SOLITUDE

The man of spirit . . . hates to see people gather around him. He avoids the crowd. For where there are many men, there are also many opinions and little agreement. There is nothing to be gained from the support of a lot of half-wits who are doomed to end up in a fight with each other.

(WCZ 149)

The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence, making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.

(WCZ 27)

The “man of Tao” will prefer obscurity and solitude.

(WCZ 25)

Only in silence and solitude, in the quiet of worship, the reverent peace of prayer, the adoration in which the entire ego-self silences and abases itself in the presence of the Invisible God, only in these “activities” which are “non-actions” does the spirit truly wake from the dream of a multifarious and confused existence.

(IEW 121)

Song: If You Seek . . .

If you seek a heavenly light

I, Solitude, am your professor!

I go before you into emptiness,

Raise strange suns for your new mornings,

Opening the windows

Of your innermost apartment.

When I, loneliness, give my special signal

Follow my silence, follow where I beckon!

Fear not, little beast, little spirit

(Thou word and animal)

I, Solitude, am angel

And have prayed in your name.

Look at the empty, wealthy night

The pilgrim moon!

I am the appointed hour,

The “now” that cuts

Time like a blade.

I am the unexpected flash

Beyond “yes,” beyond “no,”

The forerunner of the Word of God.

Follow my ways and I will lead you

To golden-haired suns,

Logos and music, blameless joys,

Innocent of questions

And beyond answers:

For I, Solitude, am thine own self:

I, Nothingness, am thy All.

I, Silence, am thy Amen!

(CP 340–41)

Contrary to what has been thought in recent centuries in the West, the spiritual or interior life is not an exclusively private affair. . . . The spiritual life of one person is simply the life of all manifesting itself in him.

(GNV 11)

A solitary is not absent from the rest of men, and a solitude that merely excluded other men would be pure illusion. Yet a solitary prefers the silence and solitude of the woods, and he is most awake, most true to his calling. When he is with no one. Nevertheless he can share with others what he considers most precious: the climate of emptiness in which he lives.

(IEW 122)

The true unity of the solitary life is the one in which there is no possible division. The true solitary does not seek himself, but loses himself. He forgets that there is number, in order to become all.

(IEW 91)

“True love requires contact with the truth, and the truth must be found in solitude. The ability to bear solitude, and to spend long stretches of time alone by oneself in quiet meditation, is therefore one of the more elementary qualifications for those who aspire towards selfless love.”

(AJ 157, quoting Conze)

Where is silence? Where is solitude? Where is Love? Ultimately, these cannot be found anywhere except in the ground of our own being. There, in the silent depths, there is no more distinction between the I and the Not-I. There is perfect peace because we are grounded in infinite creative and redemptive Love.

(IEW 94–5)