Truth And Solitude

From Elaine Spencer

(Her pace) was slower than what I wanted, so I attempted to speed up but then found myself slowing down as I listened to her loud rhythmic walking. I took a breath, and through the loud beating, I heard and felt my own, softer footsteps. I shifted my focus to my own steps and felt the pace I desired. As I did this, I sped up, and within a few minutes, was far enough away that her rhythmic sound was no longer a distraction. Sometimes we are surrounded by others who are “loud” and if we aren’t paying attention, we may harmonize to their energy.

— Dreaming Julie

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‘Now, now, my good man, this is no time to be making enemies.’

-Voltaire, on his deathbed, when asked by a priest to renounce Satan

— From Everything French

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“Don’t let your solitude obscure the presence of something within it that wants to emerge. Precisely this presence will help your solitude expand. People are drawn to the easy and to the easiest side of the easy. But it is clear that we must hold ourselves to the difficult, as it is true for everything alive. Everything in nature grows and defends itself in its own way and against all opposition, straining from within and at any price, to become distinctively itself. It is good to be solitary, because solitude is difficult, and that a thing is difficult must be even more of a reason for us to undertake it.”

— Rilke

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All the lonely people come from the belief in a tiny mad idea that it’s possible to separate from the Source.

— Pat Nolan

Solitude is difficult for most of us. We prefer noise; we want to be led away from ourselves. We have a kind of horror vacui. Wikipedia says ‘ in visual art, horror vacui, also referred to as kenophobia, is the filling of the entire surface of a space or an artwork with detail.’ We cram our lives from corner to corner with busy little details. We blame it on circumstances but it’s really a choice. There’s something we don’t want to confront, our emptiness.

This is why meditation is so difficult. A mind that is quiet is a mind that has faced that fear and let it spin itself to exhaustion and cease its maneuvers, usually after learning the noisy…