ART OF BEING ALONE

ART OF BEING ALONE

ALONENESS

When we hear the word alone, it feels like being separated from everything and everyone we know. So it sounds terrible and horrified to be alone. But the feeling of being separated is not aloneness, its loneliness. Aloneness and loneliness are not the exact same thing. Feeling lonely is when you don’t feel like being loved by someone, being accepted by someone, not being able to fit in the patterns and being separated from others. Loneliness is the feeling arising when you don’t fulfill your own projected image of oneself and others. It happens when you miss touch with connection with others which is merely yourself. Loneliness is when you don’t love yourself and want love from others.

Aloneness is quite different from the feeling of being lonely. Aloneness is the basic nature of human being or the basic nature of life. Being alone is not being influenced by the world, not being influenced by society, not being attached to appreciation from others, and not be changed by merely other individual's opinions. It may sound like being away from society but we human cannot live without a relationship, so in a way, it is being away from the worldly pressures and circumstances psychologically. We can’t be away physically from the world for sure, right from the birth we need love from others to survive, it is part of a growing process but as we grow up and face the world as per our needs and seek fulfillment in the world, we start feeling lonely. This loneliness takes the form of boredom, depression, and anxiety for sure. It’s like losing the touch with the reality, the reality that we all are radically alone in this universe and nothing can fulfill us more than our own care, attention, and love for ourselves. So being alone sometimes is necessary. Actually, we are always alone and if we truly know this we don’t care what others say and we don’t get influenced by others, which doesn’t mean not giving a fuck to others opinions and feelings but rather listening to them with more attention knowing others are as alone as you are. Listening to them without the mirrors of your opinions but exactly as they are. Being alone is an art of dealing with the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be. So in a way, being alone is being alive.

THINKING BRINGS DIVISION

The modern society in which we live in is all fragmented, we have divided every aspects of life into more and more divisions and this will continue in coming generation for sure. Right from global scale to the national scale and then society-wise we are all divided, divided by cultures, divided by ranks and divided by class. Well, looking at this division in global scale people in the past had tried to bring reforms with their own ideology but none had been able to do so till now. Looking outside yourself to solve the problem doesn’t look that easy too. So it’s necessary to focus on an individual i.e. every individual bringing own transformation in the psyche is the only solution to worldly problems for sure as many leaders like J.Krishnamurti and David Bohm(physicist) had been suggesting this their whole life . Then, let move to individual prospective on how the division takes place.

First let’s take a scientific view on this matter just for more assurance on the seriousness of the problem. Quantum physics in science has many evidence on how presence of an ‘observer’ can change the whole reality of the phenomenon merely known as observer effect. My favourite is Double-Slit experiment. Electron behaving as a wave suddenly behaves as a particle merely due to presence of an observer or measurement kept there and again behaves as a wave when no measurement or observation done is the sufficient example for. Measuring or just observing is the act of splitting the reality into two and that is what has been done in science since many years. And the same is applied in social problems too.

Now, looking at an individual as you look at yourself and I look at mine as we both act as mirror to know each other and with this same viewpoint we may move forward not relying on each other opinions and belief systems but rather on what is real. So looking at ourselves we should first know why do we act? Isn’t our action based on our thoughts? Of course it is and if we may move closer, those thoughts pops up in the mind in the present but are itself never of the present. Thought can be never present. Either they are of past or future and the past or future in thoughts contain you as a person, you see your own image there. But right now ‘Can you say who you are?’- you don’t. The image of you in your head is not you, it’s your image. Same as you can think of a tree but the image of the tree is not tree itself, it is an image – same as a photo you have of someone which is just a photo not that person. Describing yourself is like biting your own teeth – Alan Watts

So the fragmentation that is brought in all over the world is because of thinking. It may sound insane but is the truth as we have seen it. Feeding an abstraction that is your image of yourself is being done the whole day and it’s true for all of us and the self- centered thoughts are the reason of the division , fragmentation and conflicts bought by them. The act of being identified with the abstract image which is not real at all is what we do the whole day and get tired as fuck feeding those images. As we are conditioned right from our childhood and when we are not aware of this conditioning we seek for solutions always. We are taught to achieve, to seek something in the future and we never live in the present. We are always present but giving all interest and attention towards the thought created image, we waste our whole day either on past or on future.

When we were kids we had no idea of time at all. While playing, we never thought of whether we were playing next Saturday or not? We were never bothered by past and future, no psychological time had been conceptualized in our brain cells. We were happy, sad, angry and ecstatic always, never worrying about how do we get rid of sad feelings or so called negative feelings. We were totally present and alive.

But in the process of growing up we are taught to live in a specific pattern as our parents were taught the same. As long as we accept the pattern and start believing future-oriented patterns to be true, we are fine. But right when we get stuck we start asking `Is this all there is?` But as we are conditioned to seek for solutions we start following spiritual ideas or any fancy concepts of reality and hence again get stuck in own mind game. So if the question is still arising in what is the solution? That’s the conditioning playing game again. Hence art of being alone is art of dealing with thoughts exactly as they are and I think it’s important for us to look at ourselves and our conditioning to know how our thoughts make us slave to them.

The observer (you think to be you) and the observed are same.

The thinker and the thoughts are same.

- J.Krishnamurti

SELF-CONSIOUSNESS

I had some lines from different books to explain how we become self-conscious and how it start ruling our life.

So the child begins to think of himself as the centre and everything just goes on around him, for

him. The whole existence seems to be created for him. The whole existence was waiting for him to come and demand. And everything will be fulfilled. This is a necessity, that his demands should be fulfilled; otherwise he will die. But this necessity becomes very dangerous.

He grows up with this attitude that ”I am the centre.” By and by he will demand more. A child’s

demands are very simple; they can be supplied. But as he will grow his demands will become more

and more complex. Sometimes it will not be possible to supply them, to fulfil them. Sometimes it

may be absolutely impossible. He may demand the moon, or anything....

The more he will grow, the more the demands will become complex, impossible. Then frustration

sets in, and the child begins to think that now he is being deceived. He has taken it for granted that

he was the centre of the world. Now problems will be there, and by and by he will be dethroned.

When he becomes an adult, he will be completely dethroned. Then he will know that he is not the

centre. But deep down the unconscious mind goes on thinking in terms of him being the centre.

People ask whether their fate is determined. They are asking whether they are so

important, so significant for this universe that their fate must be determined beforehand. ”What is my purpose?” they ask. ”Why was I created?” This childhood nonsense that you are the centre creates these questions like ,”For what purpose am I created?”

You are not created for any purpose. And it is good that you are not created for any purpose;

otherwise you would be a machine. A machine is created for some purpose. Man is not created

for some purpose, for something – no! Man is just the outflowing, overflowing creation. Everything

simply is. Flowers are there and stars are there and you are there. Everything is just an overflowing,

a joy, a celebration of existence without any purpose.

In your deepest sleep, self-awareness is turned off, so ‘you’ are not there to control anything. You sleep for hours while your body functions automatically. It moves, it breathes, digestion continues, and cells replace themselves. This all happens without ‘you’ steering the wheel and being in control. When you wake up, self-awareness turns back on and instantly, the idea that you are someone inside the body taking control of the steering of the wheel of your life takes place. Our conscious, mental projections are only thoughts afterwards. This gives us the illusion of power and control.

BEING ALONE

Being alone is being alive, being alive to everything that has life

Yet not being influenced by them

Being Alone is listening to others without giving own thoughts more priority

As the one talking next to you is as human as you are.

Being alone is being honest with own thoughts and own feelings

Loving your every thoughts without judging them to be right or wrong,

As that is your conditioning that claims its fake face to be real.

No thoughts are negative, no feelings are bad

They are just energies wanting your love, fill them with love

Yet don’t get engaged with them.

Alan Watts used to say it like this – “Imagine of gone to sleep and never waking up” and also “Imagine of waking up after never gone to sleep”. These two statements are very profound in understanding about death and birth. The first statement implies about death and second about being born. We are not aware when we were born and in the same way we are never going to know about death. So looking at these things closely it may feel like life is an interval between these two events but it is not so. These two events are merely same. Life and death are part of same process. Life implies death and death implies living. Thinking about death may feel scary at first and I used to scare a lot but it’s a part of the conditioning. Right from our childhood we are not taught about death as peoples around us were as scared as we are. But thinking about death can bring about a radical transformation in our way of looking at the world. Accepting death as part of living is what makes us alive. We are dying every day and hence living. Dying to the past memories, experiences and our identities can make us more alive. Living is dying to past and welcoming the new fresh day to evolve.

The Sun is alone yet it shines,

Those birds are alone and feel free to fly

The sky is alone yet it holds every weather

Those trees are alone yet they hold the birds

And look at us, we need others approval to live

We are free to try, free to fall and free to live as the universe do.

Play the game as if it’s real

Yet don’t forget my friends, this is just a ride.

Don’t ever be afraid cause it is just a ride – Bill Hicks

.