(Photo by Microsoft Clipart) ~~ These are two very different subjects yet somewhat related in the sense of our needs and awareness.

I thought about this when I read a passage from Kent Nerburn’s book entitled Simple Truths (pg. 57) where he says:

“Solitude is a condition of peace that stands in direct opposition to loneliness. Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union.”

It’s true. You can be in a crowded room and feel isolated, cut off, alone. Yet, you can be miles from civilization on a mountain top with only the trees, sky and wind as your companions and feel as if you’re one with all of life.

Why is that? How can we have such contrasting states of being? It’s not just different people experiencing solitude or loneliness but this contrast can appear within us at different times of our lives. What are we focusing on that gives us such peace or turmoil?

When we feel the world is unfair and not providing what we want, we put ourselves in a state of isolation and loneliness. It is not that the world is necessarily being unfair but it is that our understanding is only centered on self and we get fearful or uncomfortable when it’s not going our way. We are focusing only on the external and if it satisfies our needs or not. We want people, things, to fulfill us and they can’t. They aren’t designed to fulfill that longing and desire deep within.

On the other hand, solitude is the surrendering of self allowing the fullness of life to flow and be experienced. It is in this state where we find peace and fulfillment unlike anything a temporary external form could provide. It is in this peaceful place of the ebb and flow of life where we operate in handling the noise and endless chatter.

You don’t have to go to a mountain top to find solitude. We take it with us where ever we go – it is within us. There will always be countless errands to run and endless labors of life long after we’re gone. Accept the rhythms of life and when you need to take the time breathe in and feel peace and solitude right there with you – never to leave – and you won’t feel lonely.

As Nerburn goes onto say:

“Though this may sound mystical and abstract, the universe has an eternal hum that runs beyond our individual birth and death. It is a hum that is hard to hear through the louder and closer noise of our daily lives. .. It makes us part of something larger. In solitude alone do we become part of this great eternal sound.”

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(Photos are from Microsoft Clipart) ~~ As I sit here in thought on what words to write I stop and listen. The night is winding down and the sounds of the house are beginning to quiet. The thoughts I have are of how my day went and of gratitude. Allow me to share a few of them with you in no particular order.

9. to be alive – feel my heart beating and breathe in and out – one breath at a time
10. for my Guides giving me a nudge that I had dropped my driver’s license and to go back and look for it; it was there in the parking lot – I found it – thank you, thank you
11. being in love with my life-long partner of 41 years

15. a mind that’s going all the time but is learning to take a back seat when I’m in the present moment
16. a spirit coming forth and beginning to shine
17. a voice sounding out and being heard
18. for the warmth and comfort of home where I can take off my coat, eat a warm meal and just BE
19. the gift of giving to others through maybe a word of encouragement, back rub or writing these words of gratitude to you for taking the time to read them
20. the time to rest and slip off to sleep through the night dreaming dreams and visiting other worlds preparing to get up tomorrow and start it all over again

There are so many other things I could include on this list but I don’t want to see how many I can list. I want to acknowledge the many blessings in my life and to say thank you to my Creator, my family, to you for reading this far, my Angels and Spirit Guides and animal companions.

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I’ve been thinking about this all day. It’s a question all of us ask at least once in our lifetime. I think I got a little closer to the answer from listening to a story Oprah told on her webcast last night with Eckhart Tolle.

She said she remembered being in Hawaii and going for a walk with a friend late in the day. They walked to a top of the mountain and the clouds came down and were all around them. Up in the sky they could see the sliver of the moon but at ground level were the clouds. As she told it, there was such a presence of stillness. It was so still and quiet that she held her breath because the sound of breathing would break the silence.

I could picture that. It’s as if in this place all time and all thought stops. Tolle says it’s at this place where everything is connected and one and it’s the place of the essence of who I am…who you are.

I guess you could say there really are no words that could describe who we are without putting labels on it. The who I am is not of form. Form is for labels or for the roles we play and conditioned thoughts we think but the who we are is not touched by any of that.

Have you ever been that still or experienced that type of silence? What does it feel like to you? If you’re meditating and you’re in that stillness before you know it an hour has slipped by or if something breaks that silence you feel as if you’ve just awakened from a deep sleep.

Feeling our Beingness as we do in this space is what Tolle is talking about in this webcast and his book. If we can learn to go about our daily lives aware of our essence doing the things we need to do and going places we need to go, we would find solutions beyond our imagination and energies flowing into the work we do.

Because we would be putting our focus on our essence, who we are, the challenges we face would still be there but not attaching itself and creating drama and stress. When we’re aware of our essence in the midst of these problems and difficulties we detach and step back and observe them. The physical and mental part does what it needs to do to address the situation but it’s not running the show. Through the awareness is where the answers come and when we allow that to flow into the situation a divine energy joins with us with encouragement and love.

I have listened to words like this and read many books over the years teaching many things on this topic and told myself I understood but I don’t think I really knew. I learned the spiritual concept of these words but am now beginning to know who I am. You start by discovering who you are NOT and in the midst of that the real you appears. It’s not something you can express with thoughts or words – it’s the stillness, the silence and essence of our existence.

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I have read others’ posts on what they’ve been learning from Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club, Selection 61)(Paperback), and I can truly resonate with what they’re learning about the many faces of ego and how it operates in our lives. What I’m realizing is that this is serious and is not to be taken lightly. It’s not just a course to take or another book to read and for many it won’t make sense.

Patricia Singleton of Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker talks about her shyness. I too was shy and withdrawn and my husband also has helped me. Not only was I shy but what was worse is that I constantly cut myself down and he stopped me and pointed out the positive things. What I’m learning now that is so powerful for me is the thoughts, the roles, are not who I am….they are not who you are. It’s part of a conditioning thought process we bought into with the roles we continue to play over and over again identifying with them believing this is Pat or this is you. As Patricia quoted in her post from Tolle’s book (page 86):

Just tonight, I realized in talking to my husband that my thoughts are running on autopilot all the time and I don’t listen fully. I get a piece of what is said and hold that thought that when the conversation is over I’ve missed most of it. This may sound silly to you but when you’re in a conversation you want to feel like you’ve been heard. I know I do but I have to listen first, give my attention and be fully present to who is talking not to the voice in my head. This is the awareness part – the being in the present moment – and it takes practice, at the very least alerted, like I was tonight, that this is what is happening.

My heart is excited and knows the importance of the message of this book and what it holds for me. I feel the truth of the words and the hope of what my world could be like if I could but only allow myself to be still and become aware – not doing, just allowing. We are allowing our essence to come forth and be a presence in our life.

I’ve had a lot of spiritual experiences over the years through which I have learned a great deal and am grateful and humbled at the patience of our Creator. Now, I feel as if all those things I have learned and worked on my whole life have come together again in this one book – this one teaching, as if I’m revisiting them again. Perhaps, what I learned before was more intellectual rather than a touch from the heart, I don’t know.

I only feel, at this juncture, there is something powerful going on here and I believe those who are reading and participating feel it too. For some, it may open like a flower and flow like a stream, easily and fluidly; for others, like myself, it’s like chipping away at a sculpture and allowing the “who I am” come forth as it is designed to do.

We can all learn from each other and awaken to our life’s purpose. As Marianne Williamson said in A Return to Love:

“You’re a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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