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Aloneness Quotes

Browse 260 quotes about Aloneness.

Aloneness Quotes

“Live and let go. We hold on too tightly, forgetting that all will be lost. To live is not to stay in the shallow waters of our fears of ineptitude, of our insecurity. To live is to swim into the deep; alone, but not lonely; afraid, but with courage; content with all that is, marveling at the ambiguous, miraculous wonder of being.”

“Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it's worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets. Some philosophers believe that loneliness is the only true feeling there is. We live orphaned on a tiny rock in the immense vastness of space, with no hint of even the simplest form of life anywhere around us for billions upon billions of miles, alone beyond all imagining. We live locked in our own heads and can never entirely know the experience of another person. Even if we're surrounded by family and friends, we journey into death completely alone.”

“I thought of the cool, fresh air of the city I'd always dreamed of living in. The art museums and trolleys and the mysterious fog that blanketed it. I could almost smell the cappuccinos I'd planned to drink in bohemian cafes or hear the indie music in the bookstores I would spend my free time in. I pictured the friends I'd make, my kindred art people, and the dorm room I was supposed to move into.”

“Meditation is the way to be with ourselves and to learn to accept our own aloneness. In aloneness, I experiment with being consciously alone as a door to be egoless. In conscious aloneness, the ego can not function. In aloneness, you are not. I have always been comfortable with my own aloneness as an inner source of love, joy, truth, silence and wholeness. When we depend on other people, it becomes a bondage - instead of a freedom. I took this sunday as a meditation to be consciously alone, and to accept all feelings of pain, of not being loved and the fear of being nobody that would come up during the meditation. This meditation goes up and down during the day: at certain moments, I can totally accept my aloneness. It feels fine to accept that I am alone and that I am nobody. At other moments, I feel the pain of not being loved, when the meditation brings up how dependence on other people is a barrier to totally accept my aloneness. I take a coffee at a restaurant. I am the only person that sits alone in the restaurant, while the other guests are couples and families eating sunday dinner. It brings up painful feelings of not being loved and wanting to be needed by other people, when I see how much people cling to each other in the couples and the families. Escaping your aloneness through relationships and needing other people's attention through being a teacher, a politician or by being rich or famous, are ways of escaping the pain of aloneness. But then the relationships are not really love. Only when you are capable of being alone, you can really love. When we can be alone, we discover the inner source of love, which is our true nature. When we can be alone, it open the door to be one with the Whole.”

“Everyone experiences the feelings of sadness and loneliness. We might rue our lack of companionship, but some people present a desperate need for aloneness. Being alone allows a person to think, imagine, and take in nature. Because being alone is essential for specific human actions, similar to all other aspects of life, it is a gift.”

“Meditation brings all that is really valuable in life. Meditation brings love, silence, joy, truth, freedom and godliness. It makes your heart dance. It makes your being full of song. The meditastor takes life playfully. And if you are not serious then there is never any frustration. If you succeed, good. If you fail, good. Neither failure brings misery, nor success brings euphoria. One takes both things with a deep equanimity. One remains undisturbed by success or failure, love or aloneness and joy or sadness. One remains centred and grounded in oneself. Meditation makes you the center of the cyclone. Life comes and goes, and the meditator remains unaffected. Even death becomes a drama. The meditator enjoys both life and death. Meditation is the greatest gift to humanity from God.  Meditation gives your mastery over the inner world, which is always higher than the outer world. Life without meditation makes you unaware of yourself.”

“Your whole being is like a home. Everyone is allowed to come at the door, only a few in living room, fewer still in bedroom. And then there is a secret room where nobody is allowed. Not even your own mind. We are so obsessed with others that we mostly live at the door (outer appearance) or in living room (job, relationship and travel that we do to fit with others).”

