I am empowered by being alone. There is no getting around that sometimes unpleasant fact. Of course, it is only unpleasant to the ego. The ego always wants what it can’t have. So if it is alone, it wants company. And when it is in company, it wants to be alone. How do we transcend these opposites? Perhaps by seeing that we are truly empowered when we are alone in a group. As Ram Dass’ guru told him, “Be alone when you are with people.”
And the ego fears people will make fun of him. Will isolate and ostracize him for not being sociable “enough.” What rot. What garbage. Being alone is not something the ego is qualified to judge.
The feminine force within us, both male and female, is the part of us that receives everything from God. Receives everything as a gift. I met a man on the island of Maui who told me to receive everything as a gift. At that time in my life, I was totally incapable of doing that. I didn’t realize that for the words to bear fruit, I had to become them. Even now, I am often ungrateful for the bad things that happen in my life. Who wouldn’t be?
But the things we are incapable of doing from our egos can be easily done from our essence. Essence waits on God, prays in secret, waits for the seed to be planted in darkness, keeps the faith. Our culture is one that scorns truth while giving it lip service.
What is it gonna take for us to return to ourselves? Why did we buy a one-way ticket to hell? And if we are in hell consciously, can it turn to heaven?
Some questions need not be answered; they can only be lived.
Vicki Woodyard
You have brought up what I consider a very slippery slope. I like my solitude but long for the company of others, to be more clarifying, one particular other. I have always thought I would marry only once but now in our world these days 5 times is more common. One foot in front of the other is all I know to do, that is something that works so that is what I do.
All slopes are slippery where ego is involved, I must say. Nothing is pleasant, only horrifically repressed suffering.
I’m familiar with alone, I guess, in the egoic sense of being alone. The teaching is that we’re never really alone, but I have yet to experience that ‘oneness’ everyone is talking about. I have no idea on your question what it will take to return to ourselves. As I’m finding out, I have no idea about much of anything. Ha!
I really loved this one, Vicky, and needed it more than ever tonight. The Hell can be so hard sometimes. I like how you ask if there is this Hell, might there not be a Heaven? I believe so. I so deeply appreciate reading this on a night when the pain of loneliness and disappointment made my insides feel like bugs inside that will not stop jumping. Thank you.