Last week, during one private session with a client, I was working with her to uncover the underlying fear patterns or her blind spots she has been carrying. She shared that she has a deep fear of being lonely in her life and old age after a recent failed marriage. She aspires to have a family life with children but she was not sure if she would be able to attract the right guy in her life.
I told her aloneness is not loneliness. Aloneness is all in oneness, aloneness is our inborn nature. I shared with her the timeless truth which I learned from my Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (lovely known as Swamiji) which fundamentally made a cognitive shift in me. Now I am very comfortable with my aloneness, I enjoy being with myself, sitting with myself for hours sometimes.
Swamiji once said that we constantly live in the fear of facing ourselves. Hence we try to constantly keep ourselves busy, always asking ‘what next?’ on the pretext of being busy. Loneliness arises out of social conditioning. You are conditioned to feel lonely when no one is around you. Do you know that you can be alone even when surrounded by people?
The truth is we are afraid and are unhappy with ourselves. We never think or accept us as we are. If we can accept us as we are, we are living enlightenment. We need to enter into a state of aloneness to reach bliss. This state does not mean we reject our family or friends. We have to embrace aloneness with all of them around.
How do we reach this space of aloneness?
If we try to search for aloneness we get into one more bondage. We should just let it be. Let everything and everyone be as they are or how they are. The simplest way to enter into aloneness is to bring awareness. Whenever you feel alone, you should not resist. When you are alone, you will try to relate mentally with others. Drop that unconscious pattern.
If you feel afraid of being alone, beware of the tendency to become powerless and collapse. Do not blame others for your aloneness. Allow the aloneness happen to you naturally without resistance. You will then feel alone even when people surround you. To start with, we need to experience physical aloneness. Once the joy of physical aloneness happens, once we experience the joy, it stays with us even when we are not physically alone. To have aloneness we don’t need to do anything. Aloneness is our reality. Only for material comforts. we need to work and struggle.
Here is a Zen story:
A disciple asked a Zen Master: ‘How long does it take to be enlightened?’
Master said: ‘Just the time it takes to blink your eye. You are already enlightened. You only need to declare.’
Disciple asked again: ‘What happened to you when you became enlightened?’
Master replied: ‘Nothing, I decided that from that day I shall live my enlightened state.’
People ask me: ‘What will happen to my children? What will happen to my business when I get enlightened?’
I say: ‘Nothing; you will be better than what you are, in whatever you do. You will not go to an ashram and run away from your life commitments.’
In essence, aloneness is not about escaping from your commitments in life. It is about embracing all of them without being affected whatever may happen. It is about living in reality. That client of mine finally got the click! Namaste 😀