In unity, there is a solitude. It can be a solitude expanding beyond the perimeters of perception; it can be a solitude with no “other” in sight; it can be a solitude of pure love; but nonetheless it is soliltary. It is embedded in the very nature of unity.
“It would be a shame if the fear of rejection and a discomfort in loneliness and intimacy would lead us to close this gateway to unity – a gateway called solitude.”
Within the habitual psychological frame of our collective mind, loneliness is a curse. We dread it, as it is unconsciously merged with the instinctive fear of rejection. In nature, rejection is a meta-fear.
The classic fears of death, sexuality, illness and insanity, are all transcended by this meta fear – the fear of rejection.
If we die, we experience rejection (or ejection); if we are sexually deviant in a way, an effect is social rejection; if we are ill, we are rejected, or we reject ourselves; and if we become what would be called “insane”, rejection is too often an unfortunate result.
We fear rejection for good reason: it hurts like hell. Like an energetic stab in the heart, we bleed in it. We contract in our thoughts, feelings and physical sense of space. Until we learn to relax in it and let it through and out the back, it can feel like an agony worse than death. It causes us to disconnect from the love we experience for others, from our qualities. As an energetic reflex, it slams shut the channels of expression and blocks our ability to take in. It leads to tunnel vision and despair.
Yet when we reject the pain of rejection, we actually make it worse, separating still more deeply from the whole and from the joy of being here in freedom. Allowing the pain to surface and pass; suffering it as energy, not as a phenomena which is personal; and remaining loyal to the love, the qualities, and the service of our being here are all key directions to bring freedom within this pain.
It is entirely possible to come to a freedom in form where rejection is more a curiosity and an opportunity than a final condemnation. Imagine the liberation.
Beliefs in Separation
This primal fear of rejection is based on a belief in separation, which it in turn nurtures. The unravelling of this belief in absolute separation (between the inner and outer, ourselves and the physical, ourselves and others, and ourselves and God, or the “source), is at the core of non-dual teachings.
To believe ourselves separate is to suffer, because if we are separate from the whole, then the whole dance of rejection and acceptance seems real. There is agony in this. Even total acceptance carries the shadow of its twin, rejection. In itself, it can never take away the fear. Yet we believe it, not only with our thoughts and languages, but also with the patterning of our energy in the dimension of feeling awareness.
Only a relaxation into non-separation and our inherent unity with all that is on all layers – physical, sentient and mental – punctures the illusion that keeps us in this wilderness of fear.
Reject Me Not
Rejection dances with acceptance in an ongoing spiral of form. Unity has no opposite. The unity is here, irrespective of whether something in or around us accepted or rejected at any moment.
Within this sentient universe, one of the greatest sufferings and fears is of loneliness. Yet, wherever we find loneliness, we will also find a corresponding issue with intimacy. So much so, that often a therapeutic inquiry into the fear of intimacy can be the most worthwhile direction for one who suffers loneliness.
We have beliefs about intimacy, and we put conditions on it until it is lost. We are ready to be intimate only with other humans or animals, or with particular humans or animals. We agree to intimacy only when we feel safe, accepted, or when we have a golden promise that we won’t be rejected. How much easier can be intimate with one that is dying (who will not reject you later) than one who is in the peak of life.
Recently, a spiritual teacher Benny Silverman, died. He posted regularly on Facebook until he was gone. He was intimate, open, sharing the truth of this final transition out of this life time. One of his final posts was:
“Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.”
Grasping towards acceptance and fearing rejection, we habitually make conditions that restrict our intimacy – directly compromising our authenticity and the truth of who we are. These attempts to lay down the rules in order to avert pain spirals us into intimacy’s twin flame, loneliness.
Intimacy is not a structure, it’s an attitude. We can be intimate with our feet on the ground, with the air that we breath and the food that we eat. We can be intimate with a sunrise and with our own feeling awareness. Intimacy is a receptive choice, in itself, quite unconditional. It is about opening the windows of perception in such a way that we allow our selves to see and be seen. Above all, sufferings around intimacy involve the frustration of where we refuse to see ourselves – to put it more clearly – where we reject our selves.
Sole Purpose
Yet beyond all these dances in human form, between acceptance and rejection, loneliness and intimacy, there is a profound solitude. This is not a suffering but a friend at the core of being here. It has a holiness in it. It’s not static or confined, but very much alive.
This atmosphere of solitude, found in the depths of meditation or in the deep relaxation prior to sleep, can be so real that all the conscious activities of the day – even consciousness itself – can seem like a kind of dream happening in a factory of creation, without direct relation to this sole source of who we are.
To remain as an open channel to this solitude can bring tremendous peace in living, and a soft and easily available reserve of energy. It can moves us beyond the stressful blocks in voltage throughout our layers of form in such a manner that such stresses or blocks are less likely to form.
We were born out of, and into this solitude. We live our lives with this familiar, vast and universal solitude in the background to all our hopes and aspirations. We pass out of this world back through the wide open doors of this inner solitude.
It would be a shame if the fear of rejection and a discomfort in loneliness and intimacy would lead us to close this gateway to unity – a gateway called solitude. It can never be accepted or rejected. It will never be separate from the whole. It is open door that can allow the deepest manifestation of the source of all we are.
