'We think that we are separate from each other, and we are not. We think we are separate from the whole of life, and we are not. Tim is an integral part of the whole, and everyone and everything are also an integral part of the whole and, therefore, one with Tim. Separateness is the conceptual story we tell to make sense of life, the story of who we are, and when we get sucked into it we are not conscious of our deeper being. This is when we cause suffering to each other and our world. Waking up is the recognition that there is no other, that every person or situation is not separate from our essential nature.'
Of course you can accept this, appreciate this. But where is the balance? If we know there are notions of being 'alone', yet we are all still connected-where is the right in thinking we may be 'telling ourselves' something to make more meaning?
Isn't the balance knowing who we want in our lives, and not depending on people for what 'values' they provide in our lives? Knowing we can 'be' as our self, but accepting the importance for them to exist in our lives too?
Is this 'being' why many of us follow what is now seen as the convention, or expectation of humanism to find 'the one'?
Or am I just missing the point? I am sure most of the above I haven't really answered or explained well enough.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-and-deb-shapiro/you-are-not-alone-here_b_847086.html
This article is worth reading for the comments as well.
I see aloneness as the essential aspect of our being. All things can be, and often are, used as 'life drugs', drugs that hide us from the fact that we are alone and afraid of death (relationships, alcohol, work, these can all be life drugs). We need a turning towards this fear. An acknowledgment that all of us are at bottom alone. But from his aloneness something amazing can emerge. I liken it to waking on an island. It is night and I am alone on this island, and i raise my eyes to the sky and see an infinite number of stars; and i lower my eyes and see an infinite number of islands twinkling in the distance, their white sands reflecting the stars. Each island is distinct. But the collection, the whole, is what allows us to share our human aloneness and transcend our fear of death. I call this the Archipelago myth. We are alone. But the shared aloneness allows us to transcend all.
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