Blissful Alonenes

"I love to be alone.  I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."
-- Henry David Thoreau

When I first moved to Los Angeles from Manhattan, I knew nothing about what it was like to live here.  So all I knew to do was to go about doing things as I had before.  Right from the beginning this did not work.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something felt really different here.  In NYC I would go out alone all the time and have a great time chatting with strangers or just enjoying being in the hustle and bustle of the city.  I never thought twice about it.  I felt like in L.A. people treated me differently when I was alone, like there was something wrong with me.  I felt like an outcast, like I was being judged, like there was some horrific reason no one was with me.  I started noticing that no one was alone in this city.  If I went to the movies alone, I was always the only one.  If I went to a bar, everyone was in a group and no one would chat with me.  I still haven't exactly figured out why L.A. is like this, but it did create the opportunity for me to ponder aloneness.  

And when I say aloneness I do not mean loneliness. Aloneness is the true nature of human beings. Throughout our lives, we live, grow, and die in society alone.  The very quest for enlightenment is based on a remembrance of being brought into the world as an alone being.  Our beings are made of two elements, our individuality and our personality. Our individuality is aloneness by nature, however our personality is societal and there must be a balance between the two.  Personality consists of roles dictated by society and is external; it cannot thrive when we feel lonely.  It flourishes only when connected with society. What others think about us, what we have earned, and what comforts we possess, are all part of personality. However when we think of ourselves solely as a personality we feel lonely. Individuality is internal, and is our true inner being. Unfortunately we often nurture our personality while ignoring our individuality. The cry of individuality struggling to be heard above the clamor of our personality is expressed as the pain of our loneliness.

Attention is sustenance for the personality. Whether positive or negative, we constantly crave and seek out attention. When we are alone there is no one to praise you or criticize us which is disturbing to our personality. This disturbance comes from the awareness that we are not our personalities, and that we are more than a husband, father, wife, or daughter, more than the labels attached to us. Asking the question "Who Am I?" will start the journey to move past our personality. At first there will be resistance to this process of inquiry, but once we understand and embrace aloneness we can start to love ourselves and others. This is true love that is a result of the realization and love of our own individuality. Otherwise, whatever we try to express as love is only manipulation or control, a contract, or a business agreement.  Contracts happen between personalities, but only love happens between individualities.

I consider life to be a journey, and this journey is toward absolute blissful aloneness.  We cannot take anyone with us, it just is not the nature of the journey. The moment we travel into ourselves, all connections to the external world disappear, in fact the world itself disappears.  This could be why mystics refer to the world as illusionary.  This is a difficult journey with many obstacles, but the reward is true bliss.  There is no other way to experience the profound joy in the connection to oneself and everything in the Universe.

"All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions.  Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else."
-- The Buddha

"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth....but is delicious in the years of maturity."
--Albert Einstein

TIPS

Be silent: Try to sit still in silence for a specific amount of time each day.  This will allow alone time with oneself and provide access to your inner truth and wisdom.  A routine practice of meditation can become an invaluable part of life.

Be open:  We can never know how life's experiences may show up for us or in what form. Try to live in a space of acceptance for the unlimited possibilities of life.

Embrace your feelings:  Fully functioning humans experience the complete spectrum of emotions, it's part of being human.  All of our emotions are valid and worthy of understanding and acceptance.  Trying contemplating the real emotion, the feeling under the feeling or initial reaction.  This is the access to our true self and our own uniqueness.

Do what feels good:  Take some time to discover what brings you joy. Music, cooking, dancing, whatever it is, then celebrate doing these things merely for the sake of bringing yourself happiness.

Experience nature:  Contemplating nature provides access to understanding how we are a part of all things.  We are deeply connected to every system and structure of nature and our world.  Take a walk or simply find ways to spend time in nature to acknowledge our connection. 

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived."
-- Henry David Thoreau

Be grateful:  Try starting each day with gratitude. Upon awakening make a mental list of all the things you feel grateful about.  You will start the day in a state of appreciation of the magic of your life.