The Mirage of Loneliness
Loneliness presents a most compelling mirage to the ego. Seemingly just out of reach, this apparition of connection lies over yet another ridge, just one further valley of desperation away. It is always a fleeting location, a place of reunification that forever drifts away from the perceiver, deceiving them into believing that they need only step just a little farther ahead to find that which they so ache to know and enjoy. Yet how could this be? How could a state of illusion be resolved through a connection so desperately desired and yet equally presumed to be unavailable? Quite a contradictory presumption is contained within this presentation, and an equally unrecognized level of acceptance must be employed to overcome its nearly mystical appeal. Loneliness is predicated upon and sustained within a belief in a necessity of disconnection so vast that no mere and meager meeting of complementary souls might hope to alleviate its burdensome banquet of noxious nourishment, a feast of emptiness so succulent in presentation and yet so wholly divested of Truth that it cannot sustain even itself, let alone those that elect to consume its repast of the past. For what could we possibly correctly describe as loneliness save for an assumption of a continuation of prior patterns, now carried forward indefinitely, forever binding that which once was unto that which has yet to manifest? This mirage glistens just beyond the mind’s most central focus, offering respite from a lack of unity that is wholly the domain and ambit of the ego - never of the heart. Loneliness must carry as its predicate the possibility of isolation from all that is, beckoning from beyond the now, supplicating unto the awareness of an individual a vast array of joys that could be had, if only they were not so desperately alone and cut off from all that is available to others, oh those damnable others who seem so easily able to revel in the company and companionship that we, outcasts from the fête, are so destined to be forever denied. And so does the mirage continuously move, ever dancing just out of reach, seemingly wavering closer and then pulling back again, tempting us endlessly but never genuinely approaching anywhere near our little hovel in a desert of our own creation. For what is there genuinely not for us to enjoy, we the denizens of desolation in a desert of desperation, who have accepted an illusion of dependence on others for the company and solace that we alone have always been able to offer to ourselves, first and foremost? What have we traded away in payment to enter into this vast bleakness, this arid plain of misperceptions, this hillocked and rambling array of perceptual awareness that we’ve created for ourselves? What did we create when we stepped foot into this palace of nothingness, this lifeless and destitute hinterland of aloneness that stretches now before us, the sounds of revelry bouncing along on the winds of creation towards our lingering ears, ever so close, yet so impossibly distant as well? We chose this, even if we cannot possibly remember when first we elected to believe that any other person could become a need for us, or that the companionship of alike souls and the joy of the company of others was definitive of our own. Why then did we step foot into nothingness when we were already possessed of all that we needed to satisfy any desire for connection that might ever arise? Why indeed, and need we even follow such a line of inquiry to its logical conclusion? Nay, we needn’t and we shouldn’t. It is irrelevant and wholly inconsequential how we arrived in this state of acceptance. We can look again. We can see that the mirage is forever destined to ephemerality. It cannot take concrete form. It does not represent the Truth of Love. We are not devoid of all that we seek out in others. We are not now, and will never be, unable to live in a state of unity with all that is, no matter what form it may or may not take before our currently waylaid and rather misbegotten awareness. The mirage of loneliness will persist. It will accompany and tempt many more who will forlornly journey into this desert of seeming demise that we have wandered within. How many others will be taken in by its temptations, believing themselves to be somehow unable to find a final respite from the desolation that they have created for themselves? It is not our journey to know this for them. We escape from the miasma of the mirage when we allow it to be returned to the flittering sands of time from which it first arose. We take up instead a different view, one of inward perceptional certainty and a solidarity with our soul that cannot be disrupted by the presence or absence of anyone at all. It was not for them, those so longed for companions that we shuttered to think might one day be an integral part of our lives, that we cried out in vain. It was for our own company that we thirsted, shivering in the night of the desert and staggering under the oppressive heat of the noonday sun that rose, again and again, taunting us with the undulating mirage of their existence, always so far, yet so close that we could never truly give up hope of their eventual arrival. What can they possibly offer that we do not yet enjoy? Are they to know us better than we know ourselves? Is that truly an inane insanity that we wish to take up instead of the Truth that has lain closest to our quiet hearts? They cannot give us that which we refuse to give ourselves. They cannot be for us what we, at least as of yet, refuse to be for ourselves. We cannot ask of them to be better companions than what we are willing to be for ourselves. None of that will do. None of that obsequiousness will fulfill our hearts, for we are already quite full indeed. All that is resides within us all, an endless garden of connection and unity that will transform the barren deserts of our misperceptions into boundless realms of peace and certainty, just as soon as we are willing to stop looking outwards for that which must forever lay within. It is in that grand reversal of perception that all misery and pain arises. We ask of others to satiate our loneliness, for we refuse to be wholly present with ourselves. And perhaps they do, or we at least accept that simplistic diversion for a little while. But what happens when it ends? When they must leave, or perish, or simply no longer be the most perfect reflections our most unseen desires? What are we left with, and what remains when they no longer wish to? We return to ourselves, to the universe of Love that has forever been accessible on the path that travels within, through all of the layers of the heart, concluding within a Peace that surpasses all worldly understanding. And so do we see that it was not that which stood beyond the bastions and fortresses of our own perception that separated us from unity and inviolate certainty. It was merely our desire to assume and presume that the company and gentle awareness of others, directed towards us exclusively, was a necessary prerequisite of our acceptance of our invariably beautiful and perfect hearts.