“Sermon of the Mounts Matthew 5 AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES, HE WENT UP INTO THE MOUNTAINS, AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM. The multitudes, the masses, the crowd, is the lowest state of consciousness. It is a deep ignorance and sleep. If you want to relate and communicate with the masses, you have to come down to their level. That is why whenever you go into the masses, the crowd, you start to feel suffocated. This suffocation is physical and psychological, beacuse you relate to people, who functions from a very low state of consciousness. They pull you down and you become physically and psychologically tired and drained. That is why a need for meditation and aloneness arises. There is a practice in the life of Jesus that he noves into the crowds of people, but after a few months he goes to the mountains. He goes away from the crowd, to be with God. When you are alone, you are with God. To relate to the masses brings you down to their level of consciousness, but only in the presence of God, you can fly. With the crowd, you can not fly, you become crippled, and the masses will not tolerate if you do not live according to them, according to their level of consciousness. To be able to work with the masses, to be able to help them, you have to relate to them according to their level fo consciousness - and this is tiring and draining. Both Jesus and Buddha moved to the mounatins, to a lonely place, just to be themselves, and to be with God to regain their vitality to be able to come back to the masses where people are thristy. The montain is where Jesus do not need to think about the masses, where he can forget the mind and the body. In that moment of aloneness and meditation, one simply is. This is the inner being, the source of life. And when you are full again, you can share again. AND WHEN HE WAS SET, HIS DISCIPLES CAME UNTO HIM. To talk to the masses and to talk to disciples is two very different things. To talk to the crowd is to talk to people, who are indifferent. The crowd is resisting, defensive and argumentative. To talk to disciples means to talk to people, who have a basic thirst. It means that they are not defensive, they are open to listen to the heart of truth. AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH, AND TAUGHT THEM, SAYING. Jesus escaped into the mountains from the crowd, but he did not escape from the disciples. He was available to the disciples. In his aloneness, Jesus is with God. And through Jesus, the disciples can feel God. The closer the disciple come to Jesus, the more they will see that Jesus is a silence and emptiness through which God can sing. And the more the disciple himself will become an emptiness, he will also be able to help other people. AND HE OPENED HIS MOUTH, AND TAUGHT THEM, SAYING. BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT, FOR THEIRS IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This is the most fundamental statement of Jesus. With this statement, Jesus has said everything. The "poor in spirit" is exactly what Buddha means with the term Shunyatta - "emptiness", no-self, nothingness. It is when the ego disappears, and you are a nobody, a silence. If you are a nobody, if you are nothing, you are God.”

“Meditation is the art of being alone. It is to forget the whole world. It is to forget the worries, chaos and tensions of the world as if it does not exist anymore. When you come to that space inside you, when only you are and nothing else exists, that is aloneness. It is not loneliness. You are with yourself. You are not missing anything. For the first time you are with yourself, For the first time you are not lonely. Ordinarily people are lonely even when they are in a crowd of people. Even while they are with friends, they are lonely. One tries to forget the loneliness through alcohol, looking at TV or through being constantly occupied. One tries anything that can help you to forget yourself and your loneliness. But sooner or later you have to come back to yourself and your loneliness. People are lonely in crowds and lonely in their relationships. Meditation is what creates a miracle: you are alone, but you are not lonely. For the first time you are with yourself, for the first time you can love yourself in your aloneness. For the first time you find bliss of aloneness. The moment that you start finding the bliss of your aloneness, it becomes wisdom. Then you are not dependent on anybody. You have found the source of bliss within yourself. That is wisdom. Now you have freedom: you can be everywhere, and you can be blissful.”

“You can love out of joy or misery. When you love out of misery it is a need. You are not coming out of the joy of your being, you are coming from misery. You need the other to make you happy. You are dependent on the other to make you happy. And because you are dependent on the other for your happiness, love becomes a bondage. Love is not freedom. You cannot be separate and you cannot be together with the other person. When love comes out of the joy of your being it is authentic love. Now you arenot dependent on the other for your happiness. Now you are simply sharing yourjoy. Your life is a gift. You give out of your abundance. Meditation makes you joyful in your aloneness. Meditation is the first step,and love is the second step. When you have the joy, then share it, because by sharing it, it grows. The more you give, the more you have. And the less you give, the less you will have. If you do not give, it will disappear from you. If you want infinite love and joy, then go on giving unconditionally. The ultimate experience in giving infinitely is called God. That is pouring oneself into existence with love and joy. It is like the river pouring itself into the ocean. And then the river becomes the ocean.”

“The basic cause of misery is man's incapacity to give love. Man asks for love, but he is not willing to give love. He demands love, but he has forgotten that unless you give, you cannot get. Giving comes first, and then getting happens on its own accord. And when love comes without asking or demanding,it brings joy and happiness. This is something fundamental to understand: give and forget about getting back. Then it comes back a thousandfold. It starts showering on you, because that is the nature of existence. Whatever we give comes back. Love has to be given without any desire for getting - and then joy and happiness is yours.”

