A Takeaway for 2019: Challenge of Solitude

My dear Upbuild community,

I wrote to you last year of the blur that is this life and the inability to manage through all the madness of it, save for a solitary aspiration urged on by my guru – to create space between myself and my experience of life. As yet another year comes to a close and a new one makes its hurried way, I find unsurprisingly that the very same problem persists! In my defense, I had shared that it’s a life-long project to make progress at separating myself from my experiences!
 
Sometimes I wonder if I’m making any progress at all… In my best moments, I know and can see with clarity how far I’ve come and where I’m headed – toward the life of the true self. In the rest of the moments, I feel I can’t really see at all, for the ego is blind and the self still awaits discovery.
 
I’m trying and I’m failing, as my guru’s guru, Srila Prabhupada, would say in his own humble prayers. I’m trying and I’m failing… If you are ever feeling this way too, please know that you are not alone.
 
But should we just throw in the towel? To realize our self is too difficult? Too ethereal? Too impractical? Or not enough fun? Should we lower our lofty expectations and simply work hard for our tangible material aspirations? When it comes to transcendent possibilities, are we better to live as Kim desperately and depressedly proposes after being displaced from his home upon a terrible sewage flood in the Korean film, Parasite:
 
“You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan. No plan at all. You know why? Because life cannot be planned. Look around you. Did you think these people made a plan to sleep in the sports hall with you? But here we are now, sleeping together on the floor. So, there's no need for a plan. You can't go wrong with no plans. We don't need to make a plan for anything. It doesn't matter what will happen next…”
 
Nobody plans to get divorced when they marry. Nobody plans to do a dead-end job for the rest of their lives. Nobody plans the unfortunate happenings that come of their own power. And life can really feel like a flood of unplanned experiences that displace us from our real self, mostly because there’s truth to this! So what can be done if we don’t want to resign our self to mediocrity and entropy?
 
There are many things which yet give me hope. I will outline three of them here with the aim that you can feel this hope too and deeply invest it. We’ll briefly touch on the first two and spend the fullest extent of our time here on the third.
 
Firstly, the fact that you who are reading this exist and care is hugely hope-giving to me personally! I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you were not here on this lonely little planet with me. I am so moved to have met you, those whom I know, and I think about you with heartfelt prayers more than you know. I really miss you when time does its expert job of creating constraints… Those whom I don’t know, I wish to know you, and even if that’s not meant to be in this life, I am so grateful for the medium of self-work that puts us in connection on a much deeper, and more important level than the limited realm of physicality. Thank you each for being with me on this path and for your sincerity which motivates me and touches others, especially the more you are in contact with working on yourself and supported by persons of the same rare spirit.
 
Secondly, I’ve found that documenting my own realizations gives not only the feeling of progress but evidences the reality of it. I’ve been blessed this year to have gained numerous insights that mean the world to me and which I’ve tried to capture the best I could in writing. That becomes my solace amidst the inevitable storms. It’s my light at the end of the tunnel because I know there’s much much more where these gems of clarity came from! Something so simple as taking a moment to reflect and being receptive can make all the difference. We will do well to incessantly ask the question – what am I meant to learn from the experiences of life (that are not me but are teaching me)?
 
This leads us to our third hope-giving anchor. In spite of my best efforts to realize my self as separate from the temporary phenomena of this world not yet yielding the ripened fruit, and in spite of my increasing fear of aging as time relentlessly pushes forward (which I’ll perhaps share more about another time), something else lives in me as of late. Just the other day, I caught myself indulging in some giddiness about a prospect that I wish to share with you as my main takeaway here for 2019. That is the idea of retreat.
 
My guru, Sacinandana Maharaja, writes in a beautiful essay entitled The Gifts of Retreat:
 
When withdrawing into solitude and silence, one can encounter the greater person within, who is far superior to the forever insecure small person we know so well, always struggling for ego-centered gains. In spiritual practice, one can nourish that "greater person" - the soul - and make it strong so that it reaches beyond all limitations into the world of the spirit. When one returns from such inner depths, he or she has changed. Now, such a changed person brings the sacred world with him or her into daily life; occupied in "busy leisure" and resting in "tranquil activity," as one monk from my neighbouring monastery expressed. With such spiritual empowerment, things seem to happen on their own accord, or by the strength of a different orchestrator…Almost effortlessly, one is in the flow.
 
Every year, I endeavor to create a little barrier between the year that leaves us and the year that knocks on our door afresh. I aim to spend more time cultivating the inner life and leaving the outer life for later. I have had varying levels of success here (mostly mild!), despite the nice intention. But something new came over me recently. I recognized that I have an opportunity to actually carve out time if I truly value it enough – in other words, that it’s possible. And then I recognized that it’s essential.
 
Our partner, Vipin, inspired me by the way he planned his sabbatical this summer, and the effects it had on him were quite encouraging. To close off email for six weeks and head into nature with the aim of rejuvenation helped set a cultural precedent for us at Upbuild. I always face too much guilt and fear to make good on my cravings to get away from the day to day.
 
By some special grace, from time to time, I have the privilege to study with my guru, visit sacred places, and get quality time with my wife. I eagerly seize these whenever and however possible, as each are tremendously nourishing and much needed. To date, they’ve also always been tremendously fast-paced! What I’ve really sorely missed – even neglected – is the time in solitude.
 
While I was sitting for my morning meditation the other day, it came to me, that I must rekindle that flame of solitude, and answer the call I feel from within. It spoke loudly and clearly. So I sheepishly began to investigate the possibility, afraid of shirking any responsibility or distancing, much less abandoning, those I love.
 
I was grateful to meet with support on all sides and the sense that a path is being paved for this crucial time to manifest. The giddiness grew in me as I began to think about making this an annual tradition. Renewal must be renewed regularly!
 
I really wish to make good on this and I share with you to hold myself accountable, as well as to ardently invite you to join me in going within. I can’t think of anything more valuable than to seek the treasures that are not made of matter and do not disappear with all the fleeting phenomena, including our own bodies and minds. There’s so much at stake we miss when we make the mistake of seeing only with our eyes.
 
In this vein, I have grand plans to return to the most wonderful monastic habits of awakening before dawn for my morning meditation and spiritual reading. Catching up on backlogs of messages and to dos that embarrass me. Reading my realizations from the year that’s passed and many other years past. Writing new realizations that have been yearning to be written without the time or space to offer them a safe passageway onto the page. And much much more.
 
Why should I let backlogs into my sacred retreat? Ideally, I would not! But then ideally I would also not have them! And while they continue to pursue me, I want to honor them and serve from a peaceful state of consciousness, in closer touch with the self by dint of spiritual absorption. I can never think that people’s messages don’t matter or are low priority. I never wish for my own feebleness and inabilities to come at the cost of anyone else who has reached out or who I could perhaps somehow benefit. Therefore, I am always pursued by the backlogs of what’s left undone. And I truly hope to live freer by addressing them if that’s at all possible. And I pray that this is just the beginning. In coming years, I may get better at keeping full focus on my solitary service.
 
I also know to keep my expectations in check because things don’t typically go as planned (established earlier by our movie character, Kim!). I must try my best but be happy with what I can offer in this sincere endeavor towards solitude.
 
In future years, it can also help to go away, but this year, I start small, realistic, and with another objective. I love the idea of living my best life in the place where I actually live… Imagine living so connected with yourself, with your best habits that you can muster, and your inner wealth firmly developing, all in the place where you always reside. Suddenly, what could be as day to day snaps into focus, and not merely some wild yearly anomaly.
 
Already, I’m hearing from others, “I should do the same!” That warms my heart. We have a direct impact on one another by how we show up, usually far more than we consider. And what could be more important than investing in the real me, beyond my usual ego thoughts and habits? Why not carve out the time to cultivate the self? Offering that to yourself is the greatest gift. But you’ll also be offering it to everyone in your life by how you show up nourished from within and by how you set an example.
 
May 2020 serve as a launching pad for a life possessed of purpose – not just the buzzy word we hear about constantly now, but the purpose of the self that eagerly awaits us in silence. 
 
I want to wish you the most wonderful close to 2019, opening to 2020, and gateway to a lifetime of joyful realization in utmost hopeful enthusiasm! I will close with the fitting words of my guru:

In the beginning, being in solitude can be a daunting challenge. At first, we miss the excitement of our busy lives. But if we persist, our heart turns into a vibrant temple…