Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Stolen Extract

No Planet Is An Island
No Thought Is Isolated
No Thing Is Unconnected

I found this text very interesting, on the difference/relationship between 'Aloneness' and 'Loneliness'. Something to think about?

There is a fundamental difference between being lonely and being alone. Throughout the history of mankind, what we find is that excessive self-concern, self-occupation, is the outstanding feature of human behavior. Human life is anything but a matter of certainty, fulfillment, plenty. On the contrary, life is like an obstacle race.
We can see that our whole activity is self-centered. We keep thinking about ourselves endlessly: we must improve ourselves; we want a better job; we must fulfill ourselves; we want a better relationship; we want to achieve enlightenment. Our self-concern motivates all our activities. It is this pre-occupation with the self and rivalry with the 'other', which brings about isolation and loneliness. We try to escape from it in various ways, but such strategies cannot succeed.

When one is conforming to a pattern - religious, psychological or even self-imposed - there is bound to be a contradiction between 'what-is' and the pattern. The self becomes supremely important with the idea of self-improvement. One needs tremendous energy to see this situation in its truth and entirety. It demands utter honesty to recognize that 'what-should-be' is an avoidance from the actuality of 'what-is'.

It is only the urgency to see the truth that can make us accept the 'what-is' in the present moment. One needs to be completely alone in this investigation. The accumulation of conceptual knowledge must be totally set aside. And such aloneness certainly does not mean isolation: it does not mean building a wall around oneself. On the contrary, this means one is not alone but represents all humanity, a universal brotherhood, regarding all separate selves as merely instruments through which the Primal Energy - Consciousness - functions and brings about, at any moment, precisely that which is supposed to happen according to a Cosmic Law.

It is only such an awakening of Divine Intelligence, which ends selfishness - the cause of loneliness of the self.

NOTE: Reproduced without permission from The One in the Mirror: See What You Truly Are! By Ramesh S. Balsekar

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