Craving Aloneness

As human beings, we crave being alone.

We carry an entire world inside our own experience. When we are inside ourselves, we possess an opportunity to meditate on the interconnection of soul, God and the Divine without critique from others.

A story told by the Baal Shem Tov about his childhood includes this passage: "I was drawn to walk the fields and the great, deep forest near our village. Often I would spend the night in the field or forest. One morning in the forest I heard a human voice: a Jew in tallit and tefillin, praying with a passion I had never heard. 'Aren't you afraid to be alone in the forest?' the man asked me. I answered him: 'I like the field and the forest, because there are no people . . ."

Ah, to be alone. To pray listening only to my own voice. To concentrate fiercely on all that is uniquely my own. To revel in the peace and possibility of an answer or an insight from Nature’s Universe.

And yet the reverse is also true. To be alone is disquieting. Loneliness and aloneness can be fraught with physical and emotional dangers. Difficult thoughts may discover us.

Chasing our distractions can cause an addiction of discomfort. Instead of an occasion for the Capital Connection, we form deleterious detachments and tentative traumas.

As human beings, we crave our interiority time. The silence within calls us to this open forest of mindful fertility. Feel it, fear it, face it, infuse it into your daily practice.