The Fallacy of Togetherness

Well this is thought provoking, being someone who loves people and crowds I found it a tad one sided. I think it is an interesting percpective but lacks balance. It makes no mention of the great value of relationships. Suffering fools can be a lesson in compassion and humanity, sometimes it's not about you but how you may be of service to another in need. I dont see how we could truely achieve spiritual growth and self awareness alone. It is the mirror that others provide that often help us grow as individuals. Otherwise wouldn't we all live alone on islands. Human beings intuitively want to connect, to share, touch, love and laugh. For me it's about finding the balance and being able to do both. To be completely comfortable alone and silent and to be just as comfortable in the space of others that is humanity at it's best. To love everyone, to learn from each other, support and love one another. As well as providing each other space to grow alone. To say that 'reflection only occurs in solitude' is certainly not true for me, the way I process is to chat and commiserate with my closest female friends and through sharing I reflect and gain clarity. This is not to say some alone time meditating is not also of value just that both can live in harmony...kx    

It is a pleasure to be joining the circle of sharing from electron land ;-)

and yes, I love you all! :-)

Why individuals decide to sit together?

My reflections: this is the age of collective samadhi... last year, I wrote an email to all the community I know of called BeLOVED CommUNITY.

Here is an excerpt that talks about spiritual companionship, and why is important to not only sit together but to eat together, to laugh together, to cry together:

3. The “Right” Companionship.
With our own translations in mind [see point 2.], I’d like to conclude with an inspiring pragmatic/idea from the book Conquest of Mind by Sri Eknath Easwaran:

[Spiritual friends are what Buddha would have called “right companionship.” Everything we do, he reminds us, either adds or subtracts from our own image as human beings. What we give our time and attention to, what we talk about, what we read about, the people we are close to – all these contribute to either a higher image of the human being or to a lower one.

Cultivate time with people whose companionship elevates you. We can seek out goodness in people. We can seek out what is noble in human character. We can look for goodness and nobility in choosing our friends, in choosing to whom to give our attention and our love. It is especially helpful to spend time regularly with others who are basing their lives on the same spiritual values.

When you are trying to change your life, you need the support of others with the same goal. If you have friends who are meditating along the lines suggested here, you can get together regularly to share a meal, meditate, and perhaps read and discuss your spiritual reading. Share your times of entertainment too; relaxation is an important part of spiritual living.

One of the best forms of spiritual association is to work together for a selfless goal like relieving hunger or protecting the environment. Wherever people work like this, without expecting any reward or recognition, their individual capacities are augmented and enhanced. They are unleashing an irresistible force which, though we may not see it, is going to change the world.]

This doesn’t mean we are excluding siblings with different philosophies of life than ours, rather we are getting more strength to broaden our circle of compassion so beautifully described by Albert Einstein:

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Wow.. this is one of the most controversial passages I've experienced in this forum, and it certainly made me reflect on certain beliefs I've pondered about recently.

i have to agree with some here that does indeed Osho display some amount of judgment here, which could make some feel uneasy. Then again, this is from a man who had a fleet of almost a 100 Rolls Royces, while living in one of the poorest countries in the world. Personally, I have a hard time finding someone with these kind of actions an authority on spirituality.  

True, as folks who are trying to achieve inner peace, it is challenging to hang out with some who are further from the path and who'll try to take you there with them. But if you make a decision to stray, that is YOUR responsibility not theirs. Life is full of challenges and lessons, and sometimes they come in disguise, and it is our mission to decipher the lesson and continue on the path, while maintaining our awareness, equanimity and the smile on our face!

Hopefully we can serve as inspiration to others, and if not, well- paths can part without putting a harsh judgement on someone like considering them a fool not worthy to spend time with. It's all about mutual respect and the understanding that we each have our own way of learning and developing as a person.  

Peace... 

I think this passage really required some deeper reflection on the meaning of solitude and renunciation and its role in spirituality to have true value. There is, on the one hand, something so beautiful the Swamiji, for example, from the Sivananda Ashram in Kerala, South India, who renounced his wife and career to move to India to pursue a path of deep solitude and spiritual growth. He couldn't speak a single word of the local dialect in India. At that time, nothing was written in English the way the language has become widespread these days. So this Swamiji befriended the birds, the monkeys and the trees of the jungle in Kerala. I think it is wonderful to have that opportunity to be that close and connected to Mother Nature.

In our culture, both the western and Indian ones, as well as the European, and, I imagine, Middle Eastern and Latin American ones, we are inclined to feel great regard for those who walk a path of renunciation, by becoming Swamis or monks, priests or imams. Because we imagine that we could never live without the things these people have given up, it is natural to feel a lot of respect for renunciates. There, is however, at the same time, a darker side to renunciation of the traditional sense (as there is for all things in the dualistic world we inhabit). 

A recent cover of Time magazine is titled "Why Being Pope Means Never having To Say You’re Sorry." The article covers the many scandals committed by religious leaders, many of whom are renunciates. In yoga, there exist siddhis, or special spiritual powers, that practitioners develop after years of committed sadhana (spiritual practice). While people in the material realm find these siddhis to be an attractive reason to practice yoga, meditation and renunciation, true spiritual seekers actually abhor siddhis, as they are but mere distraction to the fulfillment of the goal of kaivalya (or absolute freedom or liberation from bondage). Power, after all, easily corrupts oneself and others. 

It takes quite a bit of humility to really offer up praise to the divine, as our ego often wants nothing more than to be admired for its greatness. In reality, though, any good qualities we may possess, or actions we perform, come through us from a higher power - and it is to this higher power that we must offer any praise that comes out way. The same goes for insults - those, too, must be offered up to a divine force. In Gandhiji's "Service Before Self," he says, 

"He who feels neither happiness nor misery, he who rises above both happiness and misery has achieved Yoga. Yoga means absence of suffering, never feeling miserable. If anyone abuses us, we should lay the abuse at God's feet. Likewise, if anyone praises us, the praise too, we should lay at His feet. He is a yogi who cultivates such a state of mind and feels himself as light as a flower.

Only that person who has reduced himself to a cipher, has completely shed his egoism, can claim to be a yogi. He alone may be said to be such a person who has dedicated his all to God."

I heard a story this weekend about such a person, named Ammachi (meaning 'darling mother'). Ammachi is a hugging saint from Kerala who has embraced over 26 million people around the world. She is a spiritual teacher to many, including one young male disciple who has traveled with her for the past few years of his life. He was so attached to Ammachi that he could never leave her side and to the extent that he was actually approaching a mental breakdown. Instead of desiring his unquestioning devotion (as many spiritual masters do from their disciples), she commanded him to go away from her, to lessen the grip of his attachment. 

Devotion to a guru is a common aspect of the spiritual journey, as the guidance of a realized master is so invaluable for those starting out. While attachment is, in a subtle way, quite different from true love (mostly in its intention of looking out for own's own desires), devotion to a master like Ammachi is of great benefit to the devotee. I heard another amazing story about the power of devotion from Somikbhai's father after his Stanford graduation yesterday afternoon:

One guru had committed every sin known to man. One of his devotees, however, continued to worship him as God despite the clear shortcomings of the teacher. The devotee did not engage in the same kinds of activities as his guru, but his deep devotion to this teacher caused him to enter heaven. The guru, on the other hand, went to hell. The disciple was so upset that his teacher could not be found in heaven that he actually asked to go to hell to be with him! In the Mahabharata, Lord Vishnu had a conference with some other deity, who helped him decide that the most appropriate course of action would be to send the guru to heaven, by the merits of his disciple. Devotion, ultimately, then, is for the salvation of the student, not the teacher. The teacher went to heaven on the basis of the hard work of his devotee. Solitude, in this sense, then means that we are each responsible for our own salvation - no teacher can do the work for us, though they can guide us along a good path.

In my own life, I had an amazing experience of solitude this weekend when I went with a dear friend of mine on an 8-mile hike to Ammachi's ashram here in the hills of Castro Valley, California. Though we walked there together, we were in many ways, very much alone. We spoke very little on the journey. Many of the pathways did not allow for more than one person to walk and I had very heavy bags to carry with me, which caused me to move more slowly than my friend. I purposely tried to walk slowly, knowing that the speed at which I went would enable me to endure the long journey in the rising sun. My friend moved very fast and later shared how he had actually wanted to turn around halfway through! I would have never known this, as on the outside, it appeared that he was motivated enough for the both of us to walk! Had we spoken with one another, it would have been very easy to voice the complaints and discomforts we felt along the path. The challenges of the journey, particularly the intensity of the wind as we moved up the hill in the increasingly hot sun, allowed us a great opportunity instead for inner growth and transformation. It was a real purification of sorts, guided by silence and stillness in motion.

We went without any expectation that we would even get to see Ammachi, but when we arrived and shared with one lady that we had walked there, she decided to, instead of turning us away (due to a retreat that was going on), actually allow us to receive Ammachi as she entered the ashram! It was a beautiful experience. She distinctly made eye contact with both of us, as if she had known we had come a long way to catch this brief but meaningful glimpse of her. 

This experience reminded me of how even the word "alone" contains the words "all" and "one" - the real opportunity that solitude provided was the chance to perceive and experience our oneness and connectedness with ourselves, with the trees, one another, the birds and animals and really all beings and things. There is a universe outside of us, as well as one within - it is only through understanding the microcosm inside us that we can come to know the wide, vast world without. We are the living composite of the universe. We are part flower, part shark and tiger, ape, tree, cloud, dog, part bird. We have it all within. Any characteristic that we see in nature, we can also find within ourselves. 

There is really an irony in contemplating solitude - as it is through being alone that we can come to feel and know our true, eternal togetherness. To me, the real fallacy, then, is to believe that solitude equals separation. The basis of all the world's religious and spiritual traditions, after all, is the fundamental unity and interconnectedness we share with all. The very essence of a religious or spiritual master is the great love and compassion they embody (as Ammachi does) - this essence is predicated on knowing another's joys and sorrows as one's own, dissolving the lives of separation that create so much violence and discord in our world.

I really enjoyed Somikbhai's father's reflection on Wednesday about renunciation. He was chairperson of the annual Devi (goddess) Puja (worship/celebration) and decided that instead of the usual merrymaking that goes on during this holiday, to put people in his community into roles that required them to go out into the community, to connect with the joys and sorrows of someone in the slums. Everyone was really against it at first, but then ended up enjoying spending time amongst the underprivileged even more than the usual merrymaking of this time of year. 

In this time of Kali Yug (known as the period of darkness in many spiritual traditions, including that of Yoga), I believe that there is a real need for this kind of spirituality and compassion in action. That the real meaning of renunciation in these days is not to isolate oneself in a cave as much as it is to use the opportunity of solitude to reconnect with oneself to be of deeper and more pure service to others. To render acts of service as offerings of devotion to any form of a higher power one feels most comfortable acknowledging. Renunciation then is not so much about giving up one's home or family as it is about renouncing the attitude of greed, fear, hatred and jealousy. Reading the texts of spiritual and religious books (as is often done during religious and other holidays) is good, but as Swami Sivananda once said, "An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory." 

We live in an interconnected world and I really believe that the challenging nature of these times call upon us all to extend our concept of family to include the whole world as our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. To dispel, through solitude, the false notion of separation and feel the joys and sorrows of others as our own is, to me, the highest form of renunciation.

This passage was a little testy at first, and I found myself falling back on a belief I've decided to have. There is gold everywhere, but it comes to me covered with different amounts of mud, and it is my job to wash the mud away because I am after gold. And, the mud is not out there in the universe, it is in my mind.

I felt, like others in the sharing, that the word "fools" was harsh and judgmental. But this little bit of mud washes away the moment I place myself in that category. I do not want to become the "fool" who harms other people's growth, but I know that I have done so in the past out of ignorance. I have therefore a responsibility to develop both heart and head. Head without heart is cold and intellectual and does great harm to myself and others. Heart without head leads to what some people call "idiot compassion" and also does great harm to myself and others. I have been guilty of both extremes at one time or the other, but I have seen that with patience and practice, it is possible to combine the two and truly help. Moreover, a sensitivity develops where we can recognize that the best help we can give is to accept that we cannot help, wish the other well from the bottom of my hearts and move on. The universe will unfold as it will.

I liked Viral's follow-up question very much - why do ten internally-focused people still choose to sit together? The beauty of this passage lies in the ironies contained within it. I felt that our connections on Wednesdays come out so much stronger, although we hardly speak, and don't even discuss these passages. There is a unifying force within each one of us which we cannot label, and it responds to love and acceptance with greater love and acceptance.

Another irony - those who value internal solitude the most usually get it least in the external form. I remember the Dalai Lama's speech at Stanford, where he mentioned that he does not get to meditate more than 10 minutes a day.

The beauty of life cannot be confined to solitude or company. Life is both, and much more, and it is a mistake to not recognize the solitude in company. When our friends are aligned with our values, it is like different bodies and minds acting as one organism. One of the meanings of the word solitary is "being at once single" - and an aligned company leads toward "singlehood", a oneness. And when company is not aligned, that is when we are truly challenged and pushed to recognize this oneness. That is when our experience of oneness makes a quantum leap in quality. "Smooth seas never a good sailor make."