Who knows?..,.that’ the way it goes down here.
There is no ‘me’ thing, sir. It is an illusion, agreed. But for you this is just an idea, whereas for me it is a fact. When you come here you are meeting yourself. When you meet me, you are meeting yourself. So when you say, ‘I haven’t read the whole of your comment,’ all it means is that you are distancing or cutting yourself off from something that disturbs you at the depths of your own being. You are a whole person, just as the other is a whole person. If you cannot bear to listen to the whole of what they are saying, you leave them as a fragment and yourself also as another fragment. That’s why there is loneliness, no other reason, and therefore no other clever or subtle reasoning is required to sort it out.
I wonder how far you will get into this before you stop again and cut yourself off from me. If you do, watch carefully what happens and you will find that you are mistaking me for the words on the page. The words on the page don’t matter. Are we pages in the same book? That’s all that matters. Then it is our book, our life; and there is never again such a thing as our loneliness.
First of all this is not the place to meet people. This is a place where we study the teachings. There are many social medias out there for people who want to meet each other. Secondly you narrow things down to a petty affair (the you thing!). Try to avoid that word(you).
I don’t see how it is possible to do the one without the other.
Maybe when these weird games stop, we won’t worry about words at all. Has Examiner ever considered this? Has he bothered to read what another human being with eyes and lips and arms is saying to him, what they are trying to convey to him? Or does his profound love of loneliness prevent any real contact with the rest of existence?
You seem to have surrounded yourself with so many rules. Such a man must always be lonely. So maybe your statement, ‘I am lonely,’ is just a form of boasting.
I am being harsh because you are hurting me. I am not hidden away like you. I don’t have the luxury of being able to pretend I am something ethereal.
Your anonymity hurts other people, Examiner. Look at it. Examine it. If you are going to pick a ridiculous name, at least live up to it.
So if you pick a name Joe Andrew and post a picture of someone then he is not anonymous! !
Your condemnation of what someone writes in here shows lack of understanding. You think if you make an image of the writer then you can meet him or her but the fact is that by narrowing down everything into a petty image there is no understanding what so ever.
It is not about condemnation of your behaviour or about lack of understanding. I am saying that it hurts for some reason when people remain in the shadows.
If you cannot hear this, then nothing else I say will make much difference.
Tell us how you moved from darkness to light? Was it Jesus?
Yes, that’s not far off - how did you know? - because I didn’t move; he moved me. Out of darkness cometh light.
Yes, it is, indeed.
Loneliness is a by-product of the “I” idea, which is a sense of individuality. There is no way out, let’s face it, live with it, observe it, stay with it, be friends of it.
No, sir, I’m afraid the truth of it is far more brutal than this. There is nothing normal anywhere, let alone within the depths of the human psyche. So why do we seek either normality or freedom from the pain of it? Don’t they both come together as a whole package? It seems that we are constantly trying to normalise our psychological experiences and yet forever failing in this attempt. Loneliness? Who invented this absurd concept? Whether it is, ‘I am lonely,’ or, ‘I am afraid,’ or, ‘I am lost,’ there is nothing normal in any sentence which begins with the words, ‘I am…’
I know you hint at this when you say that loneliness is a by-product of the ‘I’ idea and that there is no way out but to live with it and observe it. But don’t these very suggestions - to face it, observe it, stay with it, be friends with it - actually only serve to keep alive the ‘I’ idea as something fully normal?
To keep alive the “I” idea as something fully normal… What is the problem with that?
I do not understand if you are objecting to that, or suggesting some other action or attitude.
‘I am lonely.’ How do you hear this statement from another person? What do you do with it?
I listen to the other person, share my same feeling and, if he/she is open, try to go deeper in observing it, as deep as possible. I will not invite he/she to some avoidance from our feeling, like saying “you are ok, do not worry, all will be ok”, or “do not think on it, let’s take a beer”…
But maybe there is no depth to it whatsoever. This is the point here. Maybe listening to the other person and going deeper in is entirely the wrong move. Who is the other person? Is there even such a thing as the other person first of all before any of this whole movement of response towards them begins? Or our own psychology of normality creates the other. Do you see the difference? It is normal to think in terms of ‘you’ as something real because before any interaction with you it is very normal to think in terms of ‘I’ or ‘me’ as something real. But this very impulse for normality is what is constantly leading us down deeper and darker paths: loneliness, fear, depression, anger, bitterness, regret, jealousy, guilt, envy, despair and all the many other avenues of sorrow.
If one has ever looked at it carefully, one must surely see that loneliness is intimately connected to closeness, to togetherness: ‘Yesterday I was close to you; now you are gone; so today I am lonely.’ So in the very closeness of the relationship, - as you and me - separation is built into it. But is there a you and me at all?
There’s no problem with the pronoun “I” until I identify with some notion of who/what I should be, because simply being who/what I actually am from moment to moment gives me nothing more to look forward to than the next moment.
When I think I know how to live my life, I’m very important, and missing the whole point of living. When I honestly don’t know how to live my life, I’m finding out, and I is just a pronoun.
It’s funny, but this very point you are making is what made me get up early and come downstairs to write something on the forum. So it is already written. Thank you, Inquiry.
“Its beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. it means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society.”
Krishnamurti
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