“We rejoice in others, but not in ourselves. We get a little happiness, but always from others. Do we ever rejoice in ourselves? The seeker, the meditator, should start delighting in himself. He should slowly give up delighting in others. Happiness and unhappiness are related to other people and outer causes. As long as happiness and unhappiness is dependent on others and outer causes, we are dependent on others and we will not find our inner source of bliss. Living dependent on others for happiness makes you a slave. You sit unoccupied and feeling unhappy. You think that if some friend arrives it will give some fun. Alone, You begin to feel sad. The meditator should start rejoicing in himself. You are sitting alone, be joyous. Without external reasons, simply be happy. Do not make your happiness dependent on the other or outer causes. Happiness can only come from within, without any reason. Happiness because of others and outer reasons is only a false happiness - love, relationships, power, money, status, position and fame - the end result will always be frustration and misery.”

“The divine in man arises through meditation. Meditation is the door to the divine. Nothing is more godly than meditation, because in meditation you slip out of the mind. You disappear from the outside, and you exist at your innermost core. And your innermost core is rooted in God. Just as every tree is rooted in the earth, every consciousness is rooted in God. God means the ultimate consciousness. Meditation is the bridge that takes you to the very source of your being. Once you have tasted the joy of being at the source, then everything else in life becomes meaningless. Then you can go on living the ordinary life, but it is all acting. It is a drama. You can play this drama, but you know that you are not part of it. It is a play, it is not your existence. You can have all kinds of relationships in the world, but now you know the beauty of being alone. You know the bliss of being. You know the bliss of being at the centre in solitude. Once that window opens your life is transformed. And that is the whole purpose of meditation. The purpose of meditation is to open that window, so that you can really know that you are godly.”

“Gran is alone, too. I don’t know why I never thought of it before. I think of the last five years, and Gran and Bob living in the same house all that time. I can’t decide if it’s nice or just really sad. “Why don’t you move to America? You could live at our house! I’m sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t mind.” Gran nods. “They’ve offered. Problem is, I love it here.” She raises her arms and kind of waves at the trees. “I love the place and I love the people.” So maybe it’s not sad that Gran lives alone. Maybe it’s a choice.”

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

“Did he understand, as those interminable minutes ticked by, that being alone is not the same as being lonely? That being alone is a neutral state; [...]. Is it possible? That which is around me does not affect my mood; my mood affects that which is around me. Is it true? Could Denny have possibly appreciated the subjective nature of loneliness, which is something that exists only in the mind, not in the world, and, like a virus, is unable to survive without a willing host?”

“The love that we know is momentary. One day it is there, the next day it is gone. The momentariness shows that it is not real love. It can be many things, but it is not real love. It can be sex, a psychological need, the fear of being alone, an effort to remain occupied with another person or the need to fill one's loneliness and emptiness. If it is real love, the most essential quality would be that it is everlasting. Once you have tasted eternal love, timeless love, it ill transform you. Then you are no more part of the mundane world. You have entered into the sacred world. You go on living in the same ordinary world, but you become more ordinary than before. You lose all pretensions. You forget about being somebody. You become utterly ordinary. In that ordinariness, there is a silence, a grace and a beauty. You become full of light, because you are full of love. you are always ready to share with others, because you have found an inexhaustible inner source. This love has nothing to do with relationships. The love that is eternal relates, but it never creates relationships. It relates with the trees, with the wind, with the animals, with the people, with the earth and with the sun. Relating is like a flowing river, while relationships are something stagnant, which has stopped growing. And when something has stopped growing, you start feeling bored, because you start losing contact with life. Life is always like a river, but you are tethered to something: a wife, a husband, a relationship. Man's greatest joy is to be free. And a relationship is creating a situation in which that freedom is lost. A being is alive when it is becoming. Being is becoming. If you stop becoming, your being becomes like a rock. You have to know the difference between relating and relationships. This is true about both life and love. Never lose your freedom. And never destroy anybody else's freedom. A real religious person remains free, and he helps people who come to him, to be free. He never possesses anybody, and he never allows anybody else to possess him. Then life becomes a constant growth, which goes higher and higher.”