Being Lonely vs. Being Alone

I am going camping by myself tomorrow. Kind of a spiritual journey that I feel I need to do. I have spent a lot of time alone recently... getting to know myself more intimately. But being alone at home doesn't mean being truly alone. There is always this computer, my phone, my friends only a few blocks away, the grocery store, the cats, work, responsibilities... even the sounds of traffic. Life.... all of these things.

And I have been doing well. Finally feeling like I am transcending that feeling of lonliness for the feeling of aloneness. It is quite empowering really. So this little camping trip... just 2 days and 1 night away is kind of a test for myself. To see how will I fair out there... just me and the sun and the trees and the cold night. I am excited for the challenge... for the escape. I am excited for the open road. For singing at the top of my lungs and dancing in the car. Maybe pulling over and dancing on the side of the road. (anything is possible) I am excited to build a fire... to make some coffee in my new value village percolator. I am excited even to bundle up and sleep in the cold that I know the night will bring.

I feel like these last few months have been a journey for me. A spiritual quest of sorts... and I think of so many of my favorite books in which there have been these same sorts of journeys. Lessons to be learned... things within ourselves to conquer. Among my favorites are Siddhartha (Herman Hesse), The Alchemist (Paulo Cohelo) and The Journey Home (Lee Carroll). And now it is my turn to take my inner journey and make it also an outer journey. I have done it many times before, but it has been too many years. I am ready. :)

I found this great chapter on the subject of Alone vs. Lonely in this Osho book I am reading. I will share it. It is brilliant really.


Strangers to Ourselves

We are born alone, we live alone, and we die alone. Aloneness is our very nature, but we re not aware of it. Because we are not aware of it we remain strangers to ourselves, and instead of seeing our aloneness as a tremendous beauty and bliss, silence and peace, at-easenesswith existence, we misunderstand it as loneliness.

Loneliness is a misunderstood aloneness. Once you misunderstand your aloneness as loneliness, the whole context changes. Aloneness has a beauty and grandeur, a positivity; loneliness is poor, negative, dark, dismal.

Loneliness is a gap. Something is missing, something is needed to fill it, and nothing can ever fill it because it is a misunderstanding in the first place. As you grow older, the gap also grows bigger. People are so afraid to be by themselves that they do any kind of stupid thing. I have seen people playing cards alone; the other party not there. They have invented games in which the same person plays cards from both sides.

Those who have known aloneness say something absolutely different. They say there is nothing more beautiful, more peaceful, more joyful than being alone.

The ordinary man goes on trying to forget his loneliness, and the meditator starts getting more and more acquainted with his aloneness. He has left the world; he has gone to the caves, to the mountains, to the forest, just for the sake of being alone. He wants to know who he is. In the crowd, it is difficult; there are so many disturbances. And those who have known their aloneness have known the greatest blissfulness possible to human being - because your very being is blissful.

After being in tune with your aloneness, you can relate; then your relationship will bring great joys to you, because it is not out of fear. Finding your aloneness you can create, you can be involved in as many things as you want, because this involvement will not anymore be running away from yourself. Now it will be your expression; now it will be the manifestation of all that is your potential.

But the first basic thing is to know your aloneness absolutely.

So I remind you, don't misunderstand aloneness as loneliness. Loneliness is certainly sick; aloneness is perfect health. Your first and most primary step toward finding the meaning and significance of life is to enter into your aloneness. It is your temple; it is where your God lives, and you cannot find this temple anywhere else.

~ Osho (from love, freedom, aloneness, the koan of relationships)