Entries Tagged as 'aloneness'

“Eternal Slumber” by Lila Sakura

I’d listen to this every day during my morning commute on the bus and just look out the window. It really brought me peace when I felt like everything and everyone was fading away.

I Chose Sara

I wanted to visit North Florida to contemplate the possibility of forming a meditation and retreat center. What sort of meditation? Oh, I wasnt sure. Maybe I would include some fun things as well… you know : human joys, earthly pursuits.

I had some good choices for AirBNB – one place all to myself for 1 grand and something a bit cheaper, living out in the wilderness with a woman.

I’m on a 10-week Buddhist meditation course and during these 10 weeks I’ve been avoiding any spirited human joys in favor of “genuine” spirituality. But for some reason, I booked a room with Sara.

And I got set on fire.

I burned myself up with lust, hatred, greed, resentment, jealousy and more before, during and after the stay.

Maybe this verse(s) from the Dhammapada (monk chapter) would’ve saved me, had it been my guiding light:

373. The monk who has retired to a solitary abode and calmed his mind, who comprehends the Dhamma with insight, in him there arises a delight that transcends all human delights.

374. Whenever he sees with insight the rise and fall of the aggregates, he is full of joy and happiness. To the discerning one this reflects the Deathless.

Black Sabbath – Solitude

Thanks to Sulev for posting this.

The solitary is the one…

The solitary is the one who has  learned by painful paths to live without props, the props supplied by other people, whether the props of self-affirmation, emotional support or the reassurance that one is going the right way. Even reliance upon the religious practices which at one time have provided such comfort must go. One leaves the broad green paths for those which are steep and rough. Only the emptiness, the no-thingness, is real.

— ‘Paths in Solitude’ by Eve Baker

Mike Schmitt, R.I.P.

R.I.P. Michael Schmitt

Mike Schmitt was a student of Franklin Merrell-Wolff (FMW). FMW wrote the book “Pathways through to Space”, which was co-authored with John C. Lilly.

 

 

Just getting out of the tank? Enjoy “Horizon” by Ralph Zurmühle

 

EXILE OR SEPARATION – A CENTRUM OF GRAVITY QUESTION

Jim Hodgkinson  is a student of EJ Gold. EJ is the primary founder of IDHHB – the institute for the development of the harmonious human being. His poetry below is a perfect echo of the sentiments of my own Gnostic Isolation Temple, a religious order which uses the isolation tank so that the self can find The Self as opposed to relying a church of group to find the self.

EJ is a polyglot. Master-level artist, musician, author and more. He has written many mind-shattering texts and Jim’s poem was written to a facebook group devoted to studying and actualizing his EJ Gold’s text “Practical Work on Self”:

What does “exile” or “separation” mean?
What feelings does this evoke, if any?
The feelings come first as the
Memories begin to form from
That place you thought you
Had safely buried them.

Six years old I wake up
To the sun shining on the fields
And streams beyond our front gate
The purple mystery of Bluebell Wood
Its dark and musty secrets
My solitary quest for the day.

Different than the rest
Of the kids playing in
The Lane I pause
Enviously looking at
The rowdy swirls of boys and girls,
That I want to join but strangely can’t.

How can attraction and repulsion
Co-exist causing perfect stasis
Wanting to belong
Yet knowing even then
That I don’t
However much the longing.

It never went away
This feeling of being alien to this culture
Of having no connection to my family
Or country or planet
And left with the unanswered
Why?

So here we are.
Loneliness transmuted to
Being alone
A lesson gradually learned
So that the Absolute
May suffer a little less in this small way.

 

Deaf Center – “White Lake”

Just finished a tank session? Ready to return from the void and enjoy the phenomenal universe? Well, put on “White Lake” by Deaf Center and allow the physical universe to unfold from The Quiet Center.

The group Deaf Center released the song White Lake on their album Pale Ravine. The music all-by-itself whispers to your heartstrings but even Otto from the group Deaf Center thanked the developer of this video, which takes this melancholy track to a whole new level: