How Mystics Manage Isolation

Isolation can be a recipe for anxiety and depression. Left alone people may wither.

But what about hermits and mystic loners who enjoy solitude? What is their secret?

Mystics have always had a simple answer. They experience companionship in nature. From a grain of sand, the touch of air on their skin, out to the infinity of the cosmos, mystics sense a connectedness with all that is. They also sense an invisible and benevolent presence.

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Mystic: a person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect. (Oxford Dictionary)

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Yet mystics are not cut off from cruelty and suffering. In fact, because of their deep connection with the wonder and energy of life, they can meet pain with courage, compassion and dignity.

This is one of the assets of great spiritual leaders: they model a deep connection with the wonder and energy of life yet are simultaneously fully present to suffering.

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Mystics also do not need the companionship of other people. They may enjoy the company of others, but they do not need it.

But infants and children absolutely need people around them. Without other people the infant brain simply does not grow. (See Sue Gerhardt: Why Love Matters – How Affection Shapes a Baby’s Brain.)

Children then mature. As part of their development they gradually detach from their families and carers. They need to explore, expand and become independent.

Adults, even though independent, still experience instinctive biological needs, including those for company and touch. At its most physical there is a DNA programmed biological response. Being in a crowd can feel great. Like most animals we like being stroked. Massage and lovemaking can even be blissful.

Unhappily natural instincts can become habitual, addictive and self-harming.

We see this in cravings, from food to sex. We see it too when the instinct for human company and touch becomes needy.

So here is a stark question. In this context of the pandemic and lockdowns, how much of the current concern about solitude and restriction is based in neediness rather than necessity?

We know that children absolutely require human company and affection. But do we adults really need it too or is it just the desire to satisfy a habitual craving and not a necessity?

That may seem an unnecessarily harsh enquiry. Certainly our first awareness should always be compassion and the relief of suffering. But when the suffering is based in addiction, we may need tough love.

Desire is the memory of things that have given us pleasure in the past — Patanjali 200 BC

This is where mystics have useful strategies.

They are content in solitude and isolation because they are nurtured by a felt, benevolent presence. But to achieve that state they conduct regular spiritual practice.

Their ongoing experience of the wonder and energy of life is not serendipitous. It does not just happen. Its foundation is in commitment, perseverance when times are tough and self-discipline. Mystics have robust rhythms of taking long periods of time to give full awareness to their spiritual connection.

Self-discipline however is a sensitive subject.

When someone is vulnerable and in pain, stoic willpower can be irrelevant, insulting and harmful.  

On the other hand the stoic willpower of daily spiritual practice can be beautiful, nurturing and liberating.  What is better for us than a deepening experience of the wonder and energy of life?

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Although entangled in the web and habits of biology, instinct and human relationships, we are still independent beings.

Solitude, even restriction, can be enjoyed. Even the poignancy of feeling alone whilst also being spiritually connected can be appreciated. The choice is ours.

Blessings and love to all.

Space Consciousness Love and the Pandemic

Space Consciousness Love and the Pandemic

Recently a research project asked me for my definition of consciousness.

Answering this enquiry philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists usually disappear down a rabbit hole of complexity. But I like a simple answer.  I encountered it first in Vedic philosophy and the books of Alice Bailey.

I summarise it:

Consciousness is the innate capacity to respond to stimulation. 

It is the capacity in everything to respond to stimulation.

Every time we see something responding to stimulation we are witnessing consciousness in action.

This applies to everything. I really mean everything — electron, atom, rock, plant, animal, human, planet, solar system, galaxy, cosmos, space . . .

Here are examples:

A rock responds to pressure and temperature. That response is an indication of the rock’s consciousness.

A plant may respond to temperature, gravity, sunlight, moisture and nutrients.

Animals may respond to many stimulations.

Humans respond to even more stimulations. Humans can respond to their own thoughts.

So the difference between a rock and a human is this. Human consciousness is more complex, more responsive to multiple stimulations.

Based in this interpretation we can suggest that consciousness is woven into the essential fabric of life and cosmos.

Expanding their awareness beyond the human realm mystics suggest that planets, our sun, stars, galaxies and the cosmos also have consciousness.

Space is consciousness.

This possibility can be a focus of enquiry in metaphysical meditation as human consciousness expands and experiences altered states. Sitting quietly it is the empty mind, like a receptive radar dish, that can garner insights. These insights are found in what one of the fathers of yoga, Patanjali, called ‘the raincloud of knowable things.’

Some meditators may reject the idea of any activity when sitting in silence. Others are very happy to explore inner realities, possibilities and dimensions.

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I have been building on this understanding of consciousness. In meditation I have been contemplating these seed thoughts and exploring their mysteries:

— Space is an infinite ocean of consciousness with an innate capacity to respond to stimulation

— Empty space is filled with matter, energy, electricity, vibrations, beings, ideas, plasma . . .  some miniscule, some galactic

Like all mystics and meditators my consciousness expands further when I am in a soft mindful state of love and bliss

Let me now add a thread that may help us address our current global crisis.

Ultimately our galaxy and all the dense matter we know will disappear.  It will be sucked into the mystery of a black hole.

This event is billions of years away, but it is inevitable.

So here is an interesting possibility:

When all the matter of our galaxy disappears into that black hole, will human consciousness also disappear?

Perhaps only dense matter is sucked into the black hole.  And the more subtle matter of our consciousness continues.

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This kind of enquiry posed in meditation is profoundly relevant to how we manage the current global crisis.

We can only conduct these contemplative enquiries if we are deeply calm, centred in our hearts and awake.

In that state we can truly see the bigger picture.

Waves and cycles of human history come and go.

There have been many plagues and demagogues. They pass.

Calm compassionate equanimity radiates.

It can balance, stabilise and heal the suffering, distress and anxiety of our times.

Humanity’s destiny is to be loving, conscious and connected.