> Loneliness and Aloneness:

>

> Is our fear of aloneness based on a memory of

> loneliness?

 

Namaste Ashok,

You write of a condition of mind/superimposition in

mind that dominates all but a few of us.

People fill their homes with the babble of TVs and CD

players and run from such a state of rest.

Yehudi Menuhin, the great violinist, writes of the

condition in the West of the 'Capsuled Existence'.

Food is processed and capsuled, we live behind closed

doors, our religion and education comes to us in

capsules, prepacked by others.

We rarely know of direct experience with the manifest

world let alone the direct experience of Brahman

(pratibha, anubhava).

This state is the result of adhyasa, superimposition

from some past idea, and avidya, ignorance.

The fruit of such a state is the fear of aloneness of

which you write.

In my research of religious experiences there is a

common statement about the loss of this fear. It is

often related to the concept of 'the void' which is of

course a statement of ignorance and superimposition.

Here is one example from archives held at a university

in Wales:

'During adolescence I suffered an acute shock

pyschologically for family reasons. A strange thing

happens. (The writer changes her account to the

present tense). All the fabric of my life falls

away..all that I am, my personality, everything. For

a moment I fear what the oncoming total obliteration

of myself will be like. Then I find that the utter

void which has taken place of my former awareness is a

fulness, in which I am most mysteriously and

wonderfully supported.'

Please note that the writer knew nothing of kaivalya

or the ISha Upanishad and had to use words from her

own context in order to describe what she had known.

Would you regard such a statement as confirming your

own thesis?

The same lady also had a later experience during a

serious car crash....a common event for waking us up

from our capsules.

'..I was lying, supposedly unconscious with injuries

to face and leg in front of our car. I became aware of

what I can only call Life. This wonderful quality

came into the body two or three times and departed,

requiring me to breathe, it seemed, to support it. It

came in waves of sheer bliss. Strangely, as the two

cars collided I had experienced a change of time scale

to this slow time that others have recorded. The

oncoming car floated slowly and with great beauty, the

lamplight playing on the chromium radiator. There was

no sense whatever of impending doom since I was not

even looking...it has been my feeling since this

occurrence that my last moments would nevertheless

have been blissful, notwithstanding that others seeing

the somewhat crumpled mess might have pitied me.'

 

In such statements as these we can discern the

teachings of advaita and kaivalya.

If any of you have knowledge of other accounts could

you please have a look at my research website

www.nonameorform.co.uk and the questionnaire to be

found there.

 

I hope that the above illustrates Ashok's very

valuable essay on aloneness, which is often written as

all-one-ness.

 

To end with a question:

'Would it be foolish to ask if the Self prostrates to

Itself in this final state of alloneness or is this

question being put in too dualistic a manner?'

 

 

Peace

 

Ken Knight

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Namaste Shri Gollerkeri.

 

In what way is your "aloneness" different from fullness, which

advaita untiringly affirms? If both are the same, do you have any

reasons for the rechristening? The word "aloneness" is still

disturbing from the advaitin's point of view as it encompasses

a "lone" within it and points at some remnant of separation. If

anything, it looks and sounds not much different from loneliness

although I am trying to understand it differently as you mean. In

contrast, fullness, as we all know, is the other name for ananda in

sat-chit-ananda - our real nature. All three are synonyms according

to advaita. The whole of your thought-provoking post points at that

ananda. That is the reason for my questions about the rechristening.

 

Kenji, I read your response to Shri Gollerkeri. Do we need car

crashes to tell us that we are full? Don't we lose ourselves and our

separate identies evanesce times without number in our routine

existence - such as when we see a beautiful flower, read exalted

poetry, or when we solve a very engrossing mathematical problem (I am

sure mathematicians among us will vouch for this!), or when our heart

goes out to others in their suffering and eyes well up when we

empathize? Such things happen because we are limitless and we often

come out of our shells to our limitlessness - even without meditation

or samAdhi.

 

Pranams.

 

Madathil Nair

[Guest guest]

--- "Madathil Rajendran Nair <madathilnair"

<madathilnair wrote:

> Kenji, I read your response to Shri Gollerkeri. Do

> we need car

> crashes to tell us that we are full? Don't we lose

> ourselves and our

> separate identies evanesce times without number in

> our routine

> existence

 

Namaste Madathil,

Yes indeed but when the veils have become thick

curtains a little rajas is needed to enable true

seeing. Car crashes can be very good at that as well

as many other events which we call emergencies because

of our attachments to name and form.

The example I quoted was one of many and there is much

to be learned from them just as there is from any

other waking moment, such as you described.

I will briefly give my own experience. As a young man

I was settling into a career as a professional

sportsman with all the fun and temporary fame

accumulating. A lorry hit a car which hit me and after

a long rehabilitation there was no career to be had in

sport because of the injuries to the body.

BUT, that crash directly brought me to the feet of

people in Banaras and the future study of advaita.

So from experience I will affirm that the moments of

the crash can be enlightening as well as the fruits of

the event.

Prarabhda has many events awaiting us and whether

sweet or sour we can learn from the taste.

 

Good to hear from you again and a Happy New Year to

you,

 

Ken

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Madathil Rajendran Nair <madathilnair wrote:

> Namaste Shri Gollerkeri.

>

> In what way is your "aloneness" different from fullness, which

> advaita untiringly affirms? If both are the same, do you have any

> reasons for the rechristening? The word "aloneness" is still

> disturbing from the advaitin's point of view as it encompasses

> a "lone" within it and points at some remnant of separation. If

> anything, it looks and sounds not much different from loneliness

> although I am trying to understand it differently as you mean. In

> contrast, fullness, as we all know, is the other name for ananda in

> sat-chit-ananda - our real nature. All three are synonyms according

> to advaita. The whole of your thought-provoking post points at that

> ananda. That is the reason for my questions about the rechristening.

>

> [...]

>

> Pranams.

>

> Madathil Nair

>

 

namaste. It is nice to be back on the List again.

 

To bring together shri Madathil's and shri Gollerkeri's perspectives,

we need only to refer to Br^ihadAraNyaka upanishad 1.4.2 where it

says, before creation, paramAtman, as ekAkI is afraid (dissatisfied)

of its aloneness. The dissatisfaction of being ekAkI led to the

beginning of the will to create.

 

Please see my further post on fear as continuation.

 

 

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

------

[Guest guest]

Just a note on this subject. Osho (wash my mouth out!) had a lot to say on

this subject in many of his books. Here is a brief extract from 'The True

Sage' so you can get the spirit of what he says:

 

"Up there, it is absolutely alone. That's why Mahavir has called it

'kaivalya'. 'Kaivalya' means absolute aloneness. But the quality of

aloneness is totally different from loneliness. In the dictionaries they may

both mean the same; I'm not talking about the dictionary. But in life's

experience they are absolutely different.

 

Aloneness means presence of your being -- so full of yourself, so totally in

yourself that the other is not needed. Aloneness is sufficient unto itself.

Loneliness is missing something, loneliness is a gap -- where the other was

or where you would like the other to be. Loneliness is a wound. Aloneness is

a flowering. You are so happy to be yourself; you are not missing anything.

You are totally yourself -- settled, content."

 

Dennis

[Guest guest]

Dennisji: Thank you for Osho's quote. He is so precise, so direct and so

effective in what he says or writes. To me he appearsto be one of the greatest

thinkers of last century.

Shanti Mehta

-

Dennis Waite

advaitin

Tuesday, January 14, 2003 1:02 PM

RE: Loneliness and Aloneness

 

 

Just a note on this subject. Osho (wash my mouth out!) had a lot to say on

this subject in many of his books. Here is a brief extract from 'The True

Sage' so you can get the spirit of what he says:

 

"Up there, it is absolutely alone. That's why Mahavir has called it

'kaivalya'. 'Kaivalya' means absolute aloneness. But the quality of

aloneness is totally different from loneliness. In the dictionaries they may

both mean the same; I'm not talking about the dictionary. But in life's

experience they are absolutely different.

 

Aloneness means presence of your being -- so full of yourself, so totally in

yourself that the other is not needed. Aloneness is sufficient unto itself.

Loneliness is missing something, loneliness is a gap -- where the other was

or where you would like the other to be. Loneliness is a wound. Aloneness is

a flowering. You are so happy to be yourself; you are not missing anything.

You are totally yourself -- settled, content."

 

Dennis

 

 

Discussion of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta Philosophy of nonseparablity of Atman

and Brahman.

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[Guest guest]

Namaste Dennis-Ji.

 

Thanks for the clarifying quote. Osho has literally washed my

entrails out! I have always shied away from his writings, what with

all the things said about him. It is perhaps time I rethought. I

can see my aloneness flowering as I hammer here on the keyboard.

 

So long then till the 'lone' begins to bother me again.

 

Pranams.

 

Madathil Nair