The Book of Yourself Newsletter
Issue 47: October 2025
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In a previous issue of this Newsletter we ventured to look into some of K’s statements concerning the active exploration of meditation. The main point was that in spite of his seemingly thoroughgoing denial of ‘practice’, K had nonetheless encouraged the staff and students in his schools to experiment with meditation. While based on the general principle that meditation is not a specialised kind of activity, his instructions pointed to a deliberate engagement. As most people who have read K got the message that meditation has nothing to do with the deliberate practice of a method or system, this may have sounded somewhat jarring, when not contradictory. What I tried to convey was that while what he said might be interpreted as a system, his indications, however concrete, explicitly excluded concentration and control, which are the heart of such methods. The absence of these mechanical factors would make such an experiential approach inherently free and creative. After all, K was adamant that we must not take him at his word but find out for ourselves, for the word is not the thing. And all the more so when it comes to the inward journey of self-knowledge. So we must stand alone.
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“For the total development of the human being, solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity becomes a necessity. One has to know what it is to be alone, what it is to meditate, what it is to die; and the implications of solitude, of meditation, of death can be known only by seeking them out. These implications cannot be taught, they must be learnt. One can indicate, but learning by what is indicated is not the experiencing of solitude or meditation. To experience what is solitude and what is meditation one must be in a state of inquiry; only a mind that is in a state of inquiry is capable of learning. But when inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learnt without experiencing it.”
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K considers solitude as a means of cultivating sensitivity in the development of the whole human being, which was the purpose of his teachings and of his educational approach. He indicates that learning the implication of what it is to be alone, to meditate and to die, is not something that can be taught but that must be learned. Even though things might be pointed out, the instruction is not the same as the experiencing of these things, and for that one must be in a state of inquiry. When such inquiry is prevented by previous knowledge and the authority and experience of another, then the learning becomes the imitation and repetition of what has been learned without experiencing it, which makes us, as he used to put it, second-hand human beings. This is quite clear, so if we want to find out about these matters, we have to seek them out so we know what they actually are beyond the descriptions and instructions of others. However, it might be worth exploring K’s approach to the topic of solitude, as it seems to be intimately related with death and meditation, to all of which he gives new meanings.
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In the 15th dialogue of the series of The Ending of Time, K says: “Loneliness is not solitude; it is not aloneness.”[1] These three terms, which in normal speech might be used interchangeably, in the context of the teachings describes distinct states of being. They might even be said to represent the inherent movement of the teachings from fragmentation to wholeness. So let’s begin with loneliness.
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“It’s an experience of being completely isolated, a feeling of not being able to depend on anything, of being cut off from all relationship. The ‘me’, the ego, the self, by its very nature is constantly building a wall around itself; all its activity leads to isolation. Becoming aware of its isolation, it begins to identify itself with virtue, with God, with property, with a person, country, or ideology; but this identification is part of the process of isolation. In other words, we escape by every possible means from the pain of loneliness, from this feeling of isolation, and so we never directly experience it. It’s like being afraid of something round the corner and never facing it, never finding out what it is, but always running away and taking refuge in somebody or something, which only breeds more fear.”
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Commentaries on Living, Third Series, pg. 302
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This is K’s general description of loneliness, which is characterised by the feeling of total lisolation and lack of relationship brought about by the self-centred movement of thought. The awareness of this isolation and loneliness in turn leads the ego to escape from it through identification with people, property, beliefs and ideas. What we are escaping from is the pain of loneliness, of which we are afraid, so we don’t feel it directly and fully. This way we don’t come in direct contact with it and we do not find out what it is. Since this loneliness is brought about by the ego, it is us and therefore to escape from it is to run away from ourselves, condemning us to live in the vicious circle of fear and attachment, with its violence and suffering. This inner pattern of isolation and escape not only divides us inwardly but breaks down relationship and destroys love. So the answer is, to begin with, not to escape from loneliness. And that might be the beginning of inner recollection and solitude.
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“We are never alone; we are surrounded by people and by our own thoughts. Even when the people are distant, we see things through the screen of our thoughts. There is no moment, or it is very rare, when thought is not. We do not know what it is to be alone, to be free of all association, of all continuity, of all word and image. We are lonely, but we do not know what it is to be alone. The ache of loneliness fills our hearts, and the mind covers it with fear. Loneliness, that deep isolation, is the dark shadow of our life. We do everything we can to run away from it, we plunge down every avenue of escape we know, but it pursues us and we are never without it. Isolation is the way of our life; we rarely fuse with another, for in ourselves we are broken, torn and unhealed. In ourselves we are not whole, complete, and the fusion with another is possible only when there is integration within. We are afraid of solitude, for it opens the door to our insufficiency, the poverty of our own being; but it is solitude that heals the deepening wound of loneliness. To walk alone, unimpeded by thought, by the trail of our desires, is to go beyond the reaches of the mind. It is the mind that isolates, separates and cuts off communion. The mind cannot be made whole; it cannot make itself complete, for that very effort is a process of isolation, it is part of the loneliness that nothing can cover. The mind is the product of the many, and what is put together can never be alone. Aloneness is not the result of thought. Only when thought is utterly still is there the flight of the alone to the alone.”
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Commentaries on Living, Second Series, pp. 86-87
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For most of us solitude is associated with walking alone in the woods, along the banks of a river watching the trees, the birds, the drifting clouds, the light on the water, listening to the sound of the wind and being somewhat aware of ourselves, of our thoughts, feelings and desires. Such solitude not only awakens our sensitivity to the beauty of nature but to the movement of consciousness, which is the key to self-knowledge. Our tendency, however, is to be constantly occupied with something, be it a person, a book or a piece of music. Above all, we are busy with our own thoughts, with the associations, regrets and hopes, of words and images, whose stream very seldom leaves us alone. This continuous occupation may in fact be the way of loneliness, for it is through self-occupation that we attempt to escape from it. Loneliness, as K puts it, is our own shadow and the more we escape from it, the more it pursues us. Such running away means we are inwardly fragmented, and so we cannot fuse with another, since we can only have a complete relationship when we are inwardly whole. But we fear solitude because it means meeting our own loneliness and insufficiency, our inner poverty, whereas, as K puts it, it is solitude that heals the wound of loneliness. K then extends this sense of solitude to walking alone unimpeded by the chatter of thought and the trail of desire. As these are the principal movements of self-centred consciousness, to walk without them is to step outside the reaches of the mind and its self-enclosing and isolating movement, which is the factor that prevents communion with another and with oneself. The nature of this mind or consciousness is isolation and as such it cannot free itself from it. The mind is also the result of the collective, so that to think is to be in the company of the many. So aloneness is not the product of thought. And K ends that amazing paragraph by saying that only when thought is utterly still is there the flight of the alone to the alone.
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K used to remind us that etymologically ‘alone’ means ‘all-one’, i.e. whole. As it turns out, and as he already indicated, only out of this aloneness, out of this emptiness of thought and desire, can there be inner integration and healing as well as communion with another. It might sound contradictory or paradoxical, but relationship is possible only when we are inwardly alone. This aloneness does not mean avoiding having a family, friends and companions or otherwise withdrawing from the world to escape its entanglements. While K takes issue with our getting lost in family, job and the routine of existence, he feels that when there is this quality of aloneness one’s life has a richness, the richness of wisdom or truth, that far surpasses that of knowledge, money and status. While life is relationship and nobody can exist in isolation, the quality of wholeness in oneself and one’s relationships implies that one is no longer dependent on such relationships, for they share in the same quality of wholeness. Then one can live alone or with others. K says that living alone, as many of us actually do, needs great intelligence and alertness because the solitary life encourages isolation, sluggishness and self-enclosing and comforting habits. Such isolation is deadly, even if we think that it might be a path to wisdom and liberation. For K there are no such paths, for wisdom is alone but not separative and exclusive. In the field of wisdom, the end is the means, so we cannot come upon the Whole by way of fragmentation. It’s in the understanding of our relationship with everything, inwardly and outwardly, that we break through the isolation of loneliness and in that freedom come upon the completeness of the alone.
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“On the journey of life and death, you must walk alone; on this journey there can be no taking of comfort in knowledge, in experience, in memories. The mind must be purged of all the things it has gathered in its urge to be secure; its gods and virtues must be given back to the society that bred them. There must be complete, uncontaminated aloneness.”
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Commentaries on Living, Third Series, pg. 64
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This statement would seem to border on despair, as it suggests that to live and die is a solitary journey. But it means that for the alone to fuse with the alone the mind must be purged of all the things it has gathered to feel secure. This emptiness of the mind of its content is the ending of the self and the essence of meditation, so that meditation, death and aloneness go together.
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Be well, amigos, and let’s embrace the solitude in which aloneness is to be discovered,
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Photos by J. Gómez Rodríguez: 1. Main House, Swanwick Centre, at sunset. 2. Strait of Juan de Fuca from Swanwick Centre, Metchosin, Vancouver Island, Canada.
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