Alone together
Alone together
Just being in quietude, without the compulsion to get distracted, is what takes you deeper into peace and divinity, and allows you to tap into your potential, feels Megha Bajaj
I met a parent for a counselling session, and she told me something that somewhat alarmed me! She said that she always needed to be with people or keep doing something to keep her sanity intact. Whenever she was alone or doing nothing, she would get scared of the traffic of her thoughts and immediately pick up the phone or her laptop and busy herself. In fact, if her husband was traveling, she would keep the TV on, the entire night, and sleep. She just couldn’t be with herself. She simply could not stand her own company.
As I began observing more people around me I realised this was not just true for her but for almost everyone (including me to some extent). A free moment from work, and what do we do? Check our WhatsApp. One of the first things most of us do in the morning and one of the last things we do at night is checking some social site. A gap between two meetings and what is the tendency? To somehow busy ourselves with some gadget.
The concept of Being—of allowing aloneness, giving room for nothingness—seems to have become alien to many of us. And because of this, I believe we are losing something very basic and very crucial to us: the ability to feel deeply.
Think about it. We go through an experience. Either beautiful or not so. And we just constantly keep ourselves busy. With people, with the internet, with work. There is no seeping in time. There is no allowing time. There is no deepening time. We leave no time to understand: “Yes, this is what happened. Yes, this is what I feel. Yes, this is how I should tackle this situation. Yes, I am so grateful.” We just keep running from one information to the other, one experience to another, as though life itself is nothing but a sprint on the treadmill.
To a large extent, I think this inability to be alone and allow time for aloneness is also affecting our togetherness. If we do not relate to ourselves, how are we going to relate to others? Little wonder, that with thousands of friends on social media, many of us actually don’t know whom to turn to in a moment of crisis or celebration. Connection first begins with the self and can only then be taken to the other.
Allowing aloneness also gives room for creativity. When one is constantly bombarded with forwards, messages, and advertisements, where is the time to tap into the potential within? Where is the space to do the new?
It is only in Silence that we can actually hear the whispers of the Beyond. Only in emptiness that something we cannot understand, reveals itself to us. Meditation is not about being quiet for a few moments but rather carrying that quietude with us through the day, so that the Silence carries on.
I have made it a conscious practice to celebrate my aloneness these days. Be it long walks in the morning or sitting on the parapet watching twilight cast its dark spell upon my city. Neither do I touch a gadget during this time nor do I interact with people. It’s time for me. To allow the aloneness. And in that simple being, so much unfolds. Peace. Ideas. Breakthroughs. Depths. And yes, divinity.
Come. Let’s be alone. Together.