The Wisdom of SOLITUDE

[barney]

" True wisdom, " the Eskimo shaman, Igjugarjuk, tells us, " is only to be found far away from people, out in the great solitude. " It is, of course, important to note that Igjugarjuk did not remain in solitude forever (else we would never have heard of him). He returned to share with his people the wisdom he had found. And indeed this rhythm of withdrawal-and-return constitutes the archetypal pattern of all genuine spiritual life. What must be stressed in our own times, however, is the absolute necessity of a period of retreat if this kind of wisdom is to be attained. What was true of the first shamans who departed from their villages questing for visions in the vast primeval wilderness, was later repeated by the ancient rishis of India seeking Enlightenment in the forests; by the Buddha forsaking his princely palace for the solitude of the bodhi tree; by Taoist sages retiring to their mountain hermitages; by Lady Tsogyel performing her tapas high in the Himalayas; by Moses on Mount Horeb; Jesus in the desert; Teresa in her convent; Mohammed in his cave; Rabi'a in her hut--as well as by countless other mystics who abandoned their worldly life to discover the Source of Life Itself...and, yes, returned to tell about it.

-Joel Morwood, The Necessity of Retreat

 

The first step, detachment or withdrawal, consists in a radical transfer of emphasis from the external to the internal world, macro- to microcosm, a retreat from the desperations of the waste land to the peace of the everlasting realm that is within. ...In a word: the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside...

-Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

 

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

-Jesus, Luke 17:20-1

 

There is a Light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond us all, beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the Light that shines in our souls.

-Chandogya Upanishad

 

Examine yourself so that you may understand who you are...For whoever has not known himself has known nothing, but whoever has known himself has simultaneously achieved knowledge about the depth of all things.

-Jesus, Book of Thomas the Contender

 

The Creator made the senses outward-going: they go to the world of matter outside, not to the Spirit within. But a sage who sought immortality looked within himself and found his own Soul.

-Katha Upanishad

 

I wonder if you have noticed how lonely most people are? And to escape from loneliness we run to temples, churches, or mosques, we dress up and attend social functions, we watch television, listen to the radio, read, and so on. ...It is in order to escape from loneliness that we want to be together, we want to be entertained, to have distractions of every kind. ...The mind knows this fear when for a moment it realizes that it can rely on nothing, that no distraction can take away the sense of self-enclosing emptiness. That is loneliness. But aloneness is something entirely different; it is a state of freedom which comes into being when you have gone through loneliness and understand it. In that state of aloneness you don't rely on anyone psychologically because you are no longer seeking pleasure, comfort, gratification. It is only then that the mind is completely alone, and only such a mind is creative. ...Then you will find there is no need for escape, no urge to be gratified or entertained, for your mind will know a richness that is incorruptible and cannot be destroyed.

-Krishnamurti, Think on These Things:

 

The aspirant to Yoga starts with consciousness operating in the universe of experience and thought, and in a state of a self entangled with objects. ...The state is akin to that of hypnosis, and is real bondage--the great cause of suffering.

-Franklin Merrell-Wolff, The Philosophy of Consciousness Without An Object

 

I am at the point where I center my thought. If I habitually center myself in the body then I am there in an exceedingly narrow kind of bondage. (Such identification with body is the essence of materialism.) ... Metaphorically stated the beggar (object) in life has stolen the royal throne, while the true ruler (the self) has permitted himself to become the scullion who seeks largess of the real beggar who appears in royal robes.

-Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Introceptualism:

 

The office of experience is to frustrate and to cheat, and yet not for a malicious purpose. Experience brings pain so that consciousness may be gradually awakened to self- realization. For if consciousness flowed freely toward the object and thereby found the fulfillment of its yearning, there would be none of the shock necessary, such that consciousness could become aware of its own true nature. Empiric consciousness is like an alien in a distant and strange land but who is yearning for all that has been lost. ...[To find it], consciousness must return to the source from whence it came, and it is the office of experience to lash the wanderer until he finally awakens to the need for the return.

-Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Introceptualism:

 

Of the steps to liberation, the first is declared to be complete detachment from all things which are non- eternal.

-Shankara, The Crest Jewel of Discrimination

 

The first steps in Yoga technique have the significance of progressive disentanglement of the self and of dehypnotizing the consciousness. The process is one of radical dissociation of the self from objects.

-Franklin Merrell-Wolff, The Philosophy of Consciousness Without An Object

 

The retreat provides a necessary antidote to [our] compulsive attachment to the manifest. It affords an opportunity for solitude. ...By withdrawing from the world and its distractions, by stilling the body, detaching from thoughts, dis-identifying with desire and fears, you can come to understand directly that you are not in essence any of these manifest phenomena; for when they vanish into the unmanifest, you are still there! Thus, what you feared so much to lose was never really yours in the first place.

-Joel Morwood, The Necessity of Retreat

 

There is nothing beyond it. It is greater than the greatest. It is the innermost self, the ceaseless joy within us. It is absolute existence, knowledge and bliss. It is endless, eternal. Such is Brahman, and " That art Thou. " Meditate upon this truth. ...[it] will become as plain to you as water held in the palm of your hand.

-Shankara, The Crest Jewel of Discrimination

 

I am Brahman, the supreme, all-pervading like the ether, stainless, indivisible, unbounded, unmoved, unchanging. I have neither inside nor outside. I alone am. I am one without a second. What else is there to be known?

-Shankara, The Crest Jewel of Discrimination

 

Only where there seems to be duality, there one sees another, one feels another's perfume, one tastes another, one speaks to another, one listens to another, one touches another and one knows another. But in the ocean of Spirit the seer is alone beholding his own immensity.

-Upanishads

 

When it is recognized that there is nothing beyond what is seen of the mind itself, the discrimination of being and non-being ceases, And, as there is thus no external world as the object of perception, nothing